HF, i (ta, ‘ eee iM att) ae te ai) ' Ba posite raped a aa = See sti se Ay ea uf Me habe ih iipek Heiss “ wi } ites yiit Hh ae ith y ap ey ' ote de te ——— en oda atl na i a s esas. Catt aan ie a Pie eae x2 ve Ae Ts a a a iM UO VG TE aay ee al nail ata aN an SHA aa mC i a yi * nt iid } , } i) i ; Ais \" \ - es re Pe, ) ne 1 Ul THE UNIVERSITY PRESS eet gab A if PRINTED IN GREAT | iz THE J. PAUL t ry i‘ * PREFACE Tue principal object of this book is to add new information to what has already been published concerning the history of art in England between the beginning of the nineteenth century and 1820—the year which witnessed the death of George III, who founded the Royal Academy, and that of Benjamin West, its second President. It was an interesting period, covering as it did, among other important events, the development of ‘Turner and Constable, the outstanding figures of nineteenth-century landscape painting in England; and the foundation of the British Institution and the now forgotten British School. ‘These societies challenged for the first time the monopoly of the Royal Academy, the inner history of which from 1800 to 1820 I am able to describe from the records preserved at Burlington House. From these records have been obtained the figures, never before published, of the voting at the elections of Academicians and Associates. Contemporary opinions have been gathered from newspapers and other sources on the principal pictures shown year by year at the Academy exhibitions. Turner’s famous lectures on per- spective are described, and new information given of the history (in England) of some of the most famous Old Masters now in the National Gallery. Reports of interesting actions at law connected with the arts are given, with occasional references to picture sales of importance, and an account of the hitherto un- recorded return to art criticism of the notorious Anthony Pasquin. Among the writers of the many letters—mostly unpublished— printed in the following pages, are Lawrence, Wilkie, ‘Turner, Benjamin West, ‘“‘Perdita’”? Robinson, Gillray, Stendhal, De Loutherbourg, Stothard, Desenfans, Girtin, G. D. Leslie, Ozias Humphry, and Sir Charles Long (Lord Farnborough). The 4 PREFACE biographical notes throw new light on the lives of many artists of the time, including Hoppner, Barry, Julius Caesar Ibbetson, Benjamin West, Wilkie, Copley, John Raphael Smith, Hewlett the flower painter, and John Taylor of Bath. I have to express my thanks to the President and Council of the Royal Academy for allowing me to consult the minutes of that institution between 1800 and 1820, and to the Hon. Sir John Ward, K.C.V.O. and Messrs Thomas Agnew and Sons, for per- mitting me to reproduce the portraits respectively by Beechey and Gainsborough, included among the illustrations. Also to Captain Holme for his permission to embody in this book some of the information contained in my notes in The Art Collections of the Nation, published by The Studio in 1920. WILLIAM T. WHITLEY CONTENTS Chapter I, 1800 The arts in 1800—Sir Joshua’s influence still powerful. No public picture galleries—The private collections inaccessible—Louis X VIII viewing the pic- tures at Blenheim—Insolence of the servants—Auction rooms the only gal- leries for students—The Incorporated Society of Artists—Royal Academicians of 1800—The Exhibition—Lawrence, Opie, Nathaniel Dance—Turner’s work —Compared with Claude and Gainsborough—Death of “‘ Perdita’’? Robinson —Macklin the publisher—His hundred commissions for pictures—List of his payments to artists and engravers—Sir Joshua’s painting of Macklin’s family —The War in Europe—Consequent importations of Old Masters—Letter from Robert Fagan—His famous Moroni—Drastic .reforms at the Royal Academy schools—Constable one of the new students—Thornhill’s copies of Raphael’s cartoons—Fuseli’s exhibition . : : , : euepesk Chapter II, 1801 Romney sells his house at Hampstead—Sale of his collection of casts from the antique—The Royal Academy a buyer—The Exhibition—-Three sculptors on the Hanging Committee—Lawrence’s portrait of the Princess of Wales returned to him—Callcott’s mysterious landscape—Turner’s Army of the Medes—*‘All flags and smoke’’—Comparison of Girtin with Turner—Girtin’s only landscape in oil, Bolton Bridge—Described and criticized—Opie’s Love- sick Maid—Beechey’s portrait of Nelson—A descendant of Vandyck among the exhibitors—A famous action-at-law—Delattre v. Gopley—The Judge con- fused—Deaths of Hamilton and Wheatley—Newman the artists’ colourman— Election of A.R.A.’s—Girtin a candidate—His disappointment—The age of Michael Angelo Rooker, A.R.A. . ; > : : : meee) Chapter III, 1802 Academy elections—Turner among the Forty—The ill-luck of Bonomi— Turner’s diploma picture—The Udny collection offered to the Academy— Noél Desenfans sells the King of Poland’s collection of pictures—List of prices realized—No reserved works—The Dulwich Watteau—The Prince of Vil CONTENTS Wales at the Academy dinner—French Princes among the guests—Bonaparte’s envoy arrives late—The Exhibition—Savage attack on Hoppner’s Mary— Beechey, Hoppner and Lawrence compared—Turner the centre of attraction —Girtin not an exhibitor—Preparing his Panorama of London—Letter from Girtin—James De Maria—His Panorama of Paris—Girtin’s Panorama shown at Spring Gardens—Death of Girtin—His bust by Garrard—Sale of Girtin’s works at Christie’s—A note on Girtin’s life—Who was the writer?—A new exhibition gallery—The British School—Supported by the Prince of Wales —The first exhibition in Berners Street—Failure of the British School— Romney’s death—A mourning ring for Flaxman—Sale of Romney’s portraits and sketches ‘ ‘ see : i ; ; : . p. 28 Chapter IV, 1803 A vacant professorship at the Academy—Copley’s son a candidate—Dr Burney elected—Dissensions in the Academy—Quarrel between the Council and the General Assembly—Copley’s gigantic portrait group—A picture by the President rejected—The French Ambassador at the Academy dinner— Delicate position—England and France on the brink of war—The Exhibi- tion—‘‘ Nothing to astonish or enrapture’”—Hoppner—‘The Copyist of Reynolds”—Thomson’s Crossing the Brook bought at the dinner—Turner’s Calais Pier—‘‘Like soap and chalk”—His Holy Family—* Over-Turner”’— James Irvine the picture dealer—Letter on his Italian purchases of Old Masters—Some famous pictures—Lady Beaumont and Rubens’s Autumn, Chdteau de Steen—The Truchsess collection brought to London—A gallery built for it—Eight spacious halls—An unfortunate speculation—The pictures sold . : , ‘ ‘ . : ‘ : ; ‘ . p. 50. Chapter V, 1804 Christie the auctioneer—Thirteen months’ illness and death—His origin— A fellow-apprentice—His partner Ansell—Christie’s marriages—William Buchanan—His importations of pictures—Sea risks—Buchanan loses a Titian —British cruisers capture a ship laden with pictures—The exhibition—James Ward rejected—The -Academy dinner—Making a night of it—Lawrence’s full-length of Mrs Siddons—A criticism of Turner’s seapiece—“ Painted with a birch broom’”’—James Ward challenges Rubens—The Malton family— Death of Thomas Malton, Turner’s teacher—Notes on the elder Malton— Cheap Yorkshire schools—Thomas Malton’s quarrel with his father—Death of George Morland—Report of inquest held upon him—Resemblance to Cromwell—Turnerelli’s bust of Morland—Death of Thomas Hardy—More trouble at the Academy—Attempt to depose West—Attack by Tresham— Letter of West’s describing its failure—West’s temporary triumph . #p. 65 Vill CONTENTS Chapter VI, 1805 Fuseli as Keeper of the Royal Academy—A good influence—His method compared with that of his predecessor—Orchardson’s views on teaching—A deaf and dumb pupil—Miss Patrickson’s recollections of Fuseli—He allows her to work in the schools—Sam Strowger the Academy porter—Strowger as art critic—Corrects Fuseli’s drawing—His efforts to help Constable—Death of Banks the sculptor—His complaints of Farington’s intrigues—Disappointing sale of Banks’s works—Christie blamed—Penelope Boothby’s monument— The Exhibition—Fifteen hundred pictures rejected—West withdraws three of his—Turner not an exhibitor—Advance of Callcott—Rival portraits of Master Betty—Northcote and Opie—Farington censured for unfair hanging— Establishment of the Society of Painters in Water Colours—A Morland exhibition—Francis Towne of Exeter—Ker Porter’s Agincouri—West resigns the Presidentship of the Royal Academy—Wyatt chosen in his place—Wyatt’s election legal and complete—Sir Frederick Eaton’s error—The Royal Book— Letter from Shee to Hoppner ; : ; ; ‘ ‘ ey eres | Chapter VII, 1806 Nelson’s funeral—Proposed national memorial—Pictures of his death—Wax effigies—Death of Barry—His wretched life in Castle Street—Incessant war with his neighbours—Bonomi’s charity—The Exhibition—The Sleeping Nymph of Hoppner—Lawrence’s stone-coloured frame—Cosway on angels—Blake’s defence of Fuseli—Wilkie appears—His Village Politicians—Opening of the British Institution—A rival to the Academy—The Institution’s gallery de- scribed—Vivid scarlet walls—Lord Stafford’s reception at the opening of his new gallery—The Prince of Wales “‘lost in ecstasy” —The public admitted by ticket—A new departure—Behaviour of the visitors—A school of copyists founded at the Institution—List of pictures lent to copy—West improving Vandyck—Death of George Stubbs—His relations with the Academy— Callcott elected an Associate—Wyatt retires from the Presidentship—Re- election of West—Letter from Ozias Humphry—Death of Edward Edwards, A.R.A. P 3 : ‘ i : : : . p. 98 Chapter VIII, 1807 Second exhibition of the British Institution—Lord Stafford buys fifteen pictures—The Hewlett sensation—Four hundred guineas for a flower painting—Hewlett’s career—Death of Opie—His uncouthness—Story of an early portrait—The Exhibition—Wilkie the idol of the public—His rivalry with Turner—First notice of Constable’s pictures—Art criticism—A new departure by The Times—George Augustus Wallis—‘“‘The English Poussin”? —His adventures in Spain—Buys for Buchanan the Venus and Cupid of 1X CONTENTS Velasquez—Andrew Wilson brings to England Rubens’s Brazen Serpent— Dubost and his Damocles—The Prince of Wales and Stothard’s Canterbury Pilgrims—Blake and Stothard—The Academy buys a Rembrandt—Picture | sale at Fonthill—Some of the prices—Lord Grosvenor’s sale—Turner elected Professor of Perspective at the Academy . : : Mee ree Chapter LX, 1808 Penrice of Yarmouth—A Norfolk collector—Offered Rubens’s Brazen Serpent —Consults Lawrence—Lawrence’s remarkable letter—The Exhibition— Hoppner and Lawrence—Rival painters of Pitt—An American critic on the Academy—Lord Buchan’s list of Scottish artists—Raeburn omitted—Howe the animal painter—The Elgin Marbles on view—The figures compared with living models—Sir Charles Bell the surgeon—His opinion of Flaxman and Fuseli—Bell’s candidature for the Academy Professorship of Anatomy— Defeated by Sir Anthony Carlisle—Portraits of Gainsborough and Hone presented to the Academy—Death of Biagio Rebecca, A.R.A.—A painter of Deceptions—Landscape exhibition at Turner’s Gallery—The Associated Artists in Water Colours. egae : : ‘ Bae Fa 2 Chapter X, 1809 Return of Anthony Pasquin—Art critic of the Morning Herald—His remarks on Turner and Wilkie—Aaron Burr’s bust by Turnerelli—Taking a cast— _ Burr’s story of the result—Newspaper mention of Crome—Copley’s equestrian portrait of the Prince of Wales—Revision of the Academy’s laws—Institution of members’ varnishing days—Turner and the lighting of the Academy lecture room—Another exhibition at his gallery—List of the pictures— Lawrence recommends Penrice to buy one—Death of Paul Sandby—Anec- dotes concerning him—His gigantic paintings at Drakelow House—Sandby’s influence on watercolour painting—New masters in that medium—De Wint and David Cox—Prediction of De Wint’s future fame—The Repository of Arts appears—Published by Rudolph Ackermann—History of his ancient house in the Strand—A superb room—Middleton the colourman—His prices in 1809—Wilkie elected an A.R.A.—Invited to Lady Beechey’s parties—Meets Lady Hamilton and Nelson’s daughter : : ; AS gee Chapter XI, 1810 Death of Hoppner—Contemporary opinion on him—His character by Shee— Advises a young portrait painter—Hoppner’s portrait of Pitt—Contents of his painting room—Callcott an Academician—Soane’s lectures suspended— Why Hoppner’s diploma picture is a self-portrait—Death of Ozias Humphry —Letter on his group of the Ladies Waldegrave—Stories of his dignity and xX CONTENTS chivalry—The Exhibition—Pasquin’s burlesque account of the banquet— Copley’s portrait of the Prince of Wales—Raeburn’s unromantic Walter Scott—A note on Constable—Raeburn’s wish to live in London—Gains- borough’s house an auction mart—Cosway’s picture stolen from the Academy —Dubost’s exhibition—Beauty and the Beast—A libel on Thomas Hope—The picture destroyed—An action for damages—Pictures at Turner’s gallery— Watercolour painters and the Academy—Sales at the Exhibition—A bust of Sir Joshua. : } ; ; ; ; : é Sere al he Chapter XII, 1811 Turner’s lectures on perspective—Letter from G. D. Leslie, R.A.—His father’s description of the lectures—Turner’s pronunciation—Beauty of the drawings shown—The first lecture reported in the Sun—Turner’s letter of thanks—Specimen of his poetry—Comment on Gainsborough and Wilson— The value of the lectures—Sir John Soane’s notes on them—Death of the Academy Secretary—His rooms added to the galleries at Somerset House— Election of five Academicians—Bone the enamel painter—Sale of Zoffany’s pictures—The Exhibition—Turner and Callcott charged with unfair hanging —Attempt to encourage sales at the Exhibition—The Prince of Wales at the dinner—His admiration of Turner—Popularity of Benjamin West—His picture bought by the British Institution—Three thousand guineas—What Haydon thought of it—The A.R.A. election in 1811—List of candi- dates : : 3 ‘ A : y : ; ; P1798 Chapter XIII, 1812 Soane resumes his lectures—Scolds the Academicians—Promotion of Philip Reinagle—Death of De Loutherbourg—His faith-healing experiments—Sale of his collections—Models of ships—French paint brushes—-Mrs De Louther- bourg—Their house at Hammersmith—Turner and De Loutherbourg— Turner at Hammersmith—Site of his house—John Raphael Smith—Wilkie’s exhibition in Gainsborough’s studio—Other tenants of the studio—Raeburn in London—The Exhibition—Flaxman on Turner’s Snow Storm, Hannibal and his Army—Turner badly hung—Praise for Constable—Artists and the Duke of Sussex—The Prince Regent’s chandelier at the Academy—The Great Room *‘almost as luminous as day”—Turner’s gallery in 1812—His Mercury and Herse—Complications—Picture restorers at the Academy—Raeburn elected an Associate—IIIness of Turner . . : : , : i Puke Chapter XIV, 1813 The British Institution—Edward Bird’s Seeaiciee re Reynolds exhibition— Opened by the Prince Regent—The inaugural banquet—Copying Sir Joshua’s x1 CONTENTS portraits—Mrs Piozzi objects—Wilkie on the Hanging Committee—*The greatest impartiality’—Raeburn in London again—The Exhibition—. Wilkie’s Blind Man’s Buff—‘‘Ever a crowd round it, closely packed””—The critics on Turner’s Frosty Morning—Engleheart’s copies of Reynolds—Lord Kinnaird’s sale—A visit to his house—Crowds at the private view—The Rubens and the Titian bought by Delahante—Both acquired by Mr Baseley —Lawrence’s advice to Mr Penrice—A note on Delahante—Thomas Hamlet —Stroehling the Russian painter—Sale of his house—Sues Sir Gregory Page Turner—Death of James Wyatt—His mansion in Foley Place—-Poverty of his widow—The A.R.A. elections—-The oe of Louis Francia and Joseph Charles Barrow Peete: ‘ 5 : : . stantly rose, joined hands, and declared that in future sincerity and friendship should reign among them. They then agreed to cement the re-establishment of good order in the Society at Freemason’s T'avern’”’. | But the effect of these quarrels and suspensions and appeals was not to be so easily effaced. The following letter from Desen- fans to that friend and correspondent of many artists, John Taylor, the author and journalist, proves that at the beginning of 1804 strong animosities still existed among those concerned. The writer of the letter was on terms of the closest friendship and intimacy with one of the five suspended Academicians, Sir Francis Bourgeois, who lived in his house and was a member of his family. He writes on January 18th, 1804: My dear Sir | I think (as you will meet Sir Francis and some of those Academicians he is at variance with) that it would be worthy of you to reconcile them. 51 4-2 [7803] ART IN ENGLAND I cannot blame Sir Francis for having supported the laws of the institution, but now that he has carried his point he will become blameable if he does not seek to be on friendly terms, as before, with those who offended him because they thought he was in the wrong. Some years ago I knew Mr Smirke, who is certainly a very respectable character; and I had the pleasure of seeing now and then, Mr Farington, who is perfectly a gentleman and a very sensible man, yet I see them no longer because Bourgeois has quarrelled with them, which you will allow must be very unpleasant for me. You now see the meaning of my request, and believe me, my dear Sir, Truly yours Noél Desenfans. Taylor was to meet the artists mentioned at the dinner of the Royal Academicians, held every year in January to celebrate the birthday of the Queen. Copley, the leader of the five insurgent members of the Council whose victory had resulted in so much friction, was also prominent in two other Academy quarrels of 1803; quarrels that became public property and were taken up and discussed by the news- papers. He was, and had been for many years, on bad terms with the President of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West, who was, like Copley, of American birth. As far back as 1785 Hoppner remarked as notorious the fact that when at Academy meetings West rose to give his opinion, Copley immediately followed and opposed it. The first of the two quarrels of 1803 concerned the hanging in the exhibition of an immense portrait group painted by Copley for Sir Edward Knatchbull, a Kentish baronet of ancient family. Except The Siege of Gibraltar, painted for the City of London, the Knatchbull picture was the most important commission executed by Copley, and it had occupied most of his time and thought since the summer of 1800. It was commenced as a representation of the baronet’s ten children, and the painter thought he could finish it in a year. He could not then foresee the delays and interruptions that were to follow. Sir Edward Knatchbull had been twice a widower, and portraits of both his wives were introduced into the background of the picture, in 52 COPLEY’S PORTRAIT GROUP [7803] the sky. In 1801 he took to himself a third wife, whose portrait, and that of one of her offspring, were added to the group. It was Copley’s desire to show his work at the Academy of 1803, and a week or two before the sending-in day he wrote to the Council to say that he was engaged on a picture eighteen feet in width by twelve in height. It was not quite finished and he asked for an extension of time. When Copley made his ap- plication, West, who took the chair at the Council meetings, was ” ill, and in his absence the extension was granted. At the next meeting, on April 4th, a formal protest against the granting of time to Copley was read; signed by Hoppner, Lawrence, Shee, Farington, Robert Smirke, Daniell, Westall and Opie. The pro- test was forwarded through West, who was still absent from the Council through indisposition, and was accompanied by a letter in which he pointed out that two years before, the Council had refused a similar indulgence to one of the Academicians, although it was asked for by a member of the royal family. He referred, of course, to Lawrence and the portrait of the Princess of Wales. Finally, Copley’s picture was admitted and given a good place in the Great Room, and then further complications arose. A letter was received from Sir Edward Knatchbull demanding the im- mediate withdrawal of the picture which had been sent to the exhibition without his sanction. It was said that the objection came from Lady Knatchbull, for stories of the Academy quarrel had got into the papers. So too had descriptions of the picture, and vulgar jokes about the two wives in the sky and the one on the earth, which could not have been agreeable to the baronet’s third consort. In the end Copley asked leave to withdraw the group, which was granted, and the huge picture was taken down, to the ex- treme inconvenience of the Hanging Committee; for by this time (April goth) the exhibition was in great part arranged, and the preparation of the catalogue advanced. The third trouble at the Academy in this year of discord was also connected with the hanging of a picture, but it was more serious than the Copley incident. It concerned a work by 53 [1803] ART IN ENGLAND the President, who, as we know, was absent through illness from the earlier April meetings of the Council, when the examination was in progress of the pictures sent in for exhibition. But he was well enough to attend a meeting on the 14th, when a sur- prize awaited him. On taking the chair he was handed a copy of an evening paper, just out, the Courter, which contained a reprint of an article published earlier in the day in the Morning Post, in which it was stated that the Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy was in a distressing dilemma. Its President had sent in a picture, Hagar and Ishmael, which was recognized by one of the members as having been shown before and was there- fore ineligible for exhibition. The picture was signed by Mr West and dated 1803, but a careful examination showed also the date 1776, and its title was found in a catalogue of that year. “ The members of the Council,’’ said the Morning Post, “‘indignant at the deception, regarded each other in silent astonishment. At length it was resolved that the Secretary should write to the President, requesting him to withdraw the performance. To this letter no answer has yet been received. It is said, however, that the President, who is a scholar as well as a painter, meditates a concise and classical reply.” The last sentence was inexcusably cruel, for it was notorious that West, so far from possessing any scholarship, was unable to spell, or even speak, English correctly. | His feelings, on reading the article, may be imagined, and he complained to the Council, with good reason, that although the supposed discovery had been made nearly a week earlier, when he was absent through illness, no communication had been made to him. Until, on this evening, he saw the Courier, he had heard nothing of any objection to his picture. He admitted that when he sent it to the Academy he had forgotten that it had been shown before, but in any case it had been repainted. It had a new angel, Hagar and Ishmael had both been altered, and the draperies and background changed. It was in fact ‘‘an entirely new picture, the canvas and the stretching frame alone re- maining”. He disclaimed the slightest intention of deceiving. 54 THE PRESIDENT REJECTED [7803] “But who,” he asked indignantly, ‘““was the member who divulged to the Morning Post what passed in Council concerning the picture and its dates?”? No name is given in the records of the Academy, but Copley is mentioned in the newspapers as the Academician who recognized the Hagar and Ishmael, and it was he who took the chair at the Council meeting on April 8th, the day the picture was rejected. Later in the month the whole affair was discussed at a General Assembly of the Academicians, when blame was attributed to the press, and Soane moved a resolution “‘to prosecute the Editors of newspapers who have vilified the Royal Academy”. Nothing came of this, but a declaration was sent to The Times expressing the unanimity of the Academicians in thinking that the Presi- dent by sending the Hagar and Ishmael ‘“‘had in no respect acted with the least intention to deviate from the rules and usages of the Academy’’. It is obvious that West had no intention to de-. ceive, or he would have effaced the old date. But in any case he was treated with grave discourtesy by the members of the Council, who should have asked him for an explanation before taking action; and by the Secretary, whose forgetfulness in such an important matter is almost incredible. West’s much disputed Hagar and Ishmael was a large picture with figures the size of life, which Lord Cremorne bought from the artist after it had been exhibited in 1776. The figure of Ishmael chanced to bear a strong resemblance to a son of Lord Cremorne, a resemblance that was the cause both of his ac- quiring and parting with the picture. The son died, and the father, unable to bear the sight of the figure that recalled him, disposed of the work to another collector from whom West bought it. The artist, looking at it with a fresh eye after an in- terval of many years, saw much that he should like to alter, so much that it meant an almost entire repainting of the picture. In this new form it found admirers and was the subject of eulogiums that to-day appear extravagant and ridiculous. When West sent the repainted Hagar and Ishmael to the exhibition at the British Institution in 1806, the critic of The Times remarked: 55 [1803] ART IN ENGLAND “We accede to the general opinion that it is not unworthy the pencil of Leonardo da Vinci”. Turner, who as a newly elected Academician became a member of the Council at the beginning of 1803, served on it through all the troubles of the spring. It is significant of the _ respect with which he was treated by his fellow-members almost from the first, that although not yet twenty-eight he was on two occasions chosen to preside at the Council when West was unable to be present. He was also on the Hanging Committee for this year, with Soane, Rossi, Richards, Wilton and Sir Francis Bourgeois. The last-named was credited with an improvement in the arrangement of the Great Room mentioned by the critic of The Times: We cannot dismiss this article without giving to the Hanging Committee the praise to which they are clearly entitled for the judicious manner in which they have distributed the pictures. In the principal room in particular some excellent improvements have been made. The angles have been taken away and the whole is converted into an irregular octagon not very different from the disposition of the galleries which at Paris display the treasures of the Italian, French and Flemish Schools. No Royalties attended the Academy dinner this year, but the guests included the usual train of ambassadors, peers, bishops and ministers. Among the ambassadors was General Andreossi, the representative of France, whose position was somewhat delicate. ‘The First Consul and Lord Whitworth were quarrelling in Paris and there were portents everywhere of war. ‘The news- papers that described the dinner at the Academy also reported the massing of troops on the French coast nearest to our shores, the incessant activity in mounting guns at the northern French ports, and the steady preparation of the British squadrons. The storm was threatening and inevitable, but it was not to break for two or three weeks, and there was no hint of im- pending war in the speech of General Andreossi, who returned thanks after the drinking of the health of the members of the Diplomatic Corps. ‘‘Lord Auckland,”’ says one of the reporters, “very politely and handsomely explained the sentiments of the 56 Cont MUSIC AT THE ACADEMY DINNER [1803] French Ambassador, he not being fluent in the English language.”’ The other toasts at the dinner were accompanied by what are described as “‘appropriate airs and glees’’, and this appears to have been the only year in which lists were published of the healths drunk and of their musical honours. The appropriate- ness of the airs and glees in the following list is not in all cases evident: The King, our Founder and Patron. (God save the King) The Prince of Wales. (Hail Star of Brunswick!) The Queen and Royal Family. (O Nanny, etc.) The Lord Mayor and the City of London. (The Wooden Walls) Sir Joseph Banks and the Royal Society. (Io Love I wake) Lord Leicester and the Society of Antiquaries. (When winds breathe soft) The Duke of Norfolk and the Society of Arts. (The Mighty Conqueror) The Patrons of the Arts. (Inspire us Genius of the Day) In the exhibition there was “‘nothing to astonish or enrapture’”’, at least in the opinion of The Times, whose admiration for the pictures was lukewarm except in the case of a whole-length by Shee, of Kirwan the Irish preacher. Among the subject works Ihe Times liked Opie’s Visit to the Cottage, or clothing the Naked (16), which gave its painter “‘a superiority over his fellow-artists in the historical department’”’; and thought that the large group of Mrs Symons and her children (117), which occupied a centre in the Great Room, was one of the best things yet produced by Beechey. The Morning Post complained on April goth that the group was too ostentatious in its colouring; and on May grd proudly announced that Beechey, “with the candour that always 57 [7803] ART IN ENGLAND accompanies true genius”, had been so much influenced by the criticism that he had spent Sunday in the exhibition room, engaged in softening and mellowing his too resplendent hues. Beechey’s group was liked generally, as was Lawrence’s portrait of Lord Thurlow. On the other hand, Lawrence’s rival Hoppner, though not abused so ferociously as in 1802, was reminded pointedly, and more than once, of his debt to. Sir Joshua. One critic, who said that he admired some of his work, went on to say that he dis- liked even Sir Joshua at second hand, and declared that Hoppner’s portrait of Lady E. Bligh (171) was a frank imitation of the late President. The St Fames’s Chronicle headed its paragraph about the artist’s work, ‘‘John Hoppner, R.A. The Copyist of Rey- nolds”; but at the same time praised his Psyche’s Return (22) as a emit likeness of Miss Grimstone. Russell the pastellist showed what was alleged to be the largest work in crayons ever made, a group of Lady Johnstone and her family, six feet and a half by four and a half; and the principal contribution of the young Associate, Henry Thomson, wasCrossing the Brook, a picture that was bought at the Academy dinner by ~ that generous collector, Sir John Leicester. Admired in 1803, Crossing the Brook (166) caused a mild sensation in modern times, — when it appeared at Christie’s in 1914 and was bid up to £3090. In the absence of the withdrawn Knatchbull group, Copley was represented by a portrait of Lord Northampton, of which it was remarked, unkindly: “If this artist’s great picture was equally — crude and inharmonious we congratulate him, the proprietor, and the public on its absence” | During the peace Turner ad made his first visit to France — and Switzerland, and the fruits of his travels were shown at the Academy in six pictures of continental landscape, of which the principal were the large Festival upon the opening of the Vintage of Magon (110), and the Calais Pier (146), the striking and powerful seapiece now in the National Gallery. It is strange that Con- stable, himself an occasional sea painter, should have failed to appreciate the Calais Pier, no doubt the finest study of its kind 58 ‘Wy Sumy, “MW ff Ag UaId SIVIVO &491]DQ) JOUOYO AT a4} Ut Sutquiwg ayt woAT ¥ ; Se eR et es, TURNER UNKINDLY CRITICISED [1803] that had figured on the Academy walls. That neither this nor any other of Turner’s pictures of 1803 appealed to Constable we know from a letter written to his friend Dunthorne in May, soon after his visit to the Academy. Constable describes the pictures as indifferent collectively and “‘in the landscape way most miserable”’. Nor did the seapiece much impress the critics of the day. The Times, which thought that Turner’s work this year merely sus- tained his reputation, did not mention the Calais Pier, and the Sun attacked it in the first really adverse criticism the artist had been called upon to face: Calais Pier (146). As this picture is likely to attract much attention, and as the peculiar manner of the artist seems to be gaining ground in the profession, we attend to it thus early. It affords a striking specimen of the merits and defects of the artist, and is indeed a lamentable proof of genius losing itself in affectation and absurdity. Under the idea of generalizing his objects he often produces nothing but incongruity and confusion. The sea looks like soap and chalk, smoke, and many other things. The sky is a heap of marble mountains and quite out of harmony with the objects below. The boards of the Pier are well painted, but what an inferior object is that for an artist who has bolder points in view! This writer in the Sun thought poorly of ‘Turner’s large Festival upon the opening of the Vintage of Macon, whose air of imposing dignity, he said, had deluded some shallow critics. ‘There were parts of it, perhaps, that deserved approbation, but considered as a whole the picture was a mass of incongruities. As for Turner’s Holy Family (156), it was nothing but “‘a barbarous and clumsy imitation of the Old Masters”’. For this unfortunate work, now in the Tate Gallery, no one had a good word. Even the critic of the Monthly Magazine, who was one of the first fully to recognize the genius of Turner, thought the Holy Family entirely unworthy of his talent, and begged him in future to leave such subjects alone. He declared, and truly, that Joseph in the picture looked like a Chinese mandarin. Much was said in the newspapers at this time about the in- fluence of Turner’s work on young artists, which was thought a7 [1803] ART IN ENGLAND to be dangerous because his followers imitated him slavishly without understanding or considering the principles that led to his excellences. This is remarked by the antagonistic critic of the Sun, and by another writer who complains that ‘‘a certain painter has so much debauched the taste of the young artists in this country by the empirical novelty of his style that he has been given the title of ‘over-Turner’”. Oddly enough, Turner is also given this title by his biographer, Thornbury, but for a very different reason. Thornbury says that on one occasion when Turner was staying at Farnley with his Yorkshire friend and patron, Mr Fawkes, he insisted, after a day’s shooting, upon driving his host’s son home in a tandem. It was a rough road, across the fields, and on the way the vehicle capsized. Hence- forth, says Thornbury, the artist was known at Farnley by the nick-name of ‘‘over-Turner’”’. A letter written this year by James Irvine to an artistin London shows that many fine works from the great Italian galleries were passing into the hands of English collectors. Irvine was an artist-dealer of the same type as Fagan, to whom I referred in chapter 1, and the two occasionally collaborated. A trained painter and an enterprizing buyer, he was nevertheless con- sistently unlucky when transacting business for himself, so much so that he believed he was born to misfortune. ‘‘ Such is the luck,” he declared, ‘‘that attends all my concerns, that were I to turn baker I believe people would give over eating bread.” But acting for others he was usually fortunate, and as agent for William Buchanan he acquired Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, now in the National Gallery. In his letter, which is dated Rome, August 13th, 1803, he says that constant employment has prevented him from writing earlier. He has been buying pictures on commission, partly for private collections and partly for sale in London, and thinks he has done fairly well considering that he came rather late to the market. Irvine tells his friend that he always pretends to be buying for himself, because if the Italians thought that he was buying for amateurs they would put up their prices. He says 60 BUYING PICTURES ABROAD [7803] he has been buying lately for Mr Gordon and has formed entirely his collection in Scotland, which is, he thinks, ‘“‘such a one as for that country may be considered respectable” For Mr Champernowne (whom we found at Vienna on our way here) I bought several pictures, particularly the two fine Guidos of the Lancelotti, viz.: Lot and his Daughters leaving Sodom, engraved in Hamilton’s Schola Italia, and the Susannah and the Elders, the first of which he has lately exchanged for a landscape by Rubens, sent by me from Genoa; and I since understand Sir Richard Worsley had offered £2000 for it before it arrived in England, which has since, fortunately taken place. In the same vessel were several other pictures sent for sale, among which was that with three views of Charles the First in different aspects, by Vandyke, formerly in the Bernini Palace, with the Queen’s letter to Bernini, acknowledging the receipt of the bust he had done, with the highest enconiums of it, and ordering one of herself. _ I have been twice to Genoa, but the last time to little effect, as few of the first families will sell. The first time I was so fortunate as to procure a capital allegorical picture of Rubens from a branch of the Doria family, on the back of which was found, on taking off the lining on its arrival in England, the initials of King Charles the First with the crown over them, and on examining the catalogue of the pictures it was found described, and classed with the Cartoons as one of the finest. It is said to have been a present to the King from Rubens. This has been sold to Lord Gower for £3000. At the same time I sent over three other Rubens’s from another collection, two of which were large landscapes on panel, and the other a triumphal procession taken from one of Andrea Mantegna’s Triumphs of Julius Caesar. *Tis that with the elephants and the car, but without the Emperor, and has been bought by Mr Champernowne for £800, and had it been kept a little longer would have brought eleven or twelve. One of the landscapes was sold to Sir George Beaumont for £1500, and the other exchanged, as men- tioned above. I lately sent over Poussin’s Plague, of the Colonna, and the duplicates from the same palace of the St Catherine, etc. (or St Margarita) by Parmigiano, which was at Bologna (now in France) engraved by Bonasoni. I have as yet no account of their arrival and am rather uneasy about them. Of the pictures mentioned in this letter one, the portrait of Charles I in three views by Vandyck, is now in the royal col- lection, and six of the others are in the National Gallery. The six are: Lot and his daughters leaving Sodom, and Susannah and the Elders, both by Guido; The Plague at Ashdod by Nicolas Poussin; and Peace and War; Autumn, Chdteau de Steen, and Triumph of 61 [1803] ART IN ENGLAND Julius Caesar, by Rubens. The Peace and War is the Rubens on the back of which the crown and the royal initials were found. Several of these pictures, bought by Irvine for William Buchanan, were shown by that dealer in 1803 at his gallery in Oxendon Street, Haymarket. The Autumn, Chdteau de Steen was there, and the landscape by Rubens bought with it—The Rainbow, now in the Wallace Gallery. The first-named attracted the admiration of that generous benefactor to the National Gallery, Sir George Beaumont, who longed for it, but felt that he could not afford to pay the price, £1500, asked for the picture. But soon after-— wards Lady Beaumont received an unexpected legacy of about the amount, and hastening to Buchanan, bought the Autumn, Chateau de Steen, and conveying it home secretly was the joyful witness of her husband’s surprize and pleasure when he found it hanging in his gallery. Arthur Champernowne, of Darlington, Devon, who exchanged Rubens’ landscape for a Guido, was a well-known collector of pictures, fond of buying and selling and bargaining. He was a great friend of Ozias Humphry, who, in connection with works of art, sometimes transacted business for him in London. The Triumph of Julius Caesar remained in Champernowne’ s collection until his death in 1819, and was catalogued in the sale of his pictures in the following year. Before attempting to dispose privately of the Anes Chateau de Steen and his other importations mentioned above, Buchanan had offered to sell them to the Government, as a collection, to form the beginning of a National Gallery. They were de- clined, and were then offered to Angerstein, who said he had no room for more pictures in his house in Pall Mall. But Angerstein found room this year for two famous Claudes, the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, and The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, which he bought from Erard for 8000 guineas. The Morning Herald, in announcing the purchase, said that Anger- stein’s collection, “‘now one of the first in the country, is open to members of the Royal Academy at all times, and it is said that the liberal-minded proprietor means to allot a certain part 62 THE TRUCHSESSIAN GALLERY [1803] of the year for the inspection of students in general’’. The col- lection was certainly more accessible than any other at this time, but it was limited in extent, and however freely shown could not compensate for the lack of such public galleries as those of France and Italy. Artists, therefore, were pleased to hear in the summer that a large, and by repute, fine, collection of Old Masters had been brought from abroad, and might remain permanently in London. The collection was that of Joseph, Count Truchsess. It had been formed at vast expense during the preceding thirty years and contained more than a thousand works, among which were canvases attributed to most of the great Old Masters. The Count, whose good faith no one questioned, was now compelled to dispose of his pictures, in the authenticity of which he believed implicitly, and was anxious that his collection should not be scattered, ““but become a national gallery, or at least the founda- tion of one’’. Before bringing his pictures from Vienna, the Count endeavoured in vain to raise a subscription in London for their purchase—ten thousand shares of 6 guineas each. They were conveyed here at his own expense, duty to the amount of _ £4000 was paid on them at the Custom House, and more than twice as much expended in providing a temporary building for their exhibition. This was erected in the New Road, Marylebone, at the end of Portland Place, where Park Crescent is now. It contained eight spacious halls, each well lighted from the top; and its offices included a refreshment room, an adjunct that no art exhibition in London had boasted before, or would again for more than two generations. In the Truchsessian Gallery, as it was called, the pictures were displayed to the best advantage, but their high-sounding titles failed to impress the London con- noisseurs. They remained on view for some time and after in- effectual attempts to dispose of them privately were sold by auction for small prices. The auction, by Skinner and Dyke, lasted seven days, and was followed by the sale of the fabric of the gallery and its furniture. 63 [7803] ART IN ENGLAND Two elections of Associates took place at the Royal Academy in November. In the first contest, Joseph Gandy, the architect, was successful by eighteen votes to five; and in the second, Theophilus Clarke, the portrait painter, by seventeen votes to six. In both elections the runner-up was John Bacon the sculptor, son of the deceased Royal Academician. Bacon occupied the same unfortunate position at the election of the following year, and never obtained the A.R.A. Had he been a candidate during the lifetime of his father, he would probably have been successful, for family influence was powerful at the Academy in its earlier years. Nothing else could have accounted for the fact that the younger Copley received eight votes in the contest for the post of Professor of Ancient Litera- ture; or for the support given to Raphael West in 1791, at the election in which Lawrence gained his Associateship. As an artist Raphael West was entirely insignificant, but because he was the son of a man then important, as having the ear of the King, more than a third of the Academicians voted for him in preference to Lawrence. In the final ballot West had fifteen supporters and Lawrence twenty-three. O35 FaW sas be op ee 1804 On January 4th, 1804, it was announced in the following advertisement in The Times, that James Christie, eldest son of the founder of the well-known firm of auctioneers, would in future be in sole charge of the business then conducted in Pall Mall: Mr J. Christie very respectfully informs the friends of his late father, and the Public, that the business of selling by auction or private contract, Estates, Houses, Pictures and Effects, which has been conducted almost exclusively by him for his late father during his long illness, is now continued in all its branches by himself at the Rooms and Premises in Pall Mall. He trusts that by activity, attention and correctness, he may be able to forward the interests and deserve the confidence of those who shall honour him with their favours. The elder Christie, famous for his persuasive oratory when in the rostrum, died in November, 1809, after an illness of thirteen months. He had enjoyed a remarkably successful career of forty years, or perhaps more, for it is not known exactly when he commenced business. His name figures in a list of auctioneers in 1763, and he was certainly advertising in that year. Leslie and ‘Taylor state that he was acquainted with Sir Joshua in 1761, but only on the strength of an entry in the artist’s pocket book on May 4th of that year, “Dine with Mr Christy”. This is by no means convincing, for the name, whether spelt Christie or Christy, is not uncommon, and Christie the auctioneer had little to do with artists or selling pictures at the beginning of his career, the records of which are contradictory. There is a story that at first he made his living by beating feather beds for an upholsterer, but the Dictionary of National Biography, and Mr William Roberts, in his Memorials of Christie’s, state that he was an officer in the navy and threw up his com- WA 65 5 Pa a [ 1804) ART IN ENGLAND mission to practise as an auctioneer. On the other hand, a notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1809, of the death of Mr Henry Barford, of Brompton, implies that Christie was brought up to the profession in which he gained renown. “Mr Barford,” says the Gentleman’s Magazine, ‘‘was in early life a fellow apprentice with the late Mr Christie, and succeeded Mr Langford as an auctioneer in the premises in Covent Garden, at present occupied by Messrs Robins.” Christie carried on business in his auction rooms in Pall Mall, and in St Alban Street close by, for thirty- six years; and unless someone traded on his name must at one period have occupied premises in Soho. Near the time of his death a Mr Harris was occasionally advertising sales at “‘the Great Room, Dean Street, Soho, late Christie’s”. _ Christie’s sale room in the eighteenth and a nivepenes centuries was not, as now, principally a market for the disposal of works of art. The founder of the firm sold property of all kinds, and some of it was of a curious nature. One sale, not recorded in the books written on the history of Christie’s, was that of the notorious Borough of Gatton, in Surrey, the possession of which carried with it a seat in the House of Commons. Gatton, pro- bably the most valuable property ever sold by Christie in one lot, came under the hammer on April 17th, 1800, and The Times in reporting the sale paid a tribute to the powers of expression of the great auctioneer: The Borough of Gatton was yesterday sold by Mr Christie for the sum of £39,000. The highest bidders were Sir Henry V. Tempest, and Mr Moffatt to whom it was knocked down—Sir Henry not daring to step beyond the sum of 37000 guineas. The timber on the estate is not included in the bidding. — An occasion so admirably adapted to the eloquence of Mr Christie did not present itself in vain, nor was this inimitable orator deficient in justness of idea and the curiosa felicitas of expression. The subject, necessarily great, involving in it a very desirable contingency, demanded extraordinary talents, and Mr C. descanted with uncommon feeling on the virtue of a key belonging to the Borough which opened the gate of St Stephen’s Chapel and the gates of Paradise. Another unrecorded sale of interest was that of the furniture of Cagliostro, which, by the following advertisement in the 66 By kind permission of Messrs Thomas Agnew and Sons JAMES CHRISTIE THE AUCTIONEER By Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. ; E | ( ae THE FIRST OF THE CHRISTIES [1804] Morning Herald of April 14th, 1787, appears to have been very ordinary for a necromancer: By Mr Christie. On the Premises this day. All the elegant Household Furniture; a fine-toned Pianoforte by Kirkman, Plate, etc., of Count Cagliostro. At his House No. 4 Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. Consisting of beautiful Cotton Furniture, a Canopy Bed, etc.; excellent Mahogany articles, and other valuable effects. It is stated in an article on Christie and his affairs published in the Library of Fine Arts that he first traded as a book auctioneer in Wardour Street. Then “‘diligent and successful in his calling he improved his means, and removing to Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, commenced general auctioneer under the title of Christie and Ansell”. But Wardour Street and the book auctioneering are mentioned by no one but this writer, who is certainly wrong in stating that Christie was at one time in busi- ness in Spring Gardens. It was his partner, Ansell, who estab- lished himself in Spring Gardens after his separation from Christie. He states this in his advertisements of 1786, in which he appeals for continued ‘support from the friends who have patronized him since the dissolution of his partnership with Mr Christie. Two marriages of the elder Christie are recorded. ‘The first was on Sunday, June 14th, 1773, when Miss Chapman of Norwich was united at St James’s, Piccadilly, to “‘Mr Christie, an eminent auctioneer in Pall Mall’’. His second marriage was in May, 1793, to Mrs Urquhart, the widow of a wine merchant, according to Mr Roberts. The year of the advent of the second Christie was not remark- able for its picture sales, but at one of them, early in the season, the young auctioneer offered for disposal a work of historic as well as artistic interest; the famous canvas upon which Vandyck portrayed Charles I in three aspects, full-face, three-quarters and profile—the studies from which Bernini modelled his bust of the monarch. This was the portrait mentioned by Irvine in his letter quoted on p. 61 and consigned by him to William Buchanan. By Buchanan it was sent to Christie’s, and it says little 67 5-2 [1804] ART IN ENGLAND for the judgment. of the collectors of the time that it found no purchaser. The highest bid was 490 guineas, at which it was withdrawn, to remain for several years in Buchanan’s hands. Later it passed to Mr Champernowne, from him to Mr Walsh Porter, then to Mr Wells, and finally to George IV. When the portrait was sent to Christie’s in 1804 it was accompanied by a document which, though mutilated, was of great interest. It was the letter written by Queen Henrietta Maria to Bernini to congratulate him on the success of his bust, and came from the archives of the Bernini Palace. It was lost, unfortunately, after the sale of the portrait to Mr Champernowne. Another recently imported Vandyck, Venus and Cupid, sent to the same sale, fetched £400, but Nicolas Poussin’s Plague at Ashdod, which went with it, shared the fate of the triple portrait of Charles I by failing to reach the reserve. To William Buchanan, an able and enterprizing Scottish pic- ture dealer, to whom England owes the importation during and after this period of a large number of masterpieces, the result of this sale was disappointing. He found thus early in his career that it was more difficult to sell fine pictures at a profit than it was to bring them from Italy, although prodigious risks _ attended their importation. For England was at war, and in addition to the ordinary dangers of the sea there was always a chance that enemy ships might capture the merchantmen that conveyed the pictures. More than once Buchanan lost pictures through capture, and a Titian bought at Milan, by which he set great store, was sacrificed when the Friendship was taken by a privateer on its way to an English port, and carried into Algeciras. Fortunately it was not only England that suffered in this way. Our squadrons were blockading the Italian ports and on several occasions captured cargoes of works of art which the French had gathered in Italy and were endeavouring to send home by sea. Such cargoes were usually sold by auction, and one of them was offered by Greenwood of Leicester Square in the year with which I am now dealing. He advertised on June 6th that he would sell on the following day: 68 PICTURES CAPTURED AT SEA [1804] One hundred and forty genuine and excellent pictures selected from various capital collections in Italy by agents of the French Government, and intended to form part of the National Gallery in Paris, captured on their passage to France by his Majesty’s ships Thunderer, Captain Bedford, and Sceptre, Sir Archibald Collingwood Dixon, and will be unreservedly submitted to the public. They consist of the works of the distinguished masters of the Italian schools in a great variety of subjects from sacred and profane history, holy families, portraits, landscapes etc. In the summer of 1803 one of the ships taken by Nelson’s cruisers in the Mediterranean was found to contain twenty- seven cases of ancient sculpture, chiefly brought from Athens. It was stated that they had been collected from time to time during the preceding twenty years by the French resident, Fauvel. | There is little to record about the Royal Academy in the spring of 1804. The name of the widow of that unhappy friend of Dr Johnson, Mauritius Lowe, appears in the minutes in January as an unsuccessful candidate for the vacant post of housekeeper to the institution; and a few weeks later there was a contest for the Keepership, in which Robert Smirke defeated Rigaud by nineteen votes to fifteen. Banks the sculptor, who received only three votes, thought, as will be seen later, that he had not been fairly treated in the matter of the Keepership. The King, however, declined to accept the nomination of Smirke, and Fuseli was afterwards appointed in his place. A new Royal Academician was chosen in the person of Henry Thomson, who at the election in February received twenty-two votes against seven for George Garrard. The arrangement of the summer exhibition was entrusted to De Loutherbourg, Robert Smirke, Farington and Dance, and was completed without any serious complaints on the part of members. But a prominent outsider, James Ward, who had heard that his immense canvas The Serpent of Ceylon was not to be hung, asked that all his other pictures should be returned to him, and this was done. In this year again the Prince of Wales was present at the Academy dinner. He arrived early for the purpose of going 69 [1804] ART IN ENGLAND through the galleries with West, “examining nearly every per- formance, evincing his taste, and particularly dwelling upon the works which possessed the greatest degree of merit’’. The Prince left early and his departure was followed by that of most of the company. Those who stayed on included the Duke of Norfolk, ‘notorious for his conviviality, and the Duke of Leinster, and these peers, with a small but select party of friends, appear to have done their best to make a night of it. According to a contem- porary account, one of their supporters was Sir Francis Bourgeois, and another that eminent scholar Dr Charles Burney, who in the preceding year had been elected an honorary Professor of the Royal Academy. Another was John Philip Kemble, who in the course of the evening entered into an amicable trial of skill in Greek and Latin quotations with the Duke of Norfolk, and gratified the company by reciting various passages from Shake- speare. Immediately after the dinner a meeting of the Council was » held to enquire into a mysterious circumstance connected with ~ it—the delivery to each Academician as he entered the ban- queting room of a copy of satirical verses written “‘in consequence of a letter addressed to Francis Annesley, M.P., by Mr Thomas Hope”’. The copies of the verses, addressed to the Academicians individually, were delivered at Somerset House in a parcel, which, as it came from Macmillan the Academy printer, the porter did not hesitate to receive. Macmillan admitted printing the verses, and after some hesitation confessed that he did so to the order of Henry Tresham, R.A. This aroused much anger at the Council, but Tresham was not reprimanded and the minutes throw no further light upon the affair. , Not much space was given by the newspapers this year to notices of the exhibition, and some of them passed it over in silence. West sent again the picture that had caused so much trouble in 1803 and it was accepted. ‘‘The President,” said the Monthly Magazine, ‘‘has gained his point, and triumphed over his opponents by exhibiting his picture of Hagar and Ishmael, No. 211 (which was rejected last year as having been previously 70 JAMES WARD CHALLENGES RUBENS [1804] exhibited at the Royal Academy); having first made such alterations as are a Salve for his own conscience.” Lawrence’s full-length of Mrs Siddons (193), no doubt the one now in the National Gallery, was not much liked except by the Sun, a paper that at this time had nothing but effusive praise for anything that concerned the actress. Othello was being played at Covent Garden at the time the Academy opened, and the Sun described Mrs Siddons in the part of Desdemona as inter- esting and “playful”, the last an adjective impossible to con- nect seriously with the ponderous figure depicted on the canvas of Lawrence. The Sun was also singular in its disapprobation of _ Turner, whose work this year was liked by most of the critics. It accused the artist of affectation, and said of his Boats carrying anchors and cables to Dutch Men of War (183), that the sea looked as if it had been painted with “‘a birch broom and whitening”’. Artists whose work in general attracted favourable notice in- cluded Thomson, Owen, Phillips and Beechey. The Hebe (6) of Beechey was said to be a portrait of Miss Wyndham, a daughter of that friend of artists, Lord Egremont. The portrait of Mr D. Wale (837) was interesting as the first work shown at the Academy by Francis Chantrey, and as the only painting ex- hibited by that eminent sculptor. Mr Wale was a relation of Chantrey’s mother. James Ward, who had withdrawn all his pictures from the Royal Academy because of the rejection of The Serpent of Ceylon, exhibited them in May at a private gallery’; Among them was the fine Bulls Fighting, with view of St Donatt’s Castle, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which Ward had painted in emula- tion of the recently imported landscape by Rubens, the Chdieau de Steen, purchased by Lady Beaumont. The Chdteau de Steen was for some time at the house of Benjamin West, where Ward spent a whole day examining it. He then went home and began at once to paint the Bulls Fighting on a canvas the same size as the Rubens. When finished he showed his picture to West, who thought it made the Rubens look gross and vulgar; and West’s openly expressed admiration for his work brought Ward many 71 [r804| ART IN ENGLAND commissions. After the close of Ward’s exhibition he sold the Serpent of Ceylon to Mr Earle of Philadelphia, who took the picture to the United States, where it was exhibited with much SUCCESS. Among the exhibitions of this year was one of combined artistic and scientific interest, arranged by Dr Thornton the botanist, and held in New Bond Street. Nominally a botanical exhibition, it contained numbers of pictures and studies of flowers and plants, many of them by Philip Reinagle, R.A.; and “a ~ bower, about which are disposed foreign, as well as curious English, birds and butterflies”’. Dr Thornton, always deeply interested in the arts, had at the cost of much trouble and expense acquired portraits of many eminent botanists, and the presence of these works gave ad- ditional interest to his exhibition. The doctor, who wrote the catalogue, mentions the names of the painters of all the portraits except that of Linnaeus, a full-length. The portrait of Dr Ruther- ford, of Edinburgh, was by Raeburn; those of Dr Smith, President of the Linnean Society, Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Dr Martyn of Cambridge, Dr Shaw of the British Museum, the Rev. Dr Milne, and Dr Thornton himself, by John Russell, R.A. A miniature by Samuel Shelley also represented Dr Thornton, who mentions a third portrait of himself, “by a young artist — who has painted an half length of me, esteemed a good likeness, now in the large room of the Royal Academy, and he has not yet reached the age of sixteen’’. The young artist was Harlow, to whose work this is the earliest reference in print. A portrait of Erasmus Darwin, by Rawlinson, was painted only a week before the botanist’s death, and was so admirable a likeness that Mrs Darwin had begged for a copy of it. Finally there was ‘“‘a very curious portrait of the Spanish Tourist, the Rev. Joseph Townsend reading by candle light, painted by Opie when only sixteen’’. I shall have more to say about this portrait by Opie in chapter vi. At the distribution in June of the charitable fund of the Academy one of the applicants for assistance was. Mrs Malton, 72 THE MALTON FAMILY [1804] the widow of that accomplished draughtsman, Thomas Malton the younger, who had died earlier in the year. Malton, the teacher of Turner and described by that great artist as “‘my real master’’, had been for twenty years a candidate for the Associate- ship of the Royal Academy, and was supposed to be in a good position at the time of his death. The application of his widow, who was given 12 guineas from the fund, proves that his affairs were embarrassed. Turner’s master was the son of another Thomas Malton, and the brother of James Malton. All three were men of ability and all died at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the father in 1801, James in 1803, and his brother in 1804. They were an interesting family, but little is said about them in the books of reference, and some of the information given there is inaccurate. James Malton, whose admirable drawings of the streets and buildings of Dublin give us so excellent an idea of the appearance of Dublin in the eighteenth century, is said by the Dictionary of National Biography to have died of brain fever, but as a matter of fact he committed suicide by shooting himself when walking in Marylebone Fields. Thomas Malton the elder was originally a cabinetmaker whose business in the Strand was conducted, he says, “‘with little suc- cess”, no doubt because his mind was always occupied with problems in perspective. His Complete Treatise on Perspective was written at the shop in the Strand, where too he constructed his ‘Perspective Machine’’, of which nothing is known except that the Academy refused to admit it to the exhibition of 1772. He was unfortunate in the beginning with his book on perspective, for the whole of the first edition was destroyed by a fire at the printers. Later he abandoned the shop and devoted himself to the execution of architectural drawings and the delivery of lectures on perspective, some of which were given at the Feathers Tavern in Cheapside. He had need to be industrious, for his family was large, and in the hope of economizing he sent his sons, of whom there were three, to a cheap Yorkshire school of that day. But he recalled them, although special terms had been 73 [1604] ART IN ENGLAND made for him, because he thought he was overcharged. Writing about the school after his boys had returned, he says: “ Having three at once it was agreed for ten guineas each. Otherwise it is twelve guineas a year, out of which, I will maintain it, they clear five or six by teaching”. And, incredible as it seems, he could have found a cheaper Yorkshire school, for in 1761 a Mr Jackson, of Bowes, was offering to take “‘young gentlemen” and prepare them for the Universities, Public Offices, Compting House or other employment. ‘“‘They are also neatly boarded, decently clothed, supplied with Books, Pens, Ink, Paper and other necessaries, at the moderate rate of Ten Guineas a Year each Boy.” A pleasant glimpse of the Malton family after the return of the boys is given by William Hickey in his valuable memoirs. Hickey, who when young for some time boarded with the family at Chelsea, was taught drawing by the father and played with the sons. He speaks of ‘Thomas, the eldest—the future teacher of ‘Turner—as a youthful genius, and states what no one else has mentioned, that he lost his leg when a child but was marvellously active with a wooden substitute. Thomas was at this time a student at the Royal Academy. The Maltons were then a happy family, and Hickey, as he says, was happy with them; but later, for some reason unknown, the father and his eldest son quarrelled beyond hope of reconciliation. Both sent drawings to the Royal Academy 1 in 1785, which were noticed in the St Fames’s Chronicle, in paragraphs almost side by side. The critic of the paper found fault with the work of the father and praised that of the son. The elder Malton resented the comparison made, which he thought malicious, and de- fended his drawing in a painful letter in which he says that it is necessary to inform the candid public, to whom he appeals, “that there has subsisted for many years, not a misunderstanding, for *tis well understood (I fear premeditated) but an unhappy and irreconcilable difference between my son and me. I say irreconcilable because I have no means left of accommodation; having made several overtures in writing and otherwise, and | 74 DEATH OF MOORLAND ; [7804 ] great concessions, or at least advances towards it, to no purpose; they being rejected or spurned at by him, and all my letters for some time past returned unopened’’. The biographers of Thomas Malton the younger state that it is believed that many of the groups of figures in his topographical illustrations were put in by Francis Wheatley, R.A. It may be that Wheatley assisted him sometimes, but for most of the figures in his later drawings William Hamilton, R.A., was responsible. Although George Morland’s pictures had enjoyed uncommon popularity, his death on October 27th, 1804, attracted little attention. He seems to have died unloved and unregretted except by his neglected wife who soon followed him to the grave. In his later years the quality of his work had fallen off deplorably. ‘The Inside of a Stable, now in the National Gallery, was admired by everyone when shown at the Academy in 1791, but critics of subsequent exhibitions remark a gradual de- terioration. One of them, noticing the work exhibited in the year of his death, praises the composition of Saving the remains of a Wreck and The Fish Market, but says that both of them are “so thin and hard and so poor in the colouring that they can scarcely be called paintings”’. The death of Morland had been announced before, in De- cember, 1797, when on the decease of his father the newspapers assumed that the “Mr Morland the artist”? mentioned was the well-known painter of rustic scenes and animals. Morland was at that time deeply in debt, and there were suggestions that on this account the announcement that it was he who had died was made intentionally. The Oracle professed to explain the deception, in a scornful paragraph published on December 23rd, 1797. ““The papers have lately been full of panegyric and lamentations on Morland the artist, stated to have passed from this world to the world to come. But be it known that the said Morland is not dead but sleepeth—for the sake of his creditors. His works, on account of his supposed decease, have risen in value two hundred per cent.’ There may have been lamenta- tions for Morland in the papers of 1797, but there were none in 75 [1804] ART IN ENGLAND 1804. His habits, the conditions in which he worked, and the notorious picture manufacturing with which he was connected, were all too well known for his death to excite regret. None of Morland’s biographers, I believe, mentions that his death was followed by an inquest, which appears to have been reported in only one journal, the Daily Advertiser. The report, published on November ist, the day after the inquest, is worth quoting: THE LATE GEORGE MORLAND. From the circumstance of this curious character breathing his last in a house kept by a Sheriff’s officer, where he was lodged under arrest, it became necessary that an inquisition should be held to enquire into the cause of his death; which was held before the Coroner of Middlesex, George Hodgson, Esq., at Eyre Street Hill, near Coldbath Square, yesterday at one o’clock. It appeared that a short time since Mr Morland was arrested for a debt of small amount, and in default of bail lodged at Mr Atwell’s, a respectable officer under the Sheriff, on Eyre Street Hill; there he lived in comfortable apartments, where he was attended, as long had been usual, by a man called Jemmy Gibbs, who received a weekly salary for so doing. Mr Morland’s health was in no more dangerous a state than it had long been, until a little while before his death, when he was seized with violent spasms which in the event caused his death. Even to the end his unfortunate propensity held him, and a bottle of his favourite beverage, gin, was among his last requests. His brother, who is in the Tavern business, and has long been his most intimate friend, did not see him during his illness, being prejudiced against the visitation to a Spunging House; but now takes an active part in affording this last sad tribute of respect to a deceased brother. The jury on these circumstances being proved, found a verdict: ‘‘ Died in custody by the visitation of God”’. The funeral is fixed for Saturday or Sunday, when his remains are pro- posed to be interred in St Pancras churchyard, where his father and an only child lie at present. His body is laid in a very handsome coffin, with the simple inscription, “‘Mr George Morland, died 29th Oct., 1804, aged 41 years’’, The widow of the deceased, it is feared, from the long ravages regret for the deranged conduct of her husband has made on a constitution at all times fragile and delicate, will not long survive him. Happily there are no children left. The prediction made in this account that Mrs Morland would not long survive her husband was fulfilled. On November 4th, 76 THE A.R.A. ELECTIONS [1804] the Sunday after the inquest, Bell’s Weekly Messenger contained the following announcement: “‘ Deaths. On Monday Mr George Morland, the celebrated artist; and on Thursday, at Paddington, Mrs Morland”’. Mrs Morland was the sister of the artists, William and James Ward, the first-named of whom took a cast of Morland’s face immediately after his death. This was done with the intention of composing a bust, of which copies could be obtained by those desirous of such a memento of the painter. A contemporary writer who saw the cast says that although the lower part of Morland’s face had become bloated through intemperance, the upper part still retained its original marking, “‘and from the shape of the bones, and form of the forehead, etc., in a degree reminds us of some of the portraits of Cromwell”’. On William Ward’s cast, the bust of Morland mentioned in the following advertisement was probably based, although it is described there as modelled from nature: MR GEORGE MORLAND. On the first of December, 1804, will be published a bust of the late Mr George Morland, modelled from nature by Mr P. Turnerelli, Sculptor to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. Casts of the bust may be obtained of Mr James Ward, No. 6 Newman Street; Mr William Ward, 24 Buckingham Place, Fitzroy Square; and of the Sculptor at 22 Greek Street, Soho. The death of Morland was preceded only by a few weeks by that of Thomas Hardy, a portrait painter who had been his fellow-pupil in the schools of the Royal Academy. Hardy, who painted the half-length of Horne ‘Tooke in the National Portrait Gallery, is forgotten now, but he was not without talent, and exhibited between thirty and forty works at the Royal Academy. He was a candidate more than once for the A.R.A., but it does not appear that he ever received any votes. Hardy died on September 14th, 1804, at Tunstall in Staffordshire. In November two Associates were elected, both painters. William Owen, the first chosen, defeated the sculptor, John Bacon the younger, by no fewer than nineteen votes to eight. The successful candidate in the second election, ‘Thomas Phillips, ifs [1804] ART IN ENGLAND had another sculptor, Richard Westmacott, for his opponent in the final ballot, and defeated him by fifteen votes to eleven. Quarrels about the leadership of the Royal Academy caused serious trouble on December roth, the day upon which the President and officers are always chosen for the coming year. West’s popularity was declining, an opposition party had been formed, and an attempt was now made to remove him from the chair and put Wyatt the architect in his place. West himself has told the story of the attempt in a remarkable letter addressed to his friend and former pupil, John Trumbull, the American painter, and dated February 6th, 1805. He tells Trumbull that in England everyone is concerned in fighting or money making, and that the Fine Arts are but little thought of except by the King, with whom he has just had a long interview at Windsor, with gratifying results. West continues: His Majesty has recently by a single act placed under my feet all those vipers who have been endeavouring for some years past to sting and drive me out from the Chair of the Royal Academy. : The fact was simply as follows. On the toth of December last—the time for electing the President and the other officers for the ensuing year— Mr Tresham rose and addressed the General Assembly: viz., that they were then to make the choice of a proper person to fill the chair of that institution, and as the present President had not done his duty as President and had lost his Majesty’s confidence it would be highly improper to re-elect him; and that as it was proper that one should fill the chair who had his Majesty’s confidence, Mr Wyatt was that person. He therefore proposed Mr Wyatt to the General Assembly to be elected as their future President. He was supported in this by Francis Bourgeois, Sir William Beechey, Mr Copley, Cosway, Yenn and others. Mr Tresham—to give more force to what he had advanced respecting the President having lost his Majesty’s confidence—informed the General As- sembly that he would substantiate its truth, or he should hold himself the most contemptible of all beings, unworthy of a seat in that Academy and deserving the contempt of all its members; and then informed them that Mr Yenn had a message from his Majesty which he was commanded to deliver there for that purpose. This threw the General Assembly into great agitation and most of the members called on Mr Yenn to inform them what were the commands he bore from his Majesty; but Mr Yenn not rising I then addressed him, and saying that if he bore a message from his Majesty I would answer 78 WEST TRIUMPHANT [1804 | for myself and for most of the members that his Majesty’s message would be received by them with the most profound respect and attention. He there- fore had but to make it known. The General Assembly repeated my words, which brought up Mr Yenn with much agitation, when he declared that he had no message from his Majesty; the King had not commanded him to deliver anything respecting the elections that night. The speeches which followed that declaration of Mr Yenn you may easily imagine, for most of the members were on their feet at once. The election was called for and I was re-elected President— twenty for me and seven for Wyatt, and three blanks—supposed to be some of Wyatt’s party who took the alarm when they found that Mr Yenn had no message. As all elections must be confirmed by his Majesty some of the party was so bold as to say that although the election was carried in my favour the King would not sustain it—I should then know his Majesty’s displeasure when I went with the elections to him for his signature. Henry Tresham, R.A., the proposer of Wyatt as President in the place of West, was an Irishman who had before proved him- self to be a disturbing element in the Academy. He was an un- important painter who had some connection with picture dealing, and was frequently consulted as an expert where Old Masters _ were concerned. John Yenn, R.A., who shrank from responding to Tresham’s appeal for a message from the King, was an archi- tect. He owed his importance at the Academy to the fact that he was its Treasurer, appointed by His Majesty, and regarded to some extent as his representative and mouthpiece on the Council. There is no doubt that he was antagonistic to West and that he and Tresham and the other insurgents thought that the King would not ratify the election they had just witnessed, or that of Fuseli as Keeper, which took place a few days after the stormy meeting at Somerset House. But they were mistaken. When West went to Windsor to announce the result of the elections, he declares that the King met him more as a brother and a friend than as one who had lost his confidence. The elec- tions received His Majesty’s full approbation, and after signing the official papers he discussed the affairs of the Academy with its President for more than three hours in amicable fashion. Soon after his return to London, West summoned the Academicians to a General Assembly, that they might receive His Majesty’s 79 [1804] ART IN ENGLAND decision on the elections of the President and Keeper. “This ambiguous word,” he says, ‘‘brought all the parties to know what had been his Majesty’s will.’’ He goes on to say: I opened the business to the General Assembly by a short account of the gracious manner in which I had been received by the King, both as President and as Mr West, and then laid the papers of the elections, with the Royal signatures to them, on the table. I must say I never saw an opposition so crushed, or a majority act with more becoming moderation and dignity on any occasion than on that; and, observing a disposition among some of the members to move for censure being made on some of the most active of the opposition I declared against any such act. I said it was my wish that not a minute should be entered in our books, that an event so disgraceful should not be recorded; my triumph and the triumph of my friends was the King’s signatures on the table. Let those who had informed the General Assembly that I had lost the King’s confidence retire unnoticed, and leave them to their own thoughts. I then recommended the prosperity of the Arts and the Institution, and said that if any other person’s being in the chair would contribute more to their prosperity I would wait on his Majesty to relinquish it to that person, and give him and the Arts my support as long as I was able. By the short sketch I have given you of what has passed in the Academy you will see that the Institution is in the hands of His Majesty and myself and friends.... West’s triumph was complete in 1804 but much more trouble was to come in 1805, as the records of that year will show. He had his own way about the omission from the Academy books of all mention of the proceedings on the night of the election, and at the General Assembly when he announced the King’s decision. ‘The minutes contain nothing but the usual formal references to the meetings and their purposes. GHAR TER WV I 1805 Henry Fuse11, who was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy in the last week of December, 1804, took up the duties of his post in January, 1805. They included the charge of the schools which had been somewhat neglected since the death in 1803 of his predecessor in office, Wilton the sculptor. Of Fuseli, a poor painter but a remarkable man, many stories have been told in connection with his Keepership; of his strange habits and bad language, and his popularity—orthe reverse—among the students. It is true that he was unpopular when first appointed and that the cry, “Beware of Fuseli”’, was circulated in the classes of the life and the antique. But it must be remembered that when he took charge of the schools they were in a low state of discipline, partly because they had been without a director for more than a year, and partly on account of the previous laxity of Wilton, who was more than eighty years old when he died and long past his work. Upon the whole Fuseli’s influence in the schools was good, and there is evidence that he was kindly and sym- pathetic in his dealings with the students in spite of his brusque manner and violent language. His views about drawing differed radically from those of his predecessor, as may be seen from some notes I found in the Polytechnic Fournal of 1840. ‘They were written by an anonymous artist (possibly Douglas Guest) who was a gold medallist of the Royal Academy, and reverenced the name of Fuseli, under whom, and Wilton, he worked for some time in the early years of the nineteenth century. He gives in the Polytechnic Journal his recollections of lessons received from the two Keepers, Wilton in 1803, and Fuseli in 1805: wa 81 6 [1805] ART IN ENGLAND In my hours of study the slovenly fashions of the present day were not dreamed of. Then the visitors, both in the Life and the Antique Academies, made their appearance in full costume. It is true that with the smoke from the candles and lamps, and the dust from the chalk, the dresses of our re- spected instructors used seldom to exhibit any marks of splendour after their attendance in the schools. Mr Wilton, for example, was a man of very great personal neatness, frill and ruffles forming a prominent feature in his costume. Soon, however, the ardour of the artist would overcome the exactness of the beau, and if by chance a student made an error in his drawing by too powerful an outline or too marked a development of muscular action, Mr Wilton would gently come up to the draughtsman’s side, and collecting his delicately white ruffles between the tips of his fingers and the palm of his hand, begin to rub over the offending parts, smudging the white with the black chalk, saying, ‘I do not see those lines in the figure before you”. Very far different was the doctrine inculcated by Mr Fuseli. Boldness of outline and vigour of execution were sure to elicit his approbation. He loved a decision of style as he hated what he called “‘a neegeling tooch”’. Woe to the poor student who depended on his elaborate finishing. After having been a week or ten days working up his drawing with the softest chalk, stumping, dotting, stippling, until he had nearly worn his eyes out, the Keeper would stealthily come behind him, and looking over his shoulder would grasp the porte-crayon, and, standing at arms length from the drawing, would give so terrific a score as to cut through the paper and leave a distinct outline on the board beneath; and then would say, by way of encouragement to future exertion, “There, Saar, there, you should have a boldness of — handling and a greater fwreedom of tooch’’. As Keeper, Fuseli resided at Somerset House, in apartments adjoining the galleries of the Royal Academy, the largest of which he used occasionally as a painting-room. Charles Robert Leslie, R.A., says of him: I had hoped for much advantage from studying under such a master, but he said but little in the Academy. He generally came into the room once in the course of the evening, and rarely without a book in his hand. He would take any vacant place among the students, and sit reading nearly the whole time he stayed with us. I believe he was right. For those students who are born with powers that will make them eminent it is sufficient to place fine works of art before them. They do not want instruction, and those that do are not worth it. Art may be learnt but can’t be taught. Under Fuseli’s wise neglect, Wilkie, Mulready, Etty, Landseer and Haydon, distinguished them- selves, and were the better for not being made all alike by rae if indeed that could have been done. 82 ORCHARDSON ON TEACHING [1805] Fuseli’s ideas of art teaching were shared by another master of high reputation, Robert Scott Lauder, who in later years, at Edinburgh, numbered among his pupils at the Trustees’ Aca- demy, Orchardson, Pettie, Peter and Thomas Graham, Mac- Whirter, Chalmers, and MacTaggart. All these made good, and much of their success has been attributed to Lauder’s training, but I know from Orchardson—the most distinguished of them all—that the master of the Trustees’ Academy believed in the “wise neglect” of Fuseli, and gave little instruction. Many years ago I was accustomed, as the representative of the Art and Artists (art news) columns of the Morning Post, to visit the studios of the more important London painters to see and de- scribe their work. When at Orchardson’s on one of these occasions, he spoke of his student days and I asked him if Lauder’s great reputation as a master was well-founded. Orchardson laughed, and said he was a good master because he never tried to teach them anything. He remembered well when Lauder came from London and paid his first visit to the life class to see the drawings. ‘Lauder looked at my work and said ‘Ye-es, Ye-es’, and then went on to talk about ane weather. And that was almost all of it. He just left us alone.’ According to Haydon, Fuseli inspired his pupils and sym- pathized with them, and, although not concerning himself much about teaching, never failed to help them when in difficulties. Of his kindness in this respect a curious instance is given by Miss Patrickson, who was well acquainted with Fuseli in the early years of the nineteenth century. She says that a deaf and dumb youth named Keir obtained permission to enter the Academy as a student, and in due course put in an appearance in the Antique School. The room was crowded, he could not find a vacant stool, and of course could not ask for one. Some of the students were brutal enough to find amusement in his awk- ward position, until Fuseli coming in and noticing a stranger, asked him his business. Poor Keir could only blush and bow, and the Keeper had to learn from the other students of the newcomer’s infirmity and that he was looking for a stool. 83 6-2 [7805 | ART IN ENGLAND “Looking for a stool!” said Fuseli indignantly, “then why have’nt you found him one?” He motioned to Keir to remain where he was, and hurrying to his own painting-room brought out a stool, put it in a good place and helped Keir to arrange his drawing-board and other properties. Miss Patrickson is probably the only artist of her sex who worked in the Academy schools, though not among the Academy students, while the classes were conducted at Somerset House. How this was managed she explained in some recollections of Fuseli she sent to Allan Cunningham when he was writing his sketch of that artist’s life. Cunningham was unable to use her notes, which were published after her death, in The Builder. Miss Patrickson was the pupil in her teens of John Young the engraver and the elder Hayter. At twenty she made the ac- quaintance of Mrs Fuseli, who invited her to Somerset House where she was introduced to the Keeper and showed him some of her work. Fuseli lent her a book with anatomical plates, of which she was to take the greatest care, as he believed it to be _ the only copy in England. “If you lose it or injure it,” he said, ‘“never venture to come near me again, for I will hang you with my own hands.” The threat was characteristically ferocious, but he was a good friend to the young artist and allowed her to work in the Council Room of the Academy, which adjoined his own apartments; and, during the vacations, permitted her to draw from the casts in the Antique School, where no woman had ever drawn be- fore. This, a great concession, was obtained through Mrs Fuseli, whose influence over her husband was considerable. “You want to draw in the Antique School?” said the Keeper. “‘Yes.”’ “Very well, you shall, but you’ll find it very cold, for I have no right to ask the porter to light a fire in the absence of the students.” The porter mentioned was Sam Strowger, in whom Miss Patrickson was to find a critic of her drawing, and a friend who was less scrupulous than the Keeper about burning the Academy coals. She began to work in the Christmas vacation, in a hard frost, and her hands were so cold 84 SAM STROWGER [1805] that until she had stitched a piece of velvet round her porte- crayon she could not hold it. She says: Mr Fuseli paid me two or three visits every day to inspect my progress, and invited me to warm myself at his fire. But Sam soon made the latter unnecessary; he seemed to feel a great pride in my devotion to the fine arts, regularly made me a good fire, and inspected my studies himself. He liked to come when Mr Fuseli was away, to give me his opinion, which I was quite ready to hear. For Sam rarely said, ““Now Miss, if you’ll just imagine a straight line dropped from such a place, I think youll find the right foot too backward”’, that I did not find that he was right. One day he had been giving me advice in the Council Room, when, as he went out, he cast his eye upon the Hercules, and said: ‘“‘Mr Fuseli have’nt altered that leg yet, I see, as I told him yesterday was wrong”’. His reference was not to the cast of Hercules but to a picture upon which Fuseli was then engaged, Hercules assailing Pluto, for which Sam had been sitting. Miss Patrickson continues: I liked Sam excessively, he was so identified with the Academy by himself and everyone else, and there was so much composure in his self-complacency that I admired him greatly. He liked my admiration of Mr Fuseli and was fond of increasing it. He was goodnaturedly anxious that I should become a regular student in the antique, and I daresay if he had been satisfied with my progress would have thought me worthy of being admitted to the life- class. “‘ Lord, Miss!” he would say, ‘‘you’ll never improve, drawing this way by yourself. You’ve no idea what a difference you would find if you were here with the young gentlemen, and if you asked Mr Fuseli he’d give you leave directly, I’m sure he would.”’ This, however, was impossible at the time, as Miss Patrickson was aware. Her friend the Keeper would have been powerless in the matter, and more than half a century was to elapse before the barrier that kept women out of the Academy schools was broken down by Miss Laura Herford, the aunt of Mrs Allingham. Samuel Strowger, who dared to suggest that Miss Patrickson should work at the Academy with the young men, was probably the most popular, and is certainly the best remembered, of all the porters of that institution. A Suffolk ploughman, he enlisted when young and served for some time in the Life Guards. He sat as a model in the Academy schools while in the army, and 85 [7605] ART IN ENGLAND made so many friends at Somerset House that when in 1802 the post of porter fell vacant it was offered to and accepted by him, Through Earl Cathcart the Academicians obtained his release from the army, and he served them for many years as a porter and as an occasional model in the life school, Strowger came from the same part of Suffolk as Constable, and was on the best — of terms with that painter, whom he endeavoured to help in the earlier part of his career. Pictures sent to the Academy by Constable at that time were not always accepted, and Strowger, who as porter waited on the Hanging Committee, lost no opportunity of interceding, as far as he dared, for the landscapes of his fellow-countryman. Wilkie in his younger days was also a friend of Strowger, and he men- tions in his diary that he once took tea with the porter and his family and was much impressed by his surroundings. He figures in Wilkie’s Rent Day, as the farmer seated at the table with his finger raised. There is a tradition that Strowger quarrelled with the Academy students, and that, as their representative, Mul- ready—famous as a boxer—proposed to fight him. But the only direct evidence we have on this point suggests that he was on excellent terms with the students, who in 1821 presented to Strowger, as a mark of their esteem, “an elegant large silver snuffbox, richly gilt inside”’, | Thomas Banks, the sculptor, who had been a candidate in 1804 for the Keepership now held by Fuseli, died on February end, 1805, after a long illness. He had no ill-feeling towards Fuseli, whom he esteemed, and of whose appointment he ex- pressed approbation only a few days before his death. His anger was reserved for Robert Smirke, whom the King had declined to accept as Keeper, after he had defeated Banks and others in the election; and for Joseph Farington, Smirke’s principal sup- porter, What Banks thought of the election and its results is shown in the following passage from a letter written by him soon after the event: With respect to my success in my canvas for the Keepership of the Royal 86 BANKS AND THE KEEPERSHIP [r805 | Academy, it is just as much as I expected; my antagonist Mr Smirke with his friend Mr Farington having been laying out for it at least these two years by every means that secret influences and intrigue could employ among the members of the Royal Academy, so that I could hardly think of succeeding against such powerful rivals. Apart from the intrigues of Smirke and Farington, Banks thought that he had been betrayed by some of his supposed friends among the members. His daughter, Mrs Forster (Sir Edward Poynter’s grandmother), wrote on his behalf to certain of the Academicians before the election and eight of them pro- mised him their votes, but he had only two supporters in the ballot. , Why Banks desired the Keepership is not clear. Some of his correspondence suggests that he wanted the post as a refuge in his old age, when the apartments at Somerset House and the modest salary would have been important to him. But he was not poor. Mrs Forster, after saying that her father gave away a good deal in charity, and hinting that he was imposed upon by people who claimed to share his religious views, says: “‘ Yet notwithstanding his liberal expenditure, both in their service and in collecting works of art, he left a handsome provision for his widow’’. The works of art mentioned were principally drawings by Old Masters, many of which descended by inheritance to Sir Edward Poynter and were sold by him at Sotheby’s in 1917, when some of them realized high prices. The sale of the remaining works of Banks, held in May, 1805, was disappointing to his widow, and in the opinion of Mrs Forster was entirely mismanaged. She writes on May goth: “Christie conducted the whole business shamefully, and crowded so many things together, to make it only one day’s sale, that they were almost given away. My father’s best works, too, were left to the end of it, when no one remained to bid, and the mere nothing they sold for has distressed my mother extremely”’. Banks was the first student in sculpture to win the Royal Academy gold medal and travelling scholarship. Of his works the most ambitious, perhaps, is the large Achilles mourning the 87 [1805] ART IN ENGLAND death of Briseis, a cast of which stood for more than thirty years in the entrance hall of the Royal Academy. Better known, however, is the touching monument in the church at Ashbourne, Derbyshire, to little Penelope Boothby, the only and adored child of her parents, who, to quote the inscription, *‘ventured their all in this frail bark, and the wreck was total”. Queen Charlotte, who had lost little children of her own, wept over Penelope Boothby’s monument when she saw it at the Academy exhibition of 1793. Chantrey admired it so much that he bor- rowed the drawings and designs for it from Mrs Banks before commencing his well-known memorial to two children, now in Lichfield cathedral. , Farington, who had helped to arrange the pictures in 1804, was again upon the Hanging Committee in 1805, together with Stothard, Thomson and the Keeper and Secretary. Farington took the place of Lawrence who had asked to be excused from serving. More works were sent in for exhibition than in any previous year, and those rejected numbered fifteen hundred. West, to relieve the pressure, withdrew three of his own pictures, and said that other painters of reputation ought to follow his example in order to give opportunities to the younger men. However, no other Academician appears to have been as un- selfish as West, and although Turner abstained from exhibiting it was not because he wished to make room for other painters. “Turner,” says one of the critics reproachfully, “although a Royal Academician, has not thought proper to exhibit this year, but is preparing an exhibition of his own.” His preparation for an exhibition at his private gallery no doubt prevented the com- pletion in time of a large picture of the Deluge, intended for the Academy of 1805, upon which he was at work in the summer of 1804. In the absence of Turner it is noted that “a young artist named Callcott has come very forward as a landscape painter”, and Callcott was destined to figure for many years as a rival to Turner, and not infrequently to be pitted against him by the critics. His picture The Water Mill (22) attracted more notice than any other landscape in this exhibition. Of 88 OPIE’S PORTRAIT OF FOX [7805] Lawrence the newspapers say little in 1805, but Hoppner’s Portrait of Master Smith (78), and A Sleeping Boy (14) by Owen, were highly praised, and the latter was compared with Sir Joshua. Opie’s full-length of Fox (82), begun in the summer of the previous year and finished in October, was assigned one of the central positions in the Great Room of the Academy. The Monthly Magazine says of Opie in connection with this portrait: This gentleman has been properly denominated the English Rembrandt. His pictures are in an eminent degree forcible and his portraits striking. That of Mr Fox it is not easy for anyone to paint without giving a likeness that will be known. Mr Opie’s has an extremely close resemblance to the original, but it is not a pleasing resemblance. The face is not lighted up with that good humoured hilarity for which he is so remarkable among his friends, but seems to have been taken in the House of Commons, when he was making a reply to an acrimonious attack upon himself. But the most popular portrait shown by Opie this year was not his full-length of the statesman. It was a portrait of the boy-actor, Master Betty (6), now the idol of theatre-going London, who as Young Norval, in Home’s tragedy, Douglas, moved the great Pitt to tears. In this character Opie painted his portrait, which was a commission from one of Master Betty’s most devoted admirers, Mr Parker. The agreed price was 100 guineas, of which half was paid in advance, and Opie, when he had finished the portrait, sent it to the Academy. This was not to the taste of Mr Parker, who thought that its exhibition would injure the sale of a proposed engraving. Opie refused to with- draw his portrait, and Mr Parker appealed to the Academicians, who declined to interfere. The artist returned the 50 guineas paid in advance, and then, claiming the portrait as his own, defied Mr Parker, who warned Opie not to exhibit it at his peril. | | There seemed every prospect of an action at law, but it blew over, and the portrait was hung almost side by side with a rival full-length of Master Betty by Northcote (26), the presence 89 [1805] ART IN ENGLAND of which led to another and more serious dispute. Northcote’s portrait, in which the boy-actor figured as Hamlet, had no right to a place in the exhibition, It was not sent in until a week after the receiving day for the members’ pictures, and as the custom was now rigorously to refuse indulgence to those behindhand with their work, its reception was regarded as a scandal and a job. On June 6th, Shee, at a General Assembly called for the pur- pose, proposed a vote of censure on Farington and such of his fellow-hangers as were concerned, and they were reproved in terms that had never before been applied to any Academician. Shee, in opening the proceedings, pointed out that the peace, harmony and prosperity of the Royal Academy essentially de- pended on the just and impartial administration of its laws, and the faithful and conscientious discharge of the duties prescribed to its officers and servants. He then moved and Opie seconded the following resolutions: (1) That the infringement of positive laws or regulations by those whose office it is specially to execute them, is a gross and scandalous breach of trust and duty, and that it must ever be considered a strong aggravation of such ~ an offence when it appears neither to proceed from any desire, nor to be justified by any pretext, of general advantage and accommodation, but from a partial intention of favouring an individual, and particularly when such violation of law is committed by those who have been anxiously forward to reprobate what they conceived a similar misconduct in others. Agreed, by 14 votes to 8. (2) That it is the opinion of this meeting that the admission to the present exhibition of the picture called The Young Roscius by J. Northcote six days after the time appointed for the reception of such works had expired, is a gross and partial violation of the interests of the institution; a violation the more extraordinary and reprehensible as committed by those who had been instrumental in procuring a general meeting of the Academy on a former occasion to condemn what they conceived to be an intention to commit a similar act, and who had refused to a member of the Council a request to be indulged with time advanced on the best possible plea—indisposition, Agreed, by 17 votes to 6. gO FARINGTON CENSURED [1805 | (3) That to prevent the occurrence of such acts in future it is incumbent on the general body of Academicians to declare that they will take every means warranted by the institution to punish those who shall be found to violate its laws and regulations, or who shall presume to act without regular and official authority: and further, that they will, according to the general regula- tion (p. 20 of the abstract) proceed to reprimand, suspend, and if necessary expel (subject to his Majesty’s pleasure) any member who shall by such misconduct become obnoxious to the Society. Agreed. 19 votes for, none against. There can be no doubt that these resolutions were aimed principally, if not entirely, at Farington, who was the senior member of the Hanging Committee, Proof of this may be found in Farington’s own account of the affair in his Diary, and in a contemporary note in the Morning Post. On June 17th that journal cited the proceedings at the General Assembly as a proof of the growing desire for the reform of abuses, and, after praising Shee’s speech, said that the Academicians had resolved “that Mr Farington, by his conduct as a member of the Committee to which the choice and place of the pictures sent to Somerset House was entrusted, had been guilty of a gross violation of the laws of the Academy”. The wiser of Farington’s friends advised him not to attempt to answer the Morning Post, and to this he agreed. He said, to use his own words, that he “‘would leave to time to do away with the effects of any calumny”’. But there was no calumny, the charge was true. Farington called on Northcote the day after the General Assembly, and tells us that his fellow-intriguer ‘‘expressed himself to be well pleased with what passed last night—said I acted quite like a gentleman”’. The reference in the Academy resolutions to a member who had been refused time although he pleaded illness touched Farington nearly, as Shee meant it should. Hoppner was the member. His application for time, pleading indisposition, was made in the year under review, and Farington himself composed the letter sent to him in reply, stating—to use Farington’s own words—that the Council could not break through its rules. Yet QI [7805] ART IN ENGLAND a fortnight later the writer of the letter admitted the portrait by Northcote, sent in six days late and without the excuse of illness. Except during the brief existence of the British School in 1802-3, the gallery of the Royal Academy had been the only public place in which painters could show their work since the collapse of the Incorporated Society in 1791. Now, in 1805, the field of exhibition was enlarged by the establishment of the newly founded Society of Painters in Water Colours in the gallery in Lower Brook Street formerly owned by Vandergucht. The Society opened its first exhibition on April 22nd; its pic- tures, more than two hundred in number, attracted crowds, and the sales were excellent. The new exhibition was well noticed in the newspapers, particularly by the Morning Post, whose re- views were longer and more favourable than those on the Royal Academy. All this was gratifying to the watercolour painters, as they duly acknowledged in the following advertisement, published on May gist: The Society of Painters in Water Colours take this opportunity of announcing that their exhibition in Lower Brook Street will close on Saturday next, June 8th. The favourable reception which this institution has experienced from the public, and the very liberal encouragement which the members have been honoured with by persons celebrated for their taste in the Fine Arts, have determined them to make an annual exhibition of Paintings in Water Colours. Robt. Hills, Secretary. Another Society which held its first exhibition in 1805 was composed of the artists of Norwich and its neighbourhood. Its President was that remarkable painter of landscape, John Crome. But neither the Norwich Society nor the Society of Painters in Water Colours needs more than an occasional mention in these pages, for each has a considerable literature off its own to which there is not much to add. Of the remaining exhibitions of the year the most. popular was composed of Morland’s pictures. It was held in Fleet Street, in the room once known as Macklin’s ‘‘ Poets’ Gallery”. The fashion for Morland, which had drooped after 1800, revived after Q2 FRANCIS TOWNE OF EXETER [1805 | his death, and half the auctioneers in London were including in their sales alleged examples of his work. The Morland Gallery, as the Fleet Street exhibition was called, contained ninety-five pictures by the artist, “‘the property ofa private gentleman, who, at the solicitation of his friends, has allowed them to be sub- mitted to the public for a time’’. Morland’s patron, whoever he was, had fitted up the gallery at great expense and placed the pictures in frames “‘superb and of prodigious depth”’, which almost overwhelmed them. The Morlands praised by the critics included Inside a Stable (not the National Gallery version), Travellers Benighted, a candle-light scene, and a portrait, The Superintendent of a Brick Kiln, which was said to have been painted in twenty minutes. Francis Towne, the Exeter landscape painter, held an exhibi- tion early in the spring at the gallery in Lower Brook Street afterwards used by the Society of Painters in Water Colours. His work was described in the catalogue as “‘A Series of original Drawings of the most picturesque scenes in the neighbourhood of Rome, Naples, and other parts of Italy, Switzerland, etc. Together with a select number of views of the Lakes, Cumber- land, Westmoreland and North Wales. ‘The whole drawn on the spot by Francis Towne, Landscape Painter’’. The collection of Ig1 drawings also included two studies made in London, From Millbank, and Hyde Park, study of a tree on the ground. ‘Towne, an artist on whose career Mr A. P. Oppé has thrown much light in recent years, appears to have been ambitious of Academic rank. He was a candidate for Associateship in 1776, 1797, 1798 and 1803, but obtained no support except in the last two years, in each of which he received one vote. At the Lyceum (the former gallery of the Incorporated Society of Artists) Robert Ker Porter showed his gigantic picture of the Battle of Agincourt, which covered more than 2800 feet of canvas. It was much liked by the crowd, to which its size ap- pealed as much as its subject, but it was the last work in England of this marvellously facile painter, for Ker Porter sailed in the Almeria in August to begin in Russia that romantic 93 [1805] ART IN ENGLAND career which brought him many honours and a princess for a bride. Among the sales this year, that of Mr Robert Heathcote’s house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, should be noticed, partly on account of its purchaser. Robert Heathcote, brother of Sir Gilbert Heathcote, and a friend of the Prince of Wales, was a wealthy man of taste who had lived beyond his means, and was now obliged to dispose of his house, in the improvement of which he had spent about £16,000. It was sold in March by Phillips, with most of its contents, except plate, jewels, china and pictures, in one lot for 12,000 guineas. Its new owner was Sir John Leicester, in whose hands the house became, and for many years remained, an artistic centre. The pictures and rare china were sold by Phillips later in the season, and, according to the newspaper reports, at a great loss. For example, two pictures by Wouwerman were bought by Lord Breadalbane for 585 guineas. They had cost 1100 guineas. The Flemish Féte by Teniers, for which Heathcote had paid 1000 guineas, was knocked down at the sale for 215 guineas. One of the lots, a Sévres dessert service, was bought by the Prince of Wales for 300 guineas. Heathcote died in 1823, when a fresh collection he had formed was dispersed by Robins. The Prince, now George IV, heard of the sale and had some of the rarest objects sent to Carlton House for him to see. “His Majesty,” it is said, “‘expressed himself in such favourable terms of the good taste that prevailed in the selection, as might have been expected from his previous intimate acquaintance with Mr Heathcote.” Only one Associate of the Royal Academy was elected in 1805, Richard Westmacott, the sculptor, afterwards responsible for the erection in Hyde Park of the large figure of Achilles. Westmacott defeated Porden the architect by eighteen votes to six. This — election took place in the first week in November, and the 28th of the same month witnessed the admission to the Academy schools of two students who were afterwards to gain distinction, David Wilkie and John Linnell. Four days later West resigned the Presidentship. To the public 94. WYATT ELECTED PRESIDENT [1805 | this step came as a surprise, for to the outer world little was known of the long-continued dissensions in the Academy. West had many friends among the Forty and probably would have been elected had he chosen to stand again. But the terms of his letter of resignation left the members no option and on December 7th his post was declared vacant. In the letter, a copy of which is preserved in the minutes, West said that ‘‘the occurrence which took place on the 10th of December, 1804, and subsequent circumstances, have determined me to withdraw from the situation of President of the Royal Academy’’. The occurrence and sub- sequent circumstances are those described by West in his letter to Trumbull, quoted in chapter v. At the election of a new President, on December toth, 1805, James Wyatt the architect was the only candidate, and was duly appointed. Paul Sandby, one of the oldest members, presided at the election, at which only twenty-one members thought fit to be present. Farington says in his Diary that only seventeen attended, but this is a mistake. The signatures of twenty-one ‘present at election” are ‘in the minute book: Fuseli, Yenn, Richards, De Loutherbourg, Copley, CGosway, Tresham, Opie, Garvey, Soane, Rigaud, Northcote, ‘Turner, Humphry, Hoppner, Wyatt, Shee, Beechey, Sandby, Mrs Lloyd (Mary Moser) and Bourgeois. Farington’s inaccuracy is unimportant, but it will be as well to correct here Sir Frederick Eaton’s erroneous statements about Wyatt’s election made in The Royal Academy and its Members. Sir Frederick says of Wyatt (p. 139) that he was elected President in 1805, and filled the office for a few months after West had resigned owing to a temporary disagreement with the members. To this he adds: “His election never received the approval of the King, and he cannot be considered as having any claim to be enrolled on the list of Presidents of the Royal Academy”’. Therefore Sir Frederick has omitted Wyatt’s name from the list of Presidents given in his book on p. 364, and his omission has led astray later chroniclers who naturally accepted the Academy’s _ Secretary as a competent authority. 95 [1805] ART IN ENGLAND Wyatt’s election was as good in every respect as that of any other President. He served not for a few months but for a com- plete year and the legality of his election was not questioned at the time. Nor has it been questioned since except by Sir Frederick, who omits Wyatt’s name from his list solely on the ground that his election was not formally approved by George IIT. Presidents of the Royal Academy may, and usually do, serve for long periods, but they are always formally re-elected each year on December 1oth, when the Council and officers for the twelve months ensuing are also appointed. A list of their names, inscribed on a large sheet of paper, is submitted for approval to the reigning monarch, and when it has been signed is inserted in what is known at the Academy as “the Royal Book”. The signature of the monarch on this sheet is the formal approval mentioned by Sir Frederick, and if he had looked in the Royal Book he would have found the signature on the sheet for Wyatt’s year. The entries on it begin with the following address: To the King’s most excellent Majesty. May it please your Majesty. The following is a list of the Annual Officers of the Royal Academy elected in the General Assembly of the Academicians held the roth of December, 1805, for the year 1806, which is most humbly presented for your Majesty’s approbation. James Wyatt, President. The names of the Council, Visitors in the schools, and Auditors follow this preamble; and the King has expressed his approval of the list by signing ““George R.” in the right-hand bottom corner. Except that the names are different, the sheet in Wyatt’s year is identical with those that precede and follow it. Although the close of the year 1805 found the Academy divided against itself by faction and intrigue, the following charming and sympathetic note, written by Shee to Hoppner, shows what friendly intimacy could still subsist between in- dividual members. Both the painters had literary as well as artistic tastes, and Shee, who had received from Hoppner his Oriental Tales, sent with the letter a copy of his Rhymes on Art. 96 SHEE AND HOPPNER [ 1805 | Cavendish Square. My dear Hoppner December 7th, 1805. In return for your elegant work let me entreat your acceptance of this little book as a testimony of cordial esteem and friendship. While the two books remain they will prove that in a time of much pro- fessional jealousy there were two painters at least who could contest without enmity and associate without suspicion. That this cordiality may long subsist between us is the sincere desire of, Dear Hoppner, yours faithfully, Martin Archer Shee. Although the two Academicians were rival portrait painters, the cordiality mentioned in Shee’s letter remained unbroken to the day of Hoppner’s death. No doubt their friendship was in some degree responsible for Shee’s relentless prosecution of the charge of breach of trust brought by him against Farington in connection with the exhibition of Northcote’s portrait of Master Betty and the exclusion of a picture by Hoppner. When Hoppner died, Shee wrote an interesting sketch of his character. WA i CHAPTER VII 1806 - Nexson’s recent death at Trafalgar and the preparations for _ his funeral absorbed the interests of Londoners at the beginning of 1806. On January 8th the body of the great admiral, brought home in the Victory, was conveyed up the river from Greenwich and taken to Whitehall, from whence on the following day it was carried in majestic procession to St Paul’s Cathedral. Nelson’s death was regarded as a national calamity, and the Royal Academicians and their friends, who watched the procession passing from the windows of Somerset House, looked down into the Strand upon a vast crowd of reverent mourners completely silent, except for a low murmur of “‘hats off’? when the funeral car drew near. The Academicians had met in conclave a few days before the funeral to consider designs for a national memorial to the hero, and many sketches were already in progress for monuments, statues or pictures. Benjamin West, free for a time from presi- dential cares, was fulfilling his promise, made two years before to Nelson, that he would paint a picture of his death scene that should be a companion work to the well-known Death of Wolfe. Other painters of less present importance were at work on pictures of the same subject to submit in competition for a prize of £500 offered by Boydell. The successful work, after an engraving had been made from it, was to be presented to the Admiralty or some other public body. Among the multitude of other memorials two should be men- tioned, of a kind that would be unthinkable to-day except in connection with Madame Tussaud. One of them was already - to be seen at the Abbey. “‘ The wax figure in Westminster Abbey,” 98 WAX EFFIGIES OF NELSON [1806 | Says a writer in one of the newspapers, ‘‘is a very striking re- semblance to Lord Nelson, in full uniform and decorated with all his orders, modelled from a smaller one for which his Lord- ship sat. It has been seen by an illustrious personage and several of the nobility and gentry, and is considered by them to be a strong and exact representation of our departed hero.” That Lady Hamilton thought well of the resemblance is shown by a story told in Benson Earle Hill’s Recollections of an Artillery Officer. Hill knew Lady Hamilton in 1806, when she was living with her daughter Horatia in a small house in Piccadilly. Horatia wanted to see Westminster Abbey, and Hill escorted her there with her mother. They were conducted round the building by a guide, who, after showing them the principal objects of interest, asked them if they would care to see, before they left, a wax figure of Nelson which had just been placed in its glass case. Lady Hamilton, though much agitated on hearing this, said she would like to see it, and was conducted to the chapel in which the figure had been placed. Seeing it, she could not restrain her tears, for the likeness appeared to be exact, except that one of Nelson’s locks was not placed as he wore it. Might it be altered? The guide said the figure must not be touched, but on hearing who the lady was, unfastened the case and allowed her to arrange the hair according to her recollection. It was not remarkable at this time that a wax effigy of a distinguished man should be placed in the Abbey after his death, because it was regarded as a public tribute to his merit. But the second figure, mentioned above and exhibited in Pall Mall, was a private commission from the Nelson family, who had provided one of the admiral’s own uniforms in which it was dressed. Both the figures were modelled by Catherine Andras, a well-known artist in wax of the time, and a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy. James Barry, who had undertaken to paint a full-length figure of Nelson for the Society of Arts, perhaps meant to add it to the groups of famous personages he has depicted on the walls of the Society’s great room. But his plan, whatever it may have 99 (is [ 1606 | ART IN ENGLAND been, was cut short by his death on February 22nd, at the house of Bonomi the architect, to which he had been carried by a friend when he was taken ill at an eating-house two or three weeks earlier. He was taken to Bonomi’s because his friend found it impossible to obtain access to the house in Castle Street, Oxford Street, in which he lived alone. Barry, whose tempestuous life was never free from quarrels, was on the worst of terms with the rougher inhabitants of his locality, and on the night he was taken ill his house could not be entered because the keyhole of the front door had been filled with stones. The quarrels with his neighbours were of long standing, and the blocking of the keyhole was a small indignity in comparison with others he had suffered at their hands. More than a year before his death the Morning Chronicle announced that his house had been attacked several times recently. ‘‘ His door has been battered, his windows smashed, and the whole of the front of the house covered with filth. The house is rendered in a great measure uninhabitable— not a pane of glass is to be seen unbroken.” Some interesting comments on these outrages and their causes, and on the painter himself, were made a few years afterwards by an anonymous contributor to the New Monthly Magazine. The writer, who had known Barry well, although only towards the end of his career, lived in Berners Street, not far from him, and was acquainted with his house before he knew its owner. The house, he says, was notorious in the neighbourhood, and he de- scribes its appearance when he first saw it: The house seemed to be uninhabited. The glass of the lower windows was broken, the shutters closed, and the door and walls strewed with mud. Upon the first occasion of my particularly noticing the house, a group of boys and idlers had collected outside, where they were shouting, whispering, pointing to the upper windows, and going through the ordinary routine of looks and gestures and muttered execrations that precede a general assault upon an obnoxious tenant. They were in the act of commencing hostile demonstrations when they were dispersed by the parish officers. I enquired the cause of these manifestations of popular anger and was informed that the house—to the terror and scandal ofthe neighbourhood—was occupied by an old wizard or necromancer, for this point was unsettled. But what- 100 JAMES BARRY AT HOME [1806 | ever he was he lived there in solitude in order that he might devote himself unobserved to some unholy mysteries. A short time afterwards two friends from Ireland called on the writer of the article and invited him to accompany them to the house of their compatriot, Barry the painter. He agreed, and on going out they went through Oxford Market and pro- ceeded down Castle Street: My friends made a full stop at the house of the old magician. It was Barry’s! A loud knock was given, and was for some minutes unanswered....The area was bestrewn with skeletons of cats and dogs, marrow bones, waste paper, fragments of boy’s hoops and other playthings, and with the many kind of missiles which the pious brats of the neighbourhood had hurled against the unhallowed premises. A dead cat lay upon the projecting stone of the parlour window, immediately under a sort of appeal to the public, setting forth that a dark conspiracy existed for the purpose of molesting the writer of the placard, and concluding with the offer of a reward. The rest of the frame- work of the window was covered with some of his etchings, turned upside down, of his paintings at the Adelphi. A second and louder knock was given. It was answered by almost as loud a growl from the second floor window. We looked up and beheld a head thrust out, surmounted by a hunting cap, whilst a voice, intensely Irish, in some hasty phrases made up of cursing and questioning, demanded our names and business. Before my companions had time to answer they were recognised. In went the head, in a few seconds the door was opened and I was introduced to the celebrated Barry. The hunting cap was still on, but at a nearer view I perceived that the velvet covering had been removed and nothing but the base and ugly skeleton remained. He wore a loose, threadbare, claret-coloured coat that reached to his heels, black waistcoat and breeches, coarse, unpolished shoes with thongs. No neckcloth, but he seemed to have a taste for fine linen, for his shirt was not only clean but genteel in point of texture. His friends smiled at his attire. It was, he said, his ordinary working dress, except the cap, which he had lately adopted to shade his eyes when he engraved at night. | Barry’s appearance gave to this observer an impression of ex- treme negligence without personal uncleanliness. Nevertheless, the house was as dirty inside as out, and the state of the painter’s sleeping apartment too bad to be described. He showed his visitors all over the house, and opened the door of a back room IOI [1806] ART IN ENGLAND full of engravings, sketches and casts covered with dust, which here and there he removed with a vigorous slap of the tail of his coat. When talking of his engravings, he said that the last maid- servant he employed purloined them; he dismissed her in con- sequence and had always lived alone since. The last room shown was his workshop on the ground floor which contained among other paintings the Venus rising from the Sea, the fupiter and Funo, and the Pandora—the last the picture that occupied its author’s mind for years, and is still in existence at Manchester, although in a sad condition. After this visit to Barry, the writer of the article met him frequently at the residence of a wealthy and hospitable Roman Catholic lady of Irish birth, who lived not far off in Portland Street, where her house was a refuge for many of her suffering countrymen. It was a refuge indeed for Barry, in which in the evening, “the poor buffetted artist was glad to linger and to postpone his return to his homeless tenement until an hour when none of his tormenting neighbours in Castle Street could be in the way to impede his entrance’’. In the house of the Irish lady resided a learned priest, the Abbé M’Carthy, a sympathizer with the politics of Barry, who is said by the writer from whom I quote to have been a sturdy republican. “‘ When he alluded to the Irish events of 1798 it was always as “The late civil war which they call a rebellion’.”” In these evenings in Portland Street the painter and the priest loved to converse and to discuss affairs, and Barry would recall the great men he had known, Sir Joshua, and Johnson and Burke. Of Burke, to whom he is said to have been ungrateful, he always spoke with pious tenderness and respect. It appears that Barry, not long before his last illness, had made up his mind to leave Castle Street and remove to a house “‘sufficiently spacious for the execution of a series of epic paintings that he had long been meditating”’’, and to give the female sex another trial by engaging a maid-servant. The writer who gives us all this information was a young man when he made the acquaintance of Barry. He seems to have liked him in spite of his oddities and sometimes dangerous temper, for he I02 THE ILL LUCK OF BONOMI [1806 | says that he called nearly every day at Bonomi’s to enquire about the painter’s health. Bonomi’s conduct in this matter cannot be too highly com- mended, and, if virtue is rewarded, should have brought him good fortune at the Royal Academy election held on February 10th, two days after he had received Barry into his house. The Italian architect had been elected an Associate many years before, by the casting vote of Sir Joshua, and at this election it seemed likely that he would at last attain promotion to full membership. He had been near success several times, and in previous years had been second in the final ballot to Shee, Flaxman, Turner, Soane and Rossi. Now his chances were excellent of filling the seat made vacant by the death of Banks, and when in the first ballot he led by fifteen votes to eleven victory appeared to be within his grasp. But in the last ballot, in which his only competitor was William Owen, the painter triumphed by sixteen votes to fourteen. Bonomi, who died in 1808, never again figured prominently in an Academy election. On the same evening, after Owen’s success, the Academy pro- ceeded to the election of an Associate Engraver, when John Landseer defeated Anthony Cardon by twenty-one votes to four. John Landseer was the father of Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., Charles Landseer, R.A., and Thomas Landseer, A.R.A. | Farington’s two years’ term of service on the Council ter- minated with the end of 1805, and in 1806 there were no discreditable scandals in connection with the hanging of the pictures. This was entrusted to Westall, Cosway, Rigaud and Garvey. There were, however, protests in the newspapers against allowing certain members of the Academy to work upon their pictures after they were hung, while no privileges of any kind were allowed to outsiders. Of this practice the Morning Chronicle Says: The matter is of very little consequence to the public, but we wish the Academicians would put an end to the indecent practice of suffering the Council for the year to turn the Academy into a painting room, where they, and they only, may come and give the finishing touches to their pictures 103 [ 1806] ART IN ENGLAND after they are hung up. It is injurious to the Academy, for it disposes them to send their pictures in a slovenly, unfinished state; and what is worse it induces them to adapt the colouring to the style of the pictures which may be placed in their vicinity and gives them thereby an evident advantage over their competitors. When the exhibition opened, Hoppner’s Sleeping Nymph (221} was much admired and was bought by Sir John Leicester for £300 to hang in his new gallery. But the same painter’s fine portrait of Pitt (108), although commended for excellence of resemblance, attracted less attention than might have been expected considering the rank of the statesman and his recent death. One of the most popular works was Lawrence’s painting of Mrs Maguire and her son, A Family Group (91), a work, said the Sun, which “‘the singular delicacy of a certain nobleman (Lord Abercorn) would not suffer to grace the ex- hibition of last year”, The picture was circular, but set into a square frame, and there were some who thought that Lawrence had not improved its appearance by painting the spandrels stone-colour instead of having them gilt. It was said that Lawrence’s intention was to make his oil picture look like a mounted drawing. Turner’s Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (182), passed over in silence by some of the critics, was praised en- thusiastically by others; and Cosway was bantered because in his Portrait of Lady Caroline Spencer as an Angel (235) he had repre- sented her as playing a triangle. ‘“‘Mr Cosway,” said the Morning Post, ‘“doubtless knows more of angels than we can pretend to do, but we own this appears to us to be an instrument unworthy of an immortal’s touch.’ This year the work of the youthful Mulready was noticed by a critic, perhaps for the first time. His Cottage Woman hanging clothes out (88) is described as ‘“‘a brilliant little picture which kills every subject in its vicinity”’. West sent nothing to the Academy of 1806, but showed his large, and just completed, picture of the death of Nelson, at his own house, gratuitously. It drew thousands of people to Newman Street, every day except on May 15th, when by the Queen’s command it was sent to Buckingham Palace for her inspection. 104. BLAKE DEFENDS FUSELI [1806 | The exhibition at the Academy of Fuseli’s picture of Count Ugolino starving in prison was followed by an amusing attack on an art critic by William Blake. The critic was the representa- tive of Bell’s Weekly Messenger, a writer who had a very good opinion of himself and spoke scornfully of the ‘‘flippant and unmeaning remarks”’ that passed for criticism in other journals. In reviewing the Academy he failed to see in Fuseli’s Ugolino (19) anything that suggested a father who had lost a favourite child, and found fault with the black tone of the picture and the drawing of the dead boy. But his criticism was moderate enough, and he admitted that the painter had an originality of thought which gave a marked character to his pictures. Nevertheless, he was attacked vehemently by Blake, who admired Fuseli pro- digiously and declared that the child was beautifully drawn and that the general effect of his picture was sublime. “‘Such an artist as Fuseli is invulnerable,” said Blake, in a letter to the Monthly Magazine, ‘“‘and needs not my defence, but I should be ashamed not to set my hand and shoulders and whole strength against those wretches who, under pretence of criticism, use the dagger and the poison.” The Academy of 1806 was respectable but rather dull, and devoid of all sensation except in connection with the work of a very young artist, David Wilkie, who had been admitted to the Academy schools as a student only five months before the opening of the exhibition. Wilkie’s Village Politicians (145), although a comparatively small work, was the most discussed of the pictures at Somerset House. All the newspaper critics praised this bril- liant young man who, as one of them said, “‘has stamped his reputation by a single performance”. ‘“‘‘The genius of Teniers,”’ said another, ‘‘seems to be renewed in Mr Wilkie, who by this one picture has gained a character which it has cost many artists, and good artists too, the toil of years to establish.” The Mirror of the Times in mentioning the picture as the work of a very young Scottish student—Wilkie was not much more than twenty when he painted the Village Politicians—praised the variety and definition of the characters, and added: “It is no flattery 105 [ 1806 | ART IN ENGLAND to say that there is hardly anything in the Flemish school superior to this effort of juvenile genius. If his future efforts should but correspond with this proof of his talents, Scotland will have as much reason to be proud of him as England has of her Hogarth”’. In recording the sale of Robert Heathcote’s house in 1805, I mentioned that the purchaser was Sir John Leicester, who entered into occupation in the spring of this year. Heathcote, during his brief tenancy, had enlarged the house by adding a wing of spacious rooms for the accommodation of his large library, and these rooms were transformed by Sir John Leicester into a picture gallery. Its completion was announced in a paragraph in the Morning Post: Sir John Leicester has fitted up his superb gallery in Hill Street (late Mr Heathcote’s) with the choicest specimens of British Artists only. The pictures are hung in a perfectly novel style of elegance, suspended from chains by lion’s heads, splendidly gilt, and have a most striking and beautiful effect. Mr Opie’s fine picture, just finished, of the Infant Samuel, and Mr Turner’s Storm have been recently added to this choice collection. _ One of the most important events of 1806 was the opening of *'the first exhibition of the British Institution. The principal object of the British Institution was almost identical with that of the defunct British School, “‘to encourage and reward the talents of the artists of the United Kingdom, and to open an exhibition for the sale of their productions”. Owing largely to the efforts of Sir Thomas Bernard it had been established in the preceding year at a meeting of subscribers which included the Duke of Bedford, Lord Northwick, Sir Abraham Hume, Sir George Beaumont, John Julius Angerstein, Samuel Lysons, the Rev. W. Holwell Carr, William Smith, Henry and Thomas Hope and Caleb Whitefoord. The subscribers, who were numerous and in most cases wealthy, raised between them a fund of more than £7000, and when, owing to Boydell’s bankruptcy, the Shake- speare Gallery in Pall Mall came into the market in 1805 the lease was purchased for £4500. Another £800 was spent in fitting up the Gallery and early in 1806 pictures were received 106 THE BRITISH INSTITUTION [1806] for the first exhibition. As no artist had any share in the manage- ment of the British Institution, the arrangement of the works was entrusted to a committee of subscribers: the Earl of Dart- mouth, the Marquis of Stafford, Lord Lowther, Charles Long, Sir George Beaumont, Sir Francis Baring and Richard Payne Knight. The British Institution, or British Gallery as it was frequently called, had three exhibition rooms, each about as long as, but narrower than, the present Gallery I at Burlington House. They were known as the North, Middle, and South Rooms, and ac- cording to Haydon the first-named was the only one with a good light. In the Middle Room the light was too strong, in the South Room too dim. At this, the first exhibition, the North Room was devoted to historical pictures; the South Room to landscapes and sea-pieces; and the Middle Room to subjects in history and landscape which could not be disposed of in the other rooms, domestic pictures and still life. No portraits were received in 1806. All the rooms were furnished and fitted up tastefully and had an appearance of comfort and even of luxury, but the back- ground against which the pictures were hung was anything but satisfactory. The walls were covered with paper of so vivid a scarlet that it is said to have fatigued and distressed the eye and to have overpowered the brightest reds in the pictures. A contemporary writer says, in describing a visit to the British Institution : Considered as a whole the gallery has a very splendid appearance. The scarlet coloured paper with which it is covered gives at first sight the idea of a magnificent suite of rooms in a private mansion, not originally intended for pictures though recently decorated with them. One of the reasons for adopting this colour might possibly be that a similar tint forms the background of the picture rooms at Windsor Castle; and it must be admitted that the eye by being habituated to it (or indeed to any other fashion, be it ever so absurd) becomes in a degree reconciled to it. But notwithstanding all this and more that might possibly be said in its favour we cannot look it into liking. The exhibition of the British Institution was popular and was supported by articles in The Times, although in the same year 107 [ 1806 | ART IN ENGLAND that journal expressed its regret that it could not afford space to notice the pictures at Somerset House. To artists other than the Forty and the Associates, the value of the new exhibition was considerable, for it destroyed the monopoly of the Academy. Painters, and sculptors within limits, had now a first rate gallery to which they could contribute; a gallery wholly free from the influence of Somerset House, and where particular efforts were to be made to sell their work. The Academicians may not have approved the rival institution but they made use of it from the first, and West, Turner, Opie, Copley, Nollekens and Stothard were among the contributors to the opening exhibition. Smirke, who sent a large group of pictures illustrating subjects from the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment, found buyers for no fewer than fourteen of them. Other works sold were Opie’s Hobnelia; Westall’s Eloisa, acquired for 150 guineas by Lord Carlisle; and Copley’s well-known Death of Chatham, now in the House of Lords. The Copley was bought for 2000 guineas by Alexander Davison, Nelson’s agent and friend. According to The Times, the total sales amounted to about 5000 guineas. One of the most consistent and generous supporters of the British Institution was the Marquis of Stafford, who owned one of the finest collections of pictures in England, and was the first to admit the public to his gallery at Bridgewater House, to see his treasures. His house, situated near Buckingham Palace, which had been closed for some time for reconstruction and the re-arrangement of the works of art it contained, was the scene of a splendid entertainment on May 8th when the picture gal- leries and all the State apartments were thrown open for the inspection of a distinguished company. The pictures were shown by a new method of lighting. “‘’Two hundred and sixty-three vase lamps, the whole nobly chased and gilt and supporting patent burners, illuminated the apartments. These lights were placed in the gallery and in the drawing rooms on a range of pillars eight feet high....The lighting does infinite credit to those em- ployed. The most minute and delicate touches of the painters were seen as if at noonday.” 108 AT BRIDGEWATER HOUSE [1806 | ‘The newspapers, which describe in profuse detail all the costly furnishing and decoration of the rebuilt house and picture gallery, upon which it was said that fabulous sums had been spent, state that on no previous occasion had the curiosity of the fashionable world been so much excited and that more than two thousand guests attended the reception. The Morning Post says: About nine o’clock the company began to arrive, and before ten some hundreds were assembled. They were received in the great hall by twelve servants in the most superb State liveries, each of which cost the noble Marquis forty guineas; they consisted of a blue coat entirely covered with silver lace, and a scarlet waistcoat and breeches. On the coat there were no less than a hundred and twenty yards of lace. About double the number of attendants out of livery were arranged in order on the first flight of the grand staircase. The latter is built, and the dome above is supported, in the style of a Roman pavilion, having four pillars on each side to support the roof. In the interior of this beautiful structure, on the right and left, were placed two elegant Venetian lamps supported by groups of figures a la Grec. On this flight in the early part of the evening the Marquis stood, to conduct the company to the Marchioness, who was waiting to receive them in the Great Saloon. 