REDRESSING WILLIAM ETTY AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY (1820‐1837) BEATRICE MAY RICARDO BERTRAM TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I OF II PhD UNIVERSITY OF YORK HISTORY OF ART SEPTEMBER 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to offer a re‐evaluation of the celebrated yet controversial painter William Etty R.A. (1787‐1849), whose diverse output has become virtually synonymous with his notorious and enduring artistic preoccupation with the nude. In his own time, Etty was periodically criticised for indulging in this perceived obsession, which troubled his contemporaries and which still dominates modern scholarship. While acknowledging the futility of attempting to preclude the nude in my reassessment of Etty’s pictorial practice, I argue that a different frame of reference might be similarly productive in seeking to redress his art‐historical significance. Therefore, this study aims to advance an alternative hermeneutic approach: one that eschews special focus on the nude, and instead examines his works through the prism of contemporary exhibition culture. To serve this purpose, I will provide close visual readings of a range of the artist’s most striking and intriguing contributions to a series of pivotal Royal Academy exhibitions, paying particular attention to the ways in which Etty exploited these summer shows as a forum for painterly performance and public display. By means of five detailed case studies – each of which expresses certain themes or perceptions of him as an artist – I intend to construct a more textured, nuanced narrative about his agenda, trajectory and presence at exhibition between the years 1820 and 1837. Consciously situating itself in the volatile climate of nineteenth‐century art criticism, my project rests upon the most comprehensive survey of contemporary press coverage related to Etty that has ever been undertaken. Ultimately, my thesis seeks to recover, reconsider and resurrect Etty’s contemporary status as an ambitious and complex participant within the late‐Georgian art world. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME I LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………………….. 4 LIST OF APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………….. 17 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………. 18 DECLARATION………………………………………………………………………………………. 19 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………….. 20 CHAPTER I: The symbiotic ‘set’: Etty, Hilton and Howard at the 1820 Royal Academy exhibition……………………………………………………………………………….. 43 CHAPTER II: ‘The key to the secret’: Etty’s aesthetic tour and its aftermath 82 CHAPTER III: Judith – Etty’s holy heroine………………………………………………... 123 CHAPTER IV: Revolution, revellers and reform: Etty at the 1832 Royal Academy exhibition……………………………………………………………………………….. 160 CHAPTER V: ‘A monster of beautiful loathsomeness’: Etty’s Sirens and Ulysses at the 1837 Royal Academy exhibition……………………………………………………. 200 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………………… 239 APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………………………. 251 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………………. 287 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………………... 288 VOLUME II ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………………………………. 306 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. William Etty, Self‐portrait, 1825, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 2. William Etty, Sleeping Nymph and Satyrs, 1828, Royal Academy of Arts, London (Royal Academy of Arts online collection). 3. William Etty, The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate, 1832, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 4. William Etty, The Wrestlers, c.1840, York Art Gallery, York (Courtesy of York Art Gallery). 5. William Etty, Male Nude with Arms Upstretched, c.1828‐30, York Art Gallery, York (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 6. William Etty, The Sirens and Ulysses, 1837, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (Manchester Art Gallery online collection). 7. William Etty, The Coral Finder: Venus and her Youthful Satellites Arriving at the Isle of Paphos (a replica), c.1820‐48, Tate Britain, London (Tate online collection). 8. William Etty, Pandora Crowned by the Seasons, 1824, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds (Courtesy of Leeds City Art Gallery). 9. William Etty, The Combat: Woman Pleading for the Vanquished, 1825, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (National Galleries of Scotland online collection). 10. William Yuill, after William Etty, Judith and Holofernes, post‐1827, Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, Paisley (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 11. William Etty, Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm, 1830‐32, Tate Britain, London (Tate online collection). 