‘LOVERS OF ART’ EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE ON THE CONNOISSEURSHIP OF PICTURES CAROLINE ANNE GOOD PHD UNIVERSITY OF YORK HISTORY OF ART SEPTEMBER 2013 ABSTRACT English writers and enthusiasts on the arts that existed prior to the eighteenth-century have largely come to be identified in modern scholarship as virtuosi, those who had little or no separate aesthetic appreciation for works of art, but an insatiable curiosity for all manner of natural and mechanical wonders. This thesis examines English literature on painting from the period, and contests the idea that it was only in the eighteenth century that English authors began to write critically about the pictorial arts. Printed literature in fact reveals a sustained interest in the judgement and value of painting from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, authored by, and addressed to, the more specialised lover of art. The chapters that make up this thesis are subsequently built around close readings of varying forms of literature through six case studies of texts published between 1658 and 1706: Chapter One examines William Sanderson’s Graphice (1658) which combines material drawn from earlier literature with original observations and ideas. Chapter Two explores John Evelyn’s translation of Roland Fréart de Chambray’s Idée de la Perfection de la Peinture (1662) as An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (1668), and William Aglionby’s Painting Illustrated in Three Dialogues (1685) based on the work of French critic Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy, in relation to both authors’ time spent abroad and their simultaneous celebration of the primacy of Italian painters and history painting. Chapter Three focuses on the most commercially successful literary work on the visual arts of the period, Polygraphice. Authored by the quack empiric William Salmon, the text went through eight editions between 1672 and 1701, each edition growing as its contents were expanded and added to with a diversity of material. Chapter Four compares Richard Graham’s ‘Short Account of the most Eminent Painters both Ancient and Modern, Continu’d down to the Present Times According to the Order of their Succession’ (1695) which presents an inaugural literary national art history presented within a pan-European context, and Bainbrigg Buckeridge’s ‘Essay Towards an English School, With the Lives and Characters of above 100 Painters’ (1706) presenting an alternative account of English taste and practice in painting in the seventeenth century. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………...2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………5 AUTHOR’S DECLARATIONS………………………………………………………….7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………………..8 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….13 I. “To Lovers of this Art, Not Masters”: William Sanderson’s guide to painting on the eve of the Restoration………………….................................................................34 II. Ideas from Abroad: travel, translation, and transformation in the writing of John Evelyn And William Aglionby………………………………………………………89 III. The Art Lover as Cultural Entrepreneur: aspiration, self-fashioning and social mobility in William Salmon’s Polygraphice……………………………….....……153 IV. Towards an ‘English School’: contested narratives of connoisseurship and taste in the writing of Richard Graham and Bainbrigg Buckeridge……………………...209 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………...281 APPENDIX 1……………………………………………..……………………………194 APPENDIX 2………………………………………………………………………..…198 APPENDIX 3………………...…………………………………………………….…..202 BIBLIOGRAPHY UNPUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES……………………………………...…..206 PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES……………………………………………...206 SECONDARY SOURCES…………………………………………………………214 ILLUSTRATIONS……………………………………………………….…………….225 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (All measurements given in centimeters) 1. Daniel Mytens, Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, 4th Earl of Surrey and 1st Earl of Norfolk, c. 1618, oil on canvas, 207 x 127. National Portrait Gallery, London. 2. Daniel Mytens, Alathea, Countess of Arundel and Surrey, oil on canvas, c.1618, 207 x 127. National Portrait Gallery, London. 3. Antony van Dyck, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Mary Ruthven, Lady van Dyck, oil on canvas, c.1640, 104 x 81. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. 4. William Faithorne (printmaker), !after Anthony van Dyck (painter)!Lady Mary Ruthven!Maria Ruten Vxor D. Antoni van Dyck Eq, print engraving, c.1639-1658. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 5. Antony van Dyck, Lady Katherine D’Aubigny, oil on canvas, c.1638, 106.7 x 85.4. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., US 6. Gerard Soest, Double Portrait, oil on canvas, c. 1645-8, 139.1 x 174.6. National Portrait Gallery, London. 