Exhibition Guide
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THE THE TRIUMPH OF PLEASURE FOUNDLING MUSEUM VAUXHALL GARDENS 1729-1786 ‘all in a Moment, as if by Magic, every Object was made CREDITS visible, I should rather say illustrious, by a thousand Front cover: Fig. 13: Anon., A Perspective View of the Grand Detail from J. S. Muller after S. Wale, The Walk in Vauxhall Gardens, and the Orchestra, Lights finely disposed, which were kindled at one and the Triumphal Arches, Mr Handel’s Statue &c. in the from the Gentleman’s Magazine, xxxv (August South Walk of Vauxhall Gardens, c.1840, printed 1765), Private Collection same Signal; and my Ears and my Eyes, Head and Heart, from original 1751 plates, Private Collection Fig. 14: Miss Thornton at Vauxhall, 1778, Private were captivated at once ... I must avow, I found my Fig. 1: Foundling Hospital Token, Vauxhall Season Collection Ticket © The Foundling Museum Fig. 15: Detail from J. Maurer, A Perspective View whole Soul, as it were, dissolv’d in Pleasure ... Fig. 2: Detail from [Sutton Nicholls], Vaux-Hall, of Vaux-Hall Garden, 1744, Private Collection Spring-Gardens, engraving, 1737, Private Fig. 16: Issac Cruikshank after G.M. Woodward, Collection My whole Discourse, while there, was a Rhapsody of Joy A Country Farmer & Waiter at Vauxhall, etching, Figs. 3 & 4: Chinese porcelain Punch Bowl, c.1790 hand-coloured, Private Collection and Wonder. Assure yourself such an Assemblage of © The Foundling Museum Fig. 17: Detail from [Sutton Nicholls], Vaux- Beauties never, but in the Dreams of the Poets, ever met Fig.5: Louis François Roubiliac, Jonathan Tyers, Hall, Spring-Gardens, 1737, Private Collection before – and I scarce yet believe the bewitching Scene c.1738 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London Fig. 6: Louis François Roubiliac, George Frideric was real ---’ Handel, 1739 © Coram in the care of the Supported by The Monument Trust, with Foundling Museum additional support from The Finnis Scott Foundation, Sheepdrove Trust, the Idlewild Fig. 7: Louis François Roubiliac, William Hogarth, Henry Fielding, The Champion, 1742 Trust and The Triumph of Pleasure Supporters c.1741 © National Portrait Gallery, London Group. Fig. 8: J.S. Muller after Samuel Wale, A General Prospect of Vaux Hall Gardens, 1751, Private Collection Exhibition design: Fig.9: Photo of ‘Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens’ Joe Ewart and Hugh Durrant for Society small park as it is today Brochure/graphic design: Fig. 10: Detail from J.S. Muller after Samuel Joe Ewart for Society Wale, Vauxhall Gardens shewing the Grand Walk at the entrance of the Garden, and the Orchestra, with the Musick Playing, 1751, Private Collection THE Fig. 11: Detail from J.S. Muller after Canaletto, A View of the Grand South Walk in Vaux Hall FOUNDLING Gardens, with the Triumphal Arches, Mr. Handel’s MUSEUM Statue, &c., 1751, Private Collection Fig. 12: Francis Hayman, See-Saw, c.1742 © Tate, 40 Brunswick Square London 2012 London WC1N 1AZ FOREWORD This exhibition would not have been possible without the public collections and private individuals who have generously loaned works to the show. They have enabled us to reveal the history of Vauxhall Gardens in the eighteenth century, and the role played by Jonathan Tyers, William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel in developing the first mass audience for the arts in England. The Triumph of Pleasure is also testament to the exhaustive research of curator, David Coke. We are deeply grateful to him for his expertise and commitment to the project. We would like to thank The Monument Trust for their generous support of this exhibition, along with The Finnis Scott Foundation, Sheepdrove Trust, the Idlewild Trust, the members of The Triumph of Pleasure Supporters Group and Artfinder. Finally, we would like to thank Patrick and Mavis Walker, long-term and devoted friends of the Foundling Museum, who supported the production of this exhibition guide. Caro Howell, Director Fig. 1 VAUXHALL GARDENS AT THE FOUNDLING MUSEUM In 2006, an unusual Chinese export porcelain punchbowl was acquired by the Foundling Museum. The bowl is decorated with two eighteenth-century London views, both derived from engravings of the 1750s. On one side is the Foundling Hospital and on the other is its apparently irreconcilable antithesis, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. This contradictory combination of London’s great childcare charity and its most successful commercial entertainment seems at first to be eccentric. In fact, there are good reasons to link the two and it is these reasons, as well as the success of Vauxhall Gardens, that this exhibition celebrates. Two of the great creative artists of the eighteenth century are the linchpins that inextricably couple the two establishments; the painter and printmaker William Hogarth (1697-1764) and the composer and musician George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). One