3 All the French Princes then in England were present; and the Prince of Wales and his five brothers, who walked together across the Green Park and entered the house privately by the garden. “The admiration of the Prince of Wales,” we are told, “‘in- creased as he advanced through the State apartments, but when his Royal Highness entered the picture gallery he was lost in ecstasy.” A week after the evening reception Lord Stafford began to issue tickets for Wednesdays, during the season, to view his pictures, which proved so attractive to the visitors assembled on the first day that they were loth to leave at the hour of closing. According to the Morning Chronicle of May 23rd: At eleven o’clock on Wednesday last about two hundred of the principal artists and amateurs in the kingdom were gratified with a view of that National Museum rather than private collection, the Picture Gallery at the Marquis of Stafford’s. At five in the afternoon, with some difficulty, the domestics were able to prevail on the company to quit the attractive scene in order that preparations might be made for dinner. 109 [ 1806 | ART IN ENGLAND Unfortunately, those who subsequently obtained tickets from Lord Stafford were not all such enthusiastic picture lovers as the visitors who thronged the galleries on the first Wednesday. Baroness Bunsen, who went on a ticket day later in the summer to see the collection, says that although the rooms were as crowded as those of the Royal Academy, the visitors as a rule took little notice of the pictures and that many did not even look at them. Mrs Siddons was present on this occasion and the Baroness, who listened to hear the actress’s criticism, says: ““At length she picked out a painting of some Dutch fishwomen— the last thing upon earth you could call interesting, and ‘What a sweet composition is that!’ was pronounced in her deepest tragedy tones’’. | A similar want of appreciation on the part of the public was noticed by Mrs Jameson, who, when other owners of pictures followed the good example of Lord Stafford, often visited the great private collections on ticket days. She was shocked at the manner in which the gracious feeling and intention of the owners were abused, and says, when recalling in particular the public days at Grosvenor House and Bridgewater House: We can all remember the loiterers and loungers, the vulgar starers, the gaping idlers we used to meet there—people who instead of moving amid these wonders and beauties ‘‘all silent and divine’, with reverence and gratitude, strutted about as if they had the right to be there, talking, flirting, peeping and prying, lifting up the covers of chairs to examine the furniture, touching the ornaments—and even the pictures! _ Lord Stafford’s generous action was a step in the right direc- tion, but its immediate effect was not beneficial to the poorer artists and struggling students who still, as before, found their only picture galleries in the auction rooms. The Royal Academi- cians were given tickets for the Stafford collection admitting themselves and a friend to all the Wednesdays, but most of the visitors, no doubt, were people who wanted to see the Marquis’s house and his fine furniture. Far more useful for the young painter was a new development initiated by the Directors of the British Institution, of which Lord Stafford was a Vice-President. I10 uiSng snjsnsny pue uospury;moy sewmoyy, Aq Surmvsrp v WOT] NOILOLILSNI HSILIUG FHL LV SAANLOId ONIAACOO nanan es f , } ; ¢ ow: , se ~ ' we ’ ; ;. ; A SCHOOL OF COPYISTS [1806 | After the close of the Institution’s first exhibition of modern pictures, the gallery was closed to the public and rehung with a small but choice collection of Old Masters which students and artists were permitted to copy undisturbed. The following is a list of the Old Masters lent to copy and the names of the lenders: (1) Str Artegal and the Yron Man Mortimer T. Bernard (Fairy Queen) (2) Venus chiding Cupid Sir Joshua Reynolds do. (3) Lhe Holy Family Murillo Lord Kinnaird (4) The Cradle Rembrandt R. Payne Knight (5) Landscape and town in Holland Ostade do. (6) The Offerings of the Magi Rembrandt Sir F. Baring (7) Landscape and Figures A. Carracci do. (8) The Fall of the Angels Guido do. (9) Holy Family reposing Mola C. Long (10) A Portrait Rembrandt Sir G. Beaumont (11) Maecenas’ Villa R. Wilson do. (12) Embarkation of St Ursula Claude J. J. Angerstein (13) Portrait of Gevartius Vandyck do. (14) Adoration of the Shepherds Rembrandt do. (15) Jason and the Hesperian Dragon Salvator Rosa W. Smith (16) The Mill Rembrandt do. (17) Christ betrayed by Fudas Vandyck do. (18) An Old Man’s Head Sir Joshua Reynolds P. Metcalfe (19) A Dutch Gardener Teniers do. (20) Hawking and Hunting Wouwerman do. (21) Infanta of Spain on Horseback Velasquez Earl Grosvenor (22) St Bavon received by the Church Rubens Rev. Holwell Carr (23) Portrait of the Earl of Arundel Vandyck Lord Stafford The school of copyists proved immensely attractive, as well it might with such pictures and such excellent galleries to work in. The most copied of the pictures were Vandyck’s Gevartius, since identified as a portrait of Cornelius Van der Geest, and now in the National Gallery; and The Mill, by Rembrandt, that famous landscape which the late Lord Lansdowne sold to America some years ago for about £100,000. Both were copied by Ben- jamin West, or rather finished, for they were commenced for him III [ 1806] ART IN ENGLAND by an assistant, Miss Hay. With characteristic vanity West at- tempted to improve the composition of the Gevartius by adding to it two hands holding a book. In his biography of George Stubbs, A.R.A., who died this year on July 26th, Sir Walter Gilbey implies that this famous animal painter was unjustly treated by the Royal Academy because the honours of full membership were not bestowed upon him. In this Sir Walter is mistaken. ‘Ihe Academicians elected Stubbs to their body in 1781 by a great majority of votes—four- teen to three for De Loutherbourg—but his election could not be completed until he had deposited a diploma picture, and this the artist would not do. Therefore, after a certain period had elapsed, the Academicianship to which he had been elected was declared vacant, and Rigaud was chosen in his stead in 1784. There was no other misunderstanding between the Academy and Stubbs, who continued to exhibit at intervals until the year of his death. That the Academicians were on good terms with him to the end is shown by their agreeing to subscribe to his ambitious series of designs, A Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Structure of the Human Body with that of a Tiger and Common Fowls, in Thirty Tables, of which Sir Walter Gilbey says nothing except that it is mentioned in the obituary of Stubbs published in 1806 in the Gentleman’s Magazine. Stubbs approached the Academy Council about this work, which was to appear in parts, and the minutes of July 17th, 1802, contain the following reply to his proposal: ‘*From the well-known abilities of the author, and the recom- mendations of gentlemen present who had seen the drawings— It was unanimously resolved that the Royal Academy do sub- scribe; to be deposited in the Library’’. The first number was delivered in January, 1804, and the second in December of the same year, but there is no reference in the minutes to a third, although the Gentleman’s Magazine states that three parts were published. Some of the engravings of the series are still to be seen in the Library of the Royal Academy, but they are un- accompanied by any text and there is nothing to indicate to which parts they belong. II2 JOHN TAYLOR OF BATH [1806 | Stubbs, who was eighty-four when he died in 1806, left all his property to Miss Mary Spencer, described as “‘a near relation who had been for a great number of years his constant com- panion and principal assistant, both in his literary and anatomical pursuits’, and by her the artist’s collection of pictures and drawings was sold in 1807. She appears to have reserved certain things, for when she died ten years later, her executors sold, through Phillips of New Bond Street, paintings by Stubbs both in oil and enamel, many drawings and proof engravings of pictures of animals and “his highly distinguished work The Anatomy of the Horse’’; and the Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Structure of the Human Body with that of a Tiger and Common Fowls; for the unpublished parts of which the drawings are described as finished, and the manuscripts completed. John Taylor, the landscape painter of Bath, who died this year in October, was an artist who never exhibited and of whom books of reference tell us hardly anything except that he was an amateur. Yet in his day he had a great reputation, and his pictures were admired and praised by many men of eminence. Taylor, who appears to have possessed considerable means, studied painting in Italy, and after returning to England settled in Bath and took a house in The Circus, where he was the neighbour of Gainsborough, and in local opinion his successful rival in landscape painting. Both artists were established in ‘The Circus early in 1767, and although Taylor is not mentioned in any of Gainsborough’s letters, it is probable that the two were acquainted, as both were friends of Garrick and his brother-actor, John Henderson. Gainsborough may have obtained from Taylor the idea of his “‘show-box”’, with pictures painted in trans- parent colours on glass; for Taylor, about 1766, showed ‘Thomas Sandby, R.A., an invention of the kind as a thing then new in England. Taylor is the ““Mr T.” referred to by Smollett in Humphry Clinker, some of the scenes of which are laid in Bath where Smollett stayed in the winter of 1766-7. He does not mention Gainsborough in Humphry Clinker, but speaks in the most flat- WA Lt 8 [ 1806 | ART IN ENGLAND tering terms of Taylor’s pictures and emphasizes the fact that they were “painted for amusement”’. Garrick, equally an admirer of Taylor, refers to his amateur standing in some lines written in 1774. ‘Upon seeing Mr Taylor’s pictures of Bath, and hearing a Connoisseur swear that they were finely painted for a gentleman”. Is genius, rarest gift of heaven, To the hired artist only given? asks Garrick, indignantly. Taylor gave Garrick some of the land- scapes he admired so much, and they were sold when the actor’s collection was dispersed in 1823. Garrick, who in turn gave Taylor a portrait of himself by Nathaniel Dance, R.A., had other sympathies with Taylor, for both were Shakespearean students. Many years ago Taylor’s nephew, the Rev. Richard Wilson Taylor, presented to the Bath Literary Club his uncle’s copy of Johnson and Steevens’ Shakespeare, with annotations which showed much contempt for Warburton. Mrs Thrale, in a letter written to Dr Johnson from Bath in 1780, mentions calling on Taylor to see some pictures by the “‘ventleman-artist”’, as she calls him, and his painting-room seems to have attracted many of the visitors to the gay western city. It is not known whether Walpole knew Taylor, but he certainly knew of him, for he says in 1781, in a letter to Mason, “Lord Harcourt has got me from Taylor at Bath, the method of the aquatint’”’. In his later years Taylor lived in London, or at any rate had a house there. The Gentleman’s Magazine of 1790 contains some verses of extravagant praise, ““On seeing some pictures of Grecian Ruins, painted by John Taylor Esq., of Grosvenor Place’’, for which it is claimed that “‘ Nature’s Beauties are ex- celled by Art’”’. At this time four pictures by Taylor, English landscapes to which it was said the artist had given Italian skies, were in George the Third’s collection. There are none now in any public gallery, but his work can be judged by engravings, of which there are several at the British Museum, chiefly of landscapes of the type commonly known as “‘classical”’. Taylor’s remaining works were sold by Christie in 1840. 114. WYATT SUPERSEDED [1806] On November 3rd, Augustus Wall Callcott was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, no doubt on the strength of the success of his picture, The Water Mill, exhibited in 1805. The attendance at the election was small, and only twelve votes were recorded for Callcott, against four for Porden the architect, who was Callcott’s only serious antagonist. Other unsuccessful candi- dates on this occasion were Adam Buck, Isaac Pocock, and John Keenan. The following month witnessed the end of the reign of Wyatt at the Royal Academy. He had been an inefficient and inatten- tive President and had taken little interest in the affairs of the institution during the year that followed his election. No one wished him to serve for another year and he appears to have had no particular desire to remain in office. But the attitude of the King towards him and West respectively was unknown, and in the hope of learning something about his Majesty’s wishes, Ozias Humphry wrote the following letter on November 26th, 1806, to Robert Braun, one of the King’s pages: You may possibly recollect that on account of existing differences among the members of the Royal Academy, Mr Wyatt was chosen President on the 10th of December last, for the ensuing year, with the hope that by affording leisure for consideration some means might be discovered for making arrange- ments that would improve the Government and render it more tranquil and harmonious in future. A year has now elapsed without having produced, as it is said, the desired effect. As the period is now approaching for the annual election of officers in the Academy, I beg leave to ask if you think it is desired by his Majesty that Mr Wyatt should be re-elected, or if there would probably be any objection to Mr West if he should be chosen to the chair, which I believe many of the most respectable members very anxiously desire. I rely upon the favour of hearing from you as soon as you conveniently can. At the foot of a copy of this letter, now at the Royal Academy, Humphry has written: To this no answer whatever was given. It was therefore concluded that his Majesty was unwilling to supersede Mr Wyatt, or to signify any dis- approbation of Mr West. The members of the Royal Academy, thinking 115 8-2 [1806] ART IN ENGLAND themselves at liberty to choose for themselves, exercised their privilege and chose Mr West by a majority of four to one, against Mr De Loutherbourg, Sir William Beechey and Mr Hoppner. A week after West’s election the Academy lost its Teacher of Perspective by the death of Edward Edwards, A.R.A. He was the first student to join the Academy schools when they were opened in January, 1769, and as student or member was con- nected with the institution all his life. Elected an Associate in 1773, he was never fortunate enough to obtain promotion, al- though he came very near it in 1787, when at the election of an Academician, Hodges defeated him by a single vote. His paintings are forgotten, but he will always be remembered as the author of the useful Anecdotes of Painters, published soon after his death and intended as a continuation of the Anecdotes of Painting by Horace Walpole, by whom Edwards was frequently employed. Edwards, whose means were always narrow, never married, but lived with a sister, who kept house for him, and at his death was obliged to appeal to the Academy for assistance. The Academy paid for the funeral of Edwards and bestowed upon his sister the pension of an Associate’s widow. CHAPTER VIII 1807 Tue second exhibition of the British Institution, opened in February, 1807, was even more successful than the first, although complaints were still made of “the abominable scarlet paper” which covered the walls. Pictures, it was said, which had been shown previously at the Academy, and looked well there, lost all their effect at the British Institution. This was particularly the case with some low-toned, Rembrandtesque landscapes by S. W. Reynolds, the engraver and painter, which were reduced by the red background to little more than heavy masses of black and white. ‘The founders of the Institution supported it this year in the best of all ways by buying works from the exhibition. The purchasers included Lady Lucas, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Gran- ville Leveson-Gower, Lord Boringdon, Lord Kinnaird, Lord Ribblesdale, Mr Charles Long, Mr Thomas Hope, Sir Abraham Hume and the Marquis of Stafford. The Marquis, who showed his sympathy with artists by throwing open again to ticket holders his splendid picture rooms at Bridgewater House, bought no fewer than fifteen works from the British Institution, including Opie’s Belisarius; Westall’s Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen; An Old Man’s Head by Beechey; the Cottage Girl and the St Peter by Shee; and a painting of flowers by James Hewlett of Bath. Lord Stafford’s purchase of Hewlett’s flower study caused a sensation among artists because the price paid, four hundred guineas, was enormous considering the value of money then and the subject of the work. Of this picture, Flowers (140), a writer on the exhibition says: If Mr Hewlett continues to paint in this style England will never have to envy Holland her De Heem and Van Huysum. It is in truth a wonderfully 117 [1807] ART IN ENGLAND executed picture, there is spirit and richness in the touch, accompanied at the same time with great warmth and mellowness of effect, which are abso- lutely enchanting and bring nature before the eye. When time shall have somewhat softened the brilliancy of the present varnish, these roses and hyacinths and lilies may vie with the most successful productions of foreign masters. At the exhibition of the British Institution in the following year Hewlett more than repeated his success of 1807. He con- tributed two pictures, Flowers (264) and Fruit (277), each in size about three and a half feet by three feet. A correspondent of the British Press, after remarking how much attention these pictures have attracted, writes an interesting note: Mr Hewlett’s flower piece appears to have been painted as a companion to the one exhibited last year and purchased by the Marquis of Stafford for four hundred guineas. Thomas Hope Esq. has purchased the present one for the same sum. But the fruit piece undoubtedly goes farther into the marvellous of painting than either of the two preceding, or any work of the kind that has been produced since the days of Van Huysum. Nothing appears laboured or servile, nothing hard, stiff or dry, and the more minutely and critically it is examined the more astonished will be the spectator to observe the taste and conduct visible through the whole—the uncommon high finish and transparency of the white currants and some of the grapes look as if they were produced by the pencil of Nature herself. The artist’s original price for this performance was eight hundred guineas, but we understand he has been induced to take something less. Captain Agar, M.P., is the purchaser. There seems to be no reason to question the prices paid to Hewlett, which are given in several contemporary journals. But it is strange that such sums should have been received for studies of still-life by a man of whom little was known at the time and who is forgotten to-day. James Hewlett’s father was a gardener who died when his son was a child, and the future flower painter was brought up by his mother who kept a toll-gate near Chip- penham. The boy, always fond of drawing and modelling, was apprenticed to a wheelwright, and afterwards worked for a coach- builder for whom he did some heraldic painting. Later he opened a shop at Bath for the sale of artist’s colours, gave lessons in drawing, and gradually developed into a painter. But he 118 DEATH OF OPIE [ 1807] exhibited few pictures and there are no known records of high prices paid for his work except the three instances mentioned above. Early in the nineteenth century he left Bath and settled at Isleworth, where he died in 1836. Hewlett’s sister Jane mar- ried Benjamin Barker, the Bath landscape painter. In February there was an election at the Royal Academy, when Samuel Woodforde was promoted to full membership after a contest in which he defeated, by twenty votes to eight, Henry Howard, the last gold medal student of the Academy to receive his award from the hands of Sir Joshua. Another vacancy for an Academician occurred soon after- wards, for on April 9th Opie died, in his forty-sixth year. His interment at St Paul’s, conducted with a degree of state that was hardly warranted by his importance as an artist, was de- scribed at length in the newspapers, some of which published remarks about him that were not very complimentary. Among these newspapers was the Daily Advertiser, which attacked Opie’s style of painting so severely that a protest was made by John Cranch, the artist. It was said, too, that his appearance was always against him and that although he had a good under- standing it lacked cultivation. “‘There was an invincible vul- garity about him which nothing could take out.” ‘That Opie was uncultivated was the natural result of his upbringing, but the writer of one of his obituaries says that he despised altogether the polish of society and condemned it as affectation. ‘We have heard it said that his regard to cleanliness was so small that when painting the portrait of a lady or gentleman at their own house he would not scruple to wipe his brushes on the chintz bed or window curtains.” The writer who tells this story gives a curious account of the painting of one of Opie’s earliest portraits, that of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, which I have already mentioned on page 72. It is not, we believe, generally known that there exists, in the Linnaean Gallery of Dr Thornton, a portrait of the learned Mr Townsend, author of A Journey through Spain, which was among the very earliest of our artist’s productions. It has on the margin Opie pinxit, aet. 17. The history of this 119 [1807] ART IN ENGLAND picture is curious and has not before been given to the public. The sister of Opie lived as a servant with Mr Townsend. Her brother went to visit her and expressed a wish to draw her master; she laughed at him, but young Opie got some common colours from a house-painter who happened to be employed on the premises, and actually drew the very picture now in Mr Thornton’s possession. 7 Mrs Opie sold her husband’s pictures by auction a few weeks after his death, and a month later disposed in the same fashion of the residence in Berners Street with its coach house and stables, the contents of the studio, and the whole of the furniture, including her patent square pianoforte by Broadwood and her Wedgwood dinner service. ‘Then the widow, charming, gay and clever, retired to Norwich, the city of her birth, and for three years London saw little of her. But she did not pass all this period in mourning, or at Norwich. In the spring of 1809 she was staying at Hull with her uncle, Dr Alderson, and took a prominent part in a ball at the Assembly Rooms to which all the naval and military officers then in the town were invited. “At ten o’clock,”’ says a chronicler of the event, “‘the ball was opened by Mrs Opie, niece to Dr Alderson, and Lieutenant- Colonel Wilkinson of the Royal Lancashire Militia.” Several portraits by Opie were shown at the Academy ex- hibition of 1807, which was arranged by Paul Sandby, North- cote, Owen, Richards and Fuseli. The exhibition contained that famous landscape now in the National Gallery, The Sun Rising through Vapour (162), one of the works with which Turner thought fit in later years to challenge Claude. But The Sun Rising through Vapour did not make a sensation at Somerset House. It was praised in general terms as a fine picture by some of the critics, but others omitted all mention of it in their reviews of the. exhibition. Wilkie, not Turner, was the idol of the public in 1807, and according to tradition, Turner was not pleased by the general admiration of the work of the young Scot. “The chef d’ceuvre for the year,” said the Morning Chronicle, ‘‘is the exquisite piece of Wilkie, The Blind Fiddler (147). It is justly remarked by the 120 ‘Wy Soumny “MW ‘ff Ag dOHS S HLINSAOV1IE AHL K4a]]DQ) JOUONY AT ay} Ut Burzum oY? WoL ¢ TURNER AND WILKIE [1807] best connoisseurs that no production of Teniers exceeds it in truth, harmony and effect. ‘Turner has a fine picture, The Sun Rising through Vapour. In his other piece of a blacksmith’s work- shop he seems to have entered into a competition with Wilkie but by no means gains by the comparison.” The Blacksmith’s Shop (135) is the picture referred to by Cunningham, who says in his Life of Wilkie: When the doors of the exhibition were opened in 1807 the public were not slow in observing that The Blind Fiddler, with its staid and modest colour, was flung into eclipse by the unmitigated splendour of a neighbouring picture, hung for that purpose beside it as some averred, and painted into its over- powering brightness, as others more bitterly said, in the varnishing time which belongs to Academicians between the day when the pictures were sent in and that on which the exhibition opens. Cunningham says he hopes there is no truth in all this, and it has been contradicted more than once. But the writer of the long obituary of Turner published in the Atheneum in December, 1851, declares that the landscape painter did paint up both The Blacksmith’s Shop and The Sun Rising through Vapour, after they were hung, with the express intention of injuring the effect of The Blind Fiddler, which occupied a place near to them. “There is no doubt,” he says, “‘of the truth of the story; and that Wilkie remembered the circumstances with some acerbity—though he never resented it openly—we can take upon ourselves to say. When the picture was sold at Lord de Tabley’s sale Wilkie was in Italy, and Collins the painter, in describing the sale to him in a letter now before us, adds, ‘And there was your old enemy the Forge’.”’ The charge against Turner may be well-founded, but there is nothing to support it in all the newspaper comments I have seen upon the exhibition of 1807, although in later years allegations of his jealousy of Wilkie, and comments on his at- tempts to challenge the Scottish painter on his own ground, occur several times. Newspaper reviews of exhibitions were few in 1807 and not particularly interesting, but one of them is remarkable as con- taining what is perhaps the first criticism of landscapes by beeal [1807] ART IN ENGLAND Constable. It is contained in a notice of the Academy published in the St Fames’s Chronicle. “‘No. 52. View in Westmoreland. J. Constable. This artist seems to pay great attention to nature and in this picture has produced a bold effect. We are not quite so well pleased with the colouring of No. 98, Keswick Lake, in which the mountains are discriminated with too hard an outline.” The Times, which in the early part of the nineteenth century rarely mentioned the Royal Academy, made this year a new departure in art criticism. The opening of the exhibition was passed over unnoticed, but on June 1oth, a few days before it closed, an article was printed in large type in which the writer asserted that the ordinary method of criticising Academy ex- hibitions was altogether wrong. The exhibition was, or should be, a school for the rising artist: | Therefore criticism should be principally addressed to their works and not be disposed, as it almost exclusively is, on the canvases of the established professors. Hence it is that we find the critiques which appear in the news- papers and other periodical publications deficient in utility. They appear to be almost exclusively occupied by the first class of professors, whose reputa- tion is established and who can command patronage, while the young artist who is anxious for instruction and would profit by it—who pants for en- couragement and would be emulated by it into excellence—is passed by without observation. Instead, therefore, of noticing Turner, Lawrence, Wilkie and the other stars, The Times gives half a column to the considera- tion of the work of James Lonsdale, a dull artist who is described as “a young man who has given and continues to give a very decided promise of future excellence”, and sounds his praises in the remainder of the article. The commendations of Lonsdale are, however, moderate in comparison with those bestowed upon George Augustus Wallis, to whom was devoted a second article - published on June 16th. Wallis was hardly a young artist, for he had exhibited at the Academy in 1785, more than twenty years earlier, but he was a great one in the opinion of The Times reviewer, who says of his work shown in 1807: At a period like the present, when there is such a dearth of artists capable of the superior departments of painting, we must express our surprise that 122 GEORGE AUGUSTUS WALLIS [1807] two of the greatest efforts of the pencil which we have witnessed in grand landscape should be hung at the very top of the room, a situation where even the finest productions of a Poussin, a Claude or a Salvator would lose all their beauties. We allude to the sublime view of Switzerland, and its companion Rebecca at the Well, by Mr Wallis, an artist who by the extraordinary genius he has evinced in grand landscape during a long residence in Italy has equally excited the admiration of the most refined judges on the Continent, and, as we are sorry to observe, the envy of his countrymen at home. We may venture to affirm without danger of being contradicted, that since the time of the Poussins no landscape painter has displayed so much fecundity of invention, purity of style, and grandeur of composition; and we may rejoice to learn that the speedy publication of his drawings will enable the country to judge how far the great reputation he enjoys abroad is really his due. The reviewer complains that the Academicians have not only skyed the two large works by his favourite artist, Morning in Switzerland (208) and Rebecca at the Well (227), but have placed four smaller landscapes on the ground, where they cannot be seen properly. With the exception of the notices of Lonsdale and Wallis, no criticisms of the Academy of 1807 appeared in The Times, and no names but theirs were mentioned in connection with the exhibition. George Augustus Wallis, known in Italy at this time as “the English Poussin”, is not mentioned by Bryan, but Redgrave perhaps had a confused idea of him when he wrote his note on one John William Wallis. ‘The artist praised so extravagantly by The Times was patronized when young by Lord Warwick, and exhibited portraits and landscapes at the Academy in 1785 and 1786. Afterwards he left England for the Continent and appears to have spent almost all the remainder of his life abroad. In Rome, about 1790, he was already regarded as a painter of promise, and when Thomas Hope visited Sicily in 1792 he took Wallis with him. Presumably this was to make sketches of inter- esting scenes, for which purpose the artist accompanied Lord Berwick on some travels in the following year. In 1794 Wallis was living at Naples, from whence he sent two studies of Italian 123 [1807] ART IN ENGLAND landscape to the Academy. He did not exhibit again in England until the year now under review, when he visited London and brought with him the pictures noticed above. Farington, who mentions Wallis in his diary of 1807, says nothing about his art, but speaks of him most unfavourably as a man and hints that he was a spy in the pay of the French Government. In October, 1807, Wallis left England for Spain, which was then in a distracted state, with Bonaparte’s armies in possession of a large part of the country. Wallis travelled on behalf of William Buchanan, the picture dealer, who was anxious to ob- tain some of the fine works of art in the palaces and churches of Spain before they were seized by the French. ‘The commission was a dangerous one, involving fearful risks, but Wallis faced them unflinchingly and, during the several years he represented Buchanan in the Peninsula, managed to obtain and send home a number of fine pictures, Spanish, Italian and Flemish. Of these the best known is the famous Venus and Cupid by Velasquez, now in the National Gallery. After his Spanish adventure Wallis returned to Italy, where Wilkie saw him in 1827. He was painting then but still on the look out for bargains in Old Masters, and Wilkie was informed that he had recently picked up in Genoa, for about sixty pounds, a fine full-length of a lady by Vandyck. While Wallis’s landscapes were on view at the Academy in 1807, another daring artist-collector was endeavouring to sell in London the pictures he had recently bought in Italy for him- self and his partners. This was Andrew Wilson (afterwards A.R.S.A.), who had spent three years in Genoa, in spite of the French occupation, by passing as an American citizen. He was buying Old Masters all the time and in 1806 managed to send the collection he formed, fifty-four in all, safely to London. Many of these pictures were offered for sale by auction by Peter Coxe on May 6th, 1807, and were extensively advertised. The catalogue of the sale, with Coxe’s introduction, is reprinted by Buchanan in his Memoirs of Painting, with the price paid, or supposed to have been paid, for each lot; but Buchanan does 124, WILSON THE PICTURE DEALER [1807] not say—what he must have known—that practically every- thing was bought in. The proof of this is to be found in a letter sent on May roth to Caleb Whitefoord by Wilson, in which he says: You will have been informed of the issue of the sale, which produced nothing. I regret now that I did not put it off when such an occurrence as the dissolution of Parliament was made known. I feel it hard to have such a capital embarked without any immediate prospect of realizing even a small part, except in the manner I mean to propose, for any other attempt would be sacrificing works of the first excellence and calculated to give éclat to the first collections in the country....But not to trouble you any further with preamble I will mention my project. I want to dispose of The Brazen Serpent by Rubens in the same manner as the Death of Lord Chatham by Copley was sold. With this no doubt you will be acquainted? I‘wenty gentlemen at a hundred guineas each took shares, and drew cuts, or in some such way, determined who should have the picture. For such a work as the Rubens I should hope that in good hands there would be little difficulty in obtaining twenty subscribers, for a hundred guineas would be no great object to any nobleman or gentleman who had so great a chance of possessing such a picture. Wilson was anxious that Whitefoord should assist him in ob- taining subscriptions to the proposed lottery, which, however, does not appear to have materialized, as the picture was still in his hands a year later. As he seems to have thought the Rubens worth two thousand guineas, he probably put too high a reserve upon it at the sale, where it was bought in for £1260. The Brazen Serpent afterwards passed through several hands before it was acquired for the National Gallery in 1837. The meaning of Wilson’s reference to the sale of Copley’s Death of Chatham is not clear. That picture remained in the artist’s possession for many years before it was bought by Alexander Davison, and there is no record of an attempt to dispose of it by lottery. Of several private exhibitions held in 1807 the one that attracted most attention was composed of pictures by Dubost, a French painter who came to London in 1805 and was repre- sented by two works at the Academy of 1806. His exhibition of 1807 was held at No. 65 Pall Mall, and its principal feature was a large picture, Damocles, in which the courtier of Dionysius 125 [z807] ART IN ENGLAND was represented seated on a couch and looking up fearfully at the suspended sword. This work, brought with him by the artist when he came from Paris, was the talk of the town. It was the subject of much praise by the newspapers, and particularly by The Times, which described it as the performance of a man whom Mr West—no common judge—had denominated the first painter of the age. The Times said of his exhibition generally that al- though it consisted of only six pictures they displayed a rare versatility of powers: The Damocles is one of the richest pictures we ever beheld, but its artist can treat with equal skill far inferior subjects; an English racehorse with its appropriate attendants is painted with great truth and beauty, while in the picture that represents the parting of Brutus and Portia, Mr Dubost has quitted the vivid brilliant style of his larger paintings for the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt. Equally complimentary was the Morning Chronicle, which said that in Damocles the artist had treated his subject in a manner ‘‘so forcible, so pure, and yet so rich that it was the admiration of every judge, and that in point of simplicity and colouring there was nothing like it in modern times”’. Dubost was taken up by the rich collector Thomas Hope, who bought Damoeles for, it was said, the price the artist put upon it, 1500 guineas. Of this work and of Hope’s dealings with Dubost, I shall have more to say in a later chapter. Another picture much praised when it was shown this year in a private exhibition was Stothard’s Canterbury Pilgrims, known ~ far and wide in its engraved form. The Canterbury Pilgrims, which brought about a quarrel between Stothard and William Blake, who also illustrated the subject, was shown first in the Strand, at the house of Lee the perfumer, and afterwards in Berners Street. Before it was on view in the Strand the picture was taken by Hoppner to Carlton House, to be shown to the Prince of Wales, who expressed his approval of Stothard’s performance, and, in the opinion of the loyal reporter of the incident, showed a competent knowledge of the Old Masters. “The style in which the picture is painted,” says the reporter, “‘reminds the con- 126 BLAKE’S QUARREL WITH STOTHARD [1807] noisseur of the works of clolbein, Albert Diirer, and pictures of that period. His Royal Highness, with a discrimination that proved his acquaintance with works of art, immediately made the same observation....His approbation was confirmed by his graciously permitting Mr Cromek to dedicate the print to him.” According to an undated letter from Hoppner to Stothard, the Prince intended to visit Stothard’s studio, perhaps to see the picture again, but it is not known if the visit were made. Hoppner was an ardent admirer of the Canterbury Pilgrims and wrote a long and eulogistic account of it to Richard Cumberland, of which the concluding paragraph was characteristic, for Hoppner always resented the glorification of the Old Masters at the ex- pense of living men. He said: Having attempted to describe a few of the beauties of this captivating _ performance it remains only for me to mention one great defect—the picture is, notwithstanding appearances, a modern one. But if you can divest your- self of the general prejudice that exists against contemporary talents you will see a work that would have done honour to any school at any period. The story of the quarrel between Blake and Stothard is well known. Blake declared that Cromek the engraver had com- missioned him to paint a picture illustrating Chaucer’s story of the pilgrimage to Canterbury, and had afterwards transferred the commission to Stothard, to whom he gave an idea of a design already made by Blake. This was denied by Cromek and Stothard, and the question, often discussed, remains unsettled to this day, although John Sartain, the engraver, has given in his Reminiscences of a very Old Man what he declares to be the true story of the affair. Before Sartain left England for America in 1830 he was intimate with Henry Richter, an artist who claimed to have been concerned indirectly with the giving of the com- mission to Stothard. Sartain says: Various statements have been published as to this transfer of the order from Blake to Stothard, Cromek denying that he had ever led the former to expect an order of the kind. I chance to know the cause, which has never appeared till now. I had it from the lips of Henry Richter, whose pupil I was for eight months in 1827-8, and whose father was really at the bottom 127 [1807] ART IN ENGLAND of the affair. Richter, a worker in scagliola, and Stothard and Cromek, were all neighbours in Newman Street, Oxford Street. Richter wanted to get his son Henry into Stothard’s studio as a pupil and in order to lay the latter under an obligation he induced Cromek to give the commission as he did. Stothard, however, declined to receive the son, and when the elder Richter reproached him for being ungrateful, replied that teaching was not in his line, or words to that effect. In spite of the war and the opposition of the newly founded British Institution and the Water Colour Society, the season of 1807 was a prosperous one for the Royal Academy, whose re- ceipts at the exhibition were £3116. 16s., and for the sale of catalogues, £797. 145. These excellent figures perhaps tempted the Academicians to begin picture buying, for this year they made their first attempt in that direction. They were offered a Rembrandt, Susannah and the Elders, for the very moderate sum of £200, and agreed to buy it. Unfortunately the purchase was not completed. “This picture,” it is stated, ““was ceded again to the person who had offered it for sale, and who afterwards conceived that the price paid for it was not sufficient.” The exhibition of the Water Colour Society injured the Academy to some extent, because it caused certain of the best exponents of the slighter medium to desert Somerset House for a gallery intended exclusively for the display of their own kind of work, and at which the sales were excellent. The St Fames’s Chronicle says of the Academy exhibition, after reviewing the galleries of oil paintings: ‘The Council Room, which comes next in our observation, is not so interesting as it has often been. The artists who now exhibit paintings in watercolours at their own gallery are, without flattery, much missed in this and the remaining rooms’”’. Fonthill was the scene in August of a sale of which not much has been recorded, although many pictures and other articles of value were included in it. The sale, conducted by Phillips of New Bond Street, Christie’s former clerk, lasted seven days, during which time the entire contents of Beckford’s magnificent house were dispersed. So far as the furniture was concerned, 128 A SALE AT FONTHILL [1807] almost every article fetched its full value, and the total realized largely exceeded the appraisement. The paintings, sold on the sixth day, included Turner’s land- scape The Fifth Plague of Egypt, which was exhibited at the Academy in 1800, together with five watercolours, views of Fonthill, all painted for Beckford. The price paid by Beckford for The Fifth Plague of Egypt is not known, but at the sale it realized 155 guineas. The purchaser was Mr Jeffrey, who also bought Romney’s Gypsy (200 guineas); Poussin’s Magdalen (210 guineas) and The Woman taken in Adultery (130 guineas); and de Cort’s views of Salisbury Cathedral (80 guineas) and Exeter Cathedral (20 guineas). Canaletto’s View of Venice, from the Calonne collection, was bought by John Soane, R.A. for 150 guineas, and is now in his museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. ‘“‘An unique coloured set of the Loggie of the Vatican” was bought by Mr Paul (630 guineas); Raphael’s Charity and Nymph, by Mr Walsh Porter (105 guineas), and Leonardo’s Infant Saviour, by Mr Elwin (350 guineas). Vernet’s Calm and Storm were knocked down at 250 guineas and 310 guineas, respectively, but were believed to have been bought in. For Annibale Carracci’s Natwity 350 guineas was paid, and 210 guineas for the statue of Bacchus brought from Rome by the Hon. C. Hamilton. Lord Grosvenor, who in 1806 had bought the entire collection of Welbore Ellis Agar for between thirty and forty thousand pounds, sold a number of pictures from it in the summer of 1807. They were sold by Peter Coxe, together with many pictures that had belonged to Lord Grosvenor’s father, at Millbank House, Millbank, the original town house of the Grosvenor family. Another sale of 1807 which must have been interesting was that of the entire contents of the museum of Mr Innocent, of Little Newport Street. Mr Innocent’s stock included such things as bronzes, enamels, stained glass and marbles; and some curious relics, among which was “‘the cap in which King Charles was beheaded’’. The sale, by Christie, occupied several days. Three vacant Associateships of the Royal Academy were filled at elections held on November 12th. The first candidate elected WA I29 9 [7807] ART IN ENGLAND was William Daniell, nephew of ‘Thomas Daniell, R.A., who in the ballot defeated Robert Freebairne, the landscape painter, by nineteen votes to five. James Oliver, the second chosen, secured seventeen votes to nine for Henry Singleton. The third was James Ward, who had nineteen votes to seven cast for George Byfield, the architect. In the first contest, in which Daniell was victorious, Ward had only one vote. Although elected third, Ward was easily the first of the Associates in point of merit. In this year of his election he painted one of his best pictures of its class, Regent’s Park, now in the National Gallery. It is a fine study of cattle in a land- scape, under a threatening sky. | A month later, on the evening of the anniversary of the foundation of the Academy, Turner was elected Professor of Perspective, on which subject he delivered lectures for many years. He was the only candidate for the post, but nevertheless it was thought necessary to have a formal election in which twenty-seven votes were cast for him and only one against. On the same evening Henry Tresham was elected Professor of Painting by eighteen votes to three given to Northcote. CHAPTER IX 1808 Tue large Rubens, The Brazen Serpent, which Andrew Wilson failed to sell in 1807, passed in 1808 into the possession of the dealer William Buchanan, who, as a letter from Lawrence shows, offered it to Thomas Penrice of Yarmouth, a wealthy man who was then forming a collection of pictures, several of which, in- cluding another famous Rubens, The fudgment of Paris, are now in the National Gallery. Thomas Penrice, who once practised as a surgeon in Yarmouth, owed his riches to the last Lord Chedworth, of whom he was the residuary legatee. He was a man of artistic tastes which he was able to gratify after the inheritance of a fortune which according to tradition amounted to more than £200,000. The marriage of his daughter in 1805 to Andrew Fountaine of Narford connected him with the family of a more famous collector, for his son-in-law was the collateral descendant of Swift’s friend and companion, Sir Andrew Fountaine, who gathered, chiefly in Italy, the art treasures that remained at Narford Hall until they were dispersed at Christie’s in 1884. Penrice, who died in 1816, bought many pictures in his later years, and according to Carey spent £10,000 or £12,000 with one dealer alone, Delahante, between 1812 and 1814. His cus- tomary adviser was Henry Walton, the painter, but when Buchanan offered him The Brazen Serpent and another important and costly picture (neither of which he bought), he consulted Lawrence, and the letter from Lawrence I quote below was sent in reply to his enquiries. It is remarkable as expressing his disregard for any opinions on pictures except those of painters. Lawrence must have had great faith in the discretion of Penrice, 131 Q-2 [1808] ART IN ENGLAND whose silence he depends upon, for if his letter had been made public or some of its expressions talked about, it would have ruined him in the opinion of the many connoisseurs, real or so- called, of his acquaintance. His reference to his rival Hoppner is amusing. Lawrence says: Greek Street, Soho. Dear Sir, July 5th, 1808. I yesterday went to Mr Buchanan’s, but he was out, so that I know not exactly the pictures you mention: I imagine, however, that they are two that I am acquainted with, and if so they are indisputably of the Master’s, which is no inconsiderable point. One is the Raising the Brazen Serpent, by Rubens, the other a Venus by Titian. The first is an extremely fine work, and it appears to be (what is not common in Rubens’ large works) entirely by himself; the size of it (at a guess) nine feet long by six high. The subject cannot be said to be leasing but there is nothing in it to disgust. It is a very grand picture and in the finest preservation. The Venus is a naked figure on a white couch, very beautifully coloured, and, as I remember, in good preservation. In the background is a group of small figures, admirably composed and painted. It is a fine picture, but (in the spirit of that true opinion or impression from which I speak to you) not of the painter’s very finest quality. The size about five feet long and four high. They are both pictures that have been some time in this country, but in private hands. I saw one of them two years since and the other longer. I shall have the greatest pleasure in giving you what judgment I am able to form on any works which you may consult me upon. I shall giveit fearlessly because I depend on your silence, and because I am uninfluenced by any but the fairest motive. I know enough of my art to be certain that to be able to SEE, it is necessary to be able to DO, and therefore, though my opinion may in some case chance to be opposed to that of other artists let it be weighed with our comparative station in the art before you ultimately decide. If my voice be opposed to Mr Hoppner’s I shall not quarrel with you for not taking his. If to Mr West’s (though not a popular painter a great master of his art) I shall quarrel with you for not taking his. But these excepted (and against all picture dealers or artists connected with picture dealers) you are to consider my opinion as the best, or I shall think you in the wrong. If you are rash enough to encounter this censure, the evil be on your own head. I remain, Dear Sir, Yours with great truth, Tho: Lawrence. 132 AMERICAN ART CRITICISM [1808] The longstanding antagonism between Lawrence and Hoppner, hinted at in this letter, was not improved by the exhibition of a portrait by the former at the Academy of 1808. This was a posthumous portrait of Pitt (95), painted from such materials and information as the artist could obtain, and comparison was inevitable between it and the portrait of the statesman exhibited by Hoppner two years before. Hoppner had enjoyed the ad- vantage of sittings, while Lawrence was obliged to rely largely upon memory, but in spite of this handicap there were critics who declared that the later work was the best portrait of Pitt that had ever been painted. One of these, when discussing the question, said that Pitt’s mind was never reflected in his face, which had no dignity, but on the contrary a meanness, an in- describable simpleness; he might almost say.a vulgarity: All the other portraits of Mr Pitt have been tame likenesses of the man, none of them has therefore pleased. Simply as Mr Pitt there was everything in his personal resemblance to excite contrary emotions to pleasure. Mr Law- rence has understood the dignity and latitude of his art. He has painted Mr Pitt more in the likeness of his mind than in that of his person; but he has given a sufficient likeness to gratify the desires of affectionate remem- brance, and has superadded that dignity and character which are of more value to posterity. This year the Academy exhibition, arranged by Woodforde, Tresham, T. Daniell, Richards and Fuseli, was not particularly notable. The Times made no more experiments in the direction of encouraging young artists but ignored the exhibition, which, however, was reviewed, perhaps for the first time, by an American journal. This was the Monthly Anthology, of Boston, whose critic speaks scornfully of Somerset House and most of its works, and even mingles disrespect with his praise for the revered Benjamin West. He says that he has been three times to the exhibition and cannot persuade himself to respect the arts in England. The crowds of portraits annoy him: “‘head upon head, whole-lengths, half-lengths, quarter-lengths”. This brought about a disposi- tion to yawn. “I offer,” he adds, “‘as a supposition, that this 133 [1808] ART IN ENGLAND exhibition at Somerset House is considered by some of the artists as a catchpenny thing—that anything would do for the vulgar mob, and that this does very well to get two or three thousand pounds —for I do not find that some of the best ever exhibit there.”* The American writer mentions but few pictures, and says nothing of Lawrence, or of Turner, who indeed was not at his best this year. He scoffs at Westall, and sees in a picture by Fuseli nothing but ‘‘a vile plaster of oil and ashes”, but he praises unreservedly Wilkie’s Card Players (120). For Wilkie there were nothing but compliments this year, and Lord Buchan in a letter written from Edinburgh refers proudly to the high estimation in England of the young Scottish painter. Lord Buchan’s letter was addressed to one of his countrymen in London, Caleb Whitefoord, and gives him information about the prospects of an exhibition of pictures then in preparation, the first of any importance held in Edinburgh. Writing on January roth, he says: The fine arts begin to flourish in Scotland, and I take some degree of pride at having been among the first to promote them. We think of having an annual exhibition of the works of our artists here, and propose to purchase the house and hall used by Burrel for showing his Museum of natural varieties, for that purpose. We have Wilkie now at the head of his department, even in England, and Saunders in his; we have in James Howe, who was sent by me to paint the King’s cream-coloured charger and the Queen’s favourite old spaniel, Fanny, a second Stubbs in embryo; and Watson in portrait, Carse in village scenery, Weir in poetical subjects, and Henning in modelling, are all of them worthy of particular notice and approbation. In sculpture for domestic decoration we have Marshall, but no Flaxman or Canova. In Lord Buchan’s list of prominent Scottish artists there is one remarkable omission. He does not mention Raeburn, who had made a reputation long before this and was in 1808 easily the first of the portrait painters of the north. It was in this year that he painted the well-known portrait of Sir Walter Scott with his dog, as Scott tells Schetky the artist in a letter written in August. ““T sate,” says Sir Walter, “‘last spring at the request of the book- seller, to Raeburn for a full length portrait, seated under the 134 THE ELGIN MARBLES [7808] fragment of an old tower, with Hermitage Castle in the back- ground. Camp is also introduced, couchant, as the heralds call it. The connoisseurs think it is the best portrait Raeburn has ever done. I fancy it will be in the next Exhibition.” Scott refers to the next Edinburgh exhibition, at which it was shown in 1809. The reference to another and obscurer artist, James Howe, in Lord Buchan’s letter, suggests that he commissioned this “Stubbs in embryo” to paint the royal horse and dog, but the following advertisement, from a London paper of 1807, shows that the picture was painted as a speculation and that the artist wished to dispose of it. It is unfortunate that the advertisement gives no explanation of the deception practised on the cream- coloured charger: To be sold at No. 10 Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, by Mr Black, Pianoforte Maker, a remarkable fine picture of a cream coloured horse, entire, as big as life, and a beautiful lapdog, both belonging to his Majesty at Windsor, painted by Mr James Howe of Edinburgh, which has been exhibiting and very much admired by connoisseurs in the art, and by ladies and gentlemen in general, who have never failed on seeing this picture to be convinced of the truth of the very extraordinary deception imposed on the Horse himself, as was witnessed to the astonishment of the attendant grooms. In the summer of 1808 the magnificent relics of a great period of art which now adorn the British Museum were shown to the public by Lord Elgin, who brought them from Greece. These relics, known since as the Elgin Marbles, were exhibited in the summer in a temporary building attached to Lord Elgin’s house near Hyde Park Corner, where artists and archaeologists flocked to see them. George Cumberland, who was one of the earliest visitors to the collection, says that ever since the publication in - 1762 of the first volume of Stuart’s Antiquities of Athens there had been great curiosity to view even small fragments of the sculpture still abounding in the Greek capital and its vicinity. He well remembered the pride with which the architect Reveley, who went to Athens with Dr Worsley, once showed him a piece of moulding he had carried about with him carefully for many years, which was remarkable equally for the justness of its 139 [1808] ART IN ENGLAND proportions and the delicacy of its finish. Another traveller, Mr Walker, had brought over a few fragments which he had carried on a mule for more than eight hundred miles, and one of these, a small figure in bas-relief, Cumberland had acquired from him. But Cumberland knew of no specimens of any size that had been brought to England, or anything that could convey an im- pression of the grandeur of art at the period of the building of the Acropolis, until Lord Elgin secured this noble collection: ““now happily deposited near Hyde Park Corner, in a building erected purposely for their security; and on Saturdays and Sundays most liberally opened to the inspection of the public, as such things ought to be, without fee or reward or even the necessity of previous application”. Cumberland, it should be observed, makes no comment on the temporary building in which the marbles were placed—described by Haydon as “‘a damp, dirty penthouse’’—and appears to have thought it sufficient for its purpose. Nor was any complaint of the housing of these noble works made by Charles Bell, the great surgeon, to whom the Elgin Marbles made a double appeal, for he was an ardent lover of the arts as well as an anatomist. Bell was allowed to see the marbles before they were publicly exhibited, and was not pleased to hear, afterwards, that they had been shown first to a select company of artists and others by whom the Greek figures had been compared with those of English athletes, such as Jackson and Gregson, two of the first boxers of the day. But Lord Elgin invited him to a second exhibition of the same nature, as he tells his brother in a letter of July 26th: I went, and was much pleased. The intention was that we might compare the boxers with the remains of antiquity. There were Flaxman, Fuseli, and several other Academicians. After the exhibition the Academicians showed excellent play; they were all making their remarks, all jealous of each other. Each had his little circle, and all giving oblique thrusts at each other. Two men of more profound conceit than and are not to be found. is all mock humility; he gives one gentle tap at a gentleman’s door, and slips back three paces, yet he told me one night in that quiet easy manner that seems to say it is an understood thing “Michael Angelo was a painter, 136 CHARLES BELL AND THE ACADEMY [1808 | but no statuary’. Now this, you know, from a kind of lapidary is humble enough. is unquestionably a man of genius; his sketches are remarkably fine, but often he paints a log for a man; is rarely simple, which is an in- gredient in the truly sublime or grand. In his painting he is extravagant; in his writing turgid and inflated, labouring and big with something he can- not express, and in his criticism more extravagant still. The two Academicians are evidently Flaxman and Fuseli, whom he mentions as present in the beginning of his letter. The criticism of Fuseli is just enough but it is absurd to describe Flaxman as “‘a kind of lapidary”’. Bell appears to have had a fine contempt for the Academicians collectively, and some of them may have suspected and resented it. At this time, Sheldon, the Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy, who had long been failing, was unable to deliver his lectures. His resignation was imminent, and Bell was intensely anxious to succeed to the post, not for its emoluments, which were small, but because of his interest in the particular branches of anatomy which, in his opinion, should be dealt with by such a Professor. Bell had not long before published his Anatomy of Expression in Painting, and his candidature was supported by artists, and by such men of his own profession as Abernethy and Sir Astley Cooper. Sir Astley said to Sir William Beechey,— “Bell, of all the men I know, beyond all comparison merits the situation of Professor to the Royal Academy. He adds to a very extended knowledge of anatomy a perfect acquaintance with the principles of painting. If I had the ear of the King I should tell him not to vote for any other”’’. Beechey, however, declined to vote for Bell, although canvassed by Wilkie and Haydon, and what the opinion of the King was is not known. But the Princesses were among Bell’s supporters and, apparently, a respectable number of the Academicians, in whose hands the decision rested. Nevertheless, his defeat was crushing, for at the election, on the night of December 3rd, only four Academicians voted for him, against twenty-five for his opponent, Anthony Carlisle. The Examiner, in discussing before the election the contest for the Professorship, attacked Carlisle and his supporters, and was 137 [1808] ART IN ENGLAND reproved for this by Bell in a letter addressed to the editor of that journal. Bell was answered on October 16th by a correspondent signing himself ‘‘Connoisseur’’ who declared that the Academy deserved no mercy. Was Mr Bell aware that everything there was done by favour, “that the Academy is ruled by a party, at the head of which is said to stand a very mediocre landscape painter, one Farington by name”? Carlisle, who was Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy for sixteen years, appears to have been Turner’s physician at some time, for when the painter’s Hastings Beach appeared at Christie’s in 1875 it was described in the catalogue as “‘ presented by the artist to Sir A. Carlisle for medical attendance”’. Other elections this year were those of two Academicians and two Associates. The Academicians, elected in February, were Henry Howard and Thomas Phillips, painters; who in turn defeated Nathaniel Marchant the gem-sculptor. In the final ballot Marchant lost to Howard by eleven votes to seventeen, and to Phillips by twelve votes to sixteen. The new Associates, elected in November, were Robert Smirke, architect, who was successful by nineteen votes to seven, and Samuel Drummond, painter, who had sixteen votes against eight. The runner up in both elections was Matthew Wyatt the sculptor. The Council of the Royal Academy, whose first adventure in picture buying had ended unsatisfactorily in the preceding year, made no purchases in 1808, but two portraits were presented and added to the collection of members’ work at Somerset House. Both were self-portraits of members, one of Nathaniel Hone, R.A., the gift of Mr Jasper Archer; the other of Thomas — Gainsborough, R.A., presented by his daughter Margaret. The receipt of the latter is announced in one of the minutes of a Council held on May 14th: “The President produced a portrait of the late Thomas Gainsborough, Esq., R.A., Painted by him- self and presented by Miss Gainsborough, his daughter; to be deposited in the Royal Academy. Resolved. That a vote of thanks be given to Miss Gainsborough”. The name of a con- temporary of Gainsborough, and like him a foundation member 138 BIAGIO REBECCA [1808] of the Royal Academy, also appears in the Council minutes at this time. It is that of Paul Sandby, who, now in his eighty- third year, was obliged to appeal to the Academy for assistance, “owing to advanced age and infirmities, and failure of employ- ment”’, and was granted a pension of £60 a year. Another pensioner of the Academy, Biagio Rebecca, A.R.A., died in February. He had been without means for some time and at a Council meeting on March 11th, two bills were paid on his account, one of £17. 16s. 6d. for his funeral, and the other of £12. 115. 6d. for a debt owing to his landlord. Rebecca, according to the writer of a contemporary obituary, was born in Italy in 1735, at Osimo, in the Marches of Ancona, and studied in the Academy of Fine Arts at Rome. There he made the acquaintance of George James (afterwards A.R.A.), whom he accompanied to England, where he was one of the first to join, in 1769, the newly founded schools of the Royal Academy. He painted very few pictures but was a most successful decorative artist, and worked a good deal at Windsor for the King, who liked the Italian, although occasionally deceived by his practical jokes in paint, which he contrived with surprising ingenuity. The writer of the obituary says, after remarking Rebecca’s in- ability to paint history pictures: But no man ever had greater taste in delineating arabesque ornaments, and the deception of things, animate and inanimate. For his taste in arabesque he received the marked patronage of Sir J. and Lady Griffin, afterwards Lord and Lady Howard, at their elegant Mansion at Audley End. Those powers were communicated by Mr West to our gracious King and Queen, who bestowed on him distinguished favours. Lord Grey de Wilton, with many others of rank and fortune, were desirous of having him and his works at their residences in the country; but his singular power in deceptions was a perpetual source of surprise and delight (though sometimes of momentary distress and alarm) to his employers. The appearance of broken mirrors of great value, and mutilated statues; dirty tea kettles placed on costly satin sofas, as if left by neglectful servants; the rending of splendid canopies and rich hangings; the imitation of men, women and children so as to deceive their friends and parents, and of domestic animals, their owners; and floors of rooms as if on fire from the coals which had fallen from the grates. All the materials of domestic life were so accurately imitated 139 [1808] ART IN ENGLAND that real cats would seize on his deceptive cats, dogs on his dogs; and poultry fly from his deceptive eagles and hawks. For a few minutes’ gratification of himself and friends in these deceptions he would secrete himself for weeks. Such were his favourite pursuits and such was his loss of time. During his last seven years he was reduced to want, and for the last three years the Royal Academy gave him the annual pension it allows to its decayed members, which was his only support. He died, as he had lived, in the Roman faith, and was handsomely buried by the direction of Mr West and at the expense of the Royal Academy, in St Pancras Churchyard. He was a man of much modesty as a painter, of simplicity of manners and of a humane disposition. He had a passion for dress suits of clothes, which he never wore but had great gratification in looking at in his wardrobe. He delighted in seeing works of nature and art, which he could closely imitate though several years had elapsed after having seen them. His mental powers were so little exercised that he had nearly lost his native language without acquiring that of the English. 