REVIEW Shelley M. Bennett, Thomas Stothard: The Mechanisms of Art Patronage in England circa 1800 G. E. Bentley, Jr. Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 23, Issue 4, Spring 1990, pp. 205-209 Spring 1990 BLAKE/AN IllUSTRATED QUARTERLY 205 and craftsmen, including Flaxman the as engraver and part-publisher, of at sculptor, "Mr. George Cumberland, least as much as the £80 he had REVIEWS and Mr. Sharp [the engraver]," who received from Macklin in 1783 for were "in the habit of frequently pass- engraving Stothard's "The Fall of ing ... [their] evenings in drawing and Rosamund." From this he and Parker designing" together.s Each of Blake's would have had to pay the cost (usual- Shelley M. Bennett. friends went on to a career of distinc- ly modest) of Stothard's two deSigns, Thomas Stothard: The tion, Flaxman as the most famous perhaps £20 each.7 However, very few Mechanisms of Art Pa- English sculptor of his day, Stothard as copies of "Callisto" and "Zephyrus & the most productive contemporary Flora" survive, and perhaps not many tronage in England circa designer of book-illustrations, Sharp were sold. It is likely that Blake and 1800. Columbia: U of Mis- as one of the finest line-engravers, and Parker had some difficulty in finding souriP, 1988. xii + 112 pp. Cumberland as a prolific gentleman the money to pay Stothard for his 53 illus. $29. poet, artist, novelist, and inventor. In designs. And it is notable that after later life, Blake was professionally the 1785 Blake engraved no more of most obscure of the five friends, but Stothard's designs and the firm of Parker & Blake went out of business. Reviewed by He was considered by Stothard and Flax- man . with the highest admiration. Bennett remarks that in a scene from G. E. Bentley,]r. These artists allowed him their utmost un- Fenelon'S Adventures of Telemachus qualified praise, and were ever anxious to (1795), "Stothard's sentimental inter- recommend him and his productions to pretation of Venus (Vice) has subver- the patrons of the Arts . .. .6 homas Stothard was "probably the ted the didactic message of this scene" Tmost prolific" book-illustrator of Perha ps with encouragement from (29), and the same could be said of his day (1755-1834) with some three Stothard, the book-sellers commis- numerous other Stothard deSigns, such thousand designs published in his sioned Blake to engrave thirty-two as those for Pope's Rape of the Lock lifetime.) He was also a painter of note, book-illustrations after Stothard in (1798). The point is not so much that a Royal Academician and Librarian of 1779-84; this is as many as he Signed he perverted the "message" of his the Royal Academy-his charming than after all other deSigners com- authors as that he chose from them catalogue of the Royal Academy bined. Stothard was of far more impor- what he could best give visible form Library consists of pictures of each tance in Blake's early professional to. Had such changes been made by bookcase with the title on the spine of career than vice versa. The thirty-two William Blake, his modern critics each volume. He was a man of consid- plates Blake engraved after Stothard would say that he was "correcting" or erable importance and influence in the formed only a fraction of Stothard's "criticizing" his author or treating him art world of his day, and it is somewhat book-illustrations; he designed 244 ironically. Stothard's temper is sweeter surprising that more attention has not plates for The Novelist's Magazine than Blake's, his consistency greater- been devoted to him.2 Shelley Ben- (1780-86) alone, of which Blake en- and his superficiality is often striking. nett's book is welcome in supplying a graved only eight. Blake is dealt with Bennett tends to speak of him some- long-felt want and in providing a good here (chiefly on 11-15) as being, of what dismissively: ( his illustrations are deal of abstruse and diverse informa- course, only incidental to Stothard's always attractive, decorative designs tion not previously available about one career. with little or no dramatic impact" (29). of the best known artists of his time. For most of these book-illustrations, This is true, but it would have been Stothard was also the intimate friend Blake was probably paid at the rate of more relevant if Stothard had been of George Cumberland, John Flaxman, about £5 each, or perhaps £160 for all striving for dramatic impact. The need and William Blake. Indeed, Blake was of them. One of the most remarkable for drama is ours, not his. With Stothard on a sailing jaunt the first features of the relationship between To us, there seems to be a predict- time Blake was arrested