7. Gonzales Coques, after Daniel Mytens, oil on oak panel, 17th century, 45.5 x 78.5. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 8. Anthony van Dyck, Venus and Adonis, oil on canvas, 17th century, 224 x 164. Private Collection. 9. William Faithorne (printmaker) after Gerard Soest (painter), William Sanderson, print engraving, 1658. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 10. William Faithorne (printmaker), Charles I, print engraving, 1658. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 11. Robert Walker, John Evelyn, oil on canvas, 164.8, 87.9 x 64.1. National Portrait Gallery, London. 12. Wenceslaus Hollar after Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait with a Sunflower, print engraving, 1644, 14 x 11. The British Museum, London. 13. Marcantionio Raimondi after Raphael. The Judgment of Paris, engraving, c.1510- 1520, 29.2 x 43.6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 14. Giorgio Ghisi, after Raphael, The School of Athens, print on paper, c. 1535-82. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 15. Ferrante Imperato, illustration in Dell’historia Naturale, engraving, 1599. 16. Philip Holmes, frontispiece to William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1672. 4 17. Anonymous frontispiece to The Excellency of the Pen and Pencil 1668. 18. William Sherwin, frontispiece to William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 19. William Sherwin, William Salmon, line engraving, 1671, 14.1 x 8.9. National Portrait Gallery, London. 20. Frederick Hendrick van Hove, William Salmon, line engraving, 1701, 15.7 x 9.7. National Portrait Gallery, London. 21. Unknown artist, William Salmon, line engraving, 1686, 15.5 x 9.6. National Portrait Gallery, London. 22. Robert White, William Salmon, line engraving, 1700, 14.7 x 9.3. National Portrait Gallery, London. 23. The Flying Post, February 18-20, 1707. 24. William Salmon, Doctor Salmon’s Pills, Drops and Balsams, undated handbill c. 1980. British Library, London. 25. London Gazette, June 17, 1675. 26. London Gazette, December 12, 1700 27. Tatler, March 30, 1709. 28. Unknown artist, A London Coffee House, Gouache drawing, c. 1668, 14.7 x 22. British Museum, London. 29. “The Coffeehous Mob”, frontispiece to Edward (Ned) Ward, The Fourth Part of Vulgus Brittanicus or the British Hudibras, engraving, 1710. British Museum, London. 30. Anonymous “Notice to all Lovers of Art and Ingenuity’, Oxford. 31. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 32. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 33. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 34. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 35. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 36. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 37. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 38. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 39. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 5 40. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 41. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 42. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 43. William Sherwin, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 44. William Vaughuan, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1673. 45. Odoardo Fialetti, illustration in Alexander Browne The Whole Art of Drawing (London, 1660). 46. Odoardo Fialetti, illustration in Alexander Browne The Whole Art of Drawing (London, 1660). 47. Odoardo Fialetti, illustration in Alexander Browne The Whole Art of Drawing (London, 1660). 48. William Vaughan, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1675. 49. Anonymous illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1675. 50. Anonymous illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1675. 51. Albrecht Dürer, illustration in his Unterweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt, woodcut, 1525, 7.5 x 21.5. 52. Artist unknown, illustration in An Introduction to the General Art of Drawing (1672). 53. William Vaughan, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1675. 54. Anonymous illustration in Jacopo Berengario da Carpi, Mikrokosmographia (London, 1664). 55. Anonymous illustration in Thomas Bartholin’s Bartholinus anatomy (1668). 56. Anonymous illustration in William Cowper, The anatomy of humane bodies with figures drawn after the life by some of the best masters in Europe and curiously engraven in one hundred and fourteen copper plates (Oxford1698). 57. Anonymous illustration in William Cowper, The anatomy of humane bodies with figures drawn after the life by some of the best masters in Europe and curiously engraven in one hundred and fourteen copper plates (Oxford1698). 58. Frederick Van Hove, illustration in William Salmon’s Polygraphice, 1675. 59. Anonymous illustration in Richard Saunders, Saunders physiognomie, and chiromancie, metoposcopie the symmetrical