UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Widening circles in finance, philanthropy and the arts. A study of the life of John Julius Angerstein 1735-1823 Twist, A.F. Publication date 2002 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Twist, A. F. (2002). Widening circles in finance, philanthropy and the arts. A study of the life of John Julius Angerstein 1735-1823. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:07 Oct 2021 CHAPTER THREE - CULTIVATED CIRCLES I FAMILY PORTRAITS AND FAMILY CHANGES William Lock bought works of art during his travels and the double impetus of his inheritance and his marriage to the daughter of a picture collector doubtless spurred him to buy more. An account dating from 1772 recorded that: Mr Lock of London...among a goodly number of original models by several notable old masters, owns many in wax and terra cotta by Giambologna [a celebrated Florentine sculptor who died in 1608]...The said gentleman also possesses a bronze horse made and finished by the said artist... which is as perfect and diligent a work of its kind as one could possibly wish for1. Other notable acquisitions that he made were 'two of the most beautiful and largest Claudes', one of which was The Embarkation of St Ursula, as well as marble statues of the Discobolos and the Torso of Venus. John Landseer, who was a painter, engraver, and author (and the father of Sir Edwin) wrote: Many years ago - half a century ago it must be, at the least - I well remember the lively pleasure I enjoyed in seeing this delightful picture [St Ursula] at Mr Lock's in Portman Square. I have never passed the door since without thinking of it. It was the first Claude I had ever seen and perhaps it may still be the best...2 Lock was acquiring works of art of the highest quality and he also backed living painters. He was particularly generous to Giovanni Battista Cipriani: in 1772 Francesco Bartolozzi published a circular stippled engraving from a drawing by Cipriani which was dedicated to Lock by 'his most Obliged and Devoted Servant F Bartolozzi'3. Lock was also prepared to help struggling artists, and James Northcote, who went to London in 1771, recorded a story told to him at that time by a would-be painter named Brunton: By means of an old woman-servant, he got admission into the house of Mr Lock, a man of large fortune, who has a vast collection of paintings and sculpture, and a great judge of both. Here he copied some of the best pictures without the knowledge of Mr Lock, apprehending his displeasure; but so much to the contrary did it turn out, that when Mr Lock discovered it he immediately invited him to his house to copy any picture he chose... and very soon placed him with Mr Cipriani, whom Mr Lock had brought over from Italy, and who is one of the greatest history-painters in England; he also allows pocket-money to the young man...4 In March 1773, Angerstein went back to Sir Joshua Reynolds for a picture of his wife Anna, who is shown wearing a pink dress and a blue scarf: she has the infant Julia nestling against her and there is a crib in the background. After sittings in April and May 70 guineas was paid in October, but Anna's name is struck through and there were two more appointments later that month; after the latter there is a note in Sir Joshua's ledgers 'Mrs Angerstein to be sent home'. Presumably Reynolds was making some alterations to the portrait that the Angersteins wanted: their son John was christened on 24lh November 1773 so that Anna was probably pregnant with him while being painted. The ledgers record another payment of 100 guineas by September 1775 but no picture is associated with it5. In 1823 the picture of Anna and Julia was described as having been exhibited at the Royal Academy 'about fifty years since'6: it is now in a private collection and has been engraved twice. Angerstein's taste for family portraits was not at this time shared by William Lock, though a picture of Lock himself, engraved by James Basire from a drawing by Cipriani, had been shown at the Free Society of Artists in 17687. In July 1782 Angerstein planned to have a further picture painted of Anna and Julia8, but again there seem to have been problems since nothing is known of such a portrait, and it may have been put off because Anna was ill. However the artist's account book shows that in June 1783 Angerstein paid £200 for a portrait of Julia and her young brother John: this was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783 and is the well-known picture now at Kenwood9. These details give the only surviving clues to what may have been happening at this time in the Angerstein family, but matters came to a climax on 19th June 1783 when Anna died at Woodlands and was buried six days later in St Alfege's Church, 45 Greenwich, where John Julius would join her forty years later. He was left responsible for his stepson and new partner Henry, the latter's brother James (by this time in India) and their two sisters Anna Peterella and Emilia, as well as his own two children. Anna was gone, but Angerstein did not remain a widower for very long as a result of the death in September 1784 of Thomas Lucas, of Lee Manor House, whose property adjoined the Boones house at Lee Place. Lucas had been a sugar factor - an agent in London for plantation owners living in the West Indies - and had also owned property there, possibly because he had foreclosed on mortgages or perhaps through a family connection. Lucas had no children, but was survived by his third wife Eliza whom he had married in May 1778. As well as being a merchant, Lucas was MP for Grampound from 1780 to 1784. He was a director of the Union Fire Office from 1758 to 1781 and a director of the South Sea Company from 1763 to 1780. His business address in the City was Cullum Street (a quarter of a mile from the Royal Exchange); but as an alternative he gave Guy's Hospital where he had become Treasurer in 1774, and had served as President from 1775 until his death10. On 1st October 1785, Eliza Lucas married John Julius Angerstein at St George's, Hanover Square, the witnesses being Angerstein's stepdaughter Emilia and Thomas Lucas Wheeler, Lucas's residuary legatee". Lucas's will made several small bequests and left a life interest in the rest of his estate to Eliza. She was one of the executors, as were the brothers John and William Beach (respectively of London and St Christopher's) and Joseph Paice who was an old family friend. On 12lh March 1789, Eliza, John Beach and Joseph Paice let land in St Christopher's for a year, and the next day they signed a deed which was a 'release of plantations etc of the late Mr Lucas and assignment of Mr Lucas's personal estate from the same to Oliver Cromwell Esq in trust'12. By these transactions the Angersteins had, it appears, disposed of Eliza's life interest in her late husband's plantations. Lee Manor House was let to Sir John Call, Bart, who was an MP and City banker, and Treasurer of the Board of Agriculture: his rent plus the rest of the inheritance produced a useful addition to the Angersteins' income. Eliza also had a surprising web of influential family connections for the daughter of a country clergyman: her father was Rev. Joseph Payne, vicar of Buckland Newton, Dorset, who, like his father, Rev. Thomas Payne, was educated at Christ Church, Oxford. Joseph Payne had a brother (also Thomas, and also a parson) and four sisters, Frances, Mary, Sarah and Catherine: Frances married George Compton, Earl of Northampton, in 1748; and in 1761, three years after the Earl's death, she married again, her second husband being Claudius Amyand, who was an MP and the son of the principal surgeon to George II. Amyand's brother George, who was created a baronet in 1764, was connected with both the Russia Company and the East India Company (of which he was a Director) and had two daughters, one who married the Earl of Minto and the other the Earl of Malmesbury. Mary Payne married another clergyman, and Sarah Payne was the fourth wife of Lewis Way, who was a barrister, a Director of the South Sea Company and President of Guy's Hospital from 1759 to 1771.