Katherine McHale, ‘Adam and the Academicians: The contributions of leading Italian Artists’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XXV, 2017, pp. 167–184 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2017 ADAM AND THE ACADEMICIANS: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LEADING ITALIAN ARTISTS KATHERINE M C HALE Robert Adam sought the best artists available to The ‘House in Town’ referred to by Lady Shelburne, enhance the visual impact of the spaces he designed. purchased by her husband from Lord Bute in 1765, He favoured Italian painters, choosing as his artistic was located on the south side of Berkeley Square. collaborators Royal Academy members Francesco Designed by Robert Adam, it was unfinished at the Zuccarelli, Giovanni Battista Cipriani, Antonio time of the sale. The Shelburnes’ calls on Cipriani, Zucchi, and Biagio Rebecca. These painters for the Zucchi, and Zuccarelli are evidence of the direct most part functioned autonomously from the Adam contacts between patrons and the artists whose firm, dealing directly with clients regarding their works frequently appeared in Adam buildings. commissions and payment. Their prestige in London’s Although Adam has been portrayed as controlling artistic circles enhanced Adam’s reputation for every detail of his interiors, his working relationships producing work of the highest quality. with established painters such as Zuccarelli, Cipriani, and Zucchi were different. He respected ady Sophia Shelburne spent part of her day the artists who created the mythologies and Lon 18 March 1769 paying visits to three of allegories that appeared in the rooms he designed, London’s leading artists. According to her diary, and considered them his artistic collaborators. she accompanied her husband, the second Earl of His appreciation of their talents reflected their Shelburne: reputations in the London art world, where they played active roles that included membership in the ‘to Cipriani’s Zucchi’s & some other people employ’d Royal Academy. for our House in Town …. went to Zucchi’s where we The paintings of Francesco Zuccarelli saw some ornaments for our Cieling’s [sic] & a large Architecture Picture painting for ye Antichamber with (1702–88), the most famous of the artists visited by wch however my Lord is not particularly pleas’d …. the Shelburnes, were avidly sought by collectors From thence to Cipriani’s where we saw some most throughout Europe.2 George III admired his work, Beautiful Drawing’s & where Lord Shelburne bespoke and acquired a group of his canvases in his 1762 some to be copied for me to compleat my dressing purchase from Venetian Consul Joseph Smith’s room wch I wish shou’d be furnish’d with Drawings & Crayon Pictures. From thence to Zuccarelli’s where collection. The King also commissioned a new we also saw some pictures doing for us & from thence painting directly from the artist in 1768, allowing him home it being half an hour past four1 to choose his own subject.3 The Finding of Moses THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ADAM AND THE ACADEMICIANS : THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LEADING ITALIAN ARTISTS Fig. 1. Design for finishing the Library at Saltram by Robert Adam 1768. (Sir John Soane’s Museum) THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ADAM AND THE ACADEMICIANS : THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LEADING ITALIAN ARTISTS Fig. 2. The dining room (formerly library) at Saltram House, Devon, with overmantel by Francesco Zuccarelli c.1768–70. (National Trust) was the result, an enormous landscape in Zuccarelli’s fairly at Sales now, & will continue to do so.’6 An signature Arcadian manner, featuring graceful Adam client, Sir Adam Fergusson, commissioned a figures in jewel-toned robes in the foreground of an landscape from Zuccarelli that same year, and upon Italianate countryside receding gradually toward viewing the finished work Adam and George Keate a distant mountain range.4 Zuccarelli lent his pronounced themselves ‘contentissimi’ with its considerable prestige to the newly-formed Royal artistry.7 Zuccarelli’s success in the London market Academy when he became a founder member also attracted unwelcome attention in the form of in the same year that he completed the King’s forgers, as can be seen in a notice he placed in a commission.5 1765 newspaper renouncing a painting that appeared The Adam brothers were well aware of the in a Society of Artists exhibition as ‘absolutely not value of Zuccarelli’s works. When James toured by me’.8 Italy in 1760, Robert wrote to him, ‘Remember to Zuccarelli arrived in London in October 1752, the purchase all the good Pictures of Zuccarelli you can same year in which he had escorted Joshua Reynolds lay your fingers on, at a Cheap rate as they go off around Venice.9 Three years later, Giovanni Battista THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ADAM AND THE ACADEMICIANS : THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LEADING