7 Turner, who had sent nothing to the Academy but an interior, The Unpaid Bill, showed a number of landscapes at his private gallery, “‘an exhibition which he liberally throws open to the public”’, says John Landseer when describing the pictures in the Review of Publications of Art. Many of Turner’s landscapes at this exhibition represented scenes on the Thames above and below London Bridge. One of them, The Union of the Thames and Isis, which Landseer describes as “‘a Claude-like study of mild sun- shine’’, is now at the Tate Gallery. Other up-river pictures were Eton College; Richmond Hill and Bridge from the Surrey Bank; and Pope’s Villa at Twickenham. The last-named was purchased from the exhibition by Sir John Leicester. One of the below-bridge landscapes, Purfleet and the Essex shore, as seen from Long Reach, was praised by Landseer for its prevailing freshness and cool and — silvery tone, which contrasted agreeably with the rich, golden- toned Forest of Bere which was hanging by its side. Both these landscapes were sold, the first to Lord Essex and the second to Lord Egremont. Landseer thought that the glow of the Forest of Bere, “‘in the mild radiance of a warm summer evening”’, would have humbled the pride of Cuyp. Sheerness as seen from the Nore and The Confluence of the Thames and Medway were also noticed as well as several works in progress. Landseer says that 140 A NEW SOCIETY OF ARTISTS [1808] of one of these he forbears to speak at present, “‘an unfinished picture which hangs at the upper end of the room, the subject of which is taken from the Runic superstitions, and where the artist has conjured up mysterious spectres and chimeras’’. An interesting event of 1808 was the establishment of a second society of watercolour painters, which held its exhibition in the gallery at No. 20 Lower Brook Street, the first head-quarters of the original society. ‘The Associated Artists in Water Colours, as the newcomers called themselves, opened their gallery to the public on April 18th (not the 25th, as Roget gives it) after holding, on the preceding day, a private view to which were invited the Governors of the British Institution, the members of the Royal Academy, and a host of fashionable people. William Wood was President of the Society, and Andrew Robertson, the miniature painter, the Secretary. The career of the Associated Artists was short, but its members or exhibitors included Alfred Chalon, J. C. Schetky, L. F. Francia, W. Westall, S. Owen, and last but not least, Peter De Wint. The earliest known criticism of De Wint’s work appeared in a review of this exhibition pub- lished in the Examiner, in which it was said that his view of Westminster Hall and Abbey, “from the Bridge, has an agreeable simplicity of effect’’. What appears to be an unrecorded sale of relics of Hogarth took place at Christie’s on May 6th. The relics formed part of the estate of Mary Lewis, the niece of Mrs Hogarth to whom she bequeathed the house at Chiswick once belonging to the artist. Mary Lewis died in the spring of 1808, and the sale at Christie’s, held by order of her executors, was of “A truly valuable and unique assemblage of the principal works of Hogarth, first impressions; a family portrait in oil by ditto; and a ditto of Lady Thornhill by Sir Godfrey Kneller, the whole of which have been in the possession of relatives of the illustrious painter since his decease and are now brought from his late country residence at Chiswick”’. On March 23rd were sold all the pictures, sketches and painting materials of that industrious amateur the Rev. James Gardnor, I41 [7808] ART IN ENGLAND who although a schoolmaster and Vicar of Battersea, found time to paint and exhibit twenty-seven pictures at the Society of Artists and sixty-one at the Royal Academy. Gardnor was, in fact, a more prolific exhibitor than his professional rival and fellow-clergyman, the Rev. William Peters, R.A., to whose place as Chaplain to the Royal Academy he had hoped to succeed in 1790. Peters resigned the Chaplaincy in that year, and Gardnor was a candidate for the post, to which, however, the Bishop of Killaloe was appointed. ‘Two days after the Gardnor sale the remaining works of John Hamilton Mortimer, A.R.A., were disposed of by his widow who had preserved them intact since his death twenty-nine years earlier. All these sales were conducted by the firm of Christie, which, though less predominant in 1808 than it is to-day, was easily the most important of the auctioneers of works of art. Of the rival auctioneers none was more enterprising than Harry Phillips, who in the summer of this year challenged his former employers by opening a fine sale room in New Bond Street, and showing picture collections of importance, at evening private views. These, if his statements could be trusted, were attended by half the people of social importance in London. The opening of the new room in June was described in the newspapers in the following obviously inspired paragraph: The Fashionable Lounge. The haut ton yesterday grouped themselves at Phillips’ new built Auction Room in Bond Street, which he has opened by exposing to the view of the public an arrangement of all the leading attrac- tions the Arts have devised. The Architect has given facilities by his design of the building peculiar to this room, which is of Grecian structure com- bining an elegance and simplicity rarely observable where space and effect are essential. The basis is about forty five feet square, with a lofty elevation crowned by a vaulted roof of light appearance: the room is hung with a deep tinted crimson, and ebony mouldings, giving rich effect to the splendid assemblage now exhibiting. The illuminated view in the evening was a most enchanting scene, and crowded with beauty and fashion. CHAPTER X 1809 A suRPRISING incident of the season of 1809 was the return to the field of art criticism of John Williams, better known as Anthony Pasquin, whose trenchant comments on painters and pictures had figured prominently in the Morning Post and other journals in the later years of the eighteenth century. Pasquin, who in his youth had hopes of becoming a painter himself, was, as a writer on art, shrewd, able and sarcastic; and on occasion scurrilous. He was a dramatic as well as an art critic, and in the former capacity was charged with blackmailing actors and actresses, many of whom stood in terror of his bitter pen. His eighteenth century career in England was brought to an end by Gifford, who assailed him mercilessly in the Maeviad and Baviad. Pasquin ventured to sue Gifford’s publisher for libel, was non-suited, and obliged in consequence to leave this country for the United States, where he practised as a journalist, and died in 1818. These facts are recorded in the Dictionary of National Biography and similar works, but none of the many writers who have mentioned him appears to have been aware that he was in England in 1809 and 1810, and in those years was writing unsigned art criticisms for the Morning Herald. Pasquin was a rascal, no doubt, but he was an entertaining writer, and one who took trouble to gather information about the painters of an earlier period in England. To him, sub- sequent historians of the art of that time owe a good deal, and as a critic he was not to be despised. He was one of the first of the newspaper writers to notice and appreciate the promise of Turner’s youthful work, and to Turner he addressed himself 143 [1809] ART IN ENGLAND with much good sense when reviewing his work at the Academy in the Morning Herald of 1809. In noticing Turner he speaks first of No. 22, Spithead. Boat’s crew recovering an Anchor, a picture now in the National Gallery. “This,” says Pasquin, “‘is one of the most perfect performances in the exhibition, and in every point of view worthy of the artist who traced it....Mr Turner may become, if he pleases, the first marine painter in the world.” He then turns to No. 175, The Garreteer’s Petition, which, as those who see it to-day in the Tate Gallery will observe, has a suggestion of the method of Wilkie. Pasquin complains, more in sorrow than in anger, that the land- scape painter has been trying to imitate the effects of his Scottish rival: No. 175. The Garreteer’s Petition. This too is from the pencil of Mr Turner, and a very sickly and inadequate affair it is. How strange it must appear that a gentleman of his high bearing in his profession cannot be contented with being renowned for what he can do well but will risk the fortune of his character by attempting that which he cannot do but ill. We will not think so cheaply of his intellect as to suppose that he can look with envy upon the meritorious labours of Mr Wilkie. As the firmament of the polite arts can admit the luminousness of two suns, why should he then wantonly and im- providently leave his own beaten course of honour to wander in another where his qualifications may be often contested, or to squat himself uninvited in an orchestra where he can play only a very subordinate violin. We advise Mr Turner to remain in future in the quiet of Academic honours in his first floor in Harley Street, and never more to wander in garrets to personify poets and their concomitant wretchedness. In concluding his remarks on Turner the critic mentions No. 145, Labley, Cheshire, the seat of Sir F. F. Leicester, Bart. “In this felicitous imitation of a calm morning,” he says, “‘the artist has evidently taken Cuyp for his study. He is in this at home, as he ought to be....Joseph Mallord William is himself again.” Wilkie, whose work was for the public at large again the principal attraction, was represented by The Rent Day (129) and The Cut Finger (128). Both were praised by Pasquin, but with qualifications. The young artist was warned not to allow his 144 AARON BURR’S BUST [1809] head to be turned by excessive adulation, “‘for though he has learned much he has much to learn. He may be another Teniers by incessant study, but he is not a Teniers now”’. Among the sculpture Pasquin’s attention was particularly attracted by a bust of Aaron Burr (788) by Turnerelli, because it recalled his transatlantic experiences. He says of it: This is (agreeably to the traces of memory) a very strong likeness of the celebrated Aaron Burr of the United States, who is not only one of the most eloquent, but certainly one of the first gentlemen of that part of the New World. We have regarded his bust in this place as in a proper depository because he is and has been an active friend to the Fine Arts and their pro- fessors in his own country, where the more elegant attributes of society have not yet made an establishment. The late General Washington with all his heroism and public virtues had so little inclination towards the muses that we doubt (from personal observation) whether their sweetest influence af- forded him much enjoyment; and the late President, Mr Jefferson, with all his learning and philosophy, never manifested the same disposition to en- courage Les Beaux Arts and Belles Lettres as he did to make the Indian an agriculturist. We do not mention these particulars as charges against the former Chief Magistrates of the United States, but to prove the superior bearing and cast of Mr Burr’s mind, that could comprehend and embrace the society of Painting and Sculpture even on the margin of a wilderness. Aaron Burr, that remarkable man and daring adventurer, who had recently held the high office of Vice-President of the United States, spent several months in England in 1808, and it was then that he sat to Turnerelli for the bust at the Academy, which was a good likeness because it was made from a cast of the sitter’s face. The taking of the cast caused the distinguished American intense annoyance, as he records in his diary in November, 1808: ‘‘ Went to Turnerelli’s. He would have a mask. I consented because (Jeremy) Bentham and others had”’. The mask was made at a morning sitting and Burr, who had many aristocratic acquaintances in London, afterwards walked in the fashionable neighbourhood of Pall Mall and St James’s Street, until, happening to catch sight of himself in a mirror, he saw a large purple mark on his nose. ““Went up and washed and rubbed it—all to no purpose, it was indelible....I have applied WA 145 ge) [ 7809 | ART IN ENGLAND half a dozen applications to my nose, which have only inflamed it. How many curses have I heaped on that Italian!” Burr thought the trouble arose from some deleterious element in the composition of the mould and was not consoled when Turnerelli told him that Lord Melville and others had suffered in a similar way. In Burr’s opinion the bust was “‘a hideous, frightful thing, but much like the original’. Except for Pasquin’s notes and a striking comment on Turner in the Repository of Arts, the newspaper criticisms of the Academy were not remarkable this year. The Repository of Aris said of the great landscape painter: Turner here maintains his accustomed dignity. Spithead, Boat’s crew re- covering an Anchor is a most majestic picture, and the views of Sir John Leicester’s seat, which in any other hands would be mere topography, touched by his magic pencil have assumed a highly poetic character. It is on occasions like this that the superiority of this man’s mind displays itself; and in comparison with the productions of his hands not only all the painters of the present day, but all the boasted names to which the collectors bow—sink into nothing. No one, so far as I have observed, said anything about Constable’s three pictures at the Academy. But the critic of the Beau Monde, who mentioned Constable’s name as an exhibitor, wrote what may be the earliest notice of Crome’s landscapes” published in a London journal. “‘Mr J. Crome,” he says, “has No. 36 and No. 235. The latter represents old buildings at Norwich. There is a pleasing effect of partial sunshine on these buildings.” The Hanging Committee, composed of Shee, Phillips and Howard, had no troubles this year, but before the pictures were received there was friction between the Council and Copley, who wished to exhibit a large equestrian portrait of the Prince of Wales, a performance from which he expected great things. He knew that he could not finish it by the regular sending-in day, but thought that as his portrait represented the Heir Ap- parent an extension of time would certainly be granted to him by the Academy. On April ist he applied for-an extension, which he asked for in the name of the Prince of Wales, who had 146 ‘ . a (ae ee Pee © oe et OT ae THE COST OF THE BANQUETS [7809] not been able to sit often enough for him to finish the head. The President and Council, after receiving his letter, wrote to the Prince, respectfully refusing the application, and informed Copley of what they had done. Copley consulted his patron, and four days later the following letter was placed before the Council: Mr Copley presents his compliments to the President and Council of the Royal Academy and begs leave to mention that he has been informed by the Prince of Wales that in the year 1807 a portrait of his Royal Highness by Hoppner was, at the desire of his Royal Highness, allowed to be sent in some time after the day fixed for receiving the pictures. But even this appeal was of no avail. The only reply vouch- safed by the Council was a formal statement that they had no power to dispense with any of the laws of the institution. It is doubtful whether an extension of time would have been of any value to Copley. His portrait of the Prince was not finished until two or three months after the opening of the exhibition. In connection with Copley’s reference to 1807, it should be stated that the Council minutes of that year contain no mention of a grant of extension of time to Hoppner. Other important matters discussed by the Academy Council included the report of the auditors urging the need of spending less and of finding new sources of revenue; and the question of varnishing days for members. The auditors reported abuses in connection with the annual banquet, particularly as to the number of guests invited—always more than the room would hold. They proposed that the invitations should not exceed a hundred and twenty, which was agreed to. It was also decided that the contract for the banquetshould be given to Simpkin, of the Crown and Anchor Tavern, at thirty shillings a head, including wine. This was identical with the charge of the previous year and therefore showed no saving, although economies must have been possible. For in 1807 and earlier the charges were much less, even allowing for the fact that they did not cover the cost of wine. In 1807 they were thirteen shillings a head, and the same in 1802. To increase the Academy’s revenue the auditors proposed to advance the charge for the catalogue of the exhibition from 147 10-2 [1809] ART IN ENGLAND sixpence to a shilling, and this was done, with gratifying results. The revenue, which was £3755 in 1808, rose to £4369 in 1809. The question of permitting members to retouch or varnish their pictures after they were hung had long been a debateable one. Those on the Council for the year were always allowed this privilege, and worked on their canvases even while the hanging was in progress. But in 1809 the following proposal, made by Shee, was accepted by the General Assembly: As great inconvenience has been caused to the Committee of Arrangement by Members of Council painting on their pictures after being received, the following proposed: That three days or more be allowed to all the Members of the Royal Academy for the purpose of varnishing or painting on their pictures in the places which have been allotted to them, previous to the day appointed for the Annual Dinner in the Exhibition Room. The law instituting varnishing days, made in 1809, remained in force for more than forty years, and to that period belong the stories of the miraculous changes made by Turner in the ap- pearance of his pictures after they were hung upon the Academy walls. The varnishing days, which were sometimes five in number, were much enjoyed by the members, but deeply re- sented by artists outside the pale, who never saw their work until the exhibition was opened to the public. Complaints of the unfairness of the privilege allowed to the Academicians in this respect were frequent in the press until 1852 when varnishing days were temporarily suspended. Sir Frederick Eaton refers to this suspension in The Royal Academy and its Members, and in doing so makes a curious error. The withdrawal of the privilege was due to a motion made by Mulready, who thought, and rightly, that the varnishing days gave the members an unfair advantage. Mulready was quiet and reserved in demeanour, says Sir Frederick. “The friendly chaff and fun that went on among the members on the varnishing days had no charms for him, and it was on his motion that these festive gatherings were, for a time, done away with, bitterly to the regret of Turner, Chantrey, Stanfield, and others, of a more affable and jovial character.” 148 ACADEMY VARNISHING DAYS [1809] Sir Frederick forgot that when the varnishing days were suspended in 1852, Chantrey had been dead eleven years and Turner three or four months. It was the death of Turner that caused them to be dropped, as Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A., explained in his speech at the Academy banquet of 1852. Turner had made much use of the varnishing days professionally, and always derived pleasure from them, and his influence at the Academy was so powerful that although the unfairness to the outsider was recognised, they were maintained until the great landscape painter died in 1851. Varnishing days were then dis- continued for seven years, and when restored their benefits were extended to artists at large. Turner, a true son of the Academy and always interested in its affairs, designed in 1809 a new method of lighting by lamps the Somerset House Lecture Room (the principal picture gallery) ; working in conjunction with Soane, who planned several im- provements in the room. These alterations, of which no details have been preserved, proved satisfactory to the Council, whose thanks were bestowed formally upon both painter and architect. The efforts of Turner and Soane to improve the Lecture Room were not perhaps entirely disinterested, for their courses of ad- dresses, as Professors respectively of Perspective and Architecture, were to commence early in 1810. Soane’s were duly delivered, but Turner, after some negotiations with the Council, obtained permission to postpone his lectures until 1811. In April Turner re-opened his private gallery in Queen Anne Street West. There was no charge for admission but the notifica- tion in the papers on the 23rd of the month makes it clear that the artist’s invitation to see his pictures was not extended to all and sundry. ‘Tomorrow Mr Turner the Academician will gratuitously open to the classes of Dilettanti, Connoisseurs and Artists, his gallery in Queen Anne Street West, which will remain open till the day preceding the birthday of his , Majesty.” Turner’s exhibition was composed of eighteen pictures in oil and water colour, of which the following is a list: - 149 [7809] ART IN ENGLAND TURNER’S GALLERY 1809 (1) Sketch of a Bank with Gypsies, (2) Sketch of Cows, etc. (3) Cottage Steps, Children feeding Chickens. Drawing. (4) Shoeburyness, Fishermen hailing Whitstable Hoy. (5) Union of the Thames and Isis. (6) Zhomson’s Eolian Harp. (7) Fishing upon the Blythe Sand, tede setting in. (8) Near the Thames Lock, Windsor. ‘‘ Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race”’ (9) Ploughing up Turnips, near Slough. (10) Harvest Dinner, Kingston Bank. (11) Guardship at the Nore, Sheerness. (12) Richmond, Morning. (13) Trout Fishing in the Dee, Corwen Bridge and Cottage. (14) Fishing Boats in a Calm. (15) Bilsen Brook. (16) London. ‘“‘Where burthened Thames reflects the crowded sail.” (17) Fishing boats in a Calm. (18) King’s College, Cambridge. Drawing. Several of these pictures have become the property of the nation, including No. 7, the beautiful study of incoming sea and shallow water, now called, Bligh Sand, near Sheerness, Fishing Boats Trawling. Lawrence was an early visitor to Turner’s exhi- bition, and was so much impressed by one of the pictures he saw there that he wrote at once about it to Mr Penrice, the Yarmouth collector who had consulted him a year before about Buchanan’s offer of a Venus by Titian and The Brazen Serpent by Rubens. Lawrence’s letter is as follows: Greek Street, Dear Sir, While you are meditating on the purchase of pictures of the Old Masters, : what say you to setting an example to your rich friends of patronage to living artists? I have just been at the gallery of Mr Turner (indisputably the first landscape painter in Europe) and there seen a most beautiful picture 150 April 26th, 1809. [7] 7 7 DEATH OF PAUL SANDBY [1809] which in my opinion would be very cheaply purchased at two hundred guineas—the price at which I understand it may be bought. The subject is A Scene near Windsor, with young Etonians introduced— “Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race,” etc. If the expression can apply to landscape it is full of sentiment, and certainly of genius. If you dare hazard the experiment you must do it quickly and authorize me to secure it for you. It would give me very great pleasure, from my respect for the powers of the artist, my admiration of the work, and (may I say it on so slight an acquaintance?) my esteem for you. The size of the picture is (by guess) about three feet in length and a little less in height. It is in his own peculiar manner, but that at its best; no Flemish finishing, but having in it fine principles of art, the essentials of beauty, and (as far as the subject admits it) even of grandeur. I remain, Dear Sir, Very truly yours, Tho. Lawrence. In spite of Lawrence’s commendations, A Scene near Windsor (No. 8 in Turner’s list) did not go to Yarmouth. It was pur- chased by one of the artist’s firmest friends and supporters, Lord Egremont, and added to his collection at Petworth. In 1809 died Paul Sandby, who had enjoyed but a short time the pension bestowed upon him by the Academy in 1808, He died in his eighty-fourth year, almost in harness, for in the last fortnight of his life he completed the largest work in oil he had ever attempted. “‘He left this world affectionately remembered and beloved by all who knew him”’, says a friend who wrote a memoir of the painter in the Monthly Magazine after his death. “There was a politeness and affability in his address, a sprightli- ness and vivacity in his conversation, together with a constant equanimity of temper, which, joined with his having been the friend of such men as Foote, Churchill, Garrick, Goldsmith, Macklin, and others of the same class, rendered his society and conversation singularly animating and interesting.”’ Sandby died in the house in St George’s Row, Bayswater Road, where he had lived for many years, and the vicinity of which he has depicted in many drawings. St George’s Row, close to what I5I [1809] ART IN ENGLAND is now Connaught Place, was then close to the country, and near at hand was Kensington Gardens, not as now an open, formal park, but shut in by high buttressed walls and full of ancient trees and tangled undergrowth. But the artist’s earliest land- scape studies were made in Scotland where he was sent when a youth as a military draughtsman. Later he made numerous studies of Welsh scenery, chiefly in the course of tours in the Principality with Sir Watkin Williams Wynn and Sir Joseph Banks. From some of these studies he painted a view of Snowdon which Mason praises in extravagant terms, and Gray mentions as a great picture in one of his letters. Although accustomed to work on a small scale Sandby had much adaptability, and while the guest at Wynnstay, of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, painted all the scenes for a private theatre. In 1794 he undertook the decoration of a very large room at Drakelow House, Burton-on- Trent, for Sir Nigel Gresley. “‘Mr Sandby,” says a contemporary writer, ‘“began and completed within the short space of two months what to those who see it appears to be the labour of years, being one continued subject of a landscape, round three sides of the room. Many of the trees are more than thirty feet in height, and the ceiling has a beautiful sky.” We are told that he admired the work of Marco Ricci so much that he endeavoured to buy every specimen of it that came into the market; but of his connection with Richard Wilson, whom also he admired, his friend says nothing except that they lived “in habits of great intimacy”’’, and that the number was pro- digious of fine sketches and studies by Wilson possessed by Sandby. No fewer than seventy of these sketches and studies were in Sandby’s possession at the time of his death and were included in the sale of his collections, two years afterwards. Some of them must have been very interesting, as for example No. 80 in the catalogue, “‘A drawing: the effect of a storm. It was from this sketch Mr Wilson took the idea of painting his celebrated picture the Niobe”’. In this sale were included examples of Sandby’s work executed at all periods of his long career of more than sixty years, and his “‘ingenious models of landscape scenery”’. 152 PETER DE WINT [r8o09] Sandby’s medium was principally watercolour, and when looking at his drawings it should be remembered that for the greater part of his career the limitations of his materials pre- vented him from reproducing effects that he must have ap- preciated and tried to imitate. And to him, according to the writer of the memoir in the Monthly Magazine from whom I have quoted, we owe the beginning of the improvement in the range and quality of the palette of the watercolour painter: “It should be observed,” he says, “that for many years after Mr Sandby commenced landscape drawing, no colours were in general use except such as were peculiarly adapted for the staining of maps and plans, and it was himself who first set Middleton the colourmaker to prepare them in some- what like their present state, and which are now brought to so great per- fection by Reeves, Newman and others.” A new and greater school of watercolour was developing when Sandby died in 1809, and in the spring of that year the Academy schools admitted a student who was destined to be one of its greatest exponents. This was Peter De Wint, who entered the schools on March 8th. De Wint, however, was twenty-five at this time, and no novice. He had already exhibited at the Academy and at the first exhibition of the Associated Artists in Water Colours, where, as we have seen, his work attracted the attention of the critic of the Examiner. To the second exhibition of this newly founded Society he contributed drawings which were hailed by a writer in the Beau Monde as the work of a man certain of a great future. The writer begins by coupling De Wint with another young exhibitor, David Cox. He says that the names of both are new to him, and after praising Cox in moderate terms continues thus: Mr De Wint has nothing to fear from the boldest and bravest of his pre- decessors in water colour landscape. He has manifested in the present exhibition that professional skill which can only be founded on accurate— by which we do not mean minute—observation, confirmed and rendered familiar by habit. He has opened a road for himself not far wide of those in which Turner and Callcott are travelling through the landscape of life, and may proceed with a steady face towards the ultimate object of his ambition, where he will find a niche prepared for his reception. 193 [1809 | ART IN ENGLAND This critic selects for particular commendation De Wint’s large landscape, No. 33, View of Lincoln, effect of early hour of morning. ‘‘The boats and shipping near the foreground are introduced and treated with the consummate skill of a master in this branch of art, and the circumstance of youth bathing in the river is also introduced with an attention to time and place which is not less praiseworthy. All that composition has added to the landscape is fully and strictly zncidental, which we esteem no slight praise of the science of Mr De Wint.” De Wint’s work at the gallery of the Associated Artists in Water Colours was praised as highly but in briefer terms in the Repository of Arts, of which the first number was published this year. The Repository of Arts, an illustrated monthly magazine of a lighter kind than any that preceded it, made a feature of notes on painters, pictures, engravings, etc., largely from the point of view of the amateur. Its graceful coloured designs of con- temporary fashion, which made it attractive to women, were drawn by Thomas Uwins, afterwards a Royal Academician, Surveyor of Pictures to Queen Victoria, and Keeper of the National Gallery. Uwins also wrote occasional articles for the magazine, which was founded by Rudolph Ackermann, a pub- lisher of German birth, whose large establishment in the Strand was a centre of interest for all those who practised the minor decorative arts, or were concerned with watercolour drawing. His shop, one of the best known in London, had a curious history, as the following description shows, published by him in 1809: This shop stands upon part of the courtyard of what was Beaufort House, _ formerly a town residence of the noble family whose name it bore, and one of the great number of mansions which, at no distant period, lined the bank of the Thames from Temple Bar to the City of Westminster, The noble and lofty apartments of the house, which commences at the back part of the shop, and a fine oak staircase of considerable dimensions, bear testimony to its former magnificence. After it had ceased to be the residence of the Beaufort family it was converted into the Fountain Tavern, a house of great celebrity in bygone days, and was remarkable for the circumstance of Lord Lovat stopping there to take refreshment on his way from Westminster 1954 mS win - . ~ P pe Pia oie See eee poe eee Fe Rn a ee eS po Ree Reee gone A SE OEE Ce ee ee ee ee ee eT eee ey ee a ee CeO, ame eT 1UIM 9q JOI0g AG aQTHIINAUOD V UNaSNTA 1494] PUY V140]914 YI Ut BuNUW BY} WOAT ® 42 THE FOUNTAIN TAVERN [1809] Hall to the Tower, and writing with his diamond ring the following couplet upon a pane of glass in the great room— **Oh! through what various scenes of life we run, Are wicked to be great, and being great, undone.” This room, which is sixty-five feet in length, thirty in width and twenty- four in height, was formerly occupied by Mr Shipley, brother to the Bishop of that name; he kept a most respectable drawing academy here, and among his pupils were Mr W. Pars, who died at Rome, J. Smart Esq., and the celebrated R. Cosway Esq., R.A. The latter had in his possession the pane | of glass before mentioned. William Shipley, brother to the Bishop of St Asaph, who once conducted his school in the great room, was the real founder of the Society of Arts. His drawing classes, which were the best of their kind in England, were carried on after his retirement by a former pupil, Henry Pars, brother to William Pars, A.R.A., mentioned above, William Blake was a pupil of Henry Pars. Ackermann’s ancient house had another and much earlier con- nection with the arts, of which its owner was probably unaware. At the Fountain Tavern, and no doubt in its great room, were held in the early eighteenth century some of the festive gatherings of that club of artists and amateurs founded by Vandyck and known as the Society of Virtuosi of St Luke. Ackermann was a publisher of prints and illustrated books, and the manufacturer of watercolours and lead pencils of high reputation in their day. He does not appear to have dealt in oil colours and probably had some arrangement to pass on customers who asked for them to Middleton of St Martin’s Lane, as Middleton’s materials for artists are frequently recommended in the Repository of Arts. Some of Middleton’s prices in 1809 are quoted as follows in the first volume of the Repository. Ultramarine is £4 or £5 an ounce, according to its goodness. Half a crown’s worth, or six grains, may be purchased. Asphaltum, or Jew’s pitch, a shilling for a small gallipot full. Antwerp blue, a shilling for a small bladder. This colour is seldom kept in bladders but must be bespoken. Fine white, red, light and dark yellow-lake, brown-pink, Prussian blue, verdigris, and Naples yellow are 6d. a bladder; burnt terra di Sienna, 4d.; Nottingham white or common white, raw and burnt umber, light and brown ochre, ivory black, blue black, terra verte, and Indian red, 3d. a bladder. Some 155 [1809] ART IN ENGLAND colours are bought in powders and mixed up when wanted. Such are: vermilion, 1s. 8d. an ounce; King’s yellow, 6d. to 1s. 6d.; red lead and orange lead, 6d. Carmine will not mix well with oil. The price is one guinea and upwards, and very good near £2 per ounce. Like ultramarine its high price greatly confines its use. ) Poppy and nut oil are 8d. for a small phial; a superior drying oil for the clear colours, 6d.; common drying oil and oil or spirits of turpentine, 3d. a phial; and mastic varnish 6d. a phial. Canvas for painting is about 2s. 6d. or 3s. for the size of a portrait, that is the head and shoulders; for a larger portrait 5s.; half-lengths, 8s5.; whole lengths about a guinea more or less, according to the size. There were three elections to membership of the Royal Academy in 1809, but only one was interesting. The first was in February, when Nathaniel Marchant was elected an Aca- demician in the place of Angelica Kauffman. Marchant de- feated Augustus Callcott the landscape painter by twenty-one votes to nine. The interesting election was that of Wilkie, who in the summer, acting on the advice of Sir William Beechey and one or two other Academicians, put his name on the list of candidates for the A.R.A. The election, for two Associates, took place in November when Wilkie, the first chosen, defeated George Dawe by twenty votes to fourteen. Dawe was successful in the second contest. No writer on the history of the Royal Academy or any biographer of Wilkie appears to have noticed that the young painter’s election was invalid. By the laws of the Academy in force at this time no one could be elected an Associate unless he was twenty-four years of age. Wilkie was born on November 18th, 1785, and was made an Associate on November 6th, 1809, twelve days before his twenty-fourth birth- day. ) Wilkie’s election could in no case have been long delayed, but that he succeeded in 1809 was probably due to Beechey. It was the custom then for candidates for Associateships to canvas the Academicians for their votes, and Beechey discovered, only three days before the election, that Wilkie had approached none of them and that remarks were being made about his supposed discourtesy. At Beechey’s suggestion he began calling at once 156 LADY HAMILTON’S DAUGHTER [1809] upon the Academicians, and, short as the time was, managed to visit nearly all. } Beechey, who had exhibited a portrait of Wilkie at the Academy, described as “‘like, but the attitude too theatrical and not at all characteristic of the artist”’, invited him in the summer to one of Lady Beechey’s evening parties, which were attended by all sorts of fashionable people. Lady Beechey was the only artist's wife who entertained on a considerable scale, and an- nouncements or descriptions of her parties at Harley Street figure now and again in the Morning Post throughout the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Such singers as Grassini appeared at her concerts, and on the night Wilkie was invited another well-known performer was among the guests. This was the adored of Nelson and of Romney—Lady Hamil- ton, who did not, however, entertain the company with her famous poses. There were poses, but they were made by a girl she brought with her, “‘a creature of great sweetness’’, says Wilkie, “supposed to be the daughter of Lord Nelson’’. Lady Hamilton introduced herself to the painter and told him that her daughter excelled in graceful attitudes. ““She then made her stand in the middle of the room,” he says, “‘with a piece of drapery and throw herself into a number of those elegant postures for which her ladyship in her prime was so distinguished. She afterwards told me of all else her daughter Horatia could do, and concluded by asking me if I did not think her very like her father. I said I had never seen that eminent person.”’ CHAPTER XI I81O Own January 23rd, 1810, died John Hoppner, R.A., after a long period of ill health. An artist prominent in the second rank of English portrait painters, he had enjoyed upon the whole a suc- cessful career, embittered though it was by the greater popularity of his youthful rival, Lawrence; and by the fact that the majority of the critics of his day allowed him no originality. To these he was always a clever imitator of the great Sir Joshua, and he was not permitted to forget it. Those of his acquaintance who have left us records of their opinions of him agree in general as to his irritability and uncertain temper, but in other respects are divided. The known enmity of Northcote deprives his uncom- plimentary opinion of value, but Raimbach describes Hoppner as haughty in manner and satirical and bitter in conversation. He was equally satirical and bitter in his reviews in the Quarterly and he did not come well out of the affair of the criticisms of his brother-artists in the Morning Post or his attack upon Madame Vigée Lebrun. But Haydon, who as a young man enjoyed his hospitality, saw in him a man of fine mind and great nobleness of heart; and that the sculptor, ‘Thomas Banks, R.A., thought highly of him, is shown by a letter from Banks’ daughter, in which she says of her father: ‘‘ One of his most intimate friends among artists and those in whose society he chiefly took delight, was Hoppner, for whose rising talent when a young man he ever expressed the highest admiration, and for whose success when a candidate for the R.A. he was particularly anxious. He con- tinued most warmly attached to him until his death”. More valuable is the considered opinion of Sir Martin Archer Shee, R.A., who, although a rival of Hoppner, had maintained 158 SHEE’S MEMOIR OF HOPPNER [z8z0] with him for many years an unbroken friendship. Shee criticizes and praises Hoppner’s work, and while admitting that he formed himself upon the style of Sir Joshua denies that he was a servile imitator of that master. He thinks the quality that particularly characterized Hoppner was taste, and that he displayed it as much in the conception as in the execution of his work. ‘‘The delicacy of his feeling always secured him from glitter and affecta- tion,’ says Shee, “‘even when it did not conduct him to sim- plicity and truth, and if his pencil was sometimes coarse and feeble it could never be said to be vulgar or meretricious.” This is a rap at Lawrence whose enemies were fond at this time of describing his portraits of women as meretricious and disfigured by unmeaning glitter. After more comments on Hoppner as an artist, Shee proceeds to consider him as a man: Hoppner’s merits were not confined to his profession, he was a man of general talents, with great natural understanding and many of the attain- ments of cultivation. In literature his taste was good, and he has exercised his pen, both in poetry and prose, with conspicuous ability. He touched the pianoforte, and sang, with great feeling, and was well skilled in the principles of music. As a companion his qualities were such as occasioned him to be considered as an acquisition in the best social circles of his time. When in the vigour of health and spirits few were more competent either by vivacity of remark or quickness of repartee to “‘set the table in a roar’’, and perhaps no man possessed in a higher degree the power of placing his thought in a strong light by the peculiarity of its expression. His conversation when uninfluenced by an irritability which but too often characterizes his profession, and sometimes impaired the pleasure of his society, was highly exciting and animated; rarely approaching the depths of philosophy or the dissertations of argument he skimmed lightly over general topics and seldom failed to produce something new in form or substance. His sarcasm was powerful and sometimes unsparing, but though it occasionally fell with unmerited severity it was generally employed against those whom he considered as the charlatans and pretenders of his day. As an artist the name of Hoppner has many claims to be remembered with respect by his brethren. As a companion the writer of this sketch of his character will long recollect him with those impressions which result from the many pleasant hours he has passed in his society during a long course of professional emulation and private friendship. William Gifford, in a letter of March 21st, 1810, pays a tribute 159 [r8ro] ART IN ENGLAND to the literary accomplishment of Hoppner, with whom he had been particularly intimate. Referring to the recently established Quarterly Review, edited by him, to which Hoppner -had con- tributed articles, he says: “I have not been happy in my new undertaking; four numbers only are out and I have already lost two most valuable coadjutors. Poor Hoppner, I believe, you did not know, but he was a man of genius and excelled in more than one art”’. A glimpse of Hoppner in his painting-room is given by the anonymous artist from whose recollections I have already quoted anecdotes of Wilton and Fuseli. The writer, who won the gold medal for painting at the Academy schools, soon afterwards established himself as a painter on his own account. But before doing this, his uncle, who had brought him up, obtained intro- ductions to two or three artists of reputation. Among them were Opie and Hoppner, upon whom the student called, accompanied by “‘an artistic friend’? of maturer years. The young man was rather discouraged by Opie, who seems to have received him somewhat brusquely and talked only of the troubles that lay before him. But he was fortunate in visiting Hoppner at a happy moment, when that easily provoked artist was in a friendly mood: Progressing a little farther west I was introduced to the notice of Hoppner, who received me with many marks of politeness. He took us into his painting room and entered into a familiar conversation. He had just completed a picture of the Stadtholder, and well do I remember how fine a picture it was. The exalted original was not famed either for an intellectual expression of countenance or for the exercise of any great power of intellectual vigour. My friend suggested these facts and expressed his wonder at the painter’s — success. ‘‘ Well,” said Hoppner, “‘I looked at him until I thought he had some brains, and that’s the only way I can account for it.’ Pointing to another portrait he continued, “‘ But look there. What do you think of that?” “I can’t say,” replied my friend, “‘but really I don’t think it’s as good as you usually paint.” “No, to be sure not,” was the rejoinder, “‘it’s only a potboiler.” “A what?” exclaimed my friend. ‘‘A potboiler,” said Hoppner, adding, “You don’t suppose I can always afford to paint good ones? If I did how could I keep the pot boiling?” Our interview closed with a piece of advice which I found of the greatest value to me in my career, and which I would 160 PORTRAITS BY PROXY [r8zro]| have every portrait painter who would thrive, wrap in the book and volume of his brain. “Tl tell you what, Sir,”’ said the artist. ‘When you have to paint a portrait of a woman, make it handsome enough. Your sitter or her friends will find the likeness. Never you forget that.’’ I promised him I would not and I kept my word. Except for a short period after his marriage Hoppner always enjoyed a fair measure of prosperity, and, if Ramsay Richard Reinagle is to be trusted, made a small fortune out of his portrait of Pitt, of which many versions exist. All are regarded as replicas of the original, which was painted by Hoppner for Lord Mul- grave, but Reinagle declared that he was the author of most of them. He said that he painted thirteen half-length copies of the portrait; and later—while Hoppner was away in the country enjoying himself—four whole-lengths. “I was paid twenty guineas for each half-length, for which he got a hundred and twenty guineas. I had thirty-five guineas for each whole-length, the price he arbitrarily fixed, and he got two hundred guineas. One of these whole-lengths was bought by the Duke of Gloucester, another hangs in Grocer’s Hall.”” According to Reinagle all the seventeen portraits were sold by Hoppner as the work of his own hand. Among the frequenters of Hoppner’s house towards the end of his life was a young painter, then regarded as of great promise, of whose career not much is known except that he was a student of the Royal Academy, and at one time, according to a critic of 1810, the pupil of Fuseli. This was John J. Halls, who was very intimate with the Hoppner family, dining with them fre- quently and always welcome if he dropped in uninvited in the evening. Years afterwards, when writing about this period of his youth, he said: It was a most agreeable house to visit at, and some of my happiest recol- lections are intimately interwoven with the hours I passed under its hospitable roof. It was my fate to attend Mr Hoppner in his dying hours and to follow him to the grave. His widow died only a few years ago, when I was again called upon to attend the last mournful ceremony. The family is now scattered in different parts of the earth and I feel a blank in my existence which can never be filled on this side of the tomb. WA 161 II [r8ro] ART IN ENGLAND Soon after the funeral which Halls says he attended it was stated in the newspapers that Hoppner had left behind him a great number of unfinished portraits, and that some of the best artists of the day, “‘generously emulous to show their respect for his memory”’, had offered to complete them. It was further stated that the task had been assigned to two Academicians, Owen and Thomson. But all this was contradicted some days later, evidently with authority and not too graciously, in the following words: The paragraph inserted in the papers stating that the pictures of the lamented Mr Hoppner, which had been left unfinished, were to be completed by some of his brother artists, and that Mr Thomson and Mr Owen had offered their services for that purpose, is totally without foundation. It is not the case that there is the least occasion to call in the assistance of anyone whatever. Hoppner did, of course, leave behind him unfinished portraits and other works, which were sold at Christie’s, but not until thirteen years after the painter’s death. At the same time were dispersed Hoppner’s “‘very complete assortment of colours, selected at great expense and neatly preserved in glasses; easels and various painting implements’’. The painter’s unused colours were sufficient to stock a shop. Lots 72 and 73 each consisted of twenty-five glass bottles filled with colours in powder; and among the other lots were four pounds of asphaltum, and a similar amount of Dutch vermilion, eight pounds of masticot; and various quantities of brown-pink, terra Nile, Indian yellow, Indian lake, orpiment, ‘Turner’s yellow, Prussian blue, Ramsay’s new red, brown ochre, Flemish ochre, and Egyptian mummy; and eighteen papers of Chinese vermilion. Papers of pure wax — and of ivory shavings, and no fewer than fifteen palettes and thirty-five dozen brushes were also included in the stock. That Hoppner did not confine himself entirely to painting is suggested by lot No. 97, ““A deal modelling easel and two circular bas reliefs”. It is curious that all this equipment of the studio should have been left untouched for thirteen years, especially as Hoppner had two painter sons, Lascelles and Belgrave, who could have made use of it. 162 SOANE’S LECTURES SUSPENDED [r8ro] On February 1oth Mrs Lloyd (Mary Moser) made her last appearance at a General Assembly of the Royal Academicians. She lived until 1819, but her name does not occur again in the lists of those present at Academy meetings. Angelica Kauffman, the only other woman Academician, never attended a General Assembly, and at the elections of members always voted by proxy. The occasion of Mrs Lloyd’s attendance was the election of Professors of Painting and Sculpture and of an Academician in the place of Paul Sandby. The Academicianship fell to Callcott by an overwhelming majority—eighteen votes against three for Philip Reinagle, three for Westmacott, and one each for Dawe and Wilkie. Flaxman was chosen as Professor of Sculpture by the unanimous vote of the Academicians, but there was no such general agreement in the case of Fuseli, who was elected Pro- fessor of Painting. Although he was the only candidate, four members voted against him. At the same meeting the General Assembly expressed its ap- proval of the recent action of the Council in suspending Soane’s addresses as Professor of Architecture. Soane, elected to the Professorship in 1806, had commenced his lectures in January, 1810, and in the fourth of them criticized adversely the design of the new Covent Garden Theatre, the work of a fellow- Academician and rival architect, Robert Smirke. ‘This was con- trary to the custom, if not to the law, of the Royal Academy, and by order of the Council notices were put in the newspapers that the lecture advertized for February 5th would not be delivered. Soane made no attempt to excuse or explain his action, and at a General Assembly held on March end, 1810, Flaxman moved the following resolution: That no comments or criticisms on the opinions and productions of living artists in this country should be introduced into any of the lectures delivered in the Royal Academy. This resolution, seconded by Lawrence and passed by twenty- one votes to one, is still in force. It has, however, been dis- 163 11-2 [78r0] ART IN ENGLAND obeyed more than once by Professors of modern times, though in harmless fashion. Herkomer, for example, was reproved for mentioning with approval—no doubt thoughtlessly—the work of a living artist. Only three weeks after Flaxman had moved his resolution about comments on living artists, another question arose that caused the making of a new rule. When Hoppner was elected an Academician in 1795 he sent a diploma picture to Somerset House in due course. This he afterwards borrowed from the Academy and it was still in his possession at the time of his death. Therefore, on March 22nd, Richards, the Secretary, wrote to his widow requesting the return of the picture as soon as possible. But either it had passed out of Mrs Hoppner’s hands or she wished to keep it, as she sent to the Academy a portrait of her husband by himself and asked the Council to accept it — in place of the diploma picture. ‘The Council accepted her offer, and this is why Hoppner alone is represented by a self portrait in the collection of diploma pictures at Burlington House. The title of his original work is not mentioned in the minutes. A reso- lution of the Council was made at this time to prevent further borrowing of diploma pictures. It was moved by Turner, and agreed: “That no painting, sculpture or architectural drawing shall in future be taken out of the Academy on any pretence whatever”’. | The history of the diploma picture of Ozias Humphry, R.A., — whose death this year followed closely upon that of Hoppner, is also curious. Humphry was elected an Academician in ~ February 1791 and his diploma work was deposited on October 14th, when the following entry was made in the Council minutes: — ; ‘Read a letter from Mr Humphry, which was accompany’d by his picture of admission”. There is no description of the picture or its title. In 1791, and for many years afterwards, the diploma works were hung in the Council Room, and from 1810 to 1836 were on view each year while the exhibition was open. From 1811 to 1836 the Academy catalogues contain listsofthe diploma works, but that of Humphry is not mentioned in any of them. 164 HUMPHRY ’S DIPLOMA WORK [ro] His picture, it is evident, was missing even then, although there is no report in the Academy minutes of its loss by theft or other- wise. Yet when William Sandby published his History of the Royal Academy in 1862, his list of the diploma works included a picture by Humphry entitled Fortune Teller. Whence he obtained the title is unknown, for it is not given in any existing record in the Academy archives, and there is no reason to suppose that a work by Humphry was among the diploma pictures in 1862. It is certain that there was nothing by him in the collection when it was arranged in the present Diploma Gallery after the Academy acquired Burlington House. After Sandby’s mention of the Fortune Teller in 1862, nothing was heard of Humphry’s diploma work until Dr G. C. Williamson published his life of the artist in 1918, and reproduced in it a large miniature representing two ladies in eighteenth century costume engaged apparently in consulting a man or a woman of colour. The miniature is by Humphry, and Dr Williamson be- lieves it to be the one he exhibited at the Academy in 1788, No. 291, A Brahmin in India telling the fortune of some English ladies, and that he afterwards deposited it as his diploma picture. This theory seems reasonable, as it is supported in some degree by an inscription written on what remains of a tattered label pasted on the back of the frame. Dr Williamson’s explanation has been accepted by the Royal Academy, and the miniature (presented to the Academy in 1921 by Sir William Plender) now represents Humphry in the Diploma Gallery. Of its history, other than given above, nothing appears to be known, but the figures of the two women in eighteenth century costume are said to be portraits of two of the Ladies Waldegrave —possibly Lady Maria and Lady Horatia, who were afterwards painted together by Humphry on a large canvas. This painting was sold later on as a Romney, for £20,000, and was the subject of an action at law in 1917. Humphry did not begin to work seriously in oil until he was a mature artist. His reason for painting in that medium the two Ladies Waldegrave 165 [r8r0] ART IN ENGLAND (afterwards Lady Euston and Lady Horatia Seymour) is fully explained in the following letter, addressed by him to Lord Radstock: In reply to the letter which your Lordship kindly gave yourself the trouble to write, respecting the portraits of Lady Euston and Lady Horatia Seymour, I must take the liberty to observe that having frequently seen the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in Italy, particularly in Rome, where I had the honour of making a portrait in oil and several drawings of Prince William and the Princess Sophia of Gloucester; and having also taken measures of the pro- portions of the young prince in the manner of sculptors: It seemed to be the desire of the Duchess in the year 1779, when I had exhibited portraits in oil that indicated great promise, to afford me an opportunity to paint por- traits in any manner I pleased of the Ladies Waldegrave, her Royal Highness’s daughters: To this I willingly accorded, upon conditions, as had often been my practice (viz.) that if the pictures were not approved of I did not wish that they should be paid for, which was virtually acknowledged by my never having urged it, as the Duchess objected, not to the resemblance of either of the ladies, but to the figures being rather too much exposed through: a the draperies. The picture is at No. 6 James Street, Pimlico, and ‘See in a room where it may very conveniently be seen, but it has neither been cleaned or put into any kind of condition, so that it must now be shown under every disadvantage, which certainly I ought not to be exposed to, after having suffered so much by my incautious liberality. Were my eyes perfect, and at this time in the usual receipt of my professional income, I would willingly request Lord Euston would do me the honour to accept of the picture; but on the recollection of the circumstances, as I very much desire it should be in the possession of the family, I shall not object to any reasonable allowance. This letter was written at the close of 1803, when Humphry’s sight was failing and he was badly in want of money. Hence his anxiety to dispose of the portrait, which after all remained on his hands until his death six years later and was then lost — to sight until the trial of 1917. The trouble with his eyes, which increased with age, is supposed to have originated with an accident that befell him when he was thirty, and then one of the most fashionable and prosperous miniature painters of the day. He says in a letter to Lord Eldon, also written in 1803,—‘ My 166 ‘VU ‘prem sour’ Ag HOAId HILLVO -wavd S LNdOAa Yugi ‘K4ayjoH [OUODONT 2y2 Ut Burzupod ay2 mo4T teé A CHIVALROUS PAINTER [r8ro] professional success in early life made my condition splendid and enviable, but a fall from my horse in the year 1772 gave my head so violent a shock, and impaired my whole nervous system so much, as absolutely to have laid the foundation of my present gloomy perspective”’. Nevertheless, though poor and half blind, the old Academician never forgot in his declining years the dignity he thought should attach to professors of the arts. The Academy gold medallist who knew Hoppner, Fuseli and Wilton, was also acquainted with Humphry, and says that his ideas of dignity were only equalled by those of Fuseli himself, for both vehemently insisted on the honours due to artists. ““Nor was there in some respects,” he says, ‘‘a less striking resemblance in the outward man between Fuseli and Humphry. In stature they were as nearly as possible alike; in proportions they were nearly identical; in walk, or rather in stride, they so much resembled one another that each might be fairly likened to an animated pair of fire-tongs.”’ Both were small and both were gallant, though Fuseli did not carry his adoration of the fair sex so far as Humphry. “‘No one who heard him talk—and all who did knew that his actions corre- sponded to his words—would believe that the age of chivalry had passed away.” | As an illustration, the writer tells a story of James Ward’s picture of a boa constrictor winding himself round a negro on a horse, The Serpent of Ceylon, which was sent to the Academy in 1804 and rejected by the Council: Humphry did not allow his reverence for women to show itself only to themselves; he was correspondingly devout in his respect for their representa- tions. It happened that Ward when he sent his picture to Somerset House, was anxious, not unnaturally, that it should be placed in the best position possible. It also happened that the best position possible was one between a portrait of a lady by the late accomplished President (Sir Thomas, then Mr Lawrence) and another by, I think, his estimable successor. Some wrangling occurred as to whether the picture should be hung or not, but how the matter ended I do not remember further than it did not occupy its wished for, enviable position. Meeting the dignified painter in Oxford Street at that time of day when it is most thronged I stopped him and gently 167 [78ro| ART IN ENGLAND reproached him with the obstacles that had been thrown in the way of hanging the picture. I thought the little gentleman would have exploded. He hopped across the pavement to the astonishment of the passers-by, and to their no less amusement burst out with: ‘“‘Obstacle, Sir! Do you think it could be suffered? Would you believe he wanted to hang his great black beggar savage between two ladies of quality? No Sir, it could | never be’”’. The Academy Exhibition of 1810 was arranged by Copley, Marchant, Nollekens and Howard; and for the first time the Council Room, containing the diploma pictures and other works belonging to the institution, was thrown open to the public. The pictures in the Council Room included Sir Joshua’s full-lengths of George III and Queen Charlotte; and Anthony Pasquin, who had seen them years before in their first freshness, remarked their present faded condition in his notes on the exhibition. “It will be perceived,” he says, “‘in these celebrated whole lengths, that the original brilliancy of the tints is almost entirely dissi- pated”; and he cautions artists against using varnish as a medium. Pasquin’s criticisms of the exhibition are ordinary, but he is his old, impudent self in an imaginary description of a scene at the Academy dinner published in the Morning Herald. He says that he passed the entrance to the galleries at Somerset House when the feast was beginning. Waiters were carrying up tureens of turtle soup, and from the kitchens in the lower regions rich odours ascended of roasting turkeys and capons. He lingered near the door, fascinated, until driven away by the sentry; and then went home, fell asleep in his chair, and dreamed that he was in the banqueting-room. The cloth had just been removed, — and a toast: ““May the Statesmen of Britain and the United States be ever in a state of harmony”’’, was being proposed by the American Minister. | “This was drunk with three times three, after which the Minister called upon his fellow-citizens, Messrs West and Copley, to sing their favourite descriptive travelling duet, with which they complied, after a few vocal experiments and preparatory hems: 168 A BURLESQUE BY PASQUIN [1870] THE PRESIDENT From Philadelphia’s broad-brimmed race Who vanity have undone, I took my easel on my back And crossed the seas to London! Lord, how I marvelled as I passed The streets with Uncle Goodin, For here we saw the men and girls As thick as hasty pudding. (Chorus of R.A.’s dancing) Yankee doodle, doodle do, Yankee double dandy. A perpendicular line is straight But beauty’s line is bandy. JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, ESQ. From Massachusetts rebel state When loyalty was crying I ran on shipboard here to paint, Lord Chatham who was dying. Then I hung up the House of Peers (Though some were quite unwilling) And gave the group to public view And showed them for—a shilling. (They sing together, hand in hand) Let David paint for hungry fame And Wilkie subjects funny, Let Turner sit and study storms But we will paint for money. This charming duet was terminated by a pas de deux in high style between the minstrels.” Pasquin’s banter, prominently displayed as it was in the columns of an important daily newspaper, could not have pleased the Academicians of the day, most of whom had a sufficiently exalted idea of the dignity of the institution to which they belonged. And to West and Copley this ridiculous coupling of their names must have been more than annoying, for it was 169 [z8ro] ART IN ENGLAND notorious that the two American artists had been on bad terms for many years. Most of the journals that noticed the exhibition (The Times was not one of them) devoted considerable space to the dis- cussion of the historical compositions of such men as West, Northcote, Fuseli and Woodforde, whose work has no interest for us to-day. Lawrence’s group of the Baring family (159) and his portrait of Lord Castlereagh (61) appear to have been gener- ally admired, but no one liked poor Copley’s huge equestrian portrait of the Prince of Wales (58), on which he had bestowed infinite pains. It was described as: A very large canvas covered with what is likely to mislead public taste. ~ The officers in the background are too diminutive and make the Prince look like a Brobdignag general at a Lilliputian review. The colouring offends, from the large daubs of deep blue plastered on in profusion and relieved by the black hide of the charger that carries his Royal Highness; between whose legs and in the distance are seen a host of little figures, seemingly cut out of pasteboard or tin. | On the other hand, everyone praised Turner, particularly his Petworth, Sussex, the Seat of the Earl of Egremont; Dewy Morning (158), which one critic described as so clear and brilliant in tone that it made the neighbouring pictures look as if they were hanging against the pier of a window through which the sun was shining. A friendly note by one of the reviewers on Constable is valuable because it reveals the subject of his picture, No. 74, described in the catalogue only as A Landscape: *‘A fresh and spirited view of an enclosed fishpond—a very masterly per- formance”. Wilkie, wrongly advised by his friends, showed nothing this year; and the portrait of Walter Scott by Raeburn ~ (79) was not much remarked considering the wide popularity of the poet. It was a romantic period, and there was nothing romantic about the author of Marmion and The Lady of the Lake as represented by Raeburn. ‘“‘This last of the minstrels,” says the Repository of Arts, ““shows how lamentably the race is de- generate, for never was a more unpoetical physiognomy de- lineated on canvas; we might take him for an auctioneer, a 170 RAEBURN VISITS LONDON [r8ro]| travelling dealer or chapman; in short for any character but a bard.” Raeburn paid one of his rare visits to London this year and was invited to the King’s Birthday dinner given by the Aca- demicians at the Crown and Anchor. Here much was made of the eminent Scottish artist, who went in company with Wilkie, and after dinner was invited by Beechey to change his seat for one near the President, who connected his name with the toast ‘Prosperity to the Fine Arts in Scotland, Ireland and the United Kingdom”. Raeburn, we are told, returned thanks for West’s compliment *‘in a brief but emphatic manner”. Raeburn’s visit to London in May had other motives than to see the Exhibition and to dine with the Academicians. His countryman Andrew Robertson says in a letter written at this time: “I understand Mr Raeburn means to settle in London, in consequence of Hoppner’s death, and that he wishes to obtain his house. He would be a great acquisition in London, both from the strength of his art and his respectability as a man’’. Raeburn told Wilkie that he had visited the metropolis to see if there were any chance of establishing himself there, but nothing came of it. It is curious that while he was in London a painting of his appeared in the auction room, perhaps for the first time. It was a portrait of John Home, included in the Whitefoord sale, and fetched £2. 125. 6d. The sum seems absurdly small when his later prices are considered, but portraits were cheap in 1810, and a head by Gainsborough in the same sale realized only a guinea and a half, with two or three inferior works thrown in. The reference to Gainsborough recalls that in this year of 1810 the painter’s former residence in Pall Mall, known since 1793 as the Historic Gallery, was bought by a Mr Thomas Willson and turned into what was known for a time as the St James’s Auction Mart. Soon after the completion of his purchase Willson announced that he had fitted up capacious rooms for the accom- modation of auctioneers and others who might require con- venience for the sale of every description of property; and him- self held sales of pictures at the house during the summer. The 171 [78r0] ART IN ENGLAND rooms mentioned are the two, still existing, built one above the other in the back garden, which served Gainsborough as studios. They were used for many purposes besides auctions while in Willson’s occupation. The opening to the public of the Council Room, filled as it was with the diploma and other pictures belonging to the Academy, certainly added to the attractions of the exhibition this year. But the staff engaged for the care of the galleries was small and the opening of another room added to its responsi- bilities. It was probably in consequence of this that two pictures were stolen in June. Cosway’s diploma work, Venus and Cupid, was taken from the Council Room, and a small painting by Henry Singleton from the Gallery. Singleton’s picture, which was cut from the frame, was never recovered, and the Academy paid the artist twelve guineas as compensation. The Cosway was restored to its place in 1818 and may be seen to-day in the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House, but how it came back the Academy records do not inform us. They state only that “The diploma picture was subsequently returned by the thief”’. At succeeding exhibitions Bow Street officers were engaged, at five shillings a day each, to keep watch in the rooms. With the mysterious recovery of the Cosway may be com- pared that of some oil sketches by Constable, which were stolen from the Royal Academy in 1926. The sketches were taken from the wall of the staircase leading to the Diploma Gallery, where they were hanging within three or four yards of the Cosway stolen a hundred and sixteen years earlier. To the disappearance of the Constables great publicity was given by the newspapers— _ particularly by the Daily Mail. It was perhaps the prominence given to the affair by this journal that induced the thief, who-- ever he was, to return all the sketches but one by parcel post to the office of the Daily Mail, from whence they were forwarded to the Royal Academy. Of the private exhibitions of 1810 one was sensational. It was composed of pictures by the French artist, Dubost, whose Damocles, it will be remembered, was sold by him to Mr Thomas 172 a a ee ¥ DUBOST’S REVENGE [réro0] Hope, in 1807, for 1500 guineas according to the statements in the newspapers. Soon after making this purchase Mr Hope commissioned Dubost to paint his wife’s portrait, which was shown at the Academy in 1808 and severely criticized. ‘‘'There is not in the whole exhibition,” said one reviewer, ‘‘a more wretched and affected performance than this.” But by Dubost’s account Mr Hope liked the portrait until he listened to the comments of rival artists, one of whom appears to have been West, who in 1807 had praised Damocles highly. Dubost said that Mr Hope hung Damocles next to a picture by West, which suffered by comparison; that West was angry, and that he and Mr Hope subsequently conspired against him. A story was set on foot that Damocles, which had been brought from Paris in a completed state by Dubost, could not be his work as it was so much better than anything he had produced in England. Mr Hope believed this, and not only erased the artist’s signature but cut off some of the canvas, and “‘thereby’’, said Dubost, “‘destroyed the unity of the parts, injured the painting itself and rendered the whole effect of the historical representa- tion unnatural and ridiculous’’. ‘The erasure of the signature and the cutting of the canvas were not denied, and Dubost, intensely angry with his late patron, prepared, in 1810, a picture intended to avenge him for the indignity he had suffered. The avenging picture is not mentioned in the following adver- tisement, published by Dubost in the Morning Chronicle of May 28th, 1810: | Exhibition at No. 65 Pall Mall of an extensive view of Hyde Park on a Sunday, executed upon a scale of 200 feet by Mr Dubost, author of the picture of Damocles, in which are introduced a correct likeness of the distinguished frequenters of this fashionable resort, with the carriages and equipages of most of the nobility and members of the Whip Club; also a col- lection of some other pictures. Admission 2s. 6d. Catalogue 6d. This advertisement suggests that the picture of Hyde Park was on the enormous scale of the panoramas so popular at this time, and such evidently was the opinion of a correspondent of the Monthly Magazine, who paid the high charge for admission only 173 [z8zo0] ART IN ENGLAND to find that the picture of Hyde Park was but five and a half feet” in length and the figures of the principal personages little more than an inch in height. He describes the picture as an un- blushing imposition, in spite of the explanation of a man in ~ charge of the room who said that the base of the canvas repre- sented two hundred feet and that this could be proved if the height of one of the figures were taken as six feet and measured along the base. The visitor then refers to No. 3 in the catalogue, Beauty and the Beast, as ‘‘a vile caricature on a most amiable lady whose family too liberally encouraged the ungrateful caricaturist, and for which he deserves nothing so much as a kicking”’. Thomas Hope was one of the plainest men in London and his wife one of the handsomest women, and Dubost had painted the couple as Beauty and the Beast. The Beast was represented seated by a chest of jewels and money, which he was offering to the Beauty, who was wringing her hands in terror at the sacrifice she was asked to make. ‘he Beauty was a portrait of Mrs Hope, copied from the one Dubost showed at the Academy; and the Beast, which it was said was not unlike Hope, wore, as he did, an eyeglass on a string hanging round his neck. The picture, as I have shown, was not advertised, but it soon began to be talked about, and all fashionable London flocked to see the caricatures of two persons so prominent in society. The Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York visited the gallery together and paid at the door like private persons, but were recognized by the attendants. The receipts, moderate at first, multiplied tenfold and might have increased had not Mrs Hope’s brother, a young clergyman, the Rev. J. Beresford, attacked the caricature witha knife and cut it to pieces. This happened on June 20th, and in December Dubost brought an action against Beresford for destroying the picture and claimed a thousand pounds as damages. The case was heard in a crowded court by the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Ellen- borough) who found room on the bench for a number of persons of social importance, including Lord Carlisle, Lord Egremont, Lord Sefton, Lord Ossulston and Lord Headfort. The Attorney- _ 174 FATE OF A LIBELLOUS PICTURE [810] General appeared for the defendant, and the plaintiff was re- presented by Jekyll, who in his opening speech showed inci- dentally that Dubost, when his picture was attacked, stood by and did nothing although he had two or three men in the gallery with him, and Beresford was alone. Dubost, said his counsel, was an artist of distinction, who in the summer had opened in Pall Mall an exhibition of pictures, one of which, executed in a masterly manner, illustrated the well-known story of Beauty and the Beast. The exhibition was most successful until the day it was visited by the defendant, who was a son of the Archbishop of Tuam. He gave the door- keeper, a man named Sonorat, a five shilling piece, and asked him to get it changed, and then ran upstairs to the gallery. Immediately there was a cry that someone was cutting a picture to pieces, and Sonorat, hurrying upstairs in his turn, saw Beresford standing by the Beauty and the Beast, with a knife in one hand and a stick in the other, and thinking he meant to murder the plaintiff called out to him to keep out of the way. But, said the counsel, Mr Dubost came forward and said that if he had done anything against the law he would be responsible for it. Dubost however, unlike Beresford, did not forget the respect he owed the law, and sent for a constable. Jekyll then called Sonorat, who said that on seeing the knife he ran for help, first to the guard at Carlton Palace, and then to the police office. He could not obtain a constable and in three-quarters of an hour came back, to find the picture cut to pieces. ‘he witness thought it was a beautiful picture, but ad- mitted in cross-examination that Mr Dubost had told him that he meant Beauty and the Beast for the Hopes. A subscription book for an engraving of the picture was in the gallery, but the witness could not say who wrote in it the name of Sir Henry Englefield, which was admittedly a forgery. ‘wo artists, Frang¢ois Huet Villiers, and P. A. Stroehling, Historical Painter to the Prince of Wales, testified to the high professional standing of Dubost, in their opinion; but the plaintiff did not go into the box, and no witnesses were called for the defence. 