of Hogarth’s great missions in life was to create exhibition spaces for his own and his contemporaries’ work. When he heard the plans of his old friend Jonathan Tyers (1702-1767) to create a public pleasure garden, he realised its potential for displaying modern British art. In the process, Hogarth also appears to have been responsible for turning Tyers into a serial patron of the visual arts, possibly the greatest patron of new British art of the whole Georgian era. A few years later, Hogarth caught wind of a huge new building project only two and a half miles away from Vauxhall, to create a home for foundling babies. Since this building would be open to the public, Hogarth’s involvement was inevitable. His gift to the Foundling Hospital of his great portrait of its founder, Captain Thomas Coram, was an example that his peers eagerly followed. The works of art given to the Hospital by the leading professional artists of the 1740s became one of the great public attractions of the day. The Collection remains internationally significant today. Figs. 3 & 4 Fig. 2 VAUXHALL GARDENS Figs. 5, 6 & 7 Handel came to both projects after they had started, but to great effect. At the Foundling Hospital, he mounted benefit concerts which were responsible for funding the completion of the Chapel, with its organ. The Chapel was not only a useful and beautiful adjunct to the Hospital, but also the ideal space in which to perform his own choral works and oratorios. Handel’s involvement at Vauxhall is more difficult to pin down, but involved he certainly was. By the mid 1730s he was directing the music and supplying many of his own compositions. The huge and continuing popularity of Handel’s music was in great part due to its repeated performance at Vauxhall to audiences of up to 100,000 every season. Tyers and Handel became friends and Tyers used some of his profits to support the composer. He also erected a remarkable full length marble portrait sculpture of Handel, which quickly became the Fig. 8 Garden’s presiding deity. This statue can be seen at the Victoria & Albert Museum. First opened to the public in 1661, the New Spring Gardens, as the site was then known, was Numerous other artists less familiar to us today were also connected with both sites. They little more than a country tavern set in a large piece of wooded ground, amongst the market included the painters Francis Hayman and Peter Monamy, the designers George Michael gardens and orchards of South Lambeth. Moser and Richard Yeo, the draughtsman Samuel Wale, the landscapist Richard Wilson, the engravers Ravenet, Grignion, Rooker and Muller, the translator and poet John Lockman and The New Spring Gardens became hugely popular with Londoners. They were frequented by the many regular musicians and singers who performed at both the Hospital and the Gardens. buskers, strolling musicians and acrobats, as well as by working girls, who found it an ideal spot for attracting customers. The combination of refreshments, entertainments and Besides the punchbowl, the Foundling Museum’s collections include a second direct link with appealing company attracted young men who had the leisure or social position to be able to the Gardens; an expensive Vauxhall season ticket for 1737. This was not, as might be imagined, spend a few hours away from home or their duties. given by a wealthy donor. On the contrary, it was left at the Hospital with a baby, by its desperate mother. Its function was as a unique means of identification, should she ever be in When Jonathan Tyers, a young tradesman from Bermondsey, took on the lease in 1729, both a position to reclaim her child. The majority of the tokens left by mothers are small everyday the tavern and garden were showing their age. Tyers saw great potential in the site. It was objects, so how one mother acquired something as valuable as a Vauxhall season ticket is not close to London and Westminster, but outside their controlling jurisdiction and already well- known. The possibility that it was given to her by her seducer should not be ignored, but is known and popular. It was near the Thames, London’s great highway, so easily accessible for probably romantic fiction. The name of the ticket's original owner, inscribed on the reverse, is guests and suppliers. It was owned by the Prince of Wales as part of his Duchy of Cornwall Richard Arnold, who could possibly be the brother of George Arnold, asuccessful merchant, estates, providing a useful royal connection. Finally, its reputation for loose morals made it alderman and a Governor of the Foundling Hospital. ripe for the wholesale reform and redevelopment envisaged by Tyers. SIGHTS The Scene so new, with Pleasure and Surprise Feasted awhile our ravished Ears and Eyes. A Trip to Vauxhall, 1737 Vauxhall Gardens appealed first to the sense of sight. Even on the journey there, visitors were watching others doing the same, looking out for suitable companions and celebrity spotting.