ITALIAN ARTISTS Cipriani (1727–85), another founder member of the Zuccarelli’s compatriot Cipriani, whose Royal Academy, travelled to England with William paintings appear in Syon’s Drawing Room, met Chambers and Joseph Wilton, who subsequently Adam in Florence in 1755. The architect found played leading roles in the establishment of the his new acquaintance to be ‘the best natur’d lad in Academy. Prior to the Academy’s creation, Zuccarelli the world,’ and was impressed with his ‘delightful’ and Cipriani were active in artists’ associations in and ‘exquisitely drawn’ works.16 Cipriani left Italy London. They attended a dinner held on behalf of for England later that year, and by the time Adam the Foundling Hospital, an important exhibition returned from Italy in 1758 to establish a London venue for artists, on 5 November 1757.10 The practice, he and Wilton were supervising the artists painter Andrea Casali (1705–84) joined them for the admitted to sketch at the Duke of Richmond’s occasion, and in the 1760s works of all three would gallery.17 Cipriani had a growing reputation and appear in Adam’s Syon House. Another highly- business, and in 1760 was one of the artists selected regarded artist in eighteenth-century London, Casali to design a new state coach for George III, working left England before the Royal Academy was formed, with Chambers, Wilton, and his fellow Florentine but during his 25-year residence he produced a Giovanni Battista Capezzuoli (1723–1810).18 (Fig. 3) number of important cycles of history paintings, Chambers and Cipriani co-signed one of the including those at Wanstead House and Fonthill designs for the coach, but Cipriani’s principal Splendens. In 1750, he donated an Adoration of the contribution was painting the allegorical schemes Magi for the Foundling Hospital’s chapel.11 Casali’s on the exterior panels, for which he was paid £315.19 only work in an Adam building was at Syon House, He continued working for the King at Buckingham since he returned to Italy while Adam was still Palace, where the Saloon was being remodelled as establishing his reputation.12 the Queen’s Throne Room.20 When Robert Adam At Syon, Zuccarelli painted two semi-circular designed pavilions and colonnades for a royal landscapes for the Long Gallery and was paid celebration at the Palace garden in 1763, Cipriani £126 directly from the Duke of Northumberland’s provided watercolours of the scenes to be used accounts, confirming his independence from the in transparencies decorating the buildings.21 Five Adam firm.13 The submission of charges directly years later, Cipriani collaborated with Chambers on to clients was a practice later followed by Cipriani staging royal entertainments for a visit by Christian and Zucchi, as seen by the surviving bills they VII of Denmark, designing illuminations for presented to numerous customers.14 Furthermore, Chambers’s temporary pavilion.22 His work for the there is no indication that Adam dictated any of the King could interfere with other projects; his friend subjects for the works provided by Zuccarelli that Joseph Baretti noted in a letter to the first Earl of appear in Adam’s rooms. Arthur Bolton pointed to Charlemont in 1768 that Cipriani was ‘made almost the ‘extraordinary fidelity which is so astonishing’ desperate with too much business. The King has in the correlation between Adam’s drawings and long employed him, and made him neglect the work his finished interiors, but the paintings depicted in of other people by sending every day to see how he the drawings frequently differ from those actually went on ….’23 executed for the rooms.15 For example, Adam’s Cipriani’s work was highly regarded in the Design for finishing the Library at Saltram of 1768 London art world. A founder member of the Royal shows a landscape with ruins over the mantelpiece, Academy, he maintained extensive and cordial but the scene provided by Zuccarelli is entirely relations with both Italian and British colleagues. different. (Figs. 1, 2) He provided paintings for a number of buildings THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXV ADAM AND THE ACADEMICIANS : THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LEADING ITALIAN ARTISTS Fig. 3. A Design for the Gold State Coach by Sir William Chambers and Giovanni Battista Cipriani 1760. (Photo by the author) designed by Chambers, but also had a friendly Some of the figures have been identified as relationship with the architect that included ties Mortimer, Cipriani, Wilson, and Wilton, joined between their families.24 Another of the Italian by the composer Thomas Arne, the actor Samuel artist’s English friends, Thomas Gainsborough, Foote, and Cipriani’s long-time friend and frequent wrote to ‘my dear Cip’ about a recent visit: collaborator, Francesco Bartolozzi.27 (Fig. 4) ‘I have done nothing but fiddle since I came from Among Cipriani’s many clients were those who London, so much was I unsettled by the continual run had commissioned work from Adam.