175 [z8ro] ART IN ENGLAND In summing up, the Lord Chief Justice said the plaintiff could claim no damages for the destruction of such a picture. It was a species of property on which no man had a right to reckon. It was a libel, the exhibition of which would have been stopped in five minutes on an application to the Lord Chancellor. It was more than probable that an injunction would have been issued to prevent the picture ever being exposed for sale. The plaintiff, then, lost all right to consider himself as being aggrieved by the diminution of profit from the exhibition, or even by the destruction of his picture. ‘The exhibition was a means of un- lawful profit and therefore no compensation could be provided © by the law. The picture in its perfect state could only be looked upon as an instrument for the production of profit to the ex- hibition, and the jury would resolve the damages into those of the mere wood, canvas and colour. The jury therefore assessed the damages at five pounds, and the plaintiff’s costs at forty shillings. Dubost, who after this exhibited no more in London, is said to have been killed in a duel in France in 1825. His Damocles, which attracted so much admiration in London in 1807, and caused West to speak of him as “the first painter of the age”, remained in the possession of its purchaser’s family until modern times, and was included in the sale of the Hope heirlooms, at Christie’s in 1917. Its authorship had been forgotten, probably because of the erasion of Dubost’s signature, and the once sup- posed masterpiece passed unnoticed at the sale and was knocked down as a picture of the French School for £57. 15s. Of the smaller exhibitions of the year other than that of Dubost little is said by the critics, but they mention a graceful compliment paid by the Marquis of Stafford to the Associated Artists in Water Colours, who showed their pictures this year in Bond Street. The marquis visited the exhibition, and as a mark of his appreciation of the work of the members sent each of them a ticket of admission for the season to his private gallery. Hitherto this privilege had been enjoyed by the Academicians alone. Of Turner’s private exhibition the only mention I have seen is in 176 ACADEMY LAWS REVISED [réro | the Sun: “In Mr Turner’s gallery there is a rich display of taste and genius. A picture of the Lake of Geneva is particularly beautiful. Another of Linlithgow Palace has all the higher qualities of the art. The fall of an avalanche in the Grisons is not in his usual style, but is no less excellent’. Only one Associate was elected in 1810, George Arnald the landscape painter (according to Lawrence ‘‘a man of fawning insincerity’’), who defeated Hoppner’s friend, John J. Halls, by fifteen votes to three. The election was uninteresting except that Constable’s name appeared for the first time in the printed list of candidates. But he did not receive a single vote then or for many years afterwards. Haydon was also a candidate for the first time in 1810. The election was on November 5th, and at other General Assemblies later in the year important alterations were made in the regulations of the Academy. The law excluding water-colour painters from candidature for the A.R.A. was re- pealed as ‘‘no longer necessary to the welfare, but repugnant to the honour and interests of the Royal Academy’”’. It was also agreed that in future the Academy should endeavour to en- courage the sale of pictures and other works shown at the annual exhibitions, a duty which had hitherto been neglected. The Royal Academy received this year as a gift from Mr Richard Duppa the bust of Sir Joshua Reynolds by Ceracchi which Northcote says is the only bust that was ever made of him. Ceracchi was the Italian sculptor who taught Mrs Damer to model, and made the statue of his pupil that stands in the vestibule of the British Museum. WA 12 CHAPTER XII I8II Ir was in January 1811 that Turner began the delivery of his first series of lectures as Professor of Perspective to the Royal Academy, to which post he was appointed in 1807. Of these remarkable lectures there have been traditions in plenty; of their bad delivery and obscurity, and of the beauty of the drawings made by Turner to illustrate them. But until a few years ago nothing was known of them except what could be gathered from a few vague paragraphs in some of the biographies of the artist. It is curious that they are unnoticed in the lives or diaries of his contemporaries—West, Fuseli, Collins, Lawrence, Constable, Shee, William Bewick, Chantrey, Raimbach, Schetky, Uwins, Severn and C. R. Leslie—and mentioned only in a few sentences by Redgrave and Farington. In the Burlington Maga- zine of 1908, Mr D. S. MacColl quoted some extracts from the manuscript notes of the lectures in the possession of Mr C. ~ Mallord W. Turner, but nothing was published about their history until the appearance in 1913, also in the Burlington Magazine, of my articles on Turner as a Lecturer. | Before these articles appeared the date was unknown of the _ commencement of the lectures, which, after much searching of contemporary newspapers, I found to be 1811. There is nothing _ about their dates in the minutes of the Royal Academy and it was only the fortunate discovery of an old cash book, by the ~ Registrar, the late Mr E. F. Dixon, that enabled me to trace them in other years. The cash book recorded all the fees paid to the Professor of Perspective and showed that after 1811 he lectured in 1812, 1814, 1815, 1816, 1818, 1819, 1821, 1824, 1825, 1827 and 1828. — 178 TURNER AS A LECTURER [z8rr] Why Turner desired the post of Professor of Perspective has always been a mystery. He was fond of money, but the fees, sixty pounds a year, offered no temptation to so prosperous a man; and that he took much trouble and expended a con- siderable amount of time in preparing for the duties of his office is evident from his notes and from the drawings made to illustrate his addresses. ‘That few men were less fit for a lecturer appears to have been the general opinion. The late Mr Frith, R.A., who remembered Turner well, described him as one of the most confused and involved of public speakers, and this was also the opinion of Charles Robert Leslie, R.A., the biographer of Constable. Leslie’s son, the late George Dunlop Leslie, R.A., in the following extract from a letter about Turner written to me in February 1912, records his father’s opinion of the lectures on perspective: I remember Turner very well, he used to come to my father’s house in the forties. I have seen him painting on the Varnishing Days at the Royal Academy. My father used to take me there, I think in the years 1845 and 1846, and I have several times been in his studio in Queen Anne Street. But I never heard him lecture on perspective. : I have often heard my father describe the lectures. He declared you could hardly hear anything Turner said, he rambled on in a very indistinct way which was most difficult to follow. My father said that at the General Assemblies he would make long speeches in an equally confused and rambling manner, and if interrupted or called to order for not confining himself to the subject in question, he would become angry and say, “‘ Nay, nay, if you make an abeyance of it I will sit down’’. But though the subject matter of his lectures was neither listened to nor understood, they were well attended as he used to display beautiful drawings of imaginary buildings with fine effects of light and shade, on the wall behind his rostrum. What has become of these drawings I have never heard but my father said they were full of imagination and effect. Contemporary reporters frequently remark Turner’s bad de- livery, and sometimes his bad pronunciation. “There is an embarrassment in his manner,” says one of them, “approaching almost to unintelligibility, and a vulgarity of pronunciation astonishing in an artist of his rank and respectability. Mathe- matics he perpetually calls ‘mithematics,’ spheroids ‘spearides’ ; 179 12-2 [r8rr] ART IN ENGLAND and ‘haiving’, ‘towaards’ and such like examples of vitiated cacophony are perpetually at war with his excellences.”” Another complains that he drops his voice so much at the end of his sentences, “‘that it is oftentimes impossible to make out his meaning; and delivers so many of his heads of sections, and names of artists and authors, so inaudibly as to defeat the end at which he aims’’. People went to the lectures, as Leslie says, for the sake of seeing Turner’s drawings, and of this Richard Redgrave mentions an instance: Turner’s lectures on perspective, from his naturally enigmatical and am- biguous style of delivery, were almost unintelligible. Half of each lecture was addressed to the attendant behind him, who was constantly busied, under his muttered directions, in selecting from a huge portfolio drawings and diagrams to illustrate his teaching. Many of these were truly beautiful, speaking intelligibly enough to the eye if his language did not to the ear. As illustrations of aerial perspective of colour many of his rarest drawings were at these lectures placed before the students in all the glory of their first unfaded freshness. A rare treat to our eyes they were. Stothard, the Librarian to the Royal Academy, who was nearly deaf for many years before his death, was a constant attendant at Turner’s lectures. A brother member who judged of them rather from the known dryness of the subject and the certainty of what Turner’s delivery would be than from any attendance on his part asked the Librarian why he was so constant. ‘‘Sir,”’ said he, “‘there is much to see at Mr Turner’s lectures—much that I delight in seeing though I cannot hear him.” The first of the addresses on perspective was given on the evening of Monday, January 7th, 1811, and a brief note on it was published by the Examiner. I have found no report in any of the daily papers except the Sun, then edited by Turner’s friend, John Taylor. In after years the lectures were more fully . reported in various journals, and occasionally at some length, as may be seen from the extracts quoted in my articles in the Burlington Magazine. But Taylor’s reports of the lectures of 1811 are very brief, though entirely friendly, and with no hints of such drawbacks as the Professor’s bad delivery and vulgar pro- nunciation. Taylor says, in the Sun of January 8th: Mr Turner gave his first lecture since he has been appointed Professor of Perspective to the Royal Academy last night in the Great Room, before the 180 Ae SOME FRIENDLY CRITICISMS [r8rz] President, many of the Members, and a considerable number of auditors, naturally attracted by the high reputation of the Professor. The lecture itself was rather introductory than technical, and principally tended to show that the highest order of Historical Painters, as well as Architects and Sculptors, availed themselves of the principles of Perspective in their most distinguished productions. He illustrated this with success by a reference to the print of Raphael’s celebrated Transfiguration and a geometrical diagram on the same subject. In the course of the lecture Mr Turner paid some high compli- ments to the merits of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and acknowledged with gratitude that he himself had been in a great degree indebted to the Royal Academy for his professional reputation. The lecture was written throughout in a nervous -and elegant style, and was delivered with unaffected modesty. This summary of his address, slight as it is, pleased ‘Turner, who sent Taylor the following note on January oth, to thank him for printing it and for the publication of a kindly obituary notice of Sir Francis Bourgeois, R.A., who died on the day of the delivery of the first lecture: Jan. 9, 1811. Dear Sir, Pray allow me to make my most sincere acknowledgement of thanks for your kind and honourable notice of my endeavours on Monday night in the Paper you were so good as to send me; permit me to add a scratch of thanks for your remembrance of Sir Francis Bourgeois, _ And believe me to be Your most truly obliged J. M. W. Turner. J. Taylor Esq. The second lecture, at which Copley took the chair, was given on January wth, and was also reported in the Sun by Taylor, but in a manner which suggests that he could not understand it and therefore took refuge in generalization. “‘The lecture,” he says, ‘“‘in the opinion of those best acquainted with the sub- ject, manifested deep investigation, but from the nature of the subject it was not probable that it could afford much gratifica- tion to those who were unacquainted with the leading principles of Perspective, but to those who had made some progress in the study it was very satisfactory, and showed that the Professor, 181 [zérr] ART IN ENGLAND by scientific knowledge as well as practical skill, is fully qualified be) to do honour to the situation.’” However, this report moved Turner to further thanks, which he expressed in a letter of forty- five lines in verse, of which I am able to give only the appeal for secrecy with which it concluded: This shimble-shamble impromptu, Something like the kitten’s mew, Must be considered entre nous.. These lines were written a year before the publication of the first extract from Turner’s strange Fallacies of Hope—the extract he attached to the title of a picture, shown at the Academy of 1812. Turner perhaps was engaged in the composition of the Fallacies of Hope about the time of the delivery of his first lectures, for in one of them he showed that he had been studying the works of English poets, from which he quoted freely, “‘thus re- lieving the unavoidable dryness of an abstract discourse”. It is interesting to learn that in another of his lectures he paid a marked tribute to the knowledge and skill of his former teacher, Thomas Malton the younger. Turner’s sixth and concluding address is described by Taylor in the following passage as more general than the others and consequently more gratifying to the audience at large: ‘“’The ingenious Professor chiefly directed his attention to the nature and conduct of the background. He frequently referred to the works of the older Masters on this topic, and evinced not only a profound acquaintance with their respective merits but great taste and judgement in the illustra- tion of them. He concluded with a liberal compliment to the talents of Gainsborough and pronounced a warm and eloquent _ eulogium on the genius of Wilson”’. Although other reports of the sixth address were published in later years, I have not succeeded in finding one containing the complimentary references to Gainsborough and Wilson. But Mr CG. Mallord W. Turner, who owns many valuable relics of his great kinsman, kindly allowed me to see the original manu- script of the lectures in his possession, and from this I was able to gather imperfectly some of Turner’s remarks on the two great 182 TURNER ON GAINSBOROUGH [rérr] painters he complimented. Imperfectly because the manuscript is not only difficult to read but is in parts indecipherable owing to the many alterations, corrections and interlineations made by more than one hand, Turner, when reading it at the Academy, very likely made verbal additions to what is written down, for his comments on Gainsborough and Wilson are brief, even in- cluding the occasional words and parts of sentences impossible to make out. It is after mentioning Cuyp and other foreign masters, that he refers to: Gainsborough our countryman....His first efforts were made in imitation of Hobbema, but Nature supplied him with better materials of study; the pure and artless innocence of the Cottage Door now in possession of Sir John Leicester, may be esteemed as possessing truth of forms, expression, full- toned depth of colour; and expertness of touch carrying with it the character of vigorous and decaying foliage. Turner asked the artists and students to contrast Gains- borough’s simplicity of nature unadorned, with the meretricious- ness of Zuccarelli, who had all the gay material of Watteau with none of his grace and charm: “his figures tho’ sometimes beautiful but placed with inconsistency anywhere and anyhow, and yet they defrauded the immortal Wilson of his rights and snatched the laurel from his aged brow. In vain did his pictures of Niobe in the possession of Sir George Beaumont and the Duke of Gloucester flash conviction, or Ceyx and Alcyone...”’. Gainsborough’s Cottage Door, then in the gallery of Sir John Leicester, is the famous picture that was sold in 1922 by the Duke of Westminster and is now in America, in the collection of the late Mr C. P. Huntington. Sir George Beaumont’s version of the Niobe by Wilson is in the National Gallery, and the Ceyx and Alcyone is the picture in which, according to Callcott, the rock and castle were painted from a Cheshire cheese and a pot of porter. | Turner’s lectures were delivered twelve times in all between 1811 and 1828, but it is doubtful if any one learned much about perspective from the man who was admittedly a master of the science. Critics of the lectures questioned their utility from 183 [rérr] ART IN ENGLAND time to time, and declared that far more valuable information was derived from the lessons of 'Turner’s predecessor, Edward Edwards, A.R.A., the humble Teacher of Perspective, than from the addresses of the full-blown Professor. A remark made by a reviewer of a book on perspective, when it was published nearly eighty years ago, suggests that Turner himself was doubtful of the value of his teaching and thought that artists could get along without any very great acquaintance with the subject. The reviewer says that he attended a course of ‘Turner’s lectures, and that at its conclusion the Professor said, addressing the students: ‘After all that I have been saying to you, gentlemen—the theories I have explained and the rules I have laid down—you will find no better teachers than your own eyes, if used aright so as to see things as they are”’. In the reports of the lectures of 1811 published in the Sun, Taylor, no doubt to please his friend, implies that the attendance was considerable, but in reality it was probably small. ‘The time was midwinter, the subject uninviting, and the public had no reason to expect the extraneous attraction of Turner’s beautiful drawings. Even in 1812 the attendance was poor, as Sir John Soane has recorded in his diary for that year. He was present at the lecture of January 2oth, of which he says nothing, but on the next page of his book writes: Monday, Jan. 27, 1812, Mr Turner’s lecture. Fuseliin the chair. Howard, Woodforde, Marchant (very late), Soane and about fifty auditors. Monday grd Feb., 1812, Turner’s lecture. Woodforde, Marchant, Thom- son, Bone, Turner, Soane, Dawe, Sandby, Carlisle, Landseer. Several drawings shown. February 8th. Turner’s lecture. No drawings. Howard in the chair. Woodforde, Thomson, Marchant, Bone, very thin audience. Many quota- tions from ( ? ) and Milton. Took up my remarks on the anachronisms of the R.A., quoted Raphael, St Paul at Athens, and Rubens. ( ? ) ina Picture- Scene Egypt, a triumphal arch like Constantine’s was introduced. Upon the whole this seemed a lecture for the Professors of Painting and Architecture, the word Perspective scarcely mentioned. The name before ‘‘and Milton’? and the word before ‘‘in a Picture’? are indecipherable. The “Turner” mentioned as 184. Soa ee i “ babe . > “y> oe ag ts ¥ ‘ - * co tt oe ee Mey ge a en eS Le le ae. fo eee Ls ee a ee Se a Py es! ee ft 2! Le ee et il ee ty ot . Pee AS eo eae pate! — a a A NEW ROOM AT THE ACADEMY [rérr] among the audience was no doubt the Professor’s father, who was certainly present at one of the lectures, as Linnell, then a student, made a sketch of him. Most of the others mentioned by Soane were members of the Royal Academy. The Landseer he notices was John Landseer, A.R.A., father of the animal painter. Turner, always keenly interested in the affairs of the Academy, proposed, at a meeting of the Council held the day after the delivery of his first lecture, that the gallery space at Somerset House should be extended. The death of John Inigo Richards, R.A., two or three weeks before, had released the rooms occupied by him as Secretary, as the Secretaries in future were to be non- residential; and Turner’s motion at the Council was ‘‘that the apartments occupied by the late Secretary, adjoining to the Great Room, be immediately converted into an extra exhibition room”. This was agreed to unanimously, the work was put in hand at once, and the additional gallery was used for the ex- hibition that opened at the end of April. A newspaper of April 27th says, after a reference to the private view: “A new room has been opened at nearly the north-west angle of the Great Room, consisting of the whole of the apartments which belonged to the late Secretary, Mr Richards. As this room communicates with the Great Room and with the staircase there will be a freer current of air”’. The seat among the Forty made vacant by the death of Richards, and those of four other recently deceased Academicians, Hoppner, Humphry, Zoffany and Rigaud, were filled at an election on February 11th. Wilkie, then only twenty-five years and three months old, was the first of their successors chosen, defeating, by twenty votes to nine, James Ward, who in the second election defeated Philip Reinagle by twenty votes to eight. In the third, Westmacott the sculptor was successful, beating Bigg by eighteen votes to eleven; and in the fourth, Smirke the architect had twenty-six votes to three for Bone. In the last election Bone beat Dawe by twenty-one to two. Bone (the enamel painter) was elected in the place of Richards, 185 [r8rr] ART IN ENGLAND to whose post of Secretary to the Royal Academy Howard had now succeeded. Richards, who was Secretary for twenty-two years, is an artist of whom hardly any record remains, except that he was a scene painter at Covent Garden. As he was a foundation member of the Royal Academy, he 1s not represented in the Diploma Collection, but there are some sketches of his at Burlington House. Richards was a collector in a small way, and apparently one of some taste, as there were included in his sale by Squibb on March 12th, 1811, two studies by Gains- borough and eight by Sir Joshua. Other lots were “Sir Joshua’s Sketch Book, with several studies by the Master” (25), and ‘“‘A quantity of rough pieces by ditto” (26). The “rough pieces” would be sought after to-day, but must have been worth little at the time of their owner’s death or he would have sold them, for Richards was a poor man and died in debt. A few weeks later the remaining works of another of the recently deceased Academicians, Zoffany, were disposed of by Robins of Covent Garden. The sale attracted a great crowd, including the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Yarmouth, and Sir George Beaumont, but it was composed more of spectators than of bidders. One reporter of the sale complains that the pictures and drawings were sold at prices much below their value as the work of an artist of high and well-deserved reputation. But another says that few of the pictures were finished, and that of those that were, some of the best had been neglected. According to the newspaper accounts the highest price, 94 guineas, was paid by Lord Mulgrave for The Provoked Wife, a picture con- taining portraits of Garrick as Sir John Brute, Parsons, and other performers. A portrait of [Townshend of Covent Garden Theatre in the character of a beggar went for 14 guineas to Thomas Harris, the owner of a famous collection of theatrical portraits; and two other pictures fell to the bids of Charles Mathews, the actor, whose collection of a similar nature was then in the making. These were A Scene from the Comedy of Speculation, an unfinished work in which Quick, Munden, Lewis and Miss Wallis were represented; and a portrait of Knight the comedian 186 Ba tes dalle oe welt id 0 all eal ‘ >t > we tS oe eS POR eT eet et ee eG ae er eee THE PRINCE AT THE BANQUET [rérz] as ““Countryman” in the farce of The Ghost. Mathews paid 31 guineas for the first and 22 guineas for the second. The Hanging Committee for the Exhibition of 1811 was com- posed of Turner, Callcott, Rossi, Fuseli and Howard, and of these the first two were taken to task by one of the critics for infringing the rules of the Academy by exhibiting more than eight works: “‘Mr Turner, one of the Committee, has nine, and Mr Callcott, also a member of it, ten; all of which are placed in the very best positions”’. The complaint was just, and prompt notice would be taken of such an infringement to-day, but there is nothing in the Academy minutes to show that the offending members of the Hanging Committee were reprimanded. For the first time in the history of the Royal Academy an attempt was made this year to promote sales at the exhibition. The British Institution had done this from the beginning, in 1806, and its success in disposing of artists’ works induced the Academy to follow its example. It was ordered by the Council that a book should be kept in an office at the top of the stairs, - containing a list of such performances as were for sale and that the person charged with the care of the book should receive deposit money from the purchasers and take their addresses. A clerk was engaged for this purpose at half a guinea a day, but the plan for some reason did not succeed and was abandoned after a year or two. Turner was strongly opposed to it. Uncommon interest attached to the exhibition banquet this year, for the Prince of Wales, who had just been appointed Prince Regent, was present and in his new capacity paid a particular tribute to the institution in whose proceedings and progress he had always been interested. He came to the dinner in his most amiable mood, and in proposing the toast of *‘ Pros- perity to the Fine Arts and to the Royal Academy”’, made a flattering speech, delivered, according to the reporters, “‘ with peculiar grace, force and modesty”’. The Prince Regent began by expressing his regret that he had not been able more frequently to attend the banquets that pre- ceded the opening of the exhibition. On former occasions he 187 [r8rr] ART IN ENGLAND had witnessed with great pleasure the efforts of the artists, but those he beheld now very far surpassed any previous display. And he said this after an attentive examination of the works; though, he confessed, with far inferior judgment to that of many of the noblemen and gentlemen now before him, but whose sanction of this opinion he was certain he should have. He con- gratulated the Academy and the country on the general excel- lence and splendour of an exhibition distinguished by portraits that would not have shamed the pencil of Vandyck, and land- scapes that even Claude Lorraine could not have seen without delight. He could not limit the expression of his feelings to the mere words of a toast, for he felt the pride of an Englishman in declaring his conviction that this country, so distinguished for its constitution, its laws, its various political and civil advantages, and its prowess in arms, would with due encouragement stand equally unrivalled in the Fine Arts. And that such might be the case was his most fervent wish and prayer. Apparently the Prince had Turner in his mind when speaking of the Academy landscapes that would have delighted Claude, and he appears to have expressed particular admiration for his Mercury and Herse (70). This is suggested by one of the critics, who says in his comments on the exhibition: “The high compli- ment which was paid by an Illustrious Character at the Royal Academy dinner to Mr Turner’s Mercury and Herse has since become the source of much embarrassment to the ingenious artist, as two of his earliest and warmest patrons have been so eager to possess it that rather than disoblige one of them he has resolved not to part with it at all’’. Owing to this complica- __ tion, of which more will be said in the next chapter, the Mercury and Herse, though universally praised, remained for a long time > “on its author’s hands. The exhibition was acclaimed as one of the best ever held at -¢. Somerset House, but it does not appear to have contained much that was remarkable apart from the contributions of ‘Turner and Lawrence. Wilkie, whose health had been far from good, showed only two small works which attracted no particular attention; 188 Se ai ‘ . on gp ee ek ACE : ‘ OE ge ee ee - oi j : Pas iim ee Ee i ee ee Tea ee Cae Cee oes, ee ot Toa | aware WEST’S POPULARITY [rérr] and the pictures of such men as Beechey, Phillips, Northcote, Fuseli and Callcott were of no more than average quality. One new name of interest appears in the catalogue, that of Etty, who after many rejections managed at last to exhibit a picture at the Academy, Telemachus rescues the Princess Antiope from the Wild Boar. His picture was not specified by the critics, but his name is mentioned among the prominent “supporters of the historical and poetic pencil”’. However, in popular estimation the art honours of the year belonged, not to Turner or Lawrence or any newcomer, but to the veteran Benjamin West, now in his seventy-third year. His Omnia vincit amor (63) was described by an Academy reviewer as an exquisite production, equally distinguished for its con- ception and its execution, but his great triumph was gained, not at Somerset House but at the British Institution, whose Directors purchased his picture, Our Saviour healing the Sick in the Temple, when it was exhibited in their gallery in Pall Mall. The price paid for West’s performance, which was about sixteen feet in width by twelve in height, was 3000 guineas, an immense sum considering the value of money at the time. To pay this, sixty members of the Institution subscribed 50 guineas each. Charles Heath was commissioned to engrave the picture for a fee of 1800 guineas and within a year 840 prints had been subscribed for at 5 guineas each. Until the day of closing, the exhibition at the British Institution drew unexampled crowds: “‘to pay the tribute of admiration to a picture which may without exaggera- tion be ranked with the celebrated Communion of St Jerome by Domenichino, the Crucifixion of Poussin, and other celebrated works of the same scale”’. The opinion of the writer of this note was not in agreement with that of Haydon, another grandiose painter on a large scale, who, in a characteristic passage of his diary, describes his visit to the exhibition: ‘‘Went to the Institution; looked at West’s picture, Christ blessing the Sick. Hard, red, mean, well com- posed; nothing can be more despicable than the forms. How the people have been duped! Yet on the whole it is one of his 189 [rérr] ART IN ENGLAND best pictures’. Haydon then goes home to look again at his own Macbeth, then in progress, and finds in it qualities that are not in the West. He sees certain things that require alteration, but writes complacently of his own work: “Still, in spite of its numerous errors it is a grand picture. It excites awful feelings. There is an elevation of soul which makes one’s breast expand”. An interesting glimpse of West in this year of success and prosperity is to be found in the Letters and Journals of Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the electro-magnetic telegraph, who in his younger days practised as a painter with some success. Morse came to England in 1811 to study art and called upon West soon after his arrival. He found him astonishingly youthful for his seventy-three years, with the appearance of forty-five and the ability to run up the stairs at the British Institution as nimbly as the young American himself. Morse, enthusiastic and in- tensely patriotic, saw in the old painter he claimed as a fellow- countryman the greatest artist in the world. He says in one of his letters home: West stands and has stood so long pre-eminent, that I could relate but little of his history that would be new to you. He is not a common man... he is one of those geniuses who are doomed in their lifetime to endure the malice, the ridicule, and neglect of the world, and at their death to receive the praise and adoration of this same inconsistent world....He has arrived at that point where the lustre of his works will not fail to illuminate the dark regions of barbarism and distaste long after their bright author has ceased to exist. In another letter of two years later, Morse says: The American character stands high in this country as to the production of artists.... Mr West now stands at the head, and has stood ever since the arts began to flourish in this country, which is only about fifty years. Mr Copley next, then Colonel Trumbull. Stuart in America has no rival here. He does not mention Hogarth, Wilson, Reynolds, Gains- borough or Romney; although in the year of this letter, 1813, the famous exhibition of Reynolds’ work was held at the British Institution. Nor, in the following year, does Morse make any 190 Se eee ee) : = q 4 7 o. 4 ~ a a - ‘4 ia — ni hi Be CANDIDATES FOR THE A.R.A. [rérr] reference to the exhibition at the same place of representative works of Hogarth, Wilson, Gainsborough and Zoffany. The number of painter candidates for the Associateship of the Royal Academy was unusually large in 1811, although only one vacancy was to be filled at the election in November. Farington gives in his diary for this year what purports to be a list of the painter candidates, but it includes the names of less than half of them. The correct list is as follows: I. Pocock, J. Ramsay, J. B. Lane, W. Hilton, J. Laporte, A. E. Chalon, A. Wilson, L. Cosse, S. Lane, T. Stewardson, J. G. Oben, J. Constable, R. R. Reinagle, A. W. Devis, G. H. Harlow, J. J. Halls, G. F. Joseph, J. Jackson, J. Lonsdale, H. P. Bone, M. Sharp, C. Cranmer, Douglas Guest, R. Sass, W. Artaud, B. Burnell, A. Robertson, H. Edridge, J. Green, T. Baxter, J. Harrison, W. Mulready, W. Wilson, H. Singleton, H. B. Chalon, and J. Keenan. Six sculptors were also candidates for the vacant Associate- ship: C. Prosperi, F. L. Chantrey, J. G. Bubb, P. Turnerelli, J. Bacon and W. Theed, the last of whom was victorious in the final ballot. Theed defeated Devis the painter by fourteen votes to four. Two votes were given to 8. Lane, and one each to A. E. Chalon, J. Jackson, H. P. Bone, J. J. Halls and G. F. Joseph. CHAPTER XIII 1812 Joun SOANE, R.A., whose lectures at the Royal Academy as Professor of Architecture were suspended by the Council in 1810, was allowed to resume them in 1812, perhaps because a recon- ciliation had been effected between him and Robert Smirke, whose design for Covent Garden Theatre he had criticized in one of his addresses. In his diary for this year, Soane mentions that he met Smirke early in January at a Royal Academy dinner held to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, and adds: “Mr Smirke asked me to shake hands, and at dinner I sent to him by the waiter to say I wished to take wine with him, which we did”’. But although Soane made friends with Smirke, he was by no means reconciled to the members of the Council who had suspended him and was not afraid to speak his mind about them. A reporter of the lectures of 1812 says that at the close of the last of the series: “‘the Professor reproved the Academicians, and gave them a proper temperate rebuke for their conduct in suspending his lectures, and announced that this would be the — last time he should have the honour of addressing them, did they not retract their proceedings on that occasion. ‘The lectures were most liberally illustrated by an immense quantity of beauti- ful and valuable drawings”’. In the course of the ensuing twelve months there were further disputes between Soane and his fellow-Academicians, and much heated correspondence. Matters went so far that on January oth, 1813, the Council declared by resolution that the Professor- ship of Architecture was vacant. This appears to have brought matters to a head, as the Council rescinded its resolution on February 2nd and a complete reconciliation followed. 192 PHILIP DE LOUTHERBOURG [1812] At an election held on February 1oth one Associate was pro- moted to the rank of Academician. This was old Philip Reinagle, who, in one of the least interesting of all the contests for the full honours, defeated the younger Daniell by twelve votes to ten. Reinagle, an Associate of twenty-five years’ standing, had been one of Allan Ramsay’s principal assistants when the Scottish artist was Court Painter, and was now better known as a copyist and restorer than as a producer of original works. ‘The seat to which he succeeded was that of the lately deceased Sir Francis Bourgeois. Another vacancy among the Academicians was caused by the death on March 11th of Philip James De Loutherbourg, at the house on the Thames bank between Hammersmith and Chis- wick, in which, twenty years earlier, he had claimed to perform miracles of healing. His name has been connected by some writers with quackery and imposition, but he appears to have been a perfectly straightforward though mistaken man who honestly believed that the Almighty had bestowed upon him the gift of healing. Anthony Pasquin has spoken derisively of his potions, but De Loutherbourg used no medicine of any kind. His only remedies were faith and prayer. He is frequently de- scribed as a scene painter, but he was really a designer of scenery and stage mechanism. The actual painting of the scenes, I believe, was never executed by him, except perhaps in the case of that tiny theatre of his own invention, the Eidophusikon, in which he showed what were then regarded as marvels of lighting and realistic effect. De Loutherbourg had been ailing for a long time before his death, and there is a reference to his poor health in the following letter of 1810, passages in which might be read as implying that his circumstances were embarrassed. However, this. could not have been his meaning, as he was able to leave his widow with sufficient-means to maintain for many years the large, and still existing, house in Hammersmith Terrace in which the letter was written. Ihave been unable to discover to whom it was addressed, or thename of the Duke whose kindness the painter acknowledges. wa 193 13 [7872] ART IN ENGLAND Hammersmith Terrace, 11 June, 1810. Dear Sir, I am greatly obliged and sensible of all your friendly kindness, and must as yet remain in debt, being only able to return thanks, my health being but very indifferent, but I hope not to be obliged to be cleared by an in- solvent act. The Duke as well as your friend are very kind, and when your friend shall feel so disposed I hope to be able to prove that I shall be able to paint as good a picture as that to which he gave so kind a preference. With Mrs De L’s compliments, I am, most truly, Dear Sir, De Loutherbourg. The catalogue of De Loutherbourg’s sale, which took place on June 18th at the rooms of Peter Coxe, suggests that he was cultivated as well as ingenious; for his extensive library included numerous valuable and scarce books. His large collection of costumes of all periods and countries contained many Otahetian dresses, no doubt used by him in staging Omai when that play of the South Seas was produced at Covent Garden in 1785. That he was skilful with his hands in other ways than painting is shown by the large and elaborate models of men-of-war and other vessels, with movable sails, catalogued as “of Mr De Loutherbourg’s own construction’’. A collection of small, highly painted, models for stage scenery was also sold, as well as the entire equipment of the studio. His hundreds of brushes, “French tools of the finest quality, manufactured by Derveaux”’, were sold in lots of twenty or thirty; together with others made by Miss King, a craftswoman of whom no other record seems to have come down to us. It is not unlikely that Derveaux is identical with the Parisian brushmaker patronized by Etty in 1816 and by him called Dagneaux: “‘a clever old man who lives up three pair of stairs in one of the dirtiest holes in Paris with his son and wife, who materially aid him. His brushes are with- out their parallel. No one can touch him. He won’t sell them to the shops’’. 194 TURNER AT HAMMERSMITH [r8r2] Mrs De Loutherbourg was painted by her husband as Zara, and she also figures in his picture, Winter, together with her sister, the artist himself, and Picot by whom Winter was engraved. A clever woman and in youth famous for her beauty she preserved until late in life much of the vivacity of her earlier days. She is thus described in the autumn of 1823: Mrs De Loutherbourg, the venerable widow of the painter of that name, who resided so long on Hammersmith Terrace, still lives in the house of her departed husband. The house is finely situated on as beautiful a bend of the river as there is anywhere along the Thames, excepting perhaps Richmond; and the eminent landscape painter who was so remarkable for the astonishing brilliancy of his colouring, delighted in this residence. The house faces Barnes, has a view of Chiswick, and looks on to the grounds on which Brandenburg House formerly stood. The widow is seventy-five years of age, but she has good health, and is so remarkably gay and intelligent that her conversation is much courted. Towards the end of his life De Loutherbourg had Turner for a neighbour. It has been suggested by some of ‘Turner’s bio- graphers that he went to Hammersmith chiefly for the sake of being near the older artist, whose work he is said to have admired, but this is unlikely. There is no tradition of any intimacy or particular connecton between the two men, and ‘Turner did not settle at Hammersmith until 1807 or 1808, when he was at a stage of development in which he had nothing to learn from De Loutherbourg. The exact situation of Turner’s house has been the subject of much speculation, but F. G. Stephens, the well-known critic and pre-Raphaelite painter, believed that he had found it. Stephens lived for many years in Hammersmith Terrace, a few doors from the former residence of De Loutherbourg, and had ample opportunities of making local enquiries, and he came to the conclusion that Turner’s house, which was at West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, stood on the site now occupied by the Oil Mills. Writing more than forty years ago, Stephens says: The Hammersmith house of Turner stood where a seed-crushing mill is now; it was of a moderate but comfortable size, and its garden, intersected by the Church Path, extended to the water’s edge. The house, a white one, 195 13-2 [r8r2] ART IN ENGLAND with another house at its side, was on the north of the Church Path. Mr Sawyer, now deceased, a well known boatmaster of Hammersmith who had resided there from childhood, confirmed my enquiries in every respect, and averred to me that he remembered Turner and his father quite well. John Raphael Smith, whose death took place on March end, within a few days of that of De Loutherbourg, was an artist of remarkable natural ability whose reputation might have been even greater than it is, if he had not been handicapped at the beginning of his career. Smith, who was the son of a provincial landscape painter, Thomas Smith of Derby, was not brought up to his father’s profession. He was apprenticed to a linen draper and, according to his friend William Carey, was foreman at a shop on Ludgate Hill for two years. Always anxious to practise some form of the arts, he began, while still in business, to turn his attention to engraving and attempted something after Sir Joshua, by whom he was encouraged to proceed, and whose paintings in after years he translated superbly into black and white. Carey says, writing in the Repository of Arts in 1827: Smith had a good eye, a great facility, and was thoroughly grounded in the principles of light and shade from his having worked after so many of Reynolds’ paintings. There was a loose, bewitching freedom in his best prints which expressed all the spirit of the President’s pencil. I well remember hearing the latter say with evident pleasure on looking at a proof of his beautiful print of Colonel Tarleton, ‘It has everything but the colouring of my picture”’. The young engraver afterwards opened a shop in Oxford Street, nearly opposite the Pantheon, where he published and sold prints, and while here he became acquainted with George Morland and made a great deal of money by his engravings of that artist’s pictures. In 1801 he invented a method of making impressions in colour from his own plates so nearly resembling oil paintings that they could with difficulty be distinguished from the original works. ‘“‘ This most useful and important in- vention,” says a writer of the time, “‘saves the expense of glass, so dear and so frangible, and will stand exactly like paintings in oil. Any soil or dirt may be taken off with a sponge or water, 196 JOHN RAPHAEL SMITH [rér2] which also restores the brightness.”? Smith’s imitations of oil paintings were no doubt improved versions of those produced a few years earlier by the Polygraphic Society. Probably Smith did not publish many oil colour prints, for in 1802 it was announced that he had given up engraving and printselling for portraiture, which he had already practised to some extent successfully. ‘The Continental war had cut off the foreign trade in prints entirely, and had reduced that at home so much that it was not worth carrying on. Smith, therefore, closed his shop, then in King Street, Covent Garden, and took a private house in Newman Street. Carey says: From that time he applied himself wholly to painting small portraits in crayon, which he executed with much freedom, mellowness and truth. He painted some pictures in oil, but was too impatient to submit to the necessary attention for that process. ‘That he would have succeeded in that manner I have no doubt, if he had persevered. He showed me his own portrait in a green velvet cap and morning gown, but having exhibited the head at the Royal Academy in the hope of being elected an Associate, and being dis- appointed, he swore he would never “smudge another in oil’’. In crayons his success was such and his practice so great that I have known him in many instances, when his price was eight guineas for a small head, to finish a portrait in a single sitting of six hours, with perhaps some additional touches after the departure of the sitter. Smith was an unsuccessful candidate in 1785 for the Associate- ship of the Royal Academy and he does not appear to have tempted fortune again by putting his name upon the list. After he gave up printselling he made many journeys into different parts of England, and in the provinces had a large connection in portraiture. The last three years of his life were spent at Doncaster, where he died suddenly, within half an hour after parting with a pleasant company with whom he had spent the evening at his lodgings. He left unfinished two large family portrait groups, each containing seven or eight figures, which, it is said, promised to rank with his best works. His pupils included James Ward, R.A., William Ward, R.A., William Hilton, R.A., and Peter De Wint. No writer on John Raphael Smith has said much about his 197 [rér2] ART IN ENGLAND daughter Emma, whose portrait he exhibited at the Academy in 1803. Two engravings by her after pictures by Maria Cosway, Clytie and A Persian, were published by Ackermann in 1801, and a reviewer, when noticing them, said: “These prints are engraved by a young artist of very uncommon abilities, who is only seventeen years of age. She is the daughter of Mr Smith the engraver; she draws the figure with great taste and accuracy; paints in miniature and oil; plays the piano-forte and harp; and speaks and writes the French language to perfection. As an artist she gives marks of much promise”’. Emma Smith, who exhibited several times at the Royal Academy, was an original member of the Associated Artists in Water Colours. : It is curious that no contemporary critic or biographer of Wilkie should have remarked that his exhibition of pictures, opened in April this year, was held in the former studio of Gains- borough. Cunningham mentions the place of exhibition only as No. 87 Pall Mall, which was then in the occupation of a man named Thomas Willson, to whose tenancy of Gainsborough’s house I referred when dealing with the year 1810. It was Willson whose failure to pay his rent to his superior landlord led to the seizure by the sheriff’s officers of one of Wilkie’s pictures in the exhibition, The Village Festival, now at the Tate Gallery. Wilkie’s exhibition was well received by the critics, one of whom informs us that Mulready was the model for the young man shown in the then unfinished Blind Man’s Buff, advancing into the middle of the room. Gainsborough’s studio had been let in the previous ~ year to Delahante, the French picture dealer, for an exhibition of Old Masters that was visited by the Prince Regent. It was rented later for similar purposes by William Buchanan and others, and was occasionally used for shows of a more popular kind such as that of the Chinese jugglers in 1816. Joseph Farington, Robert Smirke, and George Dance were the hangers at the Academy in 1812, assisted by the Keeper and Secretary. The Academy minutes contain no comments on their proceedings except that on April 23rd, when the arrange- ment of the pictures was well advanced, Raeburn wrote to the 198 "WU OLITIIM plaeq sg Ag IVAILSHYA HOVITIA AHL yUuvguAl ‘44a1]VH) JDUOYWAT ay? ut Surzuiwd ay? wosy % NE ior =a "a : er nena PIE 7 5 RAEBURN’S VISITS TO LONDON [r8r2] Secretary to ask if he might “have away” a portrait of Lord Frederick Campbell he had sent in, but did not now wish to exhibit. His request was granted. Raeburn’s biographers, following the lead of Allan Cunning- ham, agree in stating that the Scottish portrait painter visited London only three times, in or about 1785, in 1810 and in 1815. In this they are mistaken. That Raeburn was in London in the summer of 1812 is proved by his signature that year on the list of candidates for the A.R.A. The signature must have been written within a month after June 22nd, the period during which the list was accessible to candidates in the office of the Royal Academy. Raeburn was also in London in FOL. The opening of the Academy exhibition on May 4th appears to have been awaited with exceptional curiosity. The Morning Herald, in remarking this, states that for some time before noon a great concourse of expectant visitors had assembled in front of the gates of the Royal Academy, and that when the clocks struck twelve and they were thrown open, “‘the eager crowd hurried up the staircase with as much alacrity and avidity as if they were going to witness the execution of a fellow creature, or to see another Infant Roscius mangle the relatives of Syntax, or to behold in security the conflagration of a district’. : Yet the pictures the visitors were so eager to see were no more interesting than usual. ‘Turner’s Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps was in the opinion of some of the critics the picture of the year, though hung, as the Public Ledger points out, in an unfavourable position. Crabb Robinson has recorded that he was fascinated with the Snow Storm, and that Flaxman, whom he met on the evening of his visit to the Academy, “‘spoke of Turner’s landscape with great admiration as the best painting in the exhibition”. The Snow Storm is remarkable, apart from its merits, as the first of the artist’s works shown at the Academy as an illustration of a passage from his own poems, the Fallacies of Hope. The passage, which is quoted in the catalogue, is unnoticed P99 [rér2] ART IN ENGLAND in any of the reviews I have seen except one, that in the S¢ James’s Chronicle: No. 258. Snow Storm; Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps. J. M. W. Turner. Mr Turner has taken his description of this picture from a manuscript poem entitled Fallacies of Hope, of which, if we are to judge from this specimen it will be unnecessary to say more than that it may as well continue in manu- script; Mr Turner’s picture having already bestowed upon it the full share of celebrity it is likely to attain. ‘Craft, treachery and fraud—Salassian force, Hung on the fainting rear! then Plunder seized The victor and the captive—Saguntum’s spoil, Alike became their prey; still the chief advanced, Looked on the sun with hope; low, broad and wan, While the fierce archer of the downward year, Stains Italy’s blanch’d barrier with storms. In vain each pass, ensanguined deep with dead, Or rocky fragments wide destruction rolled. Still on Campania’s fertile plains—he thought, But the loud breeze sobbed, Capua’s joys beware.’ This picture is a very considerable display of the talents of this very superior artist. Yet the subject is badly considered. The soldiers of Hannibal in the act of crossing the Alps during a storm might have been represented in a manner more becoming hardy warriors than crouching under the pro- jections of rocks for shelter from the snow. Turner’s contributions to the Academy of 1812 also included View of the High Street, Oxford (161), and A View of Oxford from the Abingdon Road (169). Both were commissioned or purchased by Mr J. Wyatt, the Oxford picture framer and printseller. Turner complained that they were hung as badly as they could be, and would like to have withdrawn them from the exhibition. An increased appreciation of the work of Constable is notice- able in the newspaper criticisms this year. His landscapes, all of which were in good places, are mentioned as among the principal works of their kind in the exhibition, and A Watermill (g) is the subject of particular praise. This picture, a representa- tion of his father’s mill at Flatford, was much admired by Benjamin West, and is described by the London Chronicle as a very excellent and promising study. “‘If the artist proceeds with the success it indicates there will soon be few in the same line 200 tn eet CRITICS ON CONSTABLE [1812] who will outrun the Constable.’? More serious, but still flattering, are the comments of another critic who was evidently capable of appreciating the particular qualities of the rising landscape painter. He says: Mr Constable has much originality and vigour of style, but bordering perhaps a little on crudeness of effect. I say perhaps, because it is doubtful if his general tone was less cold and green and grey, and his masses of light and shade less subdivided by a number of strong touches of both, he would not considerably diminish that originality and vigour so peculiar to himself. What he would gain in sweetness, he might lose in decision. No. 9, A Water- mill, is his best performance but it wants a little more carefulness of execution. Other newspaper writers praise Bird, who was now chal- lenging Wilkie in his own class of subject, and claim for him greater powers of genius and invention than those of the Scottish painter. A great future is predicted for Hilton, whose Christ restoring the Blind (371) was prominent among the subject pictures. Chantrey’s busts are admired for their excellence of likeness, particularly those of the painters, Stothard (927) and Northcote (933). George Dawe, who appears to have been on intimate terms with Coleridge at this time, showed a portrait (547) and a bust (922) of him; as well as a large picture, Genevieve (220), inspired by his poem, “‘Love”’; a poem, it is stated, that Charles James Fox thought the most pleasing in the language. But the picture was not admired, and still less were Dawe’s presentments of the poet. The portrait is described as indifferent, *‘but better than the bust, which is absolutely disagreeable’”’. Portraiture was predominant, as usual, at the Academy, and most of it is condemned as bad. But Raeburn is commended for his full-length of a Highlander, The Chief of the Macdonells (1), and a portrait of a gentleman in black (304); Lawrence, for his full-length of Kemble as Cato (57); and Beechey for his head of Nollekens the sculptor (102), which is said to be marvellous in resemblance. The critics of the earlier Academy exhibitions were far more outspoken about portraits than those of to-day, and frequently expressed their opinions of the qualities of the sitters as well as of the paintings. In a note on this exhibition 20I [rér2] ART IN ENGLAND the St Fames’s Chronicle says of Owen’s portrait of Lord Grenville (66) in his robes as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, that though his Lordship may have a good political head it is by no means a fine subject for a painter, “for there is a vulgarity stamped upon the countenance which defies all the labours of art to render it graceful or interesting”. Another curious—and in its way amusing—criticism is one published in The News on the several portraits of the Duke of Sussex: No. 141. The Duke of Sussex, J. J. Masquerier. We only notice this as one of the persecutions to which his Royal Highness has this year been exposed. What he has done to offend the artists we know not, but assuredly their revenge must be fully gratified by the pictures they have made of him in the exhibition. We have him in portrait, in miniature and in bust; and we defy genius itself to say in which he is made the most horrible—whether it is in this No. 141, or in his Freemason’s habiliments by Drummond, or in little, or in marble by Prosperi? All we can do is to pity the Duke and beg the artists to have mercy on his face. The Prince Regent did not attend the Academy banquet in 1812, but sent by the Marquis of Stafford polite messages of regret to the Academicians, who had evidence before them of the generosity of his Royal Highness in the shape of an immense chandelier that illuminated the Great Room in which the dinner tables were arranged. The Prince, when he dined at Somerset House in 1811, had found the lighting of the Great — Room deficient, and sent word a month later that he intended to present a chandelier to the Academy and that Mr Vulliamy of Pall Mall had been commissioned to design and make it. The Prince’s gift, used for the first time on the occasion of the — banquet of 1812, was of bronze; circular in shape, and suspended from the centre of the ceiling by chains depending from bronze — hooks in the form of serpents. The underpart was adorned in ~ the centre by a female head of classic type in relief. From the centre, rays streamed outwards to a border of acanthus leaves ornamented with alternate masks and lyres, and from the outer rim thirty-two brackets curved upwards, each of which sup-— ported a lamp. According to the accounts of the festivity the thirty-two lamps ~ 202 yore ‘ Fs ay ae « hy a eS eS Oe ee et TURNER’S PRIVATE GALLERY [rér2] caused a rich and harmonious effect and made the Great Room almost as luminous as day; and the Academicians admired, or affected to admire, the Royal gift. But some of the newspapers speak disrespectfully of the design of the chandelier, and its un- wieldiness, for it weighed about two tons and was more than once the cause of trouble and expense to the Academicians. However, when they moved from Somerset House to Trafalgar Square the chandelier accompanied them and adorned the West Room until they moved again to Burlington House in 1868. What became of it afterwards I have been unable to discover, but nothing is known of it at the Academy to-day. Gratifying as the gift of 1811 was to the members at large, there was one Academician whose recollections of the dinner of that year were not happy. This was Turner, whose Mercury and Herse had then been praised by the Prince, who desired to acquire it. ‘Chis caused unfortunate complications, as two of the oldest patrons of the artist were already in treaty for the land- scape. The result was that the Mercury and Herse had remained unsold, as ‘Turner’s friend John Taylor notes in The Sun in this account of a visit to the Turner Gallery in the summer of 1812: Mr Turner opened his gallery for the admission of his friends a few weeks ago and it was closed on Saturday last. Some of the pictures had been sub- mitted to the public before, but there are seven new landscapes, all of which display extraordinary merit. Indeed we are almost disposed to say that they excel his former productions except in two or three instances. Among the additional works are The River Plym; Calder Bridge, Cumberland; Teignmouth; Saltash with the Water Ferry; Ivy Bridge Mill, Devonshire; and St Mawes at the Pilchard Season. All these pictures are painted with a boldness, vigour and truth which entitle the artist to a very high station among the landscape painters of any period. His fine picture of Mercury and Herse would have offered us more pleasure if we had met with it again in any other place; but we saw with regret that it is still left on the hands of the artist, who on this occasion has been the victim of etiquette and delicacy. It seems that two noblemen had expressed a wish to have the picture, but hearing that a great personage had desired it they withdrew their pretensions. The same motives of delicacy, we understand, operated upon the great personage, who declined it in favour of the two noblemen. Matters remain in this vexatious state, and from similar feelings among the higher patrons of art a picture 203 [rér2] ART IN ENGLAND that would be an ornament to any collection, and does so much honour to the genius of the artist, is not likely, at present at least, to add anything to his fortune. The condition of the pictures in the possession of the Academy attracted the attention of the Council this year, and John Rising, the artist and restorer, was asked to examine those by Sir Joshua and Gainsborough and say what could be done for their pre- servation. Four unspecified works by Sir Joshua and one by Gainsborough (probably the landscape now in the Diploma Gallery) were afterwards entrusted to Rising for restoration, which he accomplished at a cost of £153. 2s. Other entries in the minutes of 1812 refer to the desperate situation of R. M. Paye, “‘an old exhibitor in great distress”, to whom a grant of twenty guineas was made; and to a dispute between Beechey and the Council. The frame of a picture sent by Beechey to the exhibition had been damaged at Somerset House, and the Academician made two applications for compensation, both of which were refused. Raeburn’s presence among the candidates gave interest to the elections of Associates this year. Four were chosen from a list to which only a few names had been added since the contest of 1811. Raeburn was successful in the first ballot, in which he defeated Bird of Bristol by twenty-two votes to fourteen. Four votes were given for Halls, four for Matthew C. Wyatt (who stood as a painter), two for Heaphy and one for Chantrey. In the second election Bird beat Wyatt by twenty-one votes to ten. Chantrey had two supporters. William Westall was the third elected, with eighteen votes to thirteen for A. E. Chalon; and Chalon the fourth, with sixteen votes to fifteen for Wyatt. The last business of the year transacted by the Academy Council concerned an application from Turner, who was ill. The record in the minutes of December 28th says: “Read a letter from the Professor of Perspective asking to be allowed to postpone his. course of lectures until the season of January, 1814, on account of indisposition”’. The postponement was al- lowed, but nothing is said as to the nature of Turner’s illness. CHAPTER XIV 1813 Iw this year the principal event was the exhibition of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, held in the summer at the gallery of the British Institution, by whose Directors it was organized. This was the first exhibition of its kind in England and its suc- cess induced the Directors to show in the following summers collections of pictures which brought before the public most of the finest works in the private galleries of England. ‘These ex- hibitions, invaluable from the educational point of view, were continued until 1867. They were brought to a close only by the expiration of the lease of the British Institution’s gallery, and efforts were made to continue them elsewhere. The Burlington Fine Arts Club proposed to do so, and for this purpose asked for the loan in the winter months of two or three of the galleries the Royal Academy had recently built at Burlington House. ‘The | proposal was considered and declined, as the Academicians decided that they would themselves conduct exhibitions of Old Masters on the lines of those of the British Institution. The first of these was opened at Burlington House in January, 1870. The Reynolds exhibition of 1813 at the British Institution was preceded by one of modern work, held early in the year, at which the picture most noticed was the Death of Eli, by the Bristol artist, Edward Bird, the rival of Wilkie, and believed by many to be one of the greatest men the English school had produced. Sir Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough, one of the most active and influential amateurs of the time, saw the Death of Eli privately before it was exhibited, and expressed his 205 [7673] ART IN ENGLAND opinion of it in the following letter written in January to a friend at Bristol who was acquainted with the artist: I have seen and admired much Bird’s picture, it is really excellent and places him very high. I met my friend Lord Stafford there who was so much | struck with it that he determined to become the purchaser. I understand that Bird has worked upon it since he sent it to the Institution and that he has improved it exceedingly. There is nobody who comes at all near him in the line he has taken; he will be one of the best artists this country has ever produced, and there is no saying what degree of excellence in the art a person may not reach who is capable of giving so much character and mind to his subjects. The Marquis of Stafford, who had bought Bird’s Chevy Chase from the Institution’s exhibition of the previous year for 300 guineas, gave 500 guineas—a very large price at this period—for the Death of Elt. He also made purchases at the exhibition of 1813 of pictures by Thomas Barker, Patrick Nasmyth, R. R. Reinagle, H. P. Bone, F. Huet Villiers, George Watson and Miss Palmer. To this generous patron of the arts was entrusted the honour of receiving the Prince Regent when he attended the inaugural banquet of the Reynolds exhibition on May 8th—*‘a proud day for the Arts of England”’, as the Morning Chronicle called it in a description of the festivity. The arrangements were admir- able. The banquet was served not in the picture galleries in Pall Mall but in the large hall at Willis’s Rooms, in King Street, then a famous place for dinners and parties, and now in the occupation of Messrs Robinson and Fisher, the art auctioneers. A temporary covered way was built from the back of the British — Institution to the back of Willis’s Rooms; which were thus con- nected with the richly furnished galleries, whose walls were covered for the occasion with crimson hangings. The galleries, adorned with nearly one hundred and fifty of Sir Joshua’s finest works, served as drawing-rooms in which the Directors received their guests. ‘The dinner hour was half-past six, but most of the company arrived much earlier for the purpose of seeing the - pictures. The Prince Regent came about half-past five. His Royal Highness, than whom no one could be more charming when he 206 THE REYNOLDS EXHIBITION [813] chose, was in the same happy mood as he had been two years before, when he made his sympathetic speech at the Academy dinner. He wandered about the galleries, greeting many ac- quaintances and talking about the pictures, and to the delight of Wilkie, who had been invited as an Academician, came up to and congratulated him on the success of his Blind Man’s Buff. This picture, then at the Academy, had been painted by Wilkie for the Prince, who now asked the artist to paint, at his leisure, a companion work of the same size. Lord Stafford, who was standing by, listening to the conversation, complained that for several years Wilkie had promised to paint him a picture, but that he had not received it and doubted if he ever should. The Prince, intervening tactfully, said his Lordship had no doubt forgotten that Mr Wilkie had been handicapped by a long illness; and then, turning to the artist, said he should be glad to have another picture after the claims of Lord Stafford were satisfied. At the banquet the Prince sat in a chair of state by the side of Lord Stafford, who acted as chairman, but there was little ceremony. It was more like a private than a public dinner, and no demonstrations of applause followed the drinking of the toasts, the first of which was to the memory of the great master in whose honour the gathering was held. “His Royal Highness,” says a reporter who was present, “rose at half-past nine, and was con- ducted back to the exhibition rooms by the Marquis of Stafford. The company stopped to drink again the health of the Prince Regent, with the honours; and then followed him to the rooms, which were finely illuminated, and a splendid appearance of Ladies heightened the coup d’eil of the brilliant spectacle. Many more persons of the highest distinction, among whom were several of our Prelates, also came to the gallery in the evening and the promenade continued until a late hour at night.” Constable, who was invited to the dinner through the good offices of his rich uncle, David Pike Watts, who was a Governor of the Institution, mentions Lord Byron and Mrs Siddons among the people he saw at the reception. 