12. William Etty, Mars, Venus and Cupid, 1836, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 13. William Etty, Manlius Hurled from the Rock, 1818, Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 14. William Etty, Drunken Barnaby, 1820, Private collection (Courtesy of Erica Jane Etty, Dronten and Tom Etty, Nijmegen). 15. William Hilton, Una with the Satyrs, 1818, Usher Gallery, Lincoln (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 4 16. William Etty, The Choice of Paris, 1826, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 17. William Etty, The Choice of Paris, 1846, Scarborough Art Gallery, Scarborough (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 18. William Etty, Cleopatra’s Arrival in Cilicia, 1821, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 19. Samuel Davenport, after William Hilton, Frontispiece in Junius: Stat Nominis Umbra, 1820, Bavarian State Library, Munich (Google Books collection). 20. Samuel Freeman, after William Hilton, ‘The Rescue’ in Oliver Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World: or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher Residing in London, to his Friends in the East, 1 of 2 vols, 1819, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (Google Books collection). 21. Samuel Freeman, after William Hilton, ‘Monstrous Fish’ in Oliver Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World: or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher Residing in London, to his Friends in the East, 2 of 2 vols, 1809, Harvard University, Cambridge (Google Books collection). 22. Edward Finden, after William Etty, ‘Guardian Angels’ in Samuel Carter Hall’s The Amulet, or Christian and Literary Remembrancer, 1829, British Museum, London (British Museum online collection). 23. William Henry Simmons, after William Etty, ‘Cupid and Psyche’ in Samuel Carter Hall’s The Book of Gems: The Poets and Artists of Great Britain, 1836, New York Public Library, New York (Google Books collection). 24. J. C. Edwards, after William Hilton, ‘Cupid Taught by the Graces’ in Alaric Alexander Watts’s The Literary Souvenir, or, Cabinet of Poetry and Romance, 1829, University of Oxford, Oxford (Google Books collection). 25. Charles Rolls, after William Etty, ‘Cupid and Psyche’ in Alaric Alexander Watts’s Lyrics of the Heart: and Other Poems, 1851, British Museum, London (British Museum online collection). 26. William Etty, Cupid Sheltering his Darling from the Approaching Storm, 1822, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Victoria and Albert Museum online collection). 27. William Greatbach, after Thomas Stothard, ‘Cupids Blowing Bubbles’ in Alaric Alexander Watts’s Lyrics of the Heart: and Other Poems, 1851, British Museum, London (British Museum online collection). 28. William Greatbach, after Benjamin Robert Haydon, ‘Cupid at Sea’ in Alaric Alexander Watts’s Lyrics of the Heart: and Other Poems, 1851, British Museum, London (British Museum online collection). 29. Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), The Rape of Europa, 1560‐62, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum online collection). 5 30. William Hilton, The Rape of Europa, 1818, Petworth House and Park, Petworth (National Trust online collection). 31. Unknown, Aphrodite Anadyomene, unknown, Palazzo Colonna, Rome (Havelock, 1995: Fig. 29). 32. Titian, Venus Rising from the Sea (‘Venus Anadyomene’), c.1520, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (National Galleries of Scotland online collection). 33. Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482‐85, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (Galleria degli Uffizi website). 34. Antonio Canova, Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, 1805‐08, Galleria Borghese, Rome (Web Gallery of Art online database). 35. Antonio Canova, Fountain Nymph, 1815‐17, Royal Collection Trust (Royal Collection Trust online database). 36. Antonio Canova, Dirce, 1820‐24, Royal Collection Trust (Royal Collection Trust online database). 37. William Hilton, Venus in Search of Cupid Surprises Diana, 1819‐20, Wallace Collection, London (Wallace Collection online database). 38. Henry Howard, Venus Anadyomene, 1819, Private collection (Mutual Art online database). 39. Edward Portbury, after Henry Howard, The Birth of Venus, 1810‐85, British Museum, London (British Museum online collection). 40. Thomas Stothard, Amphitrite, 1820, Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham (BBC Your Paintings online collection). 41. Thomas Stothard, The Dance, c.1820, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (Yale Center for British Art online collection). 42. Thomas Stothard, The Garden, c.1820, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (Yale Center for British Art online collection). 43. Thomas Stothard, The Supper by the Fountain, c.1820, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (Yale Center for British Art online collection). 44. George Hayter, Venus, Supported by Iris, Complaining to Mars, 1820, Private collection (Wikipedia online entry for the artist George Hayter). 45. John Agar, after Edward Francis Burney, Untitled