for treason.3 Blake and Stothard is that Stothard ability about Stothard's designs, which Surprisingly little is known about the designed the only two prints known to often depict fluttering females in relationship of Stothard and Blake, have been published by the short- agitating circumstances, but to his con- though it is clear that they were good lived firm of Parker & Blake (1784-85). temporaries his adaptability was as friends for a time. According to con- When Blake engraved Stothard's remarkable as his reliable gracefulness. temporaries, "Trotter, the engraver, ... designs of "Callisto" and "Zephyrus & In 1825 Pickering published a puff introduced his friend Stothard to Flora" in 1784, he should have ex- about Stothard which said: Blake, "4 and "in early life" they formed pected a commercial return for each, a little circle with other fledgling artists 206 BLAKE/AN IUUSTRATED QUARTERLY Spring 1990 Of all our artists who have applied their But Turner called him admiringly "the talents to the illustration of books, he is Giotto of England" (53), and Thomas unquestionably the most original in com- Lawrence wrote that "Mr. Stothard is position, the most varied, r fined .and cha~­ act ristic. In this latt r quahty he IS perhaps the first genius, after Mr. especially distinguished; it being won?er- Fuseli and Mr. Flaxman, that the ful to s e with what spirit he identIfies English school or modern Europe has himself with his subject, and makes his known" (90). The breadth and taste of composition appear, as well in the charac- this praise should make us suspect that t r of their figures, as in their inferior ad- juncts of scenery, buildings, costume, &c. we are narrow-minded, not that they to belong inseparably to the time and s~ory were blind. which h treats .... With Milton his h.e., Shelley Bennett's focus is more upon he?l is primeval and angeltcal; with Stothard's versatility and about chan- Bunyan dreamyand Calvinistic ... j he flut- ges in the art world to which he was ters with infinite grace in the courtly and sparkling scenes of Pope's "Rape of the responding than on his most charac- Lock." (30) teristic achievements. "Stothard's career provides numerous insights His publisher Harrison said that he had into the effect these new market con- r ceived "numerous encomiums" upon ditions had on the mechanisms of art "that most astonishing artist, the truly patronage" (vii). She effectively demon- ing nious Mr. Stothard ... aU uniform- strates the range of his work from ly declaring him the first Genius of the "banknotes and theatre tickets, to sil- with Turner on the illustrations for the Age in this department [of book-illus- ver work and funerary monuments" famous edition of Rogers' Itaiy(1830), tration]" (8). One of his admirers in the (36). The book is organized into chap- and Bennett gives an enormous list of 1780s was Charles Lamb, who wrote: t rs on his foonative years, his entry contemporary books and periodicals into the art world, his elevation in which bear Stothard's designs. This list How often have I with a child's fond gaze status as an artist, additional sources of POI' d on th pictu1' d wonder thou seems to be far more extensive and [artistic] income, and the influence of had t done: reliable than anything previously in the market in Stothard's last years, with Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison! print, chiefly Coxhead's Thomas All Pi Iding's, Smollett's hero s, rose to appendices on Stothard's excursions Stothard (1908), but the difficulties of vi Wj (e.g., with Blake when they were su- tracing the original publication of J s wand I beli ved the phantoms tru . spected of treason) and books illus- , (54) some three thousand designs and of trated by Stothard. She has searched their reprintings and copies (legal and widely for Stothard materials, p.ar- We are more Uk ly to think of Stothard fraudulent) are very formidable. In- ticularly for drawings by him, listing in the floral world of Leigh Hunt (and deed, I know of no attempt so am- four collections which among them of the early K ats), who wrote of him: bitious as this one for any artist. Some have over 1,700 drawings. Bennett of the problems were created by r cords many curious facts about Stothard himself. Joseph Farington ... never since those southern masters Stothard; for instance, he was an en- fine ... wrote in his diary for 20 May 1811 that thusiastic lepidopterist, with what a las [rue woman's g otl mien divine "Stothard was makeing small draw- contempor ry c lIed "a large col1e~­ Looked so, as in tl os breathing heads ings, Head Pieces, for a Lady's Pocket of thin tion of mothes and flies" (36).