207 [r8r3] ART IN ENGLAND The popularity of the Reynolds exhibition was remarkable, although to the eyes of the visitors of 1813 the costumes of the painter’s sitters appeared absurdly old fashioned. “And not even the pencil of Sir Joshua,” said one critic, ““can save from ridicule some of the headdresses, both male and female, which many of us must recollect as common.” ‘That devoted picture lover, Miss Mitford, who in writing to Sir William Elford said that she thought the Academy extremely good, was careful to add: “But everything is thrown into the background by Sir Joshua’s exhibition’’. Writing again to his Bristol friend in June, Sir Charles Long urges him to come to town to see the collection and mentions a projected exhibition for 1814, the composition of which ap- pears to have been Long’s own idea. It was duly held, and pictures by Zoffany were shown in addition to those by the painters named. Long says: I shall be very sorry if you are not enabled to visit London to enjoy the Exhibition of Sir Joshuas. I venture to say it will exceed all your expecta- tions, and you will never have such another opportunity. Put yourself there- fore in the Mail Coach at once. It will probably remain open all the month of July. I have proposed, and it has been agreed to, to have a similar exhibition next year of the works of Hogarth, Gainsborough and Wilson. These three painters will fill our rooms and I think it may improve our young artists. We propose to leave some of the works of Sir Joshua for the study of these artists for two or three months after the exhibition closes. Sir Charles Long’s proposal to give students an opportunity of copying some of the Sir Joshuas was carried into effect, and twenty pictures and portraits were allowed to remain in the galleries for this purpose until November. The only person who objected to the making of copies was Mrs Piozzi, who had lent to the exhibition portraits of Dr Johnson, Goldsmith, Dr Burney, and Baretti. She wrote the following letter in August to Samuel Lysons, then one of the Directors of the British Institution: Mrs Piozzi presents her most respectful compliments to her old friend Mr Lysons, with an earnest request that he will protect her portraits from being copied, as she was strictly promised before she could consent to lend 208 HANGING THE PICTURES [1873] them. It would break her heart, and ruin the value of the pictures to pos- terity, and now some artist living at 50 Rathbone Place, who spells his name so that she cannot read it, unless *tis Joseph, writes to her begging he may copy the portrait of Dr Johnson, when she was hoping that all the four were by this time restored to their places at Old Streatham Park. At the Royal Academy the only event of importance in the early spring of 1813 was the promotion to full membership of William Theed, A.R.A., the sculptor, who in a contest with the younger Daniell was victorious by twenty-two votes to seven. The Hanging Committee for the summer exhibition was com- posed of David Wilkie, James Ward, and Richard Westmacott. To all three hanging the pictures was a new experience, and they enjoyed it, and made the most of their opportunities. ‘‘As we had every refreshment at the expense of the Academy,” says Wilkie in a letter to his sister, “‘you may believe we lived well and found great entertainment in our labours.... The first persons we thought of were our own three selves, as you may suppose; and acting on this principle my picture of Blind Man’s Buff was accordingly placed in the principal centre in the Great Room. After attending to the more weighty claims, the pictures of my friends, Jackson, Robertson, and others, were put in excellent places, and not only is the arrangement liked as an agreeable combination of shapes and colours, but everybody seems to think it has been managed with the greatest judgment and im- partiality.” Certainly there is no mention of complaints in the minutes, which, however, record, at a meeting of the Council on April 28th, the admission to the Academy of another friend of Wilkie, and a distinguished one. “‘ Mr Raeburn being introduced, signed the instrument of obligation read to him by the Secretary and received from the President his diploma as Associate of the Royal Academy.” This visit of Raeburn to London is not men- tioned, I think, by any of his biographers. He was worthily received at the Academy, and, although a junior Associate, was allowed to sit in a high place at the Academy dinner, next to Wilkie, who was an Academician and a member of the Council. WA 209 14 [7873] “ART IN ENGLAND No new Associate, however eminent, would be so well treated to-day. Among the more popular pictures in the exhibition at the Academy were A Child rescued by its Mother from an Eagle’s Nest (1), by George Dawe, of whom the critics prophesied—as they had prophesied of Bird earlier in the year—that he would occupy one of the highest places in the English school. ‘The six canvases illustrating the punishment and reformation of a poacher which represented Bird at the exhibition were also liked, and other favourites were Northcote’s Lion Hunting (19) and Joseph and his Brethren (36); and Hilton’s Mary anointing the feet of Jesus (295). However, the picture of the year, in the sense that it received more attention and general approbation than any other, was the Blind Man’s Buff (148), painted by Wilkie for the Prince Regent and hung in the best place in the exhibition. Applauded ex- travagantly and described as superior to Teniers, it was the centre of interest, as Stothard ruefully admits in a letter of May 24th. He says that Bird has done himself justice in his series of six pictures and that they are admired: But Wilkie’s Blind Man’s Buff has ever a crowd round it closely packed; and some of those in the rear, in vain struggling for a view, console themselves for the disappointment by looking upwards at my Shakespeare subject, by which means I get admirers, as one theatre is filled by the overflow of the other. This you will say is but poor consolation, but it is so and I must be content; so I console myself with the consciousness of having done what will not disgrace the best of my former productions. This is my secret satisfaction, but to purchasers of high rank—Princes, Dukes, down to Right Honourables —I am a perfect stranger in every shape, even to commendation. One critic failed to agree with the verdict of the crowd, and declared that Wilkie was degenerating—that he was in danger of falling to the level of Watteau! This was a writer in Bell’s Weekly Messenger, who thought Blind Man’s Buff unequal to the earlier work of Wilkie. ‘‘ This excellent artist,” he said, ‘‘is de- clining into a prettyism similar to Watteau. He should shake off this feebleness.”’ Turner’s composition, The Deluge (213), did not attract much notice and some considered it as inferior in certain respects to 210 A WINTER LANDSCAPE [7873] Joshua Shaw’s version of the same subject, shown not long before at the British Institution. But it is gratifying to find that Turner’s marvellous Frosty Morning, No. 15 (now in the National Gallery), was appreciated although it had none of the popular success of Wilkie’s picture. The Morning Chronicle thinks the Frosty Morning one of the best things Mr Turner has painted. ‘In silvery bright- ness of effect,” we are told, ‘‘it is equal to one of the richest productions of Cuyp or Claude. The more we look into it the more beauties we discover. Mr Turner has an eye to harmony most penetrating, and it is wonderful to observe how much he has made of material so scanty. Everything in the picture seems to feel the effect of the cold, the trees are shrivelled, the child shrunk up, and all is familiar to our recollection as perfectly in nature.” Another critic says: ‘So vividly is the impression of nature conveyed by this picture, that while surveying it we cannot avoid feeling all the sensations excited by the scene itself; the white but at the same time transparent hue of the atmosphere, the glazed surface of the ground, the chilling appearance of the trees, and the herbage glittering and angular with frozen rime”’. The term “silvery brightness’? hardly applies to the general appearance of the Frosty Morning now, but it may have done so in 1813. No doubt the picture is lower in tone than it was then, as the Rev. J. S. Trimmer, Turner’s friend, told his son, who did not see the Frosty Morning until many years afterwards, that it was ““much brighter’? when exhibited at Somerset House. | A notice of the Academy was published this year in The Times but not until June 22nd, when the exhibition was on the point of closing. It was very brief, and half composed of eulogies of the portraits shown by James Lonsdale. He was, it will be remem- bered, the only artist, with the exception of George Augustus Wallis, whose work at the Academy was noticed by The Times in 1807. The coincidence this year of the opening of the Reynolds exhibition at the British Institution and the retirement of George Engleheart gave interest to the sale of a number of replicas by the miniature painter, at his house in Hertford Street, Mayfair, Rig | 14-2 [1873] ART IN ENGLAND which he was now giving up in order to live in the country. The auctioneer, in advertising the sale, appealed to the con- noisseurs of the paintings by Sir Joshua at the British Institution, — “‘to take an opportunity, which can never occur again, of pur- chasing exact copies of each picture in miniature, taken during the lifetime of Sir Joshua by Mr Engleheart”’’. Another sale of some interest was that of a collection of casts from the antique formed by Mr Jens Wolff, the husband of the lady whom Lawrence admired and with whom he corresponded. The col- lection was well known to artists, and the Royal Academy decided to endeavour to obtain examples from it for use in the schools, where the casts—as Flaxman had reported—were in a bad state. Accordingly Westmacott, the sculptor, and Howard, the Secretary to the Academy, were deputed to attend the sale and bid for the Barberini Faun, the Niobe and Daughter, and any others they might think it advantageous for the schools to possess. The two Academicians went to the sale at Sherwood Lodge, Battersea, only to find that the entire collection had been disposed of by private contract just before their arrival. Of far greater importance than these was the sale of the works of art belonging to Lord Kinnaird, a collector who was regarded as a man of taste and judgment and was believed, probably with reason, to have given extravagant sums for what he regarded as his best pictures. Among these was Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, which had been brought to England in 1806 by William Buchanan, and from him passed to Lord Kinnaird, whose reck- less expenditure obliged him in 1813 to sell the whole of his London possessions. In the published correspondence of Lady Elizabeth Stanhope there is a letter from Mrs Spencer Stanhope, an acquaintance of the family of the spendthrift peer, in which she gives her husband an idea of his position. She says, writing on February 2oth, 1813: “Lord Kinnaird has contrived to get into such difficulties that his house, pictures, and everything, are to be sold. I went over the house yesterday and felt at every step as if the ghost of his father could not fail to appear. There never was a fortune tumbled down in such a moment. The 212 LORD KINNAIRD’S SALE [1813] pictures and bronzes very fine. There is one of the best of Titian’s pictures, but though a fine, I do not think it a pleasing, collection’’, The sale was conducted by Phillips of New Bond Street, who in February disposed of Lord Kinnaird’s house in Grosvenor Street. It was held on a lease at £22 a year, of which forty-seven years were unexpired and was sold for £10,000. The sale of the pictures and furniture took place in the first week in March, and for three days before it commenced, the fashionable world flocked to Grosvenor Street to see the house and its contents: “consisting of such a mass of riches as are seldom to be found in a private dwelling”. The newspaper that reports this states that the view of Lord Kinnaird’s property “‘attracted such an immense number of equipages that all the neighbouring outlets to Grosvenor Street were crammed with the most dashing vehicles in town, from the carriage of the Primate of England down to the new-fangled machine sported by Mr Romeo Coates’”’, During the days on which Lord Kinnaird’s house was thrown open the visitors were innumerable, although admission was im- possible without a catalogue which cost three shillings—about ten or twelve shillings to-day. Of the pictures the most notable were Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, already mentioned; The Fudg- ment of Paris by Rubens; and the Bacchanalian Dance, by Nicolas Poussin. For these together it was rumoured that Lord Kinnaird had paid 6000 guineas. They figured almost at the end of Phillips’ catalogue, but those who waited to see them come under the hammer were disappointed. All were withdrawn at the last moment, and it was stated in the newspapers, and generally believed, that they had been bought for 8000 guineas by Lord Grosvenor. This statement, although inaccurate, was never contradicted. According to a note written on a copy of the sale catalogue at the British Museum, the three pictures were sold to Delahante by private contract for 6500 guineas. But the authorship of the note is unknown and its truthfulness has been doubted. In the National Gallery catalogue it is stated that at 213 [1873] ART IN ENGLAND the Kinnaird sale the Titian was “‘apparently bought privately— _ Delahante or Lafontaine”’. However, a letter written by Delahante not long after the Kinnaird sale throws light upon the matter. Writing to Mr — Penrice of Yarmouth on July 7th, 1813, Delahante gives par- ticulars of the best pictures he has for sale. The first on his list is the Judgment of Paris by Rubens, but Delahante says in a postscript: “Lord Kinnaird’s Rubens is actually sold to Mr Baseley for £4200; but I have it in my power to dispose of it as I like, till he has given me proper security for the £4200, as has been the case for the two other pictures from Lord Kinnaird sold to him, viz.—Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, and N. Poussin”. This letter, supported by the note written in the sale catalogue, makes it clear, I think, that Delahante was the purchaser of the — three principal works in the Kinnaird collection. The Rev. Thomas Baseley, who appears to have owned, for a time, the Rubens, the Poussin, and the Bacchus and Ariadne—the last one of the famous pictures of the world—was an amateur dealer whose transactions, and those of his partners, were conducted on what was a large scale for the times. He allowed the Fudg- ment of Paris to pass out of his hands, and it was bought by Penrice from Delahante. This was on the advice of Lawrence, who says in a letter to Penrice of July 12th, 1813: “The Kinnaird Rubens is a supremely fine picture....Mortgage one of your fifty estates rather than miss it”’. The picture so much admired by Lawrence remained at Yar- mouth until the Penrice collection was sold at Christie’s in 1844. The Judgment of Paris was then bought by the National Gallery for £4200, exactly the sum Mr Baseley had agreed to pay Delahante for it. When Penrice bought the picture in 1819 it was in good condition, but injuries were apparent when it was on view at Christie’s. The most serious of them was on the back of Juno, where a solid piece of paint and white ground the size of a sixpence had been chipped off, leaving the wood of the panel exposed, The damage was repaired most skilfully by Sir — Charles Eastlake, who declared, many years afterwards, that 214 ALEXIS DELAHANTE [7813] he could not himself point out the restored portion of the back of the goddess. It can, however, be traced by a careful observer, just above the waist of the figure. The tone of the original paint has been matched to perfection, but the surface of the restored portion is smoother than the rest and shows none of the marks of Rubens’ brush. It was perhaps from Mr Baseley that Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne was acquired by Thomas Hamlet, the most fashionable jeweller of his time, and the “Mr Polonius” of Thackeray. Hamlet also acquired the Kinnaird Poussin, the Bacchanalian Dance. ‘The two pictures, with another by Annibale Carracci, were in 1826 sold by him to the National Gallery for £9000. Alexis Delahante, who sold the Judgment of Paris to Penrice, was liked and respected even by Lawrence, although that artist once declared that “‘no two animals have greater antipathy to each other than painters and picture dealers”’. He was a member of an old French family; a Royalist who was exiled during the Napoleonic period but returned to France with the restoration of the Bourbons and was appointed one of the Experts du Musée. He married the daughter of Sebastien Erard, the musical instrument maker, who was himself largely concerned with picture dealing and sold to Angerstein two famous Claudes now in the National Gallery. At the time of his negotiations with Penrice, Delahante was in a state bordering on distraction. A week or two before, his wife, to whom he was most tenderly attached, had destroyed herself in a temporary period of in- sanity that followed the birth of her second child. Delahante brought to England many well-known pictures, among them the large Veronese in the National Gallery, the Consecration of St Nicholas. When he was in business the opinion of Sir George Beaumont prevailed that pictures should have a brown tone, and if buyers were expected who held this view, he gave his pictures a temporary glaze of Spanish liquorice mixed with oxgall. He thought the practice horrible, and was careful to remove every trace of the glaze after the client’s departure, but said that he was obliged to do it in order to sell his pictures. 215 [r8r3] ART IN ENGLAND Another sale of 1813 was that of the house and pictures of a Russian painter named Stroehling, who came to England at the beginning of the century “strongly recommended to the English Court from St Petersburg and Berlin”. He had received royal support in London, where he painted a full-length portrait of the Princess of Wales, and was appointed Historical Painter to the Prince Regent. Stroehling, it will be remembered, gave evidence for Dubost, in 1810, in that artist’s action against Beresford. In the summer of 1813, when he was in the full tide of prosperity, he sold all his pictures and studies, and his fine house in Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, with two coachhouses, stabling for four horses, and the “grand Egyptian saloon’’, recently erected at great expense by the artist himself. There was no apparent reason for the sale, as Stroehling con- tinued to paint and exhibit in England for many years after- wards, and he was known to be making a large income, though he was accused of sharp practice in obtaining commissions from minors, and selling pictures to them, and to others whose know- ledge of the value of works of art was limited. From one of the latter, Sir Gregory Page Turner, a wealthy but weak-minded young baronet, who was the prey of men of keener wit, Stroehling recovered a considerable sum only two days after the sale of his house. Stroehling had painted a large picture, Daniel in the Lions’ Den. For this, according to his own story, he asked 2000 guineas, but owing to the importunities of the baronet and his promise to give commissions for other works, he allowed him to have the picture for £1500. After the sale Sir Gregory refused to pay, and when Stroehling pressed him, threatened to send his picture to the auction room, where it would be knocked down for a small sum and thus injure its painter’s reputation. Stroehling, therefore, brought an action against Sir Gregory and on June 1oth the case was heard before Lord Ellenborough. The Attorney-General, who appeared for the plaintiff, said that it was clear that the defendant was contented with his bargain, as he prepared and had inserted in the public prints a paragraph ~ 216 THE REVEREND THOMAS BASELEY [1873] stating that “Sir G. P. Turner was the purchaser of Mr Stroeh- ling’s valuable picture of Daniel in the Lions’ Den for 2000 guineas”’. There was practically no defence and Lord Ellenborough gave judgment in favour of the artist, who was, however, severely criticized by the Examiner, in which a long letter had previously appeared, finding fault with Stroehling and his methods of sale. Sir Gregory Page Turner was equally unsuccessful in his at- tempts, made later in the year, to escape from what he regarded as a worse bargain than the purchase of Daniel in the Lions’ Den. In the spring he had agreed with the Rev. Thomas Baseley (the one time owner of the Bacchus and Ariadne) to purchase certain pictures for the sum of about £12,000, but subsequently his suspicions were aroused and at the end of July he filed a bill in Chancery to be released from his contract on the ground that the pictures were not as had been represented and that the whole was an imposition. The bill also prayed for a discovery of the persons from whom, and for what price, etc., the pictures had been purchased by the defendant. The defendant answered that the pictures were as represented but demurred to that part of the bill which sought the discovery of persons and prices. The Vice-Chancellor, by whom the application was heard, showed some sympathy with the plaintiff and thought that the discovery might be material, and that the defendant’s demurrer must there- fore be overruled. But all Sir Gregory’s hopes were destroyed in December, when the case came before the Lord Chancellor, and was thus re- ported by the Morning Chronicle in its issue of the tenth of the month: TuRNER, Bart. v. Rev. BASELEY In this case the plaintiff, Sir Gregory Page Turner, had filed his bill against the Rev. Mr Baseley for an account and also an enquiry into the value of certain pictures, which on the report of the defendant as to their great value, and as to their being the productions of certain great masters, Titian, Rubens, Rosa, Jiargionalli (!) etc., the plaintiff had been induced to pur- chase from the defendant, in whom he had great confidence, for the sum of about £12,000. The plaintiff had given to the defendant his acceptances for part of the amount and the Court had granted an injunction restraining 217 [1673] ART IN ENGLAND the defendant from proceedings at law for the recovery until the putting in of the answer. Answer has been put in. Plaintiff now asked leave to amend the bill by adding Harris and Forster as defendants. The bill averred that the pictures sold as celebrated works of great eminence were really of trifling value and of no name or celebrity whatever. The defendant had said they had been long in his possession and that their character and value were well known to him. Whereas it now appeared by the defendant’s answer that the plaintiff having been persuaded in the month of March to become the purchaser of the pictures the same had only come into the defendant’s possession between that time and the month of January preceding. Plaintiff had been induced to buy for £12,000, whereas the defendant had not paid more than £6000 for them within three months. The plaintiff said that the Court could not be the less desirous of gaining information from perceiving that the defendant was a clergyman, and one whose profession did not call upon him to deal largely in pictures or in any subject of sale or speculation. | The Lord Chancellor said he thought the present application was contrary ~ to all rule, nor did he see how the Court could grant it, unless, upon going into the merits, such a measure might be found essential to the justice of the case. At present it seemed rather to have the appearance of an attempt to fish out evidence in support of a case in which the plaintiff had little confi- dence. As to a clergyman dealing in pictures, if there were any crime in it, his Lordship believed it would be found in a greater or less degree to affect many of the most exalted characters in the country, who, it was also said, were occasionally in the use of making large profits by such speculations. His Lordship therefore refused the application. I can find no reference to any further proceedings in this case, which was presumably settled by Sir Gregory on the best terms he could obtain. He was also indebted for a large amount to Ackermann, the fine art dealer in the Strand. James Wyatt, the former President of the Royal Academy, who died this year after an accident when travelling from Bath to London, was one of the most fully employed and best re- munerated architects of his time, and must have enjoyed a very large income for a considerable period. He appears to have spent a fortune on his house in Foley Place, near Portland Place, and when it was for sale soon after his death it was visited, according to a contemporary account, ‘‘by the most celebrated 218 LOUIS FRANCIA’S MASTER [7813] antiquarians and lovers of vertuin London’’, They wereattracted, it was said, by the great collection of curiosities and specimens of ancient art contained in the house, which was by far the finest residence in the quarter in which it was situated: Nature and art have both worked well upon it; it is a chef d’ceuvre of taste and beauty. The apartments of the drawing room floor are matchless, the embellishments classically chaste, novel and splendid; they command a richness of scenery almost unrivalled, a view of Foley Gardens, which is a landscape ground of the finest character. The sculpture which adorns the rooms is the work of Mr Wyatt’s own hands....The whole has been finished at a prodigious expense. Wyatt’s house was sold in January, 1814, and six months later his widow, “in deep distress’’, was obliged to appeal to the Academy for relief and was granted the sum of fifty pounds. Two new Associates of the Royal Academy were elected in November, William Hilton and George Francis Joseph. The first chosen was Hilton, who obtained fourteen votes. John Sanders the architect had five, Mulready two, and Jackson one. In the second election Joseph had thirteen votes, against six for R. R. Reinagle, three for Mulready and one for Edward Hastings the portrait painter. Among the new candidates for Academic honours on this occasion was Louis Francia, an artist of French birth of whose life we know little, although he exhibited eighty-five pictures at Somerset House and was for some time Secretary to the As- sociated Painters in Water Colours. However, he says some- thing about his own career in a biographical memoir, published in the General Chronicle, of his master, John Charles Barrow, described by Roget only as “one J. C. Barrow”, who kept a drawing school at which John Varley was employed. Barrow, despite Roget’s contemptuous allusion, appears to have been a man of respectable artistic position, apart from his ability as a drawing master. He was a member of the old Incorporated Society of Artists, and known to and employed by Walpole, for whom he painted a view of Strawberry Hill which is engraved by Birch in Délices de la Grande Bretagne, a volume of prints for 219 [7673] ART IN ENGLAND which Walpole was a subscriber. Two other drawings of Straw- berry Hill made by Barrow for Walpole in 1789 were in the collection of the late Mr John Lane. Francia, who had a great opinion of Barrow, expresses his surprise in the opening passage of his memoir that none of the drawing master’s many pupils have given his memory the deserved meed of praise, instead of leaving this last act of duty to a man who is a stranger to his blood and an alien in his country. Barrow, says Francia, was the son of a wealthy oil merchant in Thames Street, and brought up in luxury at his father’s country house at Twickenham. He succeeded to the parental estate and business, the last of which he abandoned to follow art, and was engaged by Henry Pars in 1791 as assistant in his drawing school in the Strand. Later he conducted an academy in Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in which, says Francia, some of our best architects acquired their know- ledge of geometry and perspective. But unlucky speculations led him to a debtor’s prison and he died in a state of destitution. When Francia first came to this country, and before he could speak a word of English, he made the acquaintance of Barrow at a school at Hampstead, and was so strongly attracted by his charm of manner that he joined him and shared his fate through all the vicissitudes of the last thirteen years of his life. ““Had he been fortunate,” says the French artist, ‘““he was qualified by his mental powers for the first situations in the state. In short he was a man such as we seldom see. He formed two pupils, Louis Francia and John Varley.” This is all that we know of the life of Francia’s master, whose Picturesque Views of Churches and other Buildings show him to have been a good topographical draughtsman. are A Saas? site eae ae CHAPTER XV 1814 Turner, who gave no perspective lectures in 1813, on account of ill health, commenced the series for 1814 in January. The first was announced for January 3rd, but its delivery was pre- vented by an unfortunate occurrence, explained by the following advertisement which appeared in the Morning Chronicle of January 5th: LEFT in a Hackney Coach which stopped at Somerset House on Monday night (January 3rd) a PorTFOLIO containing demonstrations, etc., etc., etc., of the Science of Perspective. Whoever will bring the same to Mr Turner’s, Queen Anne-Street, W,, corner of Harley Street, shall receive Two Pounps reward, if brought before Thursday, afterwards only ONE Pounp will be given for them at the end of the week. No greater reward will be offered nor will this be advertised again. The lost property was found by a passenger who engaged the coach immediately after Turner had left it. The new hirer appears to have regarded the contents of the portfolio as worth- less, but endeavoured, nevertheless, to trace its owner, and from him emanated a second advertisement, published the day after that of Turner’s, and also in the Morning Chronicle: _Portro.tio Founp. A gentleman having engaged a Hackney Coach on Monday evening last, from the Strand, opposite Somerset House, found therein a large portfolio (much damaged) containing some drawings of the Science of Perspective. They will be restored to the owner on his giving a proper description of the contents, and defraying the expense of this advertise- ment. Should no application be made within fourteen days they will be disposed of as waste paper, being considered of little value. Apply at Messrs Boore and Bannister’s Don Cossack Warehouse, New Street, Covent Garden. On the day this appeared the Royal Academy announced in an advertisement in the same paper that Mr Turner’s first 221 [z8r4] ART IN ENGLAND lecture would be given on January roth instead of the third, but more trouble was in store for him. The New Monthly Magazine stated in February that “‘Mr Turner, Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, commenced his course on Monday, January 1oth, and continues them until completed”. The editor of the magazine had no doubt seen the Academy’s an- nouncement in the Morning Chronicle and published his state- ment on the assumption that the lectures would be delivered in the ordinary course. He was mistaken, as the following letter shows, published in the New Monthly Magazine for March. The writer says: In the same paragraph in which you mention Mr Carlisle you make mention of Mr Turner, the Professor of Perspective, and say that he com- menced his course on January roth; instead of which it ought to have been written that Mr Turner was to have commenced his course on that day but did not. This part is worthy of more minute notice as there is something laughable about it, and to show that I do not make assertion at random. The hour fixed for commencing the lectures is eight o’clock in the evening. On the evening in question; namely, when Mr Turner was to have com- menced his course of lectures on perspective the company had waited with no little impatience till nine o’clock without seeing anything of him. After- wards, however, he arrived, but—oh! sad disaster !—in searching his pocket he ascertained he had lost his lecture! In this dilemma Mr Turner held a conference with the Keeper, Mr Fuseli, and the latter informed the com- pany that his friend had left the lecture in the hackney coach which conveyed him. Mr Fuseli then delivered a discourse on painting, afterwards requesting indulgence for imperfections, he being called to the performance of such a task without any previous notice, and, of course, wholly unprepared. It is worthy to remark that Mr Turner the preceding session entered the room under a precisely similar misfortune, he having then lost his manuscripts by leaving them in a hackney coach. Fuseli, full of information, and a ready speaker, although his pronunciation of English was appalling, probably thought, and perhaps rightly, that anything he had to say about the history of painting would be of more value to the Academy students than the delivery of one of Turner’s addresses on perspective. For these indeed he had a profound contempt, if we may rely upon the statements of the former Gold Medallist of the Academy aa FUSELI AND TURNER [164] schools from whose recollections I have already quoted. He says of Fuseli, when as Keeper he presided at Turner’s lectures: Well do I remember those nights when the Keeper has been in the chair, and a brother professor, more famed for the labours of the brush than the pen, has been in the upright lecture box, blundering through his blotted description of that which he has so pre-eminently exemplified on canvas— who has opened for himself a perspective pictorial glory for all time—well, I say, do I remember the groans and grunts of the Keeper as the Professor boggled at every second sentence. If I were to say that a ‘“‘daam” or two escaped, accompanied by a closing of the eyes, and a convulsive grasping of the hands, as if in fervent adjuration, I do not think I should too highly colour the picture. Let those who had “‘ears to hear” charge their remem- brance and say if I am right. Turner must have been uncommonly absent-minded, for in 1818 he again left his papers in the coach that carried him to the Academy. A considerable audience was awaiting the de- livery of his fourth lecture, when ‘“‘Mr Turner entered the rostrum and in a neat and elegant speech described, and apologized for, his mishap’’. Apparently no substitute was avail- able, as it is stated that the audience applauded the speaker and immediately withdrew. Among those who waited in vain was Cotman, the landscape painter, who refers to his disappointment in a letter published by Mr H. Isherwood Kay in the Walpole Society’s annual for 1926. Mr D. S. MacColl, in his article on the lectures in the Burlington Magazine, mentions a draft of an apology made on one of these occasions, which he found among ‘Turner’s papers. On February roth were filled two vacancies among the Academicians, caused by the deaths of Gainsborough’s friend, Edmund Garvey, and James Wyatt the architect. The elections were interesting on account of the first appearance of Raeburn in a contest for the Academicianship. He failed to win either of the seats. In the first election, for Garvey’s place, George Dawe was successful, by fifteen votes to thirteen for William Daniell. Six votes were given to Raeburn and three to William Redmore Bigg. In the second election, Bigg, who had been twenty-six years an Associate, won Wyatt’s seat, and Daniell 223 ee Se i ap e {78r4] ART IN ENGLAND was again the runner-up. The figures of the leaders were fifteen and thirteen, the same as in the first contest, but only four votes were given for Raeburn. At the same meeting William Ward was elected an Associate-Engraver. Three days later, on the 13th, Wilkie wrote to Edinburgh to inform Raeburn of the result of the voting and to urge him, in view of another election in twelve months time, to “put forward all his strength”? in the work he was preparing for the approaching exhibition. Apparently Raeburn did so, as he sent to the Academy of 1814 (arranged by Lawrence, ‘Thomson and Philip Reinagle) a Portrait of a Gentleman (35) that appears to have been superior to any of his previous achievements. In the opinion of one critic, No. 35—of which, unfortunately, he gives no description—equalled, if it did not surpass, the greatest masterpieces of portraiture hitherto produced. He notes par- ticularly ‘‘ the astonishing animation of the features, the breathing life of the complexion, the piercing intelligence of the eyes”’. It would be interesting to know what was thought of this portrait by Hazlitt, who must have seen it, as in this year ap- peared the only criticism of the Academy that he wrote for the Morning Chronicle. But he does not mention Raeburn in the portion that was published of his critical notes, which remain imperfect although he wrote “‘to be continued”’ at the end of the first instalment. Why no more of his notes appeared in print I shall explain presently. Hazlitt in his review of the Academy praises the portraits by George Dawe, including one of Dr Parr (199); and describes as excellent another portrait or Parr (334) by J. J. Halls. Turner’s Dido and Aeneas (177), “‘though neither natural nor classical’, he regards as powerful and wonderful, and as pos- sessing all the characteristic splendour of an Eastern scenes)" he likes immensely the Bird Catching (229) by Collins, and thinks Owen’s portrait (77) of Lord Chief Justice Gibbs exquisite. He is less enthusiastic about the two romantic portraits of Byron by Phillips, one of which was painted for John Murray the publisher. Of these Hazlitt says: 224, A CRITIC’S DISMISSAL [1814] Portrait of a Nobleman in the dress of an Albanian, by 'T. Phillips, No. 84; and the Portrait of a Nobleman (172), seem to be the same individual. They are said to be the portrait of Lord Byron, though in that case we do not see why they should be incognito. They are too smooth, and seem, as it were, “barbered ten times o’er”. There is, however, much that conveys the softness and the wildness of character of the popular poet of the East. Of a relatively small work by Benjamin West, then a popular idol, Hazlitt has the courage to speak plainly. Looking at No. 2, Cupid stung by a Bee, he declares that West, who was compared with Raphael by some other critics, has no good quality but composition. “His execution, his expression, his drawing, his everything else is bad. He is only great by the acre.” Hazlitt’s quarrel with Perry of the Morning Chronicle originated with a paragraph in this article. ‘he reason of the quarrel is given in a letter of December 28th, 1818, written by Mary Russell Mitford, in which she refers to Hazlitt’s dismissal by his editor, ““who hired him as you hire your footman, and turned him off for a very masterly but damaging critique on Sir Thomas Lawrence, whom Mr Perry, as one whom he visited and was being painted by, chose to have praised”. The “damaging critique” is contained in the following passage of Hazlitt’s re- view of the Academy: LAWRENCE (23) Portrait of Lord Castlereagh, is not a likeness. It has a smug, smart, haberdasher look, of which there is nothing in Lord Castlereagh. The air of the whole figure is direct and forward; there is nothing, as there ought to be, characteristically circuitous, involved and parenthetical in it. Besides, the features are cast in quite a different mould. As a bust Lord Castlereagh jis one of the finest we have ever seen; it would do for one of the Roman Emperors, bating the expression. The article appeared in the Morning Chronicle on May 3rd, and was followed on the 5th by an editorial note which makes it easy to understand why Hazlitt wrote no more criticisms of the Academy for the paper: We by no means agree with the observations of our correspondent on the portrait of Lord Castlereagh, in which the critic seems to have mixed the ebullition of party spirit with his ideas of characteristic resemblance. Politics have nothing to do with the Fine Arts. It is universally agreed that one of WA 225 15 [r8ér4] ART IN ENGLAND the best portraits in the Exhibition—if not the very best—in every essential point of the art, is that of Lord Castlereagh. The likeness is perfect. It has no meretricious ornament, and the ease of the attitude, the simplicity of the composition, and the tone of colouring, all recommend it as a chef d’euvre. This explanation of the severance of the connection between Hazlitt and Perry incidentally disposes of the absurd stories about Lawrence’s portraits of Lord Castlereagh told by the painter’s biographers, D. E. Williams and Allan Cunningham. In 1810 Lawrence showed at the Academy a portrait of Lord Castlereagh which, according to Williams, was attacked violently by an enemy of the statesman, Peter Finnerty, an Irish freelance journalist. Finnerty, we are told, “poured forth his bile in a tirade, to the horror of poor Mr Lawrence, who read it next morning in the Chronicle, and complained bitterly of the critique to his friend Mr Perry”’’. Williams goes on to say that when, in 1814, the second portrait of Lord Castlereagh appeared at the Academy, Lawrence hoped that the editor would take the opportunity to make the amende honorable for the former injury. Unfortunately Perry had forgotten all about the criticism of 1810 and entrusted the review of the Academy again:to Finnerty, who attacked the new portrait with another “ outrageous tirade” which Williams quotes. Allan Cunningham also quotes from the Morning Chronicle the criticism of 1814 alleged to be by Finnerty, but states that it refers to the portrait of 1810. Both of these stories are fabulous. No attacks by Finnerty on Castlereagh or Lawrence appeared in the Morning Chronicle in 1810 or in 1814. In the brief and moderately expressed review of the Academy published in 1810 only one portrait by Lawrence is mentioned, that of Lord Melville which is spoken of in flattering terms. And the “outrageous tirade” attributed to Finnerty, which Cunningham assigns to 1810 and Williams to 1814, is neither more nor less than the paragraph I have quoted by Hazlitt—the paragraph that cost him his post on the Morning Chronicle. Sir Charles Long’s plan of an exhibition composed of the works of Hogarth, Wilson and Gainsborough was carried out 226 From an engraving by Charles Turner, A.R.A. LORD CASTLEREAGH By Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. cane sey se ; - - ets ai Fy or 7 ‘i a] Fs GAINSBOROUGH’S DAUGHTERS [rér4] this year by the Directors of the British Institution, who added a number of pictures by Zoffany to those by the artists originally proposed. Gainsborough was well represented, but the exhibition contained none of the pictures bequeathed by the painter to his family, although Margaret Gainsborough’s house was full of her father’s canvases, finished and unfinished. Apparently the Direc- tors knew of the existence of a family collection but did not know in whose hands it was. Sir Charles Long, writing to George Cumberland in March, says: “Can you find anybody who knows a niece of Gainsborough, who married Fischer, the hautboy player? We want to know whether she knows anything of her uncle’s pictures. She is said to live in Bath’’. Mrs Fischer was, of course, Gainsborough’s daughter, not his niece. She was at this time insane, and living at Acton in charge of her younger sister Margaret. Evidently Sir Charles failed to get into touch with Margaret Gainsborough, as no pictures were contributed by her to the exhibition. It contained, however, the portrait of her father and the Romantic Landscape with Sheep at a Fountain, which she had presented to the Royal Academy. Both were lent by the Academicians but they did not offer for exhibition, as they might have done, an interesting Wilson that had recently come into their possession. ‘This was the self-portrait of the landscape painter (now in the Diploma Gallery) which they had bought a few months earlier from a seller whose name is not mentioned in the minutes. The price he asked, and received, was ten pounds. The exhibition, which opened on May 5th and closed on August 20th, was visited by the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia and the other foreign Royalties in England this year. It attracted almost as much attention as its predecessor, and al- though neglected by The Times was noticed favourably by many other journals. Hogarth and Wilson were universally praised by the critics, and so too was Gainsborough—at least in his landscapes and pastorals. His portraits were out of fashion and when mentioned at all were spoken of generally as unimportant. The critic of the New Monthly Magazine, writing enthusiastically 227 15-2 [78r4] ART IN ENGLAND about Gainsborough’s pastorals, says: “We are lost in the multi- tude of his beauties and scarcely know which to enumerate where all are so excellent’’, and adds, “‘his portraits prove him to have been a respectable portrait painter’. Other writers also apply the term “respectable” to Gainsborough’s portraits. The Blue Boy, however, was an exception and was a general favourite. But it is extraordinary that Hazlitt, who wrote at-length on the pictures at the British Institution, could have described the Blue Boy as the only fine portrait by Gainsborough in an exhibition ~ that included the Mrs Sheridan and Mrs Tickell, now at Dulwich, and that famous full-length of Dr Schomberg which hangs to-day in the National Gallery. How the exhibition appeared to an eminent painter may be judged by the following extracts from a letter by Wilkie to his Suffolk friend, Perry Nursey, who was himself an ardent and industrious amateur. Nursey had some pictures by Wilson and had asked Wilkie if by any means they could be introduced into the just opened exhibition. Wilkie replies, writing on May goth, 1814: Since receiving your obliging letter, for which I have to return you many thanks, I have seen the exhibition of the works of Hogarth, Gainsborough, Wilson and Zoffany, which is now open. I do not know whether the Directors intend making any changes in the arrangement for the purpose of introducing other pictures, but the rooms are at present as full as they can hold, and I have mentioned to one of the Directors those you have taken notice of in your letter, as pictures it would be advisable to apply for, if in future they intended to make any alterations. The effect of the whole, however, is very striking, and I most heartily wish that you could come to London to see it before it closes, as it is likely to be even more attractive than that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and contributes much to flatter one’s national pride a good deal. Hogarth outshines every master that has gone before him. Gainsborough looks admirably, and seems to rise above himself, and so, I think, does Zoffany; but what surprised me was that Wilson does not in comparison with the others support the reputa- tion that has hitherto been allowed him. His pictures seem to want variety, and seem to have rather a flat and common appearance. | The exhibition of these masters, however, is the most interesting I ever Saw, and it even gains in interest by the opportunity it affords of comparing 228 ‘ 2 ‘ 2 72) . xa in). a ee eae HAZLITT ATTACKS GAINSBOROUGH [z874] one master with another. I wish you could come to see whether Wilson’s pictures, which you have studied, make the same impression upon you as they did upon me, Should any changes be made in this—as in Sir Joshua’s exhibition—by removing the pictures, I shall not fail to mention those you have recommended to such of the Directors as I know. Hazlitt criticised the exhibition at the British Institution in the Morning Chronicle in May and in the Champion in July, and in the last named journal expressed his disagreement with certain writers who had ventured to place Wilson on a higher plane than Claude. Hazlitt, while admitting that Wilson’s local colouring had harmony and depth, and that he had a fine feeling for proportion and light and shade, declared that in everything having a determinate and regular form his brush was not only deficient in accuracy of outline but even in per- spective and actual relief. After saying that Wilson’s trees seem pasted on the canvas like botanical specimens, he adds: In fine, I cannot subscribe the opinion of those who assert that Wilson was superior to Claude as a man of genius; nor can I discern any other grounds for this opinion than what would lead to the general conclusion that the more slovenly the work the finer the picture, and that that which is imperfect is superior to that which is perfect.... There is in fact no com- parison between Claude and Wilson. Wilkie, as we have seen, thought that Gainsborough shone at the exhibition, but Hazlitt confessed himself disappointed with the Suffolk artist’s pictures collectively. He regarded his later landscapes as flimsy caricatures of Rubens, and declared that many of them might be compared to bad watercolour drawings, washed in by mechanical movements of the hand without any communication with the eye. ‘‘We cannot conceive,” he says, ‘anything carried to a greater excess of slender execution and paltry glazing than A Romantic Landscape with Sheep at a Fountain.” This is the well-known work now at Burlington House, described by Ruskin as “the magnificent picture presented by Gains- borough to the Royal Academy”’. Hazlitt’s opinion of it, given above, is quoted by his son in Criticisms of Art (1843) as from the Morning Chronicle of 1814. But neither this nor any other of the footnotes in Criticisms of Art described as extracted from the 229 [r8r4] ART IN ENGLAND Morning Chronicle ever appeared in that journal. They are all slightly altered versions of Hazlitt’s criticisms of the British Institution in the Champion. Sheridan was one of the promoters of the British Institution exhibition of 1814, and his name appears at the foot of a circular of April 16th, containing a list of those who had promised to lend pictures. He lent four Gainsboroughs himself, none of which, unfortunately, was ever to hang in his house again, for at this time he was so deeply in debt that he was compelled to dispose of the pictures as soon as the exhibition was closed. The Gains- _ boroughs were the portraits on one canvas of his first wife and her sister, Mrs Tickell, a portrait of his son Tom, and two land- scapes, and the sum realized by their sale was a little more than £500. Part of this money had probably been received in ad- vance, before the opening of the exhibition, as the painting of Mrs Sheridan and Mrs Tickell, though lent in Sheridan’s name, is described in the above-mentioned circular as the property of his brother-in-law, William Linley. And in some interesting notes on Sheridan, contributed by Mr A. R. Bayley to Wotes and Queries in 1914, a letter is quoted from William Linley in which he describes how he acquired this famous work. In the letter, addressed to Thomas Moore the poet (Sheridan’s biographer), Linley comments on the claim once made by Sheridan, that, impecunious as he always was, he had never borrowed from a private friend. But Linley says that Sheridan did not scruple to borrow from his relations, and that he himself lent him a hundred pounds which was never repaid. “In part payment, however, (I considered it full payment) of the hundred pound loan, I have got Gainsborough’s charming picture—it is now excellently placed in the Dulwich Gallery.” The letter is dated November 17th, 1825, and it seems, therefore, that Linley, who bequeathed the portrait of his sisters to Dulwich College, must have deposited it there long before his death, which took place in 1835. Soon after the close of the exhibition at the British Institution, Wilkie suffered from an unfortunate mis-statement, which was 230 AN UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE [r8r4] painful for him and still more for his mother, who was now keeping house for her son at Kensington. His name, which for once had been little noticed in connection with the Academy in the summer, was in the autumn brought into unpleasant promin- ence by an account of some proceedings in the Bankruptcy Court which were supposed to concern him. The story of the mis-state- ment, and its correction, were published in the following letter, addressed to the editor of a morning journal, The Day: DAVID WILKIE, ESQ., R.A., AND HIS FATHER. Sir, Having observed in a daily paper of last week an erroneous report under the head of “‘Insolvent Debtors”’, stating that Mr Charles Wilkie, father of the celebrated painter of The Blind Fiddler and other well known productions, was brought up for his discharge, and remanded in consequence of some supposed collusion with his son; and the same report having been copied into several Sunday papers, this is to contradict in the fullest manner the veracity of that report as it regards the celebrated artist David Wilkie, painter of The Blind Fiddler, etc. The father of Mr Wilkie was a respectable Scotch clergyman, was never in England, and has been dead nearly two years. I send this to you for insertion in your widely circulated newspaper, to prevent, as much as possible, the misapprehension of the public through the erroneous report of this much esteemed artist, who is at present out of town and possibly has not yet himself observed the calumny. Your constant reader, G. S. Maddox Street, September 19th, 1814. Although the attractions were great at the two principal ex- hibitions of the year, the huge canvases of West and Haydon, shown elsewhere, aroused more enthusiasm in the general public than anything that was to be seen at the Academy or the British Institution. The exhibition of West’s picture was heralded long beforehand by glowing descriptions in the press of the “grand epic” on which the President of the Royal Academy was en- gaged. The picture, it was declared, had no superior in England, ‘“‘and we do not forget the collections in the country, of ancient and modern masters”. There were rumours that dealers had 231 [r8r4] ART IN ENGLAND already approached the painter with offers of 10,000 guineas for the picture, or 7000 guineas and the profits of the first season’s exhibition. West’s supposed masterpiece, thirty-four feet in length by sixteen in height, and containing a hundred and twenty figures, was finished in May, and on June 6th the fol- lowing pompous advertisement was published in the Morning Herald and other journals: THE Fine Arts. Mr West’s picture of Christ rejected by Caiaphas, the High Priest and Jewish people, now in the Great Room, formerly the Royal Academy, 125 Pall Mall; was by the members of the Royal Academy seen on the 1st inst.; by the Noblemen and Gentlemen of the British Institution on the 3rd; by the Bishops, Ministers and Judges on the 4th, and on Thursday the oth will open at twelve o’clock for public inspection, West’s immense painting, ‘‘enriched with a splendid frame after the model of the Gate of Theseus at Athens”’, remained ~ on view in Pall Mall. until late in the autumn. It attracted thousands of visitors and was praised by many writers. One of these, who states, apparently on authority, that the artist refused the offer of 10,000 guineas mentioned above, concludes as fol- lows a long and highly eulogistic description of the picture: Thus has the modern Raffaele accomplished his last—his greatest work, in a manner that must excite feelings in the spectator similar to those pro- duced by a perusal of the sacred text, which was his avowed object. The work is most indubitably the grandest performance of modern times, and irrevocably fixes the painter on the highest pinnacle of the temple of fame. Long may he flourish in his green old age, setting an high example to the British School, of perseverance, correctness, elegance and piety! Haydon’s success was made with his Fudgment of Solomon, shown at the exhibition of the Oil and Water Colour Society held in the Spring Gardens Gallery. The picture, hanging in the place of honour, made a sensation, and considerably en- hanced the reputation of Haydon, who declares that when he went home after the private view, his table ““was covered with cards of fashion—noble dukes, lords, ladies, baronets, literary men”. The Judgment of Solomon, sold at the private view, was praised extravagantly in the newspapers; and, as West had been 232 A FAMOUS VELASQUEZ [rér4] classed with Raphael, so Haydon was told—and no doubt be- lieved—that there were heads in his picture worthy of Titian or Holbein. : While West, according to contemporary report, was being offered thousands of guineas for a picture which, if it exists, is now almost worthless, William Buchanan was trying in vain to dispose of a fine collection of Old Masters, acquired in Spain by George Augustus Wallis, and imported in October 1813. He then sent a list of them, with a circular letter, to the principal English collectors, but failed to obtain any offer that he could accept. The control of the pictures, and of the gallery of which he had been tenant for some years, soon afterwards passed out of his hands, as I discovered from a letter of January, 1814, addressed to Mr Penrice of Yarmouth, by George Yates, who says that as he is now “‘entirely disengaged from Mr Buchanan’s service’, and has possession of the Oxendon Street gallery, he is able to offer the Norfolk collector some fine pictures. He adds that they have been seen by no one except the first artists— Mr West and Mr Lawrence—and will not be permitted to be seen except by particular connoisseurs and purchasers. One of the pictures offered by Yates was the Venus and Cupid by Velasquez, now in the National Gallery, the history of which, after its arrival in England, has always been obscure. It has been supposed that Mr Morritt, of Rokeby, from whose heirs the nation acquired the picture, bought it from Buchanan, but the letter from Yates suggests that he may have been the seller. He described it thus to Penrice: Naked Female: size of life, with Cupid holding a looking-glass, by Velasquez, from the Palace of the Prince of the Peace: painted for the Duke of Alva. Size six feet by four feet. No price is mentioned by Yates, but it was probably 2000 guineas, at which the picture was valued by Buchanan in 1813. The price paid for the Venus and Cupid, when it was acquired by the National Gallery in 1906, was £45,000. Yates also offered Penrice the sketch by Titian, acquired by the National Gallery in 1927 for £11,000. This painting, which is 233 [r8r4] ART IN ENGLAND known to have been brought from Spain by Wallis, who was an agent of Buchanan, is thus described: The Grand Sketch by Titian of the Apotheosis of Charles the Fifth, with a number of figures, as described among the pictures of the Escurial, called The Glory of Titian. In March of this year died the Rev. William Peters, who was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1777, and soon after- wards made up his mind to take orders. He was ordained in 1782, and appointed chaplain to the Royal Academy in 1784; but in 1790 he resigned both his chaplaincy and his Academician- ship. Peters, however, continued to paint until the end of his life, and produced, among other works, some popular religious pictures. His earlier productions included subjects of a different nature, and very severe things have been said about his pandering to the depraved taste of certain noble lords by whom he was employed. His faults in this direction may have been exag- gerated, but it is certain that in 1777 one of the critics of the Academy exhibition declared that a picture by Peters was unfit to be shown in a public gallery visited by respectable women. According to the sketch of his life published in The Royal Academy and its Members, Peters, as late as 1810 or 1811, painted something which was so distasteful to the people of Knipton, of which he was Rector, that he had to fly from the neighbour- hood, and seek refuge at Brasted in Kent, in such trouble and agony of mind that he nearly died from the effects. It is, how- ever, only fair to say that no confirmation of this story has been found by Lady Victoria Manners, whose interesting biography of Peters is the principal authority on his life. Certainly the following letter written from Brasted in 1811 to his great friend and confidant, John Taylor, does not suggest any enduring trouble or agony. Taylor, it should be explained, was a collector of autographs and literary curiosities. The letter runs as follows: My truly good friend, Would to God I could do or send you anything that would give you the least pleasure, or show my gratitude or attachment to you; it is a beautiful poem by Garrick, and I believe in his own handwriting, found among some 234 WASHINGTON ALLSTON [r8r4] old papers of Dr Turton’s, who was abroad the same year that this ode or poem or whatever you may call it was written, and given to him, as you now have it by Garrick himself. I never understood it was published. Johnson’s ode I gave you when last we met, as well as this, are yours for ever. I shall certainly call at your house the first time I go to town—an opportunity just offering of sending this up to you gives me time only to say that I ever am, Your most obliged and affectionate friend and servant, Wm. Peters. Brasted Place, Sevenoaks, Oct. 15, 1811. Dr Turton, who is mentioned in this letter, was related to Mrs Peters. He was a well-known London physician of an earlier generation, and attended Goldsmith in his last illness. Two vacancies among the Associates of the Royal Academy were filled on November 7th, when in the first election Ramsay Richard Reinagle defeated William Collins by fourteen votes to five. In the second Collins was successful, receiving nineteen votes to three for J. J. Halls. Two votes in the second election were given to John Jackson the portrait painter. Among the new candidates on this occasion was Washington Allston, who, although a mature painter of thirty-five, was working in the Academy schools in the year in which he stood for an Associateship. Allston originally entered the schools when he first came from America in 1801, and then, after passing through his studentship and working for a time on the Continent, went back to his native country. He had since returned, and, finding himself out of practice in drawing from the nude, had obtained permission to work again in the Academy life class during 1814. It was in this year that Allston painted the well- known half-length of Coleridge, to whom he was much attached. Concerning this work, now in the National Portrait Gallery, Allston wrote the following interesting note in a letter to an American friend: So far as I can judge of my own production the likeness is a true one. But it is Coleridge in repose, and though not unstirred by the perpetual groundswell of his ever working intellect, and shadowing forth something of the deep philosopher, it is not Coleridge in his highest state—the poetic 239 [7814] ART IN ENGLAND mood. When in that state no face I ever saw was like his, it seemed almost spirit made visible, without a shadow of the visible upon it, Could I then have fixed it upon canvas! But it was beyond the reach of my art. Towards the end of this year a new departure was made by the establishment of a gallery in which artists could show their work by paying rent for the space occupied on the walls, The originator of the scheme was a Mr Thom, and the gallery was in Broad Street, Golden Square. The rent was from two to five shillings for three months, according to the size of the pictures, and the exhibition was to be advertised, and new catalogues issued every month. Apparently the scheme did not commend itself to artists at that time, for I have been unable to discover any reference to an exhibition at Broad Street, or any advertise- ment concerning it. - od ‘ -~ is hee te oe : pe ; ae ef 5 - 4 =~ 2 Lae Saad lic Me 7 i. ne oe Se ae bas, = no ‘. a re eer Se ee PPR oe tl a oe. CHAPTER XVI 1815 Francesco BarToLozzi, who died at Lisbon on March 7th, 1815, was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy. He had been living for more than twelve years in Lisbon, to which city he had betaken himself in 1802, at the age of seventy-five, after a long, and for the most part prosperous, ‘career in London. Bartolozzi made money easily and spent it quickly, and not always on himself or on deserving persons, The Observer, in announcing his departure for Portugal, said on November 7th, 1802: “We understand that the pecuniary cir- cumstances of this artist are somewhat equivocal, though no man had a better opportunity of realizing a splendid fortune. His generosity was always unbounded, and frequently rendered him the dupe of impostors”’. He had saved nothing in his thirty-seven years in England, where his once lucrative practice had lately fallen off, and after refusing an offer by the French Government in 1801 to provide him with a pension, and a house in Paris if he would settle there, was tempted to go to Lisbon by a similar proposal made a year later by the Prince Regent of Portugal. Dallaway, who knew him, declares that he never felt at home in England in spite of his long residence in this country, and implies that he had no objection to leaving it. But there is evidence that Bartolozzi wished to stay in England, and would have stayed if at the last moment he could have escaped from the Portuguese engagement, which the dread of poverty here and the certainty of a pension in Lisbon had in- duced him to accept. The evidence is contained in a letter published in the Morning Post of November 13th, 1802. It was 237 [1815] ART IN ENGLAND written by a friend of the engraver, who resented the tone of the following paragraph which had appeared in the same journal a few days earlier: ‘On Wednesday morning departed from Fulham for Portugal Mr Bartolozzi, who, refusing an offer which our King very liberally made to him, abandoned a people who esteemed his merit, and a country which, considering the length of time he had resided in it, had become his own”’. It was true that the King had made an offer, as the corre- spondent of the Morning Post admits in his letter of protest against the tone of the paragraph, and he proceeds to explain why Bartolozzi felt himself obliged to refuse it: The plain truth is that the offer of a pension from the British Government was not made until he was on the eve of departure; when he had disposed of what little he possessed here, and his baggage was actually on the way to Portugal; and that even then it would have been accepted if an apology consistent with his sentiments of honour could have been made to the Court of Lisbon. Bartolozzi’s voyage to Lisbon was rapid and easy, and this strange adventure of a man of seventy-five was at first prosperous. He appears to have been happy in Lisbon, where at that time a little money went a long way, and he lived on his pension in comfort and almost in luxury. But he had not anticipated the French invasion of Portugal and the troubles that followed it, and in May, 1814, a year before his death, when writing to a friend in London, he gives a discouraging picture of the state of the arts in that country: Here at present we are destitute of every requisite in our profession— gravers, varnish, tracing paper, and black for printing, are all very dear and very bad. I have engraved one of the views of Lisbon; the copper furnished me resembled lead; so that with a bad drawing and worse copper I have made a wretched thing of it. Thus is an artist sacrificed. I was in hopes last summer of seeing London once more, though I had no expectation of obtaining employment, especially as you have so many eminent men in our profession. Some of the dealers, you well know, have made fortunes by my poor works—but now there is no fortune to be made.... My good Prince here affords me a maintenance, but I would nevertheless have sacrificed everything with pleasure to revisit that country to which 238 BARTOLOZZI AT FULHAM [7875] I owe a debt of gratitude for the benefits I have received from it that will never be erased from my memory. Soon after writing this letter he made arrangements to return to England, and his son Gaetano, then residing in London, sent out his passport. But afterwards he changed his mind, and re- mained in Portugal until his death, in the following spring. Mrs Bartolozzi, who lived in Venice and had been blind for many years, was allowed by the Royal Academy the pension to which she was entitled as the widow of a member. But she enjoyed it only for a brief period, as she died in 1817. During the greater part of Bartolozzi’s residence in England he lived at Fulham in a house in North End Road, close to what is now Lillie Road. ‘The house, long since demolished, stood in the middle ofa large garden, the cultivation and improvement of which was one of the favourite recreations of its owner. William Carey, who was introduced to Bartolozzi by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and visited him at Fulham, speaks with admiration of the ease and certainty of his hand, of his modesty, and of his ready appreciation of the skill of other men of his profession. **He worked,” said Carey, “with more pleasure when he had a friend to converse with than when without a visitor....His parlour at North End was hung round with framed proofs, chiefly of his musical tickets in line engraved from the drawings of Cipriani, and other select prints of his own performance. When I expressed my enthusiastic sense of their beauty, this great artist spoke of them modestly as inferior productions—merely put up to cover the walls, and delicately turned the conversation to the work of others.”’ Although the Academy lost a distinguished member by Barto- lozzi’s death in the spring of 1815, it gained, at the same period, another of equal eminence. This was Henry Raeburn, the Scottish portrait painter, who was promoted to an Academician- ship on February roth, 1815, after serving little more than two years in the Associate rank. On the day of the election, February roth, two seats among the Forty were to be filled, those of Burch and Tresham. Looking at the position of Raeburn to-day, it 239 [1815] ART IN ENGLAND seems astonishing that the first contest, for Burch’s place, re- sulted in the return of the Bristol artist, Edward Bird, a man now almost forgotten. He had eighteen votes, against ten cast for the younger Daniell, and only one for Raeburn. However, merit triumphed in the second contest, in which Raeburn was given nineteen votes to nine for Daniell. In November Raeburn sent to the Academy a portrait of him- self, as his Diploma picture, the receipt of which is thus recorded in the minutes at Burlington House: “Read a letter from Henry Raeburn Esq., R.A. Elect, accompanying his own portrait of- fered by him to remain in the Royal Academy as his Deposit. Resolved: That the Secretary acquaint Mr Raeburn that it is not usual to receive as Deposits the portraits of Members, and request that he will send the Council as early as convenient some other specimen of his talents’’. To this Raeburn replied that he would send another picture, but would like the portrait of himself to be shown at the exhibition of 1816; and in the minutes on August oth, 1816, appears the following: “* Produced a picture from Mr Raeburn R.A. Elect, to remain in the Academy as his deposit. Resolved that the same be accepted”’. This disposes of the statements made by Raeburn’s biographers and the historians of the Royal Academy, that the Scottish painter neglected to send his Diploma work until 1821—-six years after his election. ‘The writers in question were probably misled by the lists of Diploma pictures printed in the Academy cata- logues of certain years early in the nineteenth century. In these lists the date of the acquisition of Raeburn’s picture, Boy and Rabbit, is given as 1821. Stothard, Theed and Bigg formed the Hanging Committee | of the Royal Academy in 1815. The minutes contain no record of difficulties or quarrels about the arrangement of the exhibition, but the peace of the dinner which preceded its opening was disturbed by an alarming incident—no less than the fall of the huge bronze chandelier given to the Royal Academy by the Prince Regent. Sir Walter Scott has left us an amusing description of this strange accident, which is, however, inaccurate in one par- 240 FALL OF THE CHANDELIER [1815] ticular. He is mistaken in supposing that it was lighted for the first time in 1815, as it had been in use since 1812. Sir Walter, writing in 1824 to Lord Montagu, who had recently had a some- what similar catastrophe at his own house, says: I once saw something of the kind upon a very large scale. You may have seen at Somerset House an immense bronze chandelier with several hundred burners, weighing three or four tons at least. On the day previous to the public exhibition of the paintings, the Royal Academicians are in use, as your Lordship knows, to give an immensely large dinner party to people of distinction, supposed to be amateurs of the art, to literary men, to amateurs in general, and the Lord knows whom besides. I happened to be there the first time this ponderous mass of bronze was suspended. Beneath it was placed a large table, or tier of tables, rising above each other like the shelves of a dumb-waiter, and furnished with as many glasses, tumblers, decanters and so forth, as might have set up an entire glass shop—the numbers of the company—upwards of 150 persons—requiring such a supply. Old West presided, and was supported by Jockey of Norfolk on the one side and by one of the Royal Dukes on the other. We had just drunk a pre- liminary toast or two when—the Lord preserve us!—a noise was heard like that which precedes an earthquake—the links of the massive chain by which this beastly lump of bronze was suspended, began to give way, and the mass descending slowly encountered the table beneath, which was positively an- nihilated by the pressure, the whole of the glass ware being at once destroyed. What was very odd, the chain, after this manifestation of weakness, continued to hold fast; and we, I think to the credit of our courage, continued our sitting. Had it really given way—as the architecture of Somerset House has been in general deemed unsubstantial—it must have broke the floor like a bombshell and carried us all down to the cellars of that great national edifice. A fine paragraph we should have made! The Academy exhibition this year was held during the Hundred Days, that anxious and exciting period which began with the landing of Bonaparte in France after his escape from Elba, and ended with his defeat at Waterloo. “Great in trifles—in portrait, in landscape, in fancy and poetical compositions—but deficient in History, in the Grand, and in the Sublime.”’ This is how one writer of 1815 describes the Academy, in which, in the Grand and Sublime departments, he saw nothing worth mentioning except the work of “the venerable and illustrious President”, Benjamin West. But he WA 241 16 [z615] ART IN ENGLAND praises Turner’s Dido building Carthage (1 a and Crass the Brook (94), and says of the last named that it is “a delicious scene, — full of the exquisite tone of air and freshness of spring or early summer’’. Rumours of the great excellence of Turner’s pictures were in circulation before the opening of the exhibition. Thomas Uwins—then not yet an Academician—had referred to them in the middle of April, in a letter to a friend to whom he was sending such London art gossip as he could gather: I have nothing but green-room report to tell you about Somerset House Exhibition; but that is loud in praise of Lawrence’s portraits, of Wilkie’s Distress for Rent, and of that greatest of all living geniuses, Turner, whose works this year are said to surpass all his former outdoings. All the newspapers applaud Turner, and the critic of the St Fames’s Chronicle, after praising Crossing the Brook in his first notice of the Academy, begins the second with an announcement that his chief object is to call attention to Mr Turner’s extra- ordinary picture Dido building Carthage, “*a work Claude never ~ equalled”, although he finds it too yellow. This is also the - opinion of the critic of the Sun, who, however, declares that it is not as yellow as it was when it left the studio: ~ | ik ta ai: Si Sy Ald SES rh TP ba ea eR ne aed Sit lad 4 aaa le OS Ve a A BE Re Pe) Ame Se Pe EN Ee Ne Ee AN a Ge se ee When we first saw this picture the yellow predominated to an excessive ~ degree, and though the artist has since glazed it down in the water it still prevails far too much in the sky, where such a mass of ochre in combination ~ a with the vivid blue is not only injudicious but unnatural....The picture is magnificent in colour and exquisite in disposition and execution; upon the whole one of the chief ornaments of this year’s exhibition. ‘ No. 94, Crossing the Brook, contests the palm of merit with the work upon which we have just remarked, and without its pretensions is also without its faults. In a word we prefer it to the other. : Turner ventured this year to introduce into the Academy catalogue a second extract from his own unpublished Fallacies — of Hope. The first, attached to the title of his Snow Storm, Hannibal — and his Army crossing the Alps, which I quoted when describing — the exhibition of 1812, passed with slight notice; but that of — 1815 was subjected to scathing criticism in a paragraph — published in a journal of June gth, which I have not succeeded a 24.2 TURNER AS A POET [1815] in identifying. The paragraph, printed in a cutting from a contemporary newspaper, is as follows: No. 192. The Battle of Fort Rock, Val d’ Aouste, Piedmont, 1796. This is a subject congenial to Mr Turner’s powers, and he has treated it with an elevation of style and execution corresponding with the scene and the circumstance. But if it be not irrelevant we wish to ask Mr Turner whether the lines selected or written by him, and printed in the catalogue as illustrative of the picture, are designed to be prose or poetry? We think the following extract will justify the interrogation: ch aba eee as the wild Reuss, by native glaciers fed, Rolls on impetuous, with ev’ry check gains force By the constraint upraised; till, to its gathering powers All yielding, down the pass wide Devastation pours Her own destructive course. Thus rapine stalk’d Triumphant; and plundering hordes, exulting, strew’d, Fair Italy, thy plains with woe. Fallacies of Hope, MS. We advert to this because we regret that a professor so distinguished in one art should betray such a total lack of taste in another as is manifested in the composition or selection of such trash. Nature has given Mr Turner a fine eye, but certainly no ear; we console him by reminding him that Pope, though an excellent poet, failed totally in his attempts to become a painter; and we recommend him in future either to exhibit his pictures without these poetic embellishments, or to get some friend to select or write them for him. Hazlitt, who reviewed the exhibition in the Champion, men- tions two of the Turners in a remarkable paragraph in which he predicts the lasting fame of certain of the Academy pictures After noticing works by Lawrence, Callcott, Mulready and others, he says: We hasten, while we have yet room in this, to congratulate the country in having to boast of work which will carry down to posterity the date of the present time and cause it to be named with honour by those who are yet unborn. Contemporary criticism seems puny, and almost irreverent when applied to productions whose flourishing existence, when criticism is hushed and critics are no more, is secured by the eternal laws that regulate the moral nature of man. Wilkie’s Dustraining for Rent (118), and Turner’s Crossing the Brook and Dido building Carthage are of this high class, and one almost shrinks from discussing in a newspaper paragraph achievements that raise the achievers to that small but noble group whose name is not so much of to-day as of all time. 243 16-2 [1815] ART IN ENGLAND The Turners admired by Hazlitt in 1815, and the Frosty Morning, which was a centre of attraction when shown at the Academy two years earlier, were never sold by their painter, It is possible that he had no wish to part with the Dido building Carthage, but the others he could not dispose of, wonderful and beautiful though they are, even at the moderate prices he put upon them. Dawson Turner, the Yarmouth banker and col- lector, had some idea of buying them in 1818, and the following letter of Turner’s, written in May of that year, seems to indicate that he would have endeavoured to meet the prospective pur- chaser in the matter of terms: J. M. W. Turner, in presenting his respects to Mr Dawson Turner, begs to say he shall feel very great pleasure in showing his works to Mr and Mrs Turner and friends, and in enclosing the prices of Crossing the Brook and Frosty Morning hopes he may have the opportunity of according with any arrangement most agreeable to Mr Dawson Turner, and to offer to return to Mr Dawson Turner’s kind and ene invitation to Yarmouth his most sincere thanks and esteem. : Crossing the Brook... 550 gs. Frosty Morning eas 350 gs. However, the negotiations with the banker led to nothing. The two pictures remained in the artist’s possession, and were included (as well as the Dido building Carthage) in his generous bequest to the nation. Other landscape painters who increased their reputation this year at the Academy were Callcott and Constable. Callcott’s Passage Boats (66), which was compared not unfavourably with Cuyp, was more generally admired than any works of its kind at the Academy, except those by Turner, and the Directors of the British Institution would have bought it had they not been forestalled by a private purchaser. The work of Constable was noticed more than ever before by the critics, who admired it, but with reservations. “It is a pity,” said the Examiner, “‘that Mr Constable’s pencil is still so coarsely sketchy. There is much sparkling sunlight and a general character of truth in No. 268 A Village in Suffolk, and No. 215 Boat-building.”’ Another critic, who 244 ‘W'e STqeisuopy uyof Ag TIIN GHYOXLV IH AVAN ONIGTING-LVOG winasnyAl 1429] PUuv v140j914 ay2 ut Suryuwd ay. wos a es “ RAEBURN’S PORTRAITS [1815] also reproves the artist for slightness, says: “‘In Mr Constable’s landscapes there is a constant reference to common nature, seen in the freshness of his trees and his colouring in general; but we cannot help regretting that his performances, from want of finish, are rather sketches than pictures. No. 215, Boat-building, we think his best picture; the boat is most happily placed, and the whole composition highly pleasing and natural.’ Boat- building, which is now in the Sheepshanks collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, was painted at Flatford in the summer of 1814. It represents a scene on the Stour, in sunshine on a hot day, and was executed entirely in the open air. De Wint’s landscape exhibited in 1815, A Cornfield (290), is also in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Although the finest painting in oil by this master, it passed unnoticed at the Academy, and remained on his hands, unsold, until his death. Raeburn, who in 1815 exhibited for the first time as an Academician, was moderately well noticed by the critics. That he had great qualities was not denied, but fault was found with his colour and tone, and it was asserted that his portraits at the Academy were inferior to those shown in the preceding year, and to some he had recently contributed to the Edinburgh exhibition. One writer says that in the portrait of the Earl of Kinnoull (50) his Lordship’s boot is better painted than his face; another that Raeburn’s colouring is “‘ totally unnatural’’. A third, while praising the artist’s work generally, in the Sun, yet finds some serious faults in it: ‘Mr Raeburn’s manner isvery peculiar,” he says, “he aims at grand effect by broad and general means, and seems to despise the nicety of detail and even the claims of contrast and colour. There is even greatness in these portraits, but there is also a want of finish, and a predominant darkness in their tone, which is without relief and therefore fatiguing to the eye. If Mr Raeburn would but pay a tribute to the Graces (an easy matter for a painter of his abilities), such tribute, combined with the force and energy which characterize his pencil, would raise him even higher than he now stands amongst the foremost honours of the British School.” The “predominant darkness” 245 [1815] ART IN ENGLAND of which this writer complains is also mentioned by the critic of an Edinburgh journal, The Scots Magazine, who in some none too complimentary comments on Raeburn remarks that on ac- count of its black, dingy hue his portrait of Lord Kinnoull suffered by comparison with Lawrence’s full-length of the Prince Regent (65). This portrait of the Prince Regent, at this time in his fifty- third year, is one of the pictures mentioned by Hazlitt in his review of the Academy published in the Champion. His account of it is amusing: Sir Thomas Lawrence has with the magic of his pencil recreated the Prince Regent as a well-fleshed Adonis of thirty-three; and, happy as we always are to contemplate the innocent happiness of others, even when it is not referable to the most philosophic sources of human satisfaction, we could not, as we stood before this very admirable picture (No. 65) but derive a high degree of goodnatured pleasure from imagining to ourselves the transports with which his Royal Highness must have welcomed this improved version of himself. It goes far beyond all that wigs, powders and pomatums have been able to effect for the last twenty years. Talk of the feelings of Bonaparte as he re-entered the Tuileries—psha! nonsense! Think of the feelings of the Regent when he saw himself in this picture! The Royal Academy exhibition of 1815 was remarkably suc- cessful financially. The receipts were £5255, a sum total that had never been approached before or was to be reached again for many years. But the rival exhibition of the works of living artists organized by the British Institution was not prospering in the same degree. It was not attracting the best men as it did in its earlier years, and its exhibitions were composed too largely of pictures that had been seen already at the Academy. The judgment of its selecting committee of amateurs was often at variance with that of the artists at large, and in this year some excitement was caused by the rejection of a realistic study of landscape in bright sunshine by William Havell, which was much admired when shown afterwards in Spring Gardens, at the exhibition of the Society of Oil and Water Colour Painters. However, after the close of the exhibition of modern pictures, the Directors of the British Institution made amends for any 246 Acai coals etal GILLRAY THE CARICATURIST [7875] shortcomings in the spring by gathering together a fine collec- tion of Old Masters which they showed at their gallery in the summer. ‘This—the first exhibition of Old Masters held in England—was composed of Flemish and Dutch pictures, bor- rowed from the most important private collections, including those of the Prince Regent, the Dukes of Bedford, Marlborough and Grafton, the Marquis of Stafford, Lord Grosvenor, Sir Abraham Hume, Sir George Beaumont and Mr Angerstein. Pictures were also lent by the Governors of Dulwich College. If Haydon is to be believed, the new adventure of the Directors _ of the British Institution caused great annoyance to the Aca- demicians. He says, referring to a famous Vandyck, now in the National Gallery: Lawrence was looking at the Gevartius when I was there, and as he turned round, to my wonder, his face was boiling with rage as he grated out between his teeth, “‘I suppose they think we want teaching’’. I met Stothard in my rounds, who said, “‘ This will destroy us”. “‘No,” I replied, ‘it will certainly rouse me.” ‘“‘Why,” said he, “‘perhaps that is the right way to take it.” On the minds of the people the effect was prodigious. All classes were benefited, and so was the fame of the Old Masters themselves, for now their finest works were brought forth to the world from old corners and rooms where they had never perfectly been seen. The summer of 1815 witnessed the death of two artists, each of whom had once been eminent in his own branch, James Gillray the caricaturist, and John Singleton Copley, R.A., the painter. James Gillray, who died on June Ist at the age of fifty-eight, came of poor people. His father, also James, an old soldier, was a Chelsea pensioner, and sexton to the little cemetery of the Moravians at Chelsea. Of his mother nothing is known except that her name was Jane Coleman, that she was a Chelsea woman, and that she was married to Gillray’s father at the Mayfair chapel of the notorious Dr Keith, on December 2end, 1751. This is recorded in the list of marriages at the chapel published by the Harleian Society in 1889—a list that includes the marriages of Gainsborough and Thomas Sandby, R.A. The Dictionary of National Biography says wrongly that James Gillray is the only 247 [1815] ART IN ENGLAND one of the pensioner’s children of whom there is any record. Gillray had an elder brother, John, born in 1754, an extremely religious child who was always praying that he might be taken soon to heaven, and died before he was seven years old. Gillray entered the Royal Academy schools in April, 1778, but it is not known how long he studied there. A bachelor, and apparently always a lonely man, he lived for a long period as a lodger with Mrs Humphrey of St James’s Street, the publisher of his satirical and humorous prints, who took charge of him when he lost his reason some years before his death. While under her care he attempted to commit suicide, in a manner that is explained in the following paragraph from the Examiner of July, 1811: On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Gillray the caricaturist, who resides at Mrs Humphrey’s, the print shop in St James’s Street, attempted to throw himself out of the window of the attic story. There being iron bars his head got jammed, and being perceived by one of the chairmen who attends at White’s Club, and who instantly went up to give assistance, the unfortunate man was extricated and proper persons appointed to take care of him. One of Gillray’s best patrons was Canning, who enjoyed the caricaturist’s satire, although, according to Sir William Knighton, he was destitute of any appreciation of the fine arts. Canning’s collection of Gillray’s prints, sold after his death, numbered about three hundred and fifty, nearly all coloured and including many from private plates. Judging from the following note, written in September, 1803, from Mrs Humphrey’s house, Gillray was known personally to the statesman: 27 St James’s Street. J. Gillray’s best respects to Mr Canning, has sent the Book of Etchings which he was so kind to order—J. G. would not have so long delayed sending it but from the necessity of waiting for the Printer taking some off which were out of print. Tuesday evening. Copley, though he never fell into the lamentable condition of Gillray, had been failing for a long time before his death on September oth, 1815. When his fellow-countryman, Morse, called 248 COPLEY’S LAST PICTURE [1815] upon him in the autumn of 1811, he described him as old and infirm. “‘His powers of mind,’ said Morse, ‘‘have almost en- tirely left him, his late paintings are miserable, it is really a lamentable thing that a man should outlive his faculties. . He has been an excellent painter as you well know. I saw at his house some capital pieces which he painted twenty or thirty years ago, but his paintings of the last four or five years are very bad. He was very pleasant, however, and agreeable in his manners.” Always an industrious and conscientious worker, he continued painting almost to the end of his life, although he exhibited nothing after 1812, when his Resurrection was hung at the Royal Academy. The last work of importance Copley at- tempted was intended for the Academy of 1814, but was never finished. It was an equestrian portrait of Wellington, eight feet in length by six in height, showing the commander of the British armies in Spain attended by his aides-de-camp the Prince of Orange and Lord March. In the background was “‘a perspec- tive of the Battle of Salamanca’’. Both the aides-de-camp posed to Copley, but it does not appear that he ever obtained sittings from Wellington. | None of Copley’s pictures brought him much profit except the Death of Chatham, and even in that case the publication of the engraving, from which much had been expected, was hindered by wearisome difficulties and delays. He was a disappointed man, as he admitted to a writer who called on him on behalf of the British Magazine in 1800, when he published from his own house the engraving by Ward of the picture of The Victory of Lord Duncan. Copley, whose heart was full of bitterness, no doubt inspired the following passage of the article, which comes directly after the writer’s praise of The Victory of Lord Duncan: Popular and national as the subject of this picture was, the spirit had evaporated and sunk into torpid neglect before the exhibition of it was opened to the town; and the remuneration of that labour remains yet to be made to the artist for a memorial of one of the most brilliant conquests acquired by the navy of England. The fortune attending the production of public pictures, of subjects the most interesting and important to the national 249 [7875] ART IN ENGLAND glory, has at length opened the eyes of the artists who have speculated on public patronage, to the infatuation that has cheated them of their time and money and left them a prey to chagrin and disappointment. The picture of the Death of Chatham remains in the artist’s hands un- disposed of to this day; a picture in which most of the great families of England have an interest. That of King Charles the First demanding the delivery of the five members of the House of Commons is precisely in the same circumstances. The Death of Major Pierson is still in the proprietor’s possession. The grand attack on Valenciennes, filled with the portraits of the first military characters of the age and country—Earl Howe’s victory, the first splendid burst of the naval glory of the empire, purchased by a country auctioneer at little more than the cost of the frame! And lastly Lord Duncan’s victory on the same magnificent scale—all, all works of naught and doomed to oblivion. One solitary salvo exists to show that patronage did once bestir itself to make the painters stare. The City of London honoured Mr Copley with a very liberal commission to paint the Siege of Gibraltar, and gave the picture a place in the Council Room of the Guildhall. The same sentiments had been expressed by Copley in another way many years before, when his son, the future Lord Chancellor, was a schoolboy. A guest at the painter’s house asked young Copley what profession he intended to follow. His father quickly answered for him: ‘Anything but a painter. He has my per-- mission to be anything he chooses but that”’. Lady Hamilton’s death, which took place in March, was followed by the publication of many stories of the origin and Ww. wy ie eee adventures of the woman who captivated one of the greatest of Englishmen, and still lives in numerous paintings by Romney, who worshipped her. One of the stories, that she figured as the Goddess of Health at Dr Graham’s notorious lectures, probably originated at this period. It has since been retold a hundred ~ times, but never with any evidence to support it. A curious account of Lady Hamilton, to which little attention has been paid, is given in the memoirs of Thomas Uwins, R.A., who was apprenticed to Benjamin Smith the engraver. Among the fellow- apprentices of Uwins was Albin Burt, the portrait painter, whose mother came from Wales, where she knew a barefooted girl who earned her living by carrying sand. Burt said that his mother brought her to London and found her a situation, and that the ! 250 + “. Py i i ne arth) : ere ea h ” Fe 1 ee CANOVA VISITS LONDON [1815] girl—afterwards Lady Hamilton—never forgot her early friends or was ashamed of her origin. She made Burt welcome at Sir William Hamilton’s house at Merton, where he had dined with the great Nelson himself; and delighted in telling her guests about her shoeless, sand-carrying, going-to-service days. At the November elections at the Academy two artists were admitted as Associates, William Mulready and John Jackson. Mulready, an able and conscientious painter to whose merit posterity has hardly done justice, carried the first election by an overwhelming majority—twenty-three votes to one each for Jackson and John Sanders the architect. In the second election Jackson was successful by eighteen votes against four for Baily the sculptor, and three for Hofland the landscape painter. A new candidate in 1815 was John Hazlitt, brother of the essayist and art critic. John Hazlitt, who received no votes, was at this time advertizing for sitters, a thing unusual for an artist on the list of candidates for Associateship. The following is one of his announcements published in the Courzer: J. Hazlitt, Portrait Painter, having returned to town for the present season in the practice of his profession, begs leave very respectfully to acquaint his numerous friends and the public at large that specimens of his work may be seen at his house, 109 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury. Those ladies and gentlemen who may purpose honouring him with their commands may depend on the utmost despatch compatible with the likeness and finishing of the picture; but he hopes the Ladies or Gentlemen who may have but a short time to stay in town will make their application as soon as possible. Head, or three-quarter, size, 12 guineas; half length, 30 guineas; whole length, 50 guineas. Soon after the Academy elections Canova visited England, partly, no doubt, to see the Elgin Marbles, the qualities of which he appreciated at once and to the full. Great respect was paid to the Italian sculptor, who at this time was regarded as the first of living artists. The Prince Regent presented him with a snuffbox set with diamonds, and he was entertained everywhere by members of the nobility and others who had already made his acquaintance in Italy. The Royal Academicians entertained him at a dinner given in his honour in the Council Room at 251 [7815] ART IN ENGLAND Somerset House; and he was introduced to the Academy students by West at one of Sir Anthony Carlisle’s lectures on Anatomy. By the students Canova was cheered to the echo, and according to a reporter of the event, “‘the attention paid by Mr West to Mr Canova was liberal and enlightened”. West, it may be assumed, did not hear the sculptor’s opinion of his pictures, given to Haydon, who thus records it: ““* How do you like West?’ said I. ‘Comme ga.’ ‘Au moins,’ said I, “il compose bien.’ ‘Non, Monsieur,’ said Canova, ‘il met des modéles en groupes.” CHAPTER XVII 1816 A Scuootu oF PainTING was added this year to the classes at the Royal Academy, where until now only drawing had been taught to the painter students. The new School was not, how- ever, intended for the study of painting from the life, it was nothing more than a school for copying from the Old Masters, and the Academy had borrowed the idea from the British Institu- tion, where for several years artists and students had been able to copy pictures lent for the purpose by the Directors and their friends. “At the Academy,” says Wilkie, in a letter written to Sir George Beaumont in 1816, “‘we are proceeding in praise- worthy emulation of what was first done in the British Gallery.” The earliest pictures used by the Academy in its School of Painting were borrowed from Dulwich, where the new gallery, built to contain the pictures bequeathed by Sir Francis Bourgeois, had just been completed. There had been some friendly corre- spondence in 1815 with the authorities at Dulwich, who in- formed the Academy that its students would be welcomed at the gallery, although it was not yet open to the public, and at the same time offered to lend pictures for use in the School. The offer of pictures was accepted and in January, 1816, the President, West, accompanied by Lawrence, Thomson and Fuseli, went to Dulwich to choose them. Those selected for copying were the Venus, Mars and Cupid (285) by Rubens; The Madonna and Infant Saviour (135) by Vandyck; The Virgin, Infant Christ and St Fohn (230) by Annibale Carracci; The Flight into Egypt (240) by Nicolas Poussin; Landscape with Cattle and Figures (348) by Cuyp; and A Girl at a Window (206) by Rembrandt. Private collectors were asked if they would lend works for copying in the new 253 [7876 | ART IN ENGLAND School of Painting, and the Marquis of Stafford, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Ashburnham, Lord Darnley, Lord Egremont, Mr Anger- stein, and Mr Hamlet the goldsmith, all promised to give every assistance in their power. Hamlet was asked to lend his Titian, the Bacchus and Ariadne, and readily agreed; and as West offered any pictures from his collection, he was asked for The Death of Actaeon; the Ecce Homo by Guido; and the little Giorgione, A Man in Armour. The Death of Actaeon was the picture, at this time accepted as a Titian, which West bought at auction for a — few pounds in 1785; the others are now in the National Gallery. Later in the year the Prince Regent lent for use in the School of Painting the Ananias Cartoon by Raphael. The election of Academicians in February resulted in a triumph for Mulready. There were two vacancies, of which the first, caused by the death of Bartolozzi, was filled by Mulready, who defeated A. E. Chalon by thirteen votes to twelve. Mulready had been an Associate only three months, and his promotion to full membership was exceptionally rapid. Most Academicians have been compelled to serve several years in the junior rank. At the second election on the same day, to fill the place of Copley, Chalon was successful. In 1816 the British Institution was losing more and more the support and favour of contemporary artists, who felt that their interests were less considered since the establishment of the Old Masters exhibition. In the early days of the British Institution the exhibitions of modern work were opened early in the spring and continued until well into the summer, but now they were cut short and the chances of sales correspondingly reduced in order that the Old Masters exhibitions might commence in May, at the height of the season. Hazlitt refers to this in a review in the Champion of the modern exhibition, which he thinks poor, and he attributes the lack of new and good pictures to the pre- ference shown to the work of deceased artists. He says: It would appear that the Honourable and Noble Directors have not on this occasion found it easy to fill their rooms, and have been obliged to exert their generalship to get up even such an exhibition as the public are called 254 THE BRITISH INSTITUTION [7876 | upon to behold....Moreover, portraits, though excluded by law, are ad- mitted, we see, in fact. These things seem to betoken that the poor artists dread the recurrence of the arrangements and dispositions and order of march of last year, when a short exhibition was made to suffice for the moderns, and during the more popular parts of the season the gallery was occupied by the selected works of the Old Masters. Worth quoting on this subject are some remarks on the British Institution made by Charles Robert Leslie, at this time an Academy student, in a letter of January 30th, 1816, addressed to his friend Morse, who had now returned to America. The *“paltry sketches” to which he refers were submitted in com- petition for prizes offered for representations of scenes in British military history. Leslie, whose opinion was probably that of many young painters, says: Punishment seems at last likely to overtake the members of the British Institution for their various misdemeanours. They narrowly escaped this year having no exhibition at all, by reason of no pictures being sent. Allston intended his for Spring Gardens, but a very tempting offer being made to him by Young, that of allowing him to work on it three weeks at the gallery, induced him to send it there. Notwithstanding, however, that they had succeeded in getting his great picture, which fills the end of one of their great rooms, their ranks were so scanty that they were obliged to apply to West for assistance, who undertook to fill a whole room with work of his own. I understood they also applied to Hayter, who was finishing a large picture of three children (three portraits) and have taken it under the appella- tion of The Garland. The rest of the collection consists principally of the paltry sketches for which they were to give premiums, and the fragments and refuse of Somerset House. Hazlitt, in the review in the Champion already mentioned, speaks with contempt of the war sketches, and gives little praise to the pictures. One of the few he admired was the Half-Holiday Muster by William Collins, an artist whose work was generally approved by him. Hazlitt touched on another point, that of favouritism in hanging, which was always a burning question at the British Institution. In noticing Hofland’s large View from Richmond Hill, he remarks what good places have been given to this and other landscapes by the same painter. Hofland, he says, ought to erect an altar to Fortune—and to Mr Young—for his good luck: “‘for 259 [18716] ART IN ENGLAND since the latter gentleman has kept these rooms we do not remember to have seen an ill-hung Hofland”. The Mr Young mentioned was John Young the engraver, who succeeded Valen- tine Green in 1813 as Keeper of the British Institution, in which post he had, naturally, some voice in the hanging of the pictures. Hofland was a landscape painter of second rank whose name figures frequently in the newspapers in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when if he were rejected or badly hung at the Academy his friends on the press let all the world know it. It will be remembered that he was an unsuccessful candidate for the A.R.A. in November, 1815, on which unhappy occasion, as Hazlitt reminds him, ‘‘he made the rocks echo with his moans, while Mr Fielding, Mr Constable, and others we could name, were modestly silent”. Hofland obtained three votes at the November election and Constable none. The exhibition of Old Masters at the British Institution this year, which followed that of the modern artists, was composed of a hundred and twenty-five Italian and Spanish pictures, in- cluding two of the Cartoons by Raphael, lent by the Prince Regent, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes and Paul Preaching at Athens. This was the exhibition abused in the notorious Catalogue Razsonné. | It seems to have been the general opinion that the Academy exhibition of 1816 (arranged by Northcote, Owen, Beechey and Theed) was very inferior to its predecessor. Yet, according to a report that reached the Star, the pictures sent in were more numerous and of better quality than usual; and numbers of them “‘were of such excellence as to perplex the Academicians in their selections; who were at last obliged to send away a great number of admirable productions for want of room to hang them up’. Encouraged by this report, the representative of the Star went to the exhibition in the confident hope of seeing an exceptionally fine display, when even the rejected works were so good. But he was dismayed by the poverty of the collection, and came to the conclusion that the Academicians in their per- plexity must in error have sent away all the good pictures and 256 HAZLITT ON THE ACADEMY [1816] 6 kept all the bad ones. “‘Upon the whole,” says this critic, “‘we do not recollect an exhibition for many years more barren of quality than the present,’ and he concludes by suggesting— perhaps for the first time—that a separate exhibition of the rejected works should be held. There is nothing in the Star review about Turner, but Hazlitt, who had placed him among the immortals in 1815, criticized severely in the Champion the only pictures he exhibited this year, The Temple of Jupiter Panhellentus restored (55) and View of the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius (71). Hazlitt complains that the colours employed by Turner in these landscapes are unnatural. “They are not to be found in Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter; neither in the East nor the West, neither in Greece nor in England. They are not local colours with an atmosphere passing over them but a combination of gaudy hues intended to become a striking point of attraction on the walls of the exhibition.”’ He regards No. 71 as nothing but a miserable copy of No. 55, and weak as well as gaudy. ‘‘We express ourselves thus freely because we admire Mr Turner’s great genius, and therefore are indignant to see it wilfully abused.’ Turner ap- pears to have retouched No. 71 after the close of the exhibition. The picture was sent by him to the British Institution in 1817, when one of the critics remarks that it had been altered since it was shown at the Academy. “‘Mr Turner,” he says, “has introduced a fountain which heightens the effect of the picture.” Hazlitt thought that Turner might for once take a lesson from Callcott’s large river picture, The Entrance to the Pool of London (175), although it was monotonous in colour. The frame of Callcott’s picture was painted—most injudiciously in Hazlitt’s opinion—to harmonize with the general tone of the canvas, but it was one of the most admired works of its kind at the Academy. Landscapes mentioned by other critics are Crome’s Near Norwich (380); and those by Constable, of which there are two notices not altogether in agreement. The Repository of Arts says of his work this year that from entire carelessness *‘he has passed Wa 257 17 [1876] ART IN ENGLAND to the other extreme and now displays the most laboured finish”. On the other hand the Examiner in noticing No. 298, A Wood—autumn, remarks with approval Mr Constable’s improved eye for the portraiture of nature, “‘but his execution is still crude”’. Among the painters of subject pictures John Martin scored a popular success with Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still upon Gibeon (347), the earliest of those singular works which brought the artist profit and widespread reputation in the first half of the nineteenth century. The writer of a note on this picture predicts that Martin’s name “will never appear in another catalogue without the addenda of Academic honours to which this picture has so wonderfully entitled him. On any such honours his genius will reflect honour.”” But Martin, despite his popularity, never had the remotest chance of an Associateship and it is doubtful if he ever received a single vote at an election. Other subject pictures prominent at the Academy of 1816 were The Rabbit on the Wall (125) by Wilkie; The Fight interrupted (65) —the most successful work yet shown by Mulready; Thomson’s Mauritania (176) now at Burlington House; and The Raising of Lazarus (283) by Hilton. Raeburn’s portrait of himself (exhibited as Portrait of a Gentle- man) passed unidentified by the London critics, none of whom, probably, had ever seen the Edinburgh artist. The portrait of Northcote by Harlow, No. 40 (possibly the admirable little work now at the National Portrait Gallery), is described by the Sun as “‘extraordinary....Mr Northcote is in life before our eyes”. Of Lawrence’s portraits the most frequently mentioned is that of Angerstein (12), described in Annals of the Fine Arts as ““one of the best specimens of British portraiture”’. To many of the public one of the most interesting portraits in the exhibition was that of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, to whom Princess Charlotte, the only daughter of the Prince Regent, was married on May 2nd. It was hung, oddly enough, among the architectural drawings, and was noticed by the critic of the Sun in the following paragraph: 258 From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A. By George Henry Harlow if * THE ELGIN MARBLES BOUGHT [7616] No. 839. When we first saw this number in the catalogue it was A Bird’s Eye View of a Prison by H. Biers, but by a whimsical transformation it is now A small whole length of the Prince of Coburg, by Mr Chalon. Against a rule of the Royal Academy this portrait has been admitted after the time limited for receiving any pictures. Whether the anxiety of the public to see a likeness of a personage so interesting to us is a sufficient excuse for deviating from the established practice, we shall not pretend to determine. It is, however, an era in the history of the exhibition and renders that here- after a question of degree which was heretofore a fixed and settled canon. Much as we are gratified by Mr Chalon’s portrait, the pleasure of viewing it is greatly damped by reflecting on the innovation to which we owe it. The writer had heard, evidently, of the trouble the hanging of this portrait had caused the Academicians. On April 18th the Prince Regent wrote to them to express his desire that the portrait of Prince Leopold, by A. E. Chalon, R.A., should be placed in the exhibition. The hanging of the pictures was by that time finished, and apart from this it was against all rules to re- ceive any work at so late a date. A special General Assembly of the Academicians was called to consider the matter and the picture was admitted, but only by the abrogation of a law. The Prince Regent wrote afterwards to say that if he had realized this he would not have made his request. Just before the close of the exhibition, in June, Parliament voted the sum of £35,000 for the purchase of the Elgin Marbles, and thus secured for England a collection of works of sculpture that is unequalled in the world. The Marbles, enthusiastically acclaimed by Haydon and other artists, had been the subject of frequent discussion since 1808, when they were first shown in London by Lord Elgin. Canova, when he visited this country in 1815, saw the Marbles and agreed with our artists that they were priceless, and no doubt his opinion carried weight with the Select Committee of the House of Commons by which their acquisition by the State was recommended. These wonderful relics of a mighty period of art were acquired by Lord Elgin when he was our Ambassador at Constantinople at the beginning of the century, and obtained from the Porte for himself and the artists he employed “the most extensive 259 17-2 [1816] ART IN ENGLAND permission to view, draw and model the ancient temples of the idols and the sculptures upon them, and to make excavations and to take away any stones that might appear interesting to them”. Lord Elgin made the most of this permission, and ac- cording to a well-informed contemporary writer in the Monthly Magazine gathered his spoils somewhat recklessly. This writer was living in Rome when Lord Elgin stayed there for some weeks on his way home from Constantinople in 1803, and met and con- versed frequently with the artists and others who had super- intended for the Ambassador the collection of the Marbles at Athens. In a long letter, published in the same year and full of particulars concerning the operations, he tells us that the artists were nearly twelve months at Athens before Lord Elgin obtained his unlimited permission: But it must be owned that they made afterwards so good a use of the opportunity afforded them that future travellers in Greece will not be much inclined to bless the memory of Lord Elgin. The number of chests full of precious remains of antiquity already sent off to England amounts to more than two hundred, and a great many articles still remain behind to be for- warded by M. Lusieri. This may be considered as the last gleaning of what had been spared by the successive spoilers of the ornaments of Greece. Not only have all moveable works been carried away; but even many things which had been hitherto considered as immoveable have been torn from the place where they had remained unmolested for thousands of years. Thus, for instance, the metopes of the temple of Minerva, in the Acropolis, which was ornamented with figures in alto-relievo, have been all broken out of the wall, and the round carved work on the tympans have likewise been carried away. By digging in front of the temple they discovered a couple of torsos, heads and basso-relievos. Four excellent basso-relievos that belonged to a temple of Victory and represented an engagement of the Greeks with the Persians have likewise been taken away. But from the temple of Theseus nothing could be obtained as it is now a Greek church.... Lord Elgin was induced to this undertaking that he might have the glory of enriching his country with these spoils of ancient Greece, and that he might possess a cabinet surpassing others in the rarity of the articles it contains. May he be incited by a nobler ambition to render these treasures generally useful by a free access to them; so that the traveller, who has in vain looked for them in Greece may at least find them in England! 260 LORD ELGIN’S LOSSES [1816] Lord Elgin’s action in removing the Marbles has been the subject of criticism, but he defended it on the ground that the Greeks made no objection, but on the contrary seemed pleased that the labours of the excavators and other workmen, of whom there were several hundreds, meant money spent in Athens; and also because the Marbles were the prey of anyone who cared to mutilate or destroy them. Removal was the only way by which they could be preserved. The Greeks may have been as apathetic as Lord Elgin states; but when George Augustus Sala went to Athens many years afterwards, his guide assured him that the treasures of the Acropolis had to be conveyed to the harbour at night in order to avoid popular commotions. The guide further declared that when the waggons were on the way to the harbour the Marbles were heard to shriek and groan for grief at their expatriation ! According to Haydon the sum voted by Parliament was in- sufficient to compensate Lord Elgin for the expense of bringing the Marbles to London. Haydon says he was £16,000 out of pocket by the transaction. And a note in the diary of Sir Henry Ellis, for many years Chief Librarian of the British Museum, _ suggests that there were complications which further reduced the amount received by Lord Elgin. Sir Henry says, writing on June 29th, 1816, a few days after the Parliamentary vote: “An extraordinary general meeting summoned to deliberate upon the taking possession of the Elgin Marbles. Mr Leggatt (of the Tax Office) attended, and stated that himself and his partner Mr Booth were at present in possession of the Marbles under an extent from the Crown to the amount of £18,000. He also announced as information that there were other claims, so that very little of the £35,000 is likely to reach Lord Elgin’s own pocket.” The free access to the Marbles, so earnestly hoped for by the writer of the letter from Rome in 1803, appears to have been given by Lord Elgin as far as he conveniently could; and when removed to the British Museum in 1816 they could be seen without trouble by anyone. For there were new laws at that 261 [7876 | ART IN ENGLAND institution, and since 1810 the old system had been abolished of admitting only by ticket, and of conducting through the rooms parties of visitors, none of whom was allowed to linger or to separate himself from the others. The Museum was now free to all on three days a week, but picture galleries were still closed to the poorer Londoner. It is true that the Dulwich Gallery had just been opened, and was valuable to artists and students, but it was virtually inaccessible to the artizan and his class. It was much too far from town, and although admission was free it could be obtained only by tickets procurable from the fashion- able London printsellers. No tickets could be obtained at Dul- wich itself. A new plan for a National Gallery, to be built at the bottom of St James’s Street or on the site of the King’s Mews (now Trafalgar Square), was proposed this year but received no support. Flaxman, who had been asked in 1815 to examine the casts used as models by the junior students at the Academy schools, reported that numbers of them were discoloured or injured beyond repair. He suggested that the President should approach the Prince Regent, and ask him if it would be possible for new casts to be brought from Italy in Government ships, free of charge for conveyance. The President accordingly wrote to the Prince, who not only promised his assistance in the matter of conveyance, but sent to the Academy twenty-six casts from marbles in the Vatican, recently presented to him by the Pope. The public announcement of this presentation brought forth an angry paragraph from the Editor of the Annals of the Fine Arts, who rarely lost a chance of attacking the Academy. He thought that the British Museum was the proper depository for the Prince Regent’s gifts, and said of them: All must lament that such fine casts—casts such as may never again reach this country—should be destined to the smoky, dingy rooms of the Royal Academy, liable to the carelessness of housekeepers, porters and idle boys; which before a few years shall have passed will be broken, mutilated, mended and restored by ignorant plaster men, and scarcely a vestige of their original beauty will remain. One great cause that the present Academy casts are so 262 THE FIRE AT BELVOIR [1816] injured is that they used to be regularly painted like the balustrades of a staircase, thus the delicate markings were filled up and the figures ruined. The Farnese Hercules was once scoured with a scrubbing brush! Although casts from the antique were becoming more com- mon in private collections, the prejudice against them from the point of view of propriety was almost as strong as it was a generation earlier, when an objection was made to the presence of the Apollo Belvedere in the Academy galleries. It was still thought improper for women to study from such figures, and in 1820 a correspondent of the Gentleman’s Magazine quotes as a sign of the decline of modesty since the Peace that it was now no rare thing to see “‘young females of the family, even while gentlemen are present, admiring a new purchased Adonis or Hercules”’. This decline the writer of 1820 attributes to the closer connection with the Continent, where a different standard prevailed. The difference had been sadly recognized five years earlier by the author of A Trip to Paris in August and September, 1815, who mentions “the phenomenon of a female French artist being seen (as she was by me on more than one day) sitting before and making a drawing from a totally naked large male statue”’. And she was seen too by hundreds of others who visited the Louvre, none of whom appeared shocked or ashamed. The writer regards this as indicating an unaccountable want of a sense of propriety, and cannot reconcile it with the fact, which he admits, that there is more propriety among the common people of Paris, both in language and behaviour, than among those of London. At Belvoir, the seat of the Duke of Rutland, a great fire on October 26th caused the destruction of numerous portraits and pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, some of which ranked with his best work. The origin of the fire which caused this irreparable loss is uncertain, and some have ascribed it to malice, but it is said to have commenced in one of the workshops of the car- penters and painters then employed at Belvoir. Irwin Eller, in his history of Belvoir written ninety years ago, gives the 263 [7876 | following list of the prices paid to Sir Joshua for nineteen of — ART IN ENGLAND these works and the sums for which they were insured: SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’ PICTURES. Original cost Insured at The Nativity £1200 £1400 Infant Jupiter (in Kondonse at Mr Ristig’ S when insurance was made) rf 105 — An Old Man Relating a Ballad 31. 10S. 100 The Calling of Samuel 105 100 A Venetian Boy is 50 100 The Duke of Rutland 210 200 The Duchess of Rutland a 210 200 Lord Charles, Robert and William Manas 210 100 Lord Chatham ... 210 100 Lord Granby, Lady Elizabeth and Lady. Gahan Manners : iy 210 100 Marquis of Granby, ane a aoe 210 300 Lady Granby oe 105 100 Head of Lord Granby 31. 10s. Not insured Duke of Beaufort 210 200 Marquis of Lothian 21. TOS, 50 Lord Mansfield 52. 10S. 100 General Oglethorpe 52: 108. 50 Str Foshua’s own portrait 81, 105. 100 Kitty Fisher 52. 10S. 100 The figures given show that the portraits were insured for amounts that seem trivial to-day but probably represented their full value in 1816. Had they been by Gainsborough or Romney, their valuation for insurance would have been less than one-third of the amounts mentioned above. An estimate of the value of the Sir Joshuas at Belvoir was made independently, after the fire, by John Rising, who was well acquainted with them; and it agrees fairly well with the insurance valuation so far as the portraits are concerned. But The Nativity, insured for £1400, was valued by Rising at 3000 guineas, and according to current gossip the Duke of Rutland had refused an offer of 10, 000 a guineas for the picture. rs John Rising, who died the year after the fire at Relves was 264 “Viu ‘Apearnyy wenn Ag GHLGNAUAALNI LHDIA AHL wnasnyl 149g] 7 Puv 01401914 aYy7 Ut Bunuwd ay. WoL ® f THE PERSPECTIVE LECTURES [7816] an artist educated in the Academy schools, which he entered in 1778. One of his pictures, A Match Girl, exhibited at the Academy in 1790, was bought by Sir William Chambers for George III. Rising exhibited, altogether, more than a hundred works, the last in 1815. He combined with portrait painting a large practice in picture cleaning and restoring. Mulready, himself highly accomplished in these respects, has testified to Rising’s skill as a restorer. It was to him that the Royal Academy entrusted the cleaning of the pictures by Reynolds and Gains- borough in the Council Room at Somerset House. An election of Associates of the Royal Academy took place this year on November 4th, when there were again two vacancies to be filled. Andrew Geddes and Alexander Nasmyth were among the new candidates, but neither received any support. In the first election Richard Cook beat Chantrey the sculptor by twelve votes to six. The second election resulted in an easy victory for Chantrey, who had nineteen votes to one each for H. P. Bone and Harlow. Nothing else of importance is recorded in the Academy minutes this year except a skirmish between Turner and the Council about the lectures on perspective for the spring of 1817. Turner wrote on December 7th to ask if he might postpone their delivery until 1818, and as other Professors had postponed their lectures without protest, no doubt expected permission as a matter of course. He was soon undeceived, for the President and Council, in an immediate reply, asked why he wished the postponement, and informed him “that they should not feel themselves justified in sanctioning the suspension of any part of the regular routine of education in the Royal Academy with- out a very substantial reason being assigned for such an omis- sion”. Turner had no excuse except pressing engagements, which, he said, he hoped would be sufficient apology. ‘The excuse was accepted, but the letter in which the acceptance was conveyed was couched in terms that made it a reprimand: The President and Council have taken into consideration your request to be indulged in deferring for this season the lectures on perspective and being 265 ea [1816] ART IN ENGLAND very willing to believe that your reasons for omitting to read in due course are pressing and important, though they do not find them satisfactorily stated even in your recent letter, they on this occasion assent to your desire, at the same time they think it necessary to apprise you of their opinion that it is incumbent on the Professors of the Academy not to enter into any engage- ment which may preclude them from fulfilling the permanent duties of such offices as they may hold in the establishment. Turner was never reproved again, although in after years he © failed frequently to carry out his duties as Professor of Per- spective. From 1828 until he resigned in 1837 no lectures were given and no excuses offered. At this time Turner’s influence ~ at the Academy was very great, and probably none of the members cared to interfere with him. When the method of — instruction at the Academy Schools was enquired into by a Parliamentary Committee in 1836, the President, Sir Martin © Archer Shee, was asked why the lectures on perspective had not been delivered. Sir Martin said that the Academicians had — forborne to press upon Turner the delivery of his lectures partly ~ because some of them thought that the process of lecturing was ill calculated to explain the science of perspective; “‘and partly — from a delicacy which cannot perhaps be perfectly justified, but which arises from the respect they feel for one of the greatest artists of the age in which we live”’. CHAPTER XVIII 1817 Earty in the spring of 1817 an action of particular interest to London collectors and artists was brought against a picture- dealer named Gwennap, of Old Bond Street. The plaintiff was a wealthy City merchant named Gray, and the action was brought “‘to recover certain sums of money paid for paintings alleged to be the productions of ancient foreign masters whereas in truth and in fact they were works destitute of merit and of little or no value”. There were forty-nine counts, each par- ticularizing a painting on which it was claimed that enormous overcharge had been made. The Attorney-General, in opening the case for the plaintiff, in the Court of King’s Bench, said that his client, Mr Gray, was a man who, after making a fortune in business, had devoted large sums to the formation of a collection of pictures. Conscious of his own want of knowledge he applied to the defendant, Gwennap, who undertook to obtain for him good productions by the ancient masters. Gray placed implicit confidence in Gwennap, who from time to time recommended pictures which he said were from the pencils of the very first masters. For these the highest prices were charged, and gradually, at great expense, Gray accumulated what he believed to be a choice collection of paintings. He loved to show these pictures to his friends, and, in language borrowed from Gwennap, to eulogize this canvas or that as the most exquisite example of Guido, Titian, Claude or Berchem. This went off very well with some of his friends, who knew no more about the arts than the collector himself; but others suspected he had been deceived, though they did not like to hurt his feelings by suggesting it. 267 [7817] ART IN ENGLAND At length his eyes were opened. A casual acquaintance with 3 some experience of pictures and picture buying had occasion to ~ visit him when he had just made what he believed to be an excellent purchase. Mr Gray, full of his new acquisition, hastened to take the caller to the room in which it was hung, and with a rapturous smile asked his opinion of it. ‘The visitor — was not enraptured, he only looked at the picture with astonish- — ment and said, ‘“‘Good God! Where on earth did you get that — from?” Mr Gray, displeased, said it was the unquestionable — work of an ancient master, bought of a dealer on whose veracity — he could rely, and that he had just given a hundred pounds for - it. “That picture,” said the visitor, “‘is a worthless daub. I was astonished to see it here for it once belonged to me and I got © rid of it because it was of no value.” This led to an enquiry as to the origin of the other pictures in Mr Gray’s collection, — —— CCU and the prices Gwennap paid for them. A Correggio, so-called — but not the work of that master, he had bought for £54 and ~ sold to Gray for £840; a candlelight piece bought for 10 guineas — was sold for £147; and a landscape bought for £42 and signed ~ ‘**Vanbroom’’, wassold asa Ruysdael for £315. An alleged Guido, ~ The Holy Family, for which Gray had paid £475, had cost | Gwennap only 25 guineas. The Attorney-General now called Mr Joseph Woaden, a pic- — ture dealer, who said he had seen Mr Gray’s collection, and had ~ had many dealings with Gwennap. Some of Mr Gray’s pictures — he himself had sold to Gwennap. He instanced A Merrymaking, — ascribed to Ostade. Gwennap paid him 12 guineas for it and — sold it to Mr Gray for £136. 10s. A Merrymaking was signed — “Valk”? when Gwennap bought it. A Group of Cattle ascribed to Berchem was certainly not by that master. He sold it, un- named, to Gwennap for 12 guineas and it was passed on to Mr Gray as a Berchem for 84 guineas. There was a picture in Mr Gray’s collection for which, with two others, he had paid — £1470; this was The Card Players, described as by Brouwer, and — sold to Gwennap by Woaden as a David Ryckaert for £10. An alleged Titian portrait he sold to Gwennap for £5—it was — 268 AN UNLUCKY COLLECTOR [r8r7] so poor a thing that he could not put any name to it. Gwennap christened it ‘Titian and sold it to Mr Gray for £200. Lord Ellenborough, who was hearing the case, now inter- posed, and asked the counsel on both sides whether it was possible to arrive at a settlement, as the trial, if continued, promised to be lengthy. The counsel for the defendant said he had a perfect defence, but after conferring with his client, and with the Attorney-General, agreed to a verdict for the plaintiff for £10,000 and costs. This trial, in which the damages were equi- valent to £30,000 or £40,000 at the present value of money, was the most important of those concerning the authenticity of pictures which took place in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. In one of these trials a few years later, Constable gave evidence about a landscape sold by a dealer as a Claude. Constable thought it was genuine, but his opinion—though sup- ported by that of Linnell—failed to convince the jury. Constable in the year now under review improved his position in the eyes of the newspaper critics, some of whom began to have hopes of him in spite of the originality of his style. The Literary Gazette spoke in flattering terms of his Scene on a navigable River shown at the Academy; and of his picture sent to the British Institution in January, A Harvest Field, Reapers and Gleaners, the Examiner said: Mr Constable here shows that he can screw up his resolution to conquer in some degree that inertness of mind, which, while an object of importance is aimed at, prevents its full success by the neglect of some valuable requisites of performance. In plain words his finishing and drawing are better than formerly, though still far below the standard of his colouring and general effect. These are beautiful, inasmuch as they are a close portraiture of our English scenery. But his portraitures of English scenery, close as they were, made no appeal to contemporary picture buyers. They pre- ferred the landscapes of Glover, who, putting Turner out of the question, had been for some years the most prosperous artist of his kind in England. A writer of 1817, when speaking of his *“much merited success’, estimated that he had already accu- 269 [1817] ART IN ENGLAND mulated a fortune of £30,000 by his professional labours. Glover had gained reputation abroad as well as at home and was now showing at the gallery of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours a large landscape painted at Paris in 1814 in the gallery at the Louvre, which had been exhibited in France and upon which Louis XVIII had bestowed a gold medal. This landscape — was not a copy of any single work in the Louvre. Glover painted it with his easel placed between a fine Poussin and a fine Claude, from each of which he gathered material and suggestions of — composition, and inspiration—as he believed—from both. More recently, in the autumn of 1816, at the British Institution, ‘standing before Mr Miles’s Claude”, he had painted another large landscape that was not a copy. By his side De Wint had ~ worked on the same plan before a Claude belonging to Lord Egremont, and the result was hung with Constable’s harvest field picture in the spring exhibition in the same gallery. Of De Wint’s composition, Landscape painted in the British Institution (38), the Morning Post said: “This work is no disgrace to the place in which it was painted, but is, on the contrary, a clever composition. It differs very much from Mr De Wint’s usual style and shows that his talents are not confined to one manner.” Another landscape to be seen at the spring exhibition of the British Institution was what is generally described as Wilkie’s only attempt in this department, No. 55, Sheep Washing, painted from a sketch he made in Wiltshire. At an election, held this year on February toth, the vacancy among the Academicians, caused by the death of Nathaniel Marchant the gem sculptor, was filled. Marchant made various bequests to the institution of which he had been a member, in- | cluding several busts, all the medals given to him by Pope Pius VI, all his diplomas, and “‘the letters which render me credit as an artist’’. His successor among the Forty was John ~ Jackson the portrait painter, who in the contest for the seat defeated Chantrey by fifteen votes to nine. At the Academy dinner on May grd the President was sup- — ported on his right and left by the Dukes of Cumberland and ~ 270 THE ACADEMY DINNER [rér7] Norfolk, and the Great Room was for the first time lighted by gas, the burners for which were fitted to the Prince Regent’s chandelier. ‘The guests on this occasion included the Master and Warden of Dulwich College, who a few weeks later returned the Academy’s hospitality by inviting its members to the first of the commemorative dinners held in the new picture gallery at the College. The Master and Warden were invited to the Academy in recognition of the generous loan of pictures from Dulwich for use in the schools. To the loan for a similar purpose of Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, Hamlet the goldsmith owed his presence at the dinner. Hamlet, who was most obliging in lending his treasures to the schools, deserved a better place than that which was assigned to him. He was given a seat at a table where the only diners besides himself were three Associates and the seven musicians and singers who had been engaged to perform after the cloth was removed. A more honourable position was assigned to another guest present for the first time, Le Thiére the French history painter, whose large picture The Judgment of Brutus had recently been exhibited in London. Le Thieére, at this time Director of the French Academy at Rome, sat opposite to Tom Moore and had for his near neighbours several of the Ambassadors. Turner, who was at the head of one of the tables, had managed to obtain the seat on his right hand for his Yorkshire friend and patron, Mr Fawkes of Farnley. The exhibition was arranged by Shee, Mulready and A. E. Chalon, and was very popular. It attracted so many visitors on the first day that although the doors were not opened until twelve o’clock the waiting crowd streamed in so fast that by one there was hardly standing room in the galleries. ‘The re- porter who notes this, remarks the presence of Lord Exmouth, whose destruction of the Moorish power at Algiers a few months before had made him a popular hero, and testifies that Beechey’s portrait of him (200) is exact in resemblance. “The noble Admiral happened to be standing near the portrait when we were admiring it.”’ 271 [r8r7] ART IN ENGLAND Neither Turner nor Wilkie made much impression this year; nor did Lawrence, although his portrait of Mrs Arbuthnot (150) was admired on account of the beauty of the original. ‘Turner was represented by The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (195), about which no one was enthusiastic; and Wilkie by his Breakfast Time, a commission from Lord Stafford. Etty, still little known ~ but making progress that was steady, if slow, found a critic appreciative enough to praise his Cupid and Euphrosyne (376) ; and to say of his Bacchanalians—a sketch (133), that it was “ex-— ceedingly playful and beautiful, abounding in rich colour and highly creditable to the painter”. Of Raeburn’s four contribu- tions the most noticed were No. 84 and No. 91. The first was the portrait of a lady shown wearing a turban of rich figured silk and a dress of a dark olive colour, and represented leaning upon one elbow and looking up with a pencil in her hand. No. g1 was a whole-length of a young man in a dark dress seated under a tree and holding a large spotted dog. Canova, who exhibited for the first time in England, sent to the Academy statues of Hebe and Terpsichore, and a bust. ‘They did not reach London until past the sending-in day, but were nevertheless well placed in the gallery and admired by some of the critics. A rival to them in popular estimation was No. 1029, that well- known work of Chantrey’s, Monument to be placed in Lichfield Cathedral, in Memory of two only Children. More attractive to the general public than any of these, and the show piece of the exhibition, was a large picture by a young ~ artist whose best work so far had been seen in portraiture on a small scale. This was No. 17, The Court for the Trial of Queen Catherine, illustrating a scene from Henry VIII, and painted by Lawrence’s pupil Harlow. The picture, containing portraits in ~ character of Mrs Siddons and other members of the Kemble family, and of various persons prominent at the time in the dramatic and musical worlds, was the most popular work at the ~ Academy and praised by everyone so far as the likenesses were ~ concerned. ‘The drawing and the composition of the figures were, — however, the subjects of pointed criticism. A writer in the ~ 272 HARLOW AND THE KEMBLES [z8r7] Morning Herald who complained of the faulty drawing of the many limbs, added: “‘It is a fact that among them are two legs which nobody seems to claim”’. This picture, well known through Clint’s engraving, was painted for Mr Welsh, a prosperous singer and teacher of music, whose original commission was for a small portrait of Mrs Siddons alone. But Harlow chose to develop the work to a more elaborate scale, and at first declined to accept any further remuneration than the price agreed upon for the small work. Ultimately he received 100 guineas. ‘This became known, and set on foot rumours prejudicial to Mr Welsh, who, when Harlow died two years later, was attacked, though not by name, in a long obituary notice of the artist published in the Literary Gazette. ‘The writer, after sketching the histories of several of Harlow’s productions, remarks: The splendid picture of the Kemble Family in the characters of King Henry VIII, Wolsey, etc., was originally begun on a small scale, but Harlow grew enamoured of his theme as he proceeded, enlarged his plan, and finally completed that admirable work which went to the possession of Mr Welsh at the price agreed for the first projected, namely, one hundred guineas. This almost shameful bargain was rendered still more offensive to the sense of liberal justice by the sale of the copyright to a plate from it, at, if we are not misinformed, five times the amount paid the artist for the picture itself. It is often thus that genius labours and something not so elevated gathers the fruits. An answer to this statement was published soon afterwards in the journal in which it had appeared. ‘The answer was not written by Mr Welsh, but by William Cribb, a picture framer who had numbered Sir Joshua among his patrons, and was the publisher of the engraving of Harlow’s picture. His letter tells the story of the curious development of the best known work of the artist in such an interesting fashion that it is worth quoting in full: Sir, In your paper of Saturday, March 27th, you continued the biographical sketch of the late Mr Harlow, in which you have stated one or two circum- stances so wide of the truth that I feel confident you will readily allow me to rectify errors you have been led into through misrepresentation, wa 273 18 [r8r7] ART IN ENGLAND The part I allude to is where you mention the picture of the Kemble : family, painted for Mr Welsh, the history of which is as follows. Mr Welsh employed Mr Harlow to paint a whole-length figure of Mrs Siddons upon a small scale from recollection, in the character of Queen Catherine, for which he was to give Mr Harlow twenty guineas, his usual price for that sized picture. After Mr Harlow had commenced the picture he conceived the idea of painting a large one of the subject, and to introduce various portraits; — he mentioned his wish to Mr Welsh, telling him that if he (Mr Welsh) could induce Mrs Siddons to sit for her portrait he would paint him a picture — worthy of the subject. At Mr Welsh’s particular request Mrs Siddons con- 5 sented to sit, and on a day appointed she went to Mr Harlow’s. Mr Welsh was present and was quite astonished to find the idea of the picture sketched upon the large panel. After this Mr Welsh waited upon him and informed him it was not possible for him to afford to pay for so large a picture. Mr Harlow told him the picture was his for the twenty guineas, for that he should be amply repaid by the reputation it would bring him, and that he should owe everything — to Mr Welsh for getting Mrs Siddons to sit to him. Mr Welsh also procured most of the persons whose portraits are introduced, to sit as an obligation to himself. When the picture was done Mr Welsh presented him with a hundred guineas, which Mr Harlow has told me often he considered very handsome conduct, as the picture was certainly painted for Mr Welsh for twenty, and — that it was his own fault he had done so much; but, added he, “It will make a noise at Somerset House and then I can do as I please”. And the very day ~ after the exhibition was opened he doubled his price for portraits. In addition to the hundred guineas, Mr Welsh gave up to Mr Harlow every advantage which might be obtained from the publishing of a print; and — Mr Harlow not wishing to be troubled with print-selling, I gave him a hundred ~ guineas for the copyright to engrave a print from the picture at my own expense, and so far from Mr Welsh having received from me five hundred guineas for the loan of it, I never gave him a single shilling, as he always told me he had given up the right of publication to Mr Harlow. I hope the above account will convince you that the imputations cast upon Mr Welsh by your informant are wholly undeserved, and I trust to — your candour to allow this refutation a place in your columns. Your obedient servant, William Cribb. 13 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. P.S. If you should wish to see my agreement with Mr Harlow I shall be happy to show it to you. 274 wt ERIN sy ETS i i te a ony be ny | Oa ee ra ¥ , : » + : Ns PO eee, Ge Mee ee. eS ae, A HARSH REVIEWER [z8r7] The summer exhibition of the British Institution was com- posed of the works of deceased British artists, with the addition of two of Raphael’s cartoons from the royal collection, Elymas the Sorcerer and The Death of Ananias. 'The British pictures in- cluded some of which we think highly to-day, but collectively they were not well received, and against their treatment by some of the newspapers the New Monthly Magazine published the following protest: This collection of paintings has been handled with great and unmerited severity by some of the diurnal critics. Severe animadversion on living artists is a much more amiable failing than this cruel and cutting censure on the labours of departed men. The former although it may arise from spleen and envy, possesses at least one claim to our regard—it is fearless and may - be retorted ; but the other has in it something mean and revolting, and ought never to be resorted to by a public writer but in cases where it is absolutely indispensable. One of the harshest reviews was published in The Times, whose critic, after noticing how much Sir Joshua’s Thais had faded, expressed his regret that it had not disappeared altogether. “It is,” he added, “‘a vile theatrical portrait, unworthy of the reputa- tion of the artist, both for taste and genius.’ Romney’s St Cecilia he described as *‘a vile, wretched daub”’; and he handled almost as severely Copley’s Death of Chatham, one of the most accomplished works of the American master. It was valuable only, said the critic, for its memoranda of the principal political personages of the day. ““Yet we should suppose that most of the persons commemorated would rather wish their faces to be forgotten than to be preserved in such meagre, petty, unmeaning repre- sentations of them as are given.” He did not like the look of Hogarth’s servants in the portrait group lent then by Mr Collins and now in the National Gallery. “It is to be hoped that the painter had not all these servants at once. The spirit of the workhouse or the conventicle shines through every soul in his establishment.” Even the famous Gainsborough from Knole, the portrait of Miss Linley and her brother, gave no satisfaction to this exacting 275 18-2 [1817] ART IN ENGLAND reviewer. “There is,”’ he says, ‘‘an attempt at fine expression in these faces, but not a successful one. Gainsborough threw a tinselled manner even into his best works, which destroyed their essence and took away that look of nature which his genius, if it had not been spoiled by affectation, would have enabled him to give.” Gainsborough’s portraits at this exhibition included the fine full-length of Sir Henry Bate Dudley, but none of the reviewers thought it worthy of notice. In Gainsborough’s former painting-room in Pall Mall was shown during July that famous copy by Marco D’Oggione of The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, which is now at Burlington House. It attracted considerable attention, and on the 24th of the month the Academicians were invited to see for the first time the picture they purchased four years afterwards. In a notice issued by the owners of The Last Supper, dated July 24th, it is said: This sublime composition, after an inspection of four hours, has this day received the sanction of the Royal Academicians, accompanied by their scientific and venerable President. They were pleased to declare it an un- rivalled model of exalted expression, and one of the most important and interesting objects of art ever exhibited in this country. There is no mention of this visit to Pall Mall in the Academy minutes, but they record the acquisition in 1817 of another work now in the Burlington House collection; the head in crayons of his father, by Francis Cotes, R.A. This head, regarded by the artist as one of his best works, was presented in March by Samuel eo: Cotes, the brother of the deceased Academician, who was duly — thanked by the Council. A proposal was considered and approved by the Council in June that a “literary account” of the Academy from its begin- ning to the completion of its fiftieth year be prepared, with biographical sketches, and perhaps portraits of the earlier mem- bers. The proposal was referred to the General Assembly, where Lawrence moved that an historical account be prepared, but without biographical sketches or portraits. The motion was agreed to, but a committee appointed to carry it into effect 276 ee a ee ee JULIUS CAESAR IBBETSON [1817] reported that “it would involve such difficulties that the execu- tion of the measure was inexpedient”. Turner then proposed that a private record should be compiled and deposited in the Library. This was approved, and Farington, Smirke and Dance were appointed to prepare the record, of which, however, nothing is known at the Academy to-day. Other entries in the minutes of 1817 record an appeal for help from Ralph Kirkley, for many years the confidential servant of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the adoption of gas as an illuminant in all the galleries and rooms belonging to the Academy at Somerset House. Kirkley, now an old man and in grave trouble, was given 20 guineas, and he received a similar sum from the Directors of the British Institution. The experiment of lighting the Great Room with gas on the occasion of the dinner had proved so successful that Fuseli’s proposal, made in August, to extend it to the other apartments, was agreed to without dissent. It is well known that Julius Caesar Ibbetson, who died at Masham in Yorkshire this year, on October 13th, was in his younger days a clever imitator of other men’s painting, and that he was employed by dealers to fabricate pictures which they sold as the work of Old Masters. After Ibbetson’s death an artist who had known him recalled in the Literary Gazette his extraordinary versatility in this respect, and how readily he could produce forgeries of Berchem, Richard Wilson and others. He loathed the work, but as he was poor and in debt he remained long in the power of his unscrupulous employers; and when at last he obtained his freedom, had the misfortune to be brought almost at once into contact with one of his own fabrications. Soon after he began to paint for himself, Ibbetson made the acquaintance of De Loutherbourg, who introduced him to Desenfans. That well-known collector and supposed connoisseur invited the two artists to his house, and what happened there is thus described in the Literary Gazette: An invitation to breakfast placed Ibbetson and De Loutherbourg in Mr Desenfans’ parlour, the walls of which were covered with chef d’oeuvres of art; and the judgment of the young painter was tried and exercised on 277 [7677] ART IN ENGLAND the merits of the several masters and schools, until, arriving at a picture which seemed to attract Ibbetson’s particular regard, Mr Desenfans observed, ‘That, Mr Ibbetson, is a very beautiful example of the work of David Teniers”. There was a pause. Mr Desenfans requested Ibbetson’s opinion, whose answer, after another pause, was—‘‘ That picture, Sir?—that picture I painted”. Here was “confusion worse confounded”’. The collector had been taken in, his judgment had been committed. The murder, however, was out, for marks and circumstances proved the fact beyond the possibility of con- troversy. The goodnatured De Loutherbourg endeavoured to smooth matters down; he “had frequently been deceived’—nay he went further and told how in his young days he had himself manufactured a few Old Masters. Whether or not this mended the business I do not know, but certain it is that poor Ibbetson was never again asked to breakfast with Mr Desenfans, Ibbetson appears to have shared with the collector whose ignorance he had exposed the ability to write puffing para- graphs. Desenfans published numbers of such paragraphs at the ~ ; time when he was actively engaged in picture dealing, and there can be little doubt that Ibbetson was responsible for the extra- vagantly laudatory notes on himself and his work at the British Institution and the Academy, which appeared in the Morning Post and the Sun in 1811. They were published, not in the notices of the exhibitions, which are written with moderation in the journals referred to, but as separate paragraphs on different pages. The Morning Post note is in the issue of February aist, and runs as follows: The charming self-taught artist, Ibbetson, who has for many years most unaccountably withdrawn himself from the world and his numerous friends, and whose death has been industriously reported, has again emerged, and shows, in two beautiful pictures now at the British Institution, how a con- tinual study of nature may improve even an eminent artist. His cattle figures are inimitable, and show how well he deserves the title bestowed upon him by Mr West, the P.R.A., “‘the English Berchem”’, by which name his pictures are known in Paris and Amsterdam, where they fetch incredible prices. The . Grand Ruin of the Keep of Caerphilly Castle is painted with all the spirit of Berchem and Pynacker united, and the Remains of Llangollen strongly reminds us of Cuyp and Polemberg. This picture was purchased on the second day of the exhibition by that great patron of the Arts, the Most Noble the Marquis of Stafford. 278 5 q A CONVIVIAL PAINTER [1817] The second paragraph appeared in the Sun on May ath: Royal Academy, No. 48, Eagle Crag from Scandergile Force, Borrowdale. Effect of sunshine on a waterfall. Ibbetson. This effort of genius, in which is included the richest and most sublime scenery in nature, is executed with the most exquisite taste, precision and effect. The naked figures are drawn with the utmost ease, elegance and truth, and coloured with more than Polemberg’s delicacy and sweetness, the clear- ness of the water and the aerial perspective of the whole, unrivalled by any artist, ancient or modern, and absolutely only to be equalled by Nature herself, in a camera obscura. The prismatic effect on the vapour, though hardly discernible and only noticed by acute observers, has a surprising effect. A monstrous prejudice has long misled the world and robbed native genius of its birthright; lavished on ancient, foreign, shattered, doubtful fragments of art, enormous wealth, a thousandth part of which would have raised native genius to a pitch far beyond all exotic pretension. This artist so highly praised, whose withdrawal from his London friends is referred to in the paragraph of February a2ist, 1811, had returned to the north of England, of which he was a native, about 1800, in which year he was an unsuccessful candi- date for the Associateship of the Royal Academy. In 1801, when at Windermere, he married, as his second wife, a young girl only half his age, but, according to Mrs Hofland, possessed of exceptional intelligence and a solid understanding. Mrs Hof- land, who knew Ibbetson well, describes him as a handsome and attractive man “of great vivacity, gentlemanly manners, conversational powers of the first order, excellent temper, and that fondness for conviviality which draws out all the percep- tions of a rich imagination and the stores of memory for the entertainment of those around him”’, Ibbetson was convivial in the north as he had been convivial in London, and at Masham, where he spent the last years of his life, he grew so stout that he could not go far afield for subjects, though he was always painting. It was in the practice of his art, painting a portrait of a favourite horse for Lady Augusta Milbanke, that he caught the severe cold which brought about his death. His eldest son, also Julius Caesar Ibbetson, followed his father’s profession and lived 279 [78r7] ART IN ENGLAND at Richmond in Yorkshire. There is a letter at the British Museum, in Anderdon’s Academy catalogue for 1816, which was possibly written by the son, although Anderdon attributes it to the father. Dated Richmond, November 5th, 1816, it is an order to Ackermann to send the writer some watercolours. Ibbetson wrote a book on painting and was interested in the preparation of colours and mediums. He was the inventor of a very useful medium the exact composition of which he explained to a limited number of artists, each of whom subscribed a certain sum. Among the subscribers was Joshua Shaw, who after- wards emigrated to America and there communicated the secret of the medium, ‘“‘for a consideration’’, to Sartain the engraver. ¥en Ibbetson’s recipe as quoted by Sartain in his memoirs is much — the same as the version given by George Field in his well-known Chromotography. Joshua Shaw was the painter of the picture, The Deluge, which, as I mentioned in Chapter xiv, was regarded by one critic as superior to the rendering of the same subject exhibited by Turner. He went to America in 1816, the year before Ibbetson’s death. The ship that conveyed him to Philadelphia also carried West’s large picture, Christ Healing the Sick in the Temple, and to Shaw the old painter entrusted its unpacking and the placing of it in the Philadelphia gallery. Sartain thought highly of the work done in America by Shaw, although he admits that his large picture of a stag hunt, shown in 1832, was copied from Rubens. “But,” says Sartain, “the public of that day wasnone the wiser.’’ He says that Shaw, who was an extremely ingenious man outside his art, was so quarrelsome that it was almost — impossible to keep on friendly terms with him. The election of two Associates of the Royal Academy, held — in 1817 on November 3rd, was remarkable for the support given to Constable. His name had been on the list of candidates since 1810, but until now no votes had been given to him. He received five in the first contest, but was defeated easily by Baily the sculptor, who had nineteen supporters. In the second, Abraham Cooper beat Constable by fifteen votes to eight. CHAPTER XIX 1818 AN event of importance to art students in 1818 was the founda- tion by Henry Sass of his well-known drawing class at Blooms- bury, for until this was opened there was no place in London at which they could be prepared for entrance to the Royal Academy schools. Sass’s class rooms, well lighted and arranged, provided with all the necessary casts, and directed by an artist who had himself been a Royal Academy student, soon became popular; and that he was a capable teacher appears to have been generally acknowledged. Many artists began their training in his class, including Frith and C. W. Cope (both of whom refer to Sass in their memoirs) and Millais, who passed from it into the Academy schools when he was only eleven years old. Wilkie, who recommended the class as a good place in which to study, mentions in one of his letters that at an Academy prize-giving at which he was present no fewer than six of the medals awarded were carried off by its former pupils. Sass was a regular exhibitor at the Academy and the British Institution, but according to tradition the most popular instructor of his time was a very poor painter. Certainly the newspapers of the day were not kind to Sass who, like greater artists, was fond of making studies from himself. ‘These self-portraits he exhibited somewhat frequently, to the particular annoyance of the critic of the Morning Chronicle, who, when he came across one of them at the British Institution, asked: What can Mr Sass mean by thrusting his head into the exhibitions every year? In the late Royal Academy we had again No. 208, Study of a Head, H. Sass, that is a likeness of himself which he must obstinately call ““A Head”’. Mr Sass must think there is something very extraordinary about his head 281 [7818] ART IN ENGLAND that he gives it to us so often; but he is mistaken for there is really nothing in it. A single instance was enough to give us his notion of his beau ideal. Sass had many friends among the Academicians, and no ~ doubt this was well known to the writer of a savage review of the Somerset House exhibition of 1830, who asserted that his work — could have been admitted only by favour. “The pictures,” says — this writer, ‘‘are worse hung than ever we remember to have ~ seen them, and never was interest or prejudice more palpably ~ manifest in choice or arrangement. What but one or the other — of these could place the eight daubs by Mr Henry Sass, which ~ would disgrace a barn, on the walls of the Royal Academy?” — It was unfortunate for Sass that one of the eight pictures con- — demned was a representation of his Bloomsbury drawing school, ~ No. 210, View of the interior of Mr Sass’s gallery. Almost as ferocious was a review of a book by Sass, published ~ in the year with which I am now dealing, A Journey to Rome Ao ay ee and Naples. It professed to contain observations on the fine arts — and the state of society in Italy, but the critic of the Literary Gazette, who riddled it with abuse, declared that he had seldom — met with a volume “‘of which the contents more completely — falsified the title page’’. But consolation was in store for the much reviled author. A month after the appearance of the review in the Literary Gazeite he received a letter from a famous French writer Stendhal, — praising his book and sympathizing with his advanced political views. Stendhal, who writes as if he were himself an Italian, says: Most esteemed Sir, Rome, December 18, 1818, ‘ I am now reading, most esteemed Sir, your excellent Journey in Italy. — You have skilfully acquired a knowledge of our manners and have rightly © divined our hearts. You have shown that you feel that flame of liberty — which, three centuries ago, animated the Raphaels and the Michael Angelos. © I have the honour to send you a work recently published by a friend 4 % mine, who cultivates that sublime art for which you show so much love. It bears the title Histoire de la Peinture en Italie, 2 vols. (the three last vill: appear in 1820). I shall be obliged by your allowing the book to be read 282 a Veh” rs oe ae ae “a a See 1 SS Se ee ee Cee oe ee ee eae at ae ee A! STENDHAL AND HENRY SASS [rér8] by the amateurs and connoisseurs of the Fine Arts in London, The true friends of liberty and knowledge should unite as a body of the most familiar intercourse, although composed of associates personally unknown to each other. The author desires, not praises but the most severe criticism. Thus only will he be able to render less imperfect the last three volumes. I have the honour to declare myself, your most devoted servant, Stendhal. To the very excellent Signor, Henry Sass, London. The Histoire de la Peinture en Italie, “‘recently published by a friend of mine’’, was, of course, Stendhal’s own well-known work. The copy sent by him to Sass is now in the Library of the Royal Academy, to which Sass presented it, together with the author’s letter, in Italian, of which the above is a transla- tion. Sass also gave a copy of his own book to the Academy, an institution with which he was always on the best of terms, and hoped to be more closely associated. His name long figured on the list of candidates for the A.R.A., but he never obtained a vote, although he had so many friends among the Forty. That body received but one addition to its ranks in 1818, when, in February, Chantrey was elected an Academician. He had been an Associate only sixteen months before his promotion to the full honours. In the contest Chantrey gained an easy victory, as he defeated Cook in the final ballot by sixteen votes to three. : The Academy exhibition, which was opened on May 4th, was arranged by Jackson, Callcott and Flaxman, and contained an exceptional number of large pictures; due, in the opinion of a facetious critic, to the cheapness of canvas owing to the recent dismantling of the navy after the war. The exhibition was, how- ever, fairly well received except by the representative of the New Monthly Magazine, who, while admitting that some of the pictures were good, said of the majority that they were “‘imbecile and unworthy productions which ought to have been rejected from a collection that is the most ready touchstone by which our national proficiency is estimated”’, ‘This writer’s censures on the watercolours were even more severe. He thought that with 283 [1878] ART IN ENGLAND the exception of No. 474, Turner’s Landscape: Composition of Tivoli, ‘‘a superb drawing’’, and two or three others, the water- colours were a disgrace to the Academy and to the country and ~ he should like to see them all destroyed. The Times again re- — frained from noticing the exhibition but at the end of the season published, in the following paragraph, something in the nature of an apology for its apparent neglect: If we have not been accustomed to notice in our journal the proceedings — of the Royal Academy, and especially its periodical displays of the works — of genius, it is not because we are indifferent to the welfare of the Royal — Academy or insensible to its claims, but because our observations have been chiefly directed to objects yet higher in respect to National importance, the great concerns of civil society, of legislation, trade and commerce. But this does not explain why the Academy exhibitions were passed over, season after season, while those of the British — Institution were noticed. In this year of 1818 The Times, which — did not give a line to the Academy, published notices both of — the summer and the winter exhibitions of the British Institution. And the neglect of the Academy did not end with 1818. It was not until 1823 that The Times began regularly to review its exhibitions. Wilkie, busy in the preparation of more important things, sent to the Academy only a little picture, The Errand Boy (110), a commission from Sir John Swinburne, and his sketch of Walter Scott and his family (117). The last was the subject of an extra- ordinary attack in the Monthly Magazine, where it was described as “‘a most conceited design of Mr Walter Scott and his family, — a picture which creates pity for the painter and disgust at the objects, while it violates decency and good taste”. The sketch was the one made by Wilkie when at Abbotsford in the autumn of 1817, of which he says to his sister in a letter of October in that year: “I have been making a little group while here of Mr Scott, Mrs Scott, and all the family, with Captain Ferguson and others. I have got a good way on with the pictures; the Misses Scott are dressed as country girls with pails, as if they — had come from milking; Mr Scott as if telling a story; and 284 TURNER PAINTS WATERLOO [7818] in one corner I have put in a great dog of the Highland peced.” The notice in the Monthly Magazine must have been malicious, for it is impossible to connect violations of decency and good taste with this picture which is now in the National Gallery of Scotland. The Duke of Buccleuch was so pleased with it that he wanted Wilkie to paint himself and his family in a similar group; and Lockhart, Scott’s son-in-law, describes Wilkie’s work as beautiful, although he thought the likenesses were far from good. Turner, in addition to his watercolour, showed three works in oil, one of which, The Field of Waterloo (263), met with a mixed reception. ‘“‘Here,”’ said the Sun, “‘is a terrific representation of the effects of war. All his works manifest the powers of a great master.” But the New Monthly Magazine protested that No. 263 was nothing more than the ghost of a picture, and regretted that the artist should play with his reputation by exhibiting so crude, ill-considered and meagre a work, which ought never to have passed the door of his painting-room. The Literary Chronicle derided “‘the abortive attempt by Turner called in the catalogue The Field of Waterloo; and his still more detestable fox-hunting picture (Raby Castle (129)) which we consider a disgrace to his great talents’. On the other hand the Dort Packet-boat from Rotterdam—becalmed (166) was liked by all and placed in the same rank with Callcott’s Mouth of the Tyne (95) which hung on the opposite wall of the gallery. According to one of the newspapers the Dort was sold by Turner, at the private view, to his friend Mr Fawkes of Farnley. Leslie remarks in his life of Constable that although in 1818 his art was perhaps more perfect than at any other period, the latent beauties of his work passed wholly unnoticed in the ex- hibitions, and the pictures that contained them were for the most part unheeded. This is by no means accurate. Some of the critics had shown their appreciation of Constable’s exhibited work long before 1818, and in that year one of them wrote, in the Literary Gazette, a note on a landscape by him which ought to have given particular pleasure to the painter who more than 285 [7878] ART IN ENGLAND any other loved to attempt to render the dewy glitter of wet grass and foliage: No. 11. Breaking up of a Shower, J. Constable. A remarkably sweet produc- — tion, the handling remarkably free considering the apparent minuteness of the artist’s usual manner. The picture has something too of the glittering freshness congenial to the effect of summer rain. We remember that it is true to nature, and only wish we had something of the same showery effect out- — side in order to institute the comparison anew. We are sure Mr Constable would not suffer from it. . One of the most popular subject pictures at the Academy was Una with the Satyrs (291) by William Hilton, the brother-in-law — of Peter De Wint; an able painter who was regarded as a rival of Haydon by some of the followers of what was known in that day as High Art. Haydon was the most bepuffed artist of his — time, always kept prominent in the public eye by his numerous friends in the press, or by the letters—columns long—with which — he rushed into print on any and every occasion. Well knowing ~ this, the critic of the Literary Journal added to a commendation of Una with the Satyrs a comparison of the methods of Haydon and Hilton that appears to be just. His fears, in Haydon’s case, — were prophetic indeed. He says: aS Mr Hilton is a young man, and we cannot but admire the spirit and per- severance with which he pursues his object in spite of difficulties which would appal most men. He is one of the only two students of the day who have dared to devote themselves to historic painting. Mr Haydon is the other. — They pursue different courses. Hilton goes on modestly and quietly. Haydon seems to depend on bustle and noise. Hilton paints a good picture and leaves it to its fate. Haydon gets a picture talked about for two or three years ~ before it is seen; in letters and pamphlets, in weekly newspapers and quarterly annals, till it becomes surrounded by so thick a mist of puffery and quackery that it cannot fail to be magnified in the eyes of the already purblind multi- tude. Which system will succeed best, or whether these young men will not both in the end be forced in very despair of success to “‘put their houses in order and go and hang themselves”’, time only will show. We have no wish ~ that our fears should be prophetic. Haydon, whose hostile attitude towards the Academy was — notorious, contributed nothing to the exhibition this year, but the sculpture room contained a bust of him by Baily (1085), of — 286 From an engraving by Samuel Cousins, R.A. LADY ACLAND AND CHILDREN By Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. [Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818] ~ A is A BUST OF HAYDON | [1878] which the Sun remarked: “If Mr Haydon is so furious a fellow as this bust represents him, we tremble for the Academicians!”’ It was treated with more respect by the Examiner, always the fiery painter’s extravagant supporter. ‘‘ With beautiful execu- tion,” says this journal, ‘‘ Mr Baily has precisely hit off the ardent genius and impressed look of Mr Haydon.” These opinions of Haydon’s appearance may be compared with that of his friend Miss Mitford, expressed in a letter of 1817. After expatiating on his genius she adds regretfully: “‘It is a thousand pities he should be such a fright”’. A marble bust by Chantrey of the politician, Francis Horner (1075), who died at Pisa in 1817, was also noticed by the critics. The bust, intended for the Advocate’s Library at Edinburgh, was posthumous, and is stated to have been modelled from Raeburn’s portrait of Horner, with the assistance of Horner’s brother, who sat to Chantrey for the purpose. Chantrey’s own portrait was at the Academy (21) and ad- mired. It was painted by Phillips, and is perhaps the one now in the National Portrait Gallery. A contemporary opinion ranked it with Vandyck. The Portrait of the late lamented Princess Charlotte, by Dawe (42), was of course a centre of attraction on account of its subject, for the death of the young Princess had taken place only six months before the opening of the Academy. The Prince Regent was much affected when he saw the portrait in the exhibition, and said that he was with his daughter when she sat for it. Raeburn’s portraits were well spoken of, and praise was given to one by Jackson, No. 20, of Lord Grosvenor. _ But the portrait of the year, so far as general interest was concerned, was that by Lawrence of the Duke of Wellington (165) painted for Lord Bathurst. It is the one in which the victor at Waterloo is represented in the dress he wore on that great occasion and seated on the horse, Copenhagen, he rode throughout the battle. Lawrence had promised to paint a ver- sion of the portrait for his old friend and patron Angerstein, to whom he wrote the following letter. It shows that Anger- stein’s version was to be something more than a mere replica. 287 [r818] ART IN ENGLAND The Grand Duke Michael of Russia, for whom Lawrence had undertaken to make a copy, was in London in the summer of 1818 and saw and admired the portrait at the Academy. The “Wellington Tree”? mentioned is one under which the British commander alighted at Waterloo. Some years after the Duke’s death a block of wood from the tree was sold as a relic at Sotheby’s. Lawrence’s letter to Angerstein is dated August 6th, 1818: My Dear Sir, Mr West is obliged to be at Windsor the whole of next week, or he would have the greatest pleasure in waiting on you. He hopes you will permit him to do so after his return, when I will acquaint you of the days on which he is disengaged, for your choice of invitation. Mr Farington is recruiting himself in the Isle of Wight, where I ee or rather for his health’s sake, hope, he will remain for some considerable time. At the end of next week (on Saturday if you will call) I hope to show your picture of the Duke of Wellington in progress, though not advanced progress. The Grand Duke Michael has solicited Lord Bathurst for a copy, and his Lordship grants the request, but yours shall be the first completed, and in some respects will be different. In the expression of the countenance, and possibly in the introduction of the tree, which has ever since been called the ‘Wellington Tree”. I can answer, I am sure, for the Duke on its completion giving me a sitting for it, so that it may be in that respect an original portrait. I hope all the family are well, and remain, Ever with the highest respect, Most faithfully yours, Thos. Lawrence. The summer exhibition of the British Institution, which opened on the same day as the Academy, was composed of Italian, Flemish, Dutch and French paintings by Old Masters; and Raphael’s cartoons, The Gate of the Temple and Christ giving the Keys to St Peter, borrowed from the royal collection. The Prince Regent lent nine of his own pictures, and the interest he took in the exhibition helped to make more popular than ever the evening receptions held by the aristocratic and wealthy sub- 288 THE BRITISH INSTITUTION [rér8] scribers to the Institution. These receptions were now a regular feature of the London season, and the newspapers published long lists of the nobility and others who attended them. Haydon has left us an impression of the British Institution on one of these summer nights, of the pictures seen in the warm glow of the many lamps; and more particularly of the brilliant throng that crowded the galleries, members of a world whose luxury he could not help envying, painter though he was. After attending one of the evening receptions, he writes in his diary: The beauty of the women, the exquisite, fresh, nosegay sweetness of their looks, their rich crimson velvet, and white satin, and lace, and muslin and diamonds; with their black eyes and peachy complexions, and snowy necks and delicious forms, and graceful motions and sweet nothingness of con- versation, bewildered and distracted me. What the nobility have to enjoy in this world! What has not the Prince? Yet they do not seem happy; they want the stimulus of action. With the Old Masters exhibitions at the Institution everything was pleasant and prosperous. ‘There was no difficulty in ob- taining good pictures when the Directors could draw upon the royal collection as well as the best of those in private hands. The attendance was always excellent, and as a shilling was charged for a catalogue in addition to a similar sum for ad- mission, the profits were considerable. But the exhibitions of modern art were never free from suspicions of intrigue such as that referred to by Hazlitt in 1816, when he hinted that Hofland owed his prominent places on the walls to friendly influence. A painter, writing this year to complain of the administration, says: “The British Institution has disappointed the hopes of the public through the management being left too much in the hands of servants. As might be expected, the hopes and feelings of the artists have been trifled with, favouritism has crept in, and it has been necessary to use interest and conciliate menials.”’ Nevertheless the value of the Institution to artists was in- disputable. It was in its way a court ofappeal from the Academy, and not only in the case of rejections. Many pictures badly hung and unnoticed at Somerset House brought reputation and wa 289 19 [z8r8] ART IN ENGLAND profit to their painters when shown subsequently in good places at the British Institution, where pains were taken to sell the exhibited works, although no commission was charged. “‘The artists,» we are told, “‘receive without the smallest deduction the sums paid for their pictures. It is immediately handed over to them, and mostly in the same cheques or cash paid in by the purchaser.”” The Academy did nothing in this way to assist artists, for it had abandoned, after two or three years trial, the scheme for encouraging sales set on foot in 1811. A new exhibition for the sale of pictures was opened in the autumn, something on the lines of the one mentioned in chapter xv. Its proprietor had taken No. 28 Leicester Square, formerly the house and surgical museum of John Hunter, and fitted up there a large gallery, in which he proposed to exhibit approved pictures free of charge for a period of four months, after which, if unsold, they were to be replaced by others. There was to be no rent for wall space, and no charges of any kind except a very moderate commission on sales. The exhibition remained open for some time but was never popular. In the autumn Lawrence set out for Aix-la-Chapelle. He was to paint there for the Prince Regent the portraits of the Allied Sovereigns and other great personages attending the Congress, and in view of the importance of the commission The Times thought fit to lecture the painter upon an alleged weakness, in the following terms: Everybody must applaud the feeling which has induced the Prince to give this order, and if we had any weight with Sir Thomas Lawrence we would entreat him to add to the merit of his beautiful portraits that essential one of resemblance. In general his portraits have scarcely a shadow of likeness; witness his last portrait of the Prince Regent, who was represented, not as a staid and manly Prince of fifty-five, but as a mere foppish youth of twenty- five, who had no cares but of wearing his regimentals sprucely. Sir Thomas Lawrence should recollect that a flattering painter seldom survives, and that a lasting character in art, as in everything else, must have its basis in truth. The English Government, fearing that there would be no apartment at Aix suitable for a painting-room for Lawrence, had a temporary building constructed and sent out in parts for 290 LAWRENCE AT AIX [1878] the artist’s use. On this Lawrence had reckoned, and was dis- mayed to find on reaching Aix that nothing was known of its whereabouts. It was at length discovered at Antwerp, to which port it had been shipped, and was sent on at once to Aix, where a site for the painting-room had been fixed upon in Lord Castlereagh’s garden. Lady Castlereagh undertook to lay the first plank, and the whole Corps Diplomatique assembled to witness the ceremony; but it was then discovered that essential parts of the fabric were missing—probably purloined—and could not be replaced on the spot. However, a suitable room was found at the Hotel de Ville and in this the portraits were painted. According to the correspondent of a newspaper who tells the story, the temporary building, in which half the monarchs of Europe were to have sat to Lawrence, was sold for forty napoleons to the keeper of a cabaret, who turned it into a drinking saloon. The building of it in England had cost £1200. While Lawrence was at Aix painting Royalty, two of his most distinguished fellow-Academicians, Turner and Chantrey, were in Scotland; Turner making sketches to illustrate Provincial Antiquities, and Chantrey travelling for pleasure with his wife. The painter and the sculptor were great friends and always happy together, but from a letter of Turner’s about Chantrey’s diploma work it seems improbable that they met in the north. Chantrey, as we have seen, had been elected a Royal Academician early in the year, but before he could take his seat and serve on the Council, it was necessary that he should submit an example of his work to be permanently deposited in the Diploma Gallery if accepted. This he had neglected to do, and Turner, who was himself to serve on the Council by rotation in 1819 and was looking forward to the pleasure of Chantrey’s society, wrote to him as follows to remind him of his duty: Queen Anne St West, London. Thursday, Oct. 22nd, 1818. Dear Chantrey, From what I heard last night, viz.: that Mr Rhodes had left London to meet you in your way from Edinburgh, I begin to fear that I shall not arrive 291 19-2 [7878] ART IN ENGLAND before you leave it, though I hope to be in Edinburgh by this day week. I therefore write to beg of you to send West’s Bust for your diploma, that we may be in the Council together. I think there are many reasons for your sending it now, that you had I heard once intended to do so, and therefore pray do order the Bust to be sent directly to the Academy, and leave me a note at Macgregor’s or the Post Office that you have or will do so, as I — try if a letter will find you at Sheffield. Yours most truly, Jj. M. W. Turner. The bust of Benjamin West reached the Academy in time to be accepted as Chantrey’s diploma work, and thus enabled the two friends to serve on the Council together until 1821. At the election of Associates in 1817 Constable had been so well supported that there seemed every chance of his success this year. But the result of the voting, which took place on November 2nd, was disappointing to the landscape painter. Only one Associateship was vacant, and to this Washington Allston was elected by ten votes to five for H. P. Bone. Constable, who had eight votes in the last ballot of 181 7, had now but a single supporter. Allston, the third American to obtain Academic rank, was an industrious and conscientious artist whose sincerity and charm of manner had made for him many friends in England, and his large paintings of Biblical subjects were popular at this time. In 1814 the Directors of the British Institution awarded him a premium of 200 guineas for his picture, sixteen feet by twelve, The Dead Man restored to Life by touching the bones of the Prophet Elisha; and in the year of his election he gained another, of £150, for The Angel Uriel. When Allston was elected he was at sea, on his way home to Boston, where he remained until his death. It will be remembered that Allston, who was educated at the - Royal Academy, was permitted by the Council to return to the schools for a time, and work from the life, although his period of studentship had expired. No friction was caused by this be- — cause Allston took no part in the prize competitions. But when, in the year of which I am now writing, a similar privilege was granted to Etty, he became a candidate for the medal for copying 292 ee ee Oe ea a ETTY AS A COPYIST [z8r8] a picture (Titian’s Ganymede, lent by Angerstein) and would have won it had it not been for the protests of other competitors. They appealed to the Council to rule Etty out of the contest on the ground that it was unfair for a man of thirty-one, a pro- fessional artist, to compete with students still in training. They complained further, and it could not be denied, that Etty had broken the rules by removing his copy from the school for a day and working on it at home. The Council minutes contain the following entries relative to this matter: Nov. 5th, 1818. Read a letter from two of the students requesting that Mr Etty may not be admitted a candidate for the Premiums offered in the Painting School, he having been a student more than ten years, and having also removed his picture and worked on it at home. Enquired into, result was: Resolved that Mr Etty having removed his picture from the Academy is not admissible as a candidate for the premium in the School of Painting. Also that he was not entitled to compete for any premium offered in the Royal Academy as he had been for more than ten years a student. Nov. 17th, 1818, The Council, taking into consideration the distinguished merit displayed by Mr Etty in the copy from Titian which he has recently made in the Painting School of the Academy, and considering also Mr Etty’s general good conduct and assiduity as a student, request the President will take occasion on the distribution of the Premiums to express to that gentleman their high approbation of his work, which the laws of the Academy have excluded from competition on the present occasion. Resolved that the Secretary send Mr Etty a copy of the above resolution, requesting him to leave his picture at the Academy for the inspection of the General Assembly. The medal was awarded to a student named Stevens, one of the two who had protested against the entry of Etty into the competition. To Stevens it was presented at the prize-giving on December 1oth, when, however, Shee, who took the chair in the place of West, made some flattering comments on the copy executed by Etty. Angerstein’s Ganymede from which it was made is in the National Gallery. It is not now ascribed to Titian but only to a painter of his school. CHAPTER XxX 1819 Amonc the important events of the season of 1819 was the opening to visitors of two private collections of uncommon interest, those of Mr Walter Fawkes and Sir John Leicester. Mr Fawkes, of Farnley Hall, Wharfedale, Yorkshire, was the friend and devoted admirer of ‘Turner, and his collection, shown at his town house in Grosvenor Place, was composed principally of watercolours by that great landscape painter. Mr Fawkes was a rich man and his house was finely furnished, and he was careful therefore to print on his tickets of invitation, ““No admission if the weather be wet or dirty”. The same condition was observed at this time at Lord Grosvenor’s gallery, where even as late as 1850 visitors were warned by a line on the admission cards to wipe their feet on the mat before entering. Perhaps the pre- cautions were necessary, for London in the first half of the nineteenth century must have been intolerably muddy in wet weather. 3 At the house of Mr Fawkes the visitors, to quote from a con- temporary account of the exhibition, “‘gave up their tickets in the hall, and were ushered up a handsome flight of stairs with marble statues in niches, into the suite of rooms in which the pictures were. Catalogues were lying on the tables, and thus every advantage was given for indulging in these fine works of art”’. ‘The catalogue, of which there is a copy in the Royal Academy Library, presented by Mr Fawkes through Turner, contains a dedication, a frontispiece, and a view of the principal drawing-room, in which most of the best drawings were hung. The dedication shows how intimate and sympathetic was the friendship between the Yorkshire squire and the London painter, 294 CS ee ge a a tty 2 ee ee ee A TRIBUTE TO TURNER [r8r9] who probably spent the happiest periods of his strange life at Farnley, a house he could never bring himself to visit after the death of his patron in 1825. This is the dedication: To J. M. W. Turner, Esq., R.A., P.P. My dear Sir, The unbought and spontaneous expression of the public opinion respecting my Collection of Water Colour Drawings, decidedly points out to whom this little catalogue should be inscribed. To you, therefore, I dedicate it, first as an act of duty, and secondly as an Offering of Friendship; for, be assured, I can never look at it without intensely feeling the delight I have experienced during the greater part of my life from the exertion of your talent and the pleasure of your society. That you may year after year reap an accession of fame and fortune is the anxious wish of your sincere friend, Walter Fawkes. London, June, 1819. The frontispiece and the view of the drawing-room are both by Turner. The first is a drawing of a large flat stone, standing upright in a valley, with a pool and weeds in the foreground. On the top of the stone rest a palette, brushes and sketchbook, and on its face are inscribed the names of all the artists repre- sented in the collection. The view of the drawing-room is a model of carefulness. Every detail is rendered of the furniture, the pictures, the carpets, the great cut glass chandelier, and the cornice. The engraving also shows, through a wide doorway, a vista of other rooms. All the watercolours in the large drawing- room, forty in number, were by Turner; and there were twenty more by him, described as sketches, in the bow drawing-room. In another drawing-room and in the music room were water- colours by various artists, including De Wint, Prout, Varley, Glover, Cox, Fielding, Nicholson, Robson, Gilpin and J. Ibbet- son—the last not Julius Caesar Ibbetson but an amateur friend of Mr Fawkes. It is curious that the Yorkshire collector’s gallery contained not a single example of Girtin, although he had painted in Wharfedale and was the friend of Turner. bilo | At the end of the catalogue are printed some extracts an the newspaper notices of the exhibition, presumably the 205 [r8r9] ART IN ENGLAND ‘“‘ynbought and spontaneous expression of the public opinion” referred to in the dedication. The notices are all appreciative and laudatory, as were others unquoted by Mr Fawkes. The writer of one of these in the Repository of Arts is enthusiastic about the sketches by Turner in the bow drawing-room, sketches of different parts of the Farnley estate. ““They appeared to us (at least many of them) to be done in distemper, and will perhaps by artists be preferred to the finished drawings in the adjoining apartment. As they are not classed in the catalogue, it is im- possible for us to refer to them in detail; it will be sufficient to say that they are the best examples we have ever seen of the unrivalled powers of this artist in landscape views.” The other private collection to which visitors were admitted, that of Sir John Leicester, had been on view in part in 1818, but the baronet’s fine gallery in Hill Street (once Robert Heath- cote’s library) was not completely arranged until 1819. Sir John Leicester’s collection differed from those of Lord Stafford, Lord Grosvenor and Mr Angerstein in that it contained only pictures by English artists, eighteenth century and contemporary. There were no Old Masters at Hill Street, but the English pictures were sufficiently attractive to draw from six to eight hundred visitors on each of the Thursday afternoons on which they were ad- c pwr as en ee / vi ree ene ee ee ‘ ere) Mae mitted. The gallery was attended on the first afternoon of the — season ““by a crowd of taste, talent and fashion, including many distinguished ornaments of the Peerage, and their ladies; several celebrated members of the Senate, and smiling belles who form the enchantment of the first circles” In the gallery, pictures by Sir Votes Wilson and Roniney | hung upon the walls side by side with such recently acquired works as Hilton’s just painted Europa; and Lawrence’s full-length of the charming mistress of the house, in which Lady Leicester was represented as Hope. One of the Romneys was a half-length of Lady Hamilton when young, showing her with vine leaves in her hair, which Sir John had bought from the painter himself for a small sum. It appeared at Christie’s in 1927 and was sold to Messrs Knoedler for 10,000 guineas. There were four Turners 296 THE EXAMPLE OF FRANCE [r8r9] that had been exhibited not long before at the Academy, the famous Sun Rising in a Mist (now at the National Gallery), The Blacksmith’s Shop, and the two views of Tabley, Sir John’s seat in Cheshire. Another Turner was the Pope’s Villa on the Thames, which a critic described as a very correct representation of the house before its appearance had been changed by recent and much criticized alterations made by Baroness Howe. Gainsborough’s Cottage Door, the picture that was so long at Grosvenor House and is now in America, was also in the col- lection at Hill Street, where it was hung in a room by itself and surrounded by mirrors in order that its beauties might be studied in every aspect. At this time the Cottage Door had just been re- turned from the hands of William Redmore Bigg, R.A., who had cleaned the picture and is said to have restored it to something like its original force and freshness. Sir John Leicester’s gallery was the only one of its kind to which admission, even with the necessary card of invitation, was really gratuitous. His servants had orders not to take money if it were offered, and visitors were informed of this regulation by a framed notice hanging in the entrance hall. The regulation was the subject of comment by the writer of a letter published in the Literary Gazette, who describes a visit to Hill Street with a friend, a Frenchman interested in pictures. He says that he noticed his friend taking some silver out of his pocket, and assured him that it was unnecessary; that there was nothing to pay, as Sir John opened his house solely for the encouragement of the arts. The Frenchman regretted that other collectors did not follow his example, and mentioned famous private galleries where he had been obliged to submit to the extortions of the servants before he was allowed to see anything. It was not so in France. ‘There is another thing,’ he added, “‘peculiar to England. The pleasures of the fine arts are enjoyed here only by the well- to-do. Why are the common people excluded from them? In Paris the poorest Frenchman may visit our magnificent Louvre.” The Englishman said the French people had a cultivated taste 297 [z8r9] ART IN ENGLAND and respected works of art, but that it might be dangerous to admit a London crowd to a gallery. ““Try them,” urged his friend, ““Give them an opportunity. Begin by opening the Academy and the British Institution free one day a fortnight, and see that the visitors take in no sticks and that only as many are admitted as the rooms will hold conveniently. They will soon learn how to behave themselves.” The question of the need for a public collection of pictures — } accessible to all was raised at about the same time by a corre- spondent of the Morning Herald. Many foreigners, he said, were now visiting London and all enquired about the situation of our National Gallery. They were astonished to learn that our great country had no institution of the kind, although public collections were possessed by many petty states in Germany and Italy. He © concluded with an appeal to the Government to proceed at once with the too long delayed foundation of a national gallery of pictures. But he spoke to deaf ears. A long period was yet to elapse before Englishmen could enter a picture gallery by nga 4 and without payment. Early in February the annual exhibition of modern work was opened at the British Institution, where the centre of attraction was John Martin’s large picture The Fall of Babylon (176). It was enthusiastically received by the newspapers, especially by the Examiner, whose critic said in his review: The spectators crowd around it, some with silent, others with exclamatory, admiration; sometimes very near to look at the numerous small objects that __ cannot be distinguished at a distance, sometimes farther off to feast upon the __ grandeur of the whole; leaving it, but, still thrilling with the strange and felicitous impression, coming back to it again after having looked at most of the other pictures with an absent mind, like a lover who is but half attentive to other women in a delicious reverie on the superior charms of her who has the keeping of his heart. So exuberant is this noble work in matter for — gazing and description that a very extended criticism ought to be written upon it to do it justice. We shall endeavour to describe it as far as our brief limit will allow. The “brief limit” extended to nearly two columns and a half — of rhapsody! 298 unieyp uyof Ag NOTAEVA AO TIVd AHL SUIADASUA UD WOT Se pater beaten 2 tee ixane a CONSTABLE SELLS A PICTURE [r8r9] No doubt Martin’s now almost forgotten picture increased the attendance at the British Institution whose exhibition enjoyed a prosperous season, for in the four first days alone the sales amounted to more than £1000. One of the works sold was No. 78, A Mill, by Constable, of the composition of which nothing is known. It is described in the New Monthly Magazine as “‘very cleverly painted, and the fore and middle grounds happily related, but the sky heavy in parts and somewhat deficient in clearness”. A second picture by Constable in this exhibition was No. 44, Osmington Shore, near Weymouth, “‘not a happy performance, but a sketch of barren sand without in- terest, and very unlike the artist’s other pleasing works of home scenery’. The sale of A Mill, which is not recorded by Leslie, was encouraging to its painter who so far had disposed of few of his landscapes except to friends. The purchaser was Mr Pin- horn. It was a good beginning to what was to prove a fortunate year for Constable in more ways than one. On the day of the opening of the exhibition at the British Institution, Haydon gave a private view of some drawings by his pupils, Thomas and Charles Landseer and William Bewick. The drawings, studies from Raphael’s cartoons and the Elgin Marbles, were only eight in number, and the youths who had produced them were unknown to fame; yet Haydon managed to attract a fashionable and distinguished company to the private view. The published list of visitors was a long one. It began with the Prussian, Swedish and Saxon Ministers, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Grosvenor and Lord Radstock; and ended with “Coleridge the Poet and Turner the Painter’’. ‘The drawings were afterwards shown by Haydon at a gallery in St James’s Street at a charge of a shilling for admission and six- pence for a catalogue. William Carey, who visited the gallery and protested against the charge for the catalogue of eight drawings as an imposition, says the exhibition was a failure. On the occasion of his visit there were only two people in the room, himself and a friend he took with him. While this exhibition was open, William Hilton, who, as we 299 [z8r9] ART IN ENGLAND have seen, was regarded as Haydon’s rival as a painter of historical pictures, was elected a Royal Academician. The elec- — tion, on February roth, was to fill a place made vacant by the death of Theed the sculptor. Hilton was successful by the ~ narrowest majority. He had twelve votes against eleven for — William Collins. Two votes were given for Baily the sculptor, and one for Joseph Gandy the architect. Turner was the senior member of the Hanging Committee © this year. It was the third occasion on which he had served. — The other hangers were ‘Turner’s friend, Chantrey, who was serving for the first time, Soane and Rossi. Turner, therefore, ’ . ae Pel eine a Khe as pe ee eS, ee ee Kees Ce ee eee é Vs CE ae in Sie ed oe A ui -s - on Shia ars gs was the only painter on the Committee, and must have been responsible principally for the arrangement of the pictures, upon which there were some unfavourable comments in the press. It was complained that De Wint’s View of a Watermill in Derbyshire (308) was hung in a dark corner, the worst place in the exhibi- tion, and that Constable’s “fine landscape”’ was not in the best — room. Turner contributed two pictures to the exhibition, one of which was the largest on the walls. This was England: Richmond Fill on the Prince Regent’s Birthday (206) ; not a very happy example ~ | of the painter’s skill, although it was accorded a good deal of contemporary praise. The Examiner, after complimenting Turner — on this picture, compares him with Constable, and says: Of a very different style, though equally successful of its kind, is Mr Constable’s, who, though he also is still far from pencilling with Nature’s q precision, gives her more contracted features, such as a wood or a windmill on a river, with more of her aspect. He does not give a sentiment, a soul, to the exterior of Nature as Mr Turner does; he does not at all exalt the spectator’s mind, which Mr Turner eminently does, but he gives her outward look, her complexion and physical countenance. He has none of the poetry of Nature like Mr Turner, but he has more of her portraiture. His Scene on the River Stour (251) is indeed more approaching to the outward lineament and look of trees, water, boats, etc., than any of our landscape painters. The Scene on the River Stour, often spoken of as ‘‘Constable’s White Horse”? from an animal prominent in the composition, — was the “‘fine landscape”’ mentioned above as not in the best room. It was the most important picture yet exhibited by the — 300 ove r . ly ee a eee et SA ee THE RIVAL HIGHLANDERS [rérg9| artist, who this year began to show signs of coming into his kingdom. There was a prediction of his approaching fame in the following notice of the Scene on the River Stour, which appeared in the Literary Chronicle: What a grasp of everything beautiful in rural scenery! This young artist is rising very fast in reputation, and we predict that he soon will be at the very top of that line of the art of which the present picture forms so beautiful an ornament. Constable at the time of the exhibition of this picture could hardly be called a young artist, for he was forty-three. He started late and his art so far had received no official recognition. He was not yet even an A.R.A., while Turner, his senior by only fourteen months, had been a full Academician for seventeen years. But Constable’s recognition by the Academy was not far off and it was probably the success of the Scene on the River Stour that brought it about. The exhibition of 1819 also brought good fortune to one of Constable’s closest friends, John James Chalon, whose interesting landscape Hastings (371), now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, was much admired and noticed by the newspapers. Lawrence, who was on the continent this year executing his numerous commissions for the Prince Regent, sent nothing to the Academy, but all the other portrait painters of repute were represented in the exhibition. It has been suggested that one of the portraits, A Highland Chief (212) by Raeburn, was his famous full-length of The Macnab, but it seems improbable that the artist would have exhibited it some years after the sitter’s death. A Highland Chief was noticed in the press and admired for its “sraceful, manly air’’. This is all the description we have, and graceful is not an adjective that could be used in connection with the sturdy, rugged figure of The Macnab. Shee also ex- hibited a full-length of a gentleman in Highland dress (137) which attracted much more newspaper attention than the Raeburn. Shee’s Highlander is described as the subject of uni- versal admiration, ‘‘standing with the natural ease of a Scottish chieftain, in a bold, soldierly attitude, as firm as a rock’’, with 301 [z8r9] ART IN ENGLAND a background of mountainous landscape. Oddly enough the gentleman painted by Shee in a Highland costume was a — Mr Macnabb! Wilkie, who in 1818 had been reproached for painting trivial subjects, now showed a work of importance, No. 153, The Penny Wedding (a commission from the Prince Regent), which was the most popular picture in the exhibition and restored the artist to his former prominence in the eyes of the public. Some stir — was caused by a picture in Wilkie’s vein, No. 269, The Post Office, by Rippingille, in whom certain critics recognized a new genius. The Post Office, whose subject was “‘the delivery of Letters — and Newspapers at the Post Office and the various impressions on the minds of those who peruse them’’, was supposed to be a work of tremendous promise, but nothing came of it, and Rippingille when he died in 1859 was a poor man partly dependent on the charity of the Royal Academy. He wrote — sometimes on pictures and painting, and in 1843 published a short-lived journal, The Artist’s and Amateur’s Magazine. | The painter of The Post Office was a pupil of Edward Bird, R.A., who died this year, in November, at Bristol, in which city most of his work was done. Bird, who was a self-taught artist, began to exhibit at the Academy in 1809, and with such popular ~ success that he was looked upon as a worthy rival of Wilkie. — In 1815 he was so highly regarded by his brother-artists that when he and Raeburn were elected Academicians on the same — evening, Bird was the first chosen. West had a high opinion of Bird as a painter, and soon after his Choristers Rehearsing was exhibited at the Academy in 1810 wrote to him to say that he should like to buy it, “in order to see it in the possession of a person duly qualified to appreciate its merit”. It was through West, no doubt, that the picture was acquired by the Prince Regent, to whose collection it was afterwards added. Bird’s success for a few years was phenomenal, and in 1812, — Sir Charles Long, then regarded as an authority on the arts, — predicted that he would rank with the best artists England had produced, and that no one could say to what excellence he 302 OO ee Se me en ae Bo ees te a, Pics tage ecg at Ait MO auaniak aoe Dirvt S ei: Siew rae SA Se Fe he eae See BR ee te: Tony een, REE eee Te ee ee 4 v4 OU a: Mate ie ee S- ¥. Pip why ad te: San tac a a. tat oe PETER PINDAR [z8r9] might not arrive. Nevertheless he has been forgotten and to most of the artists of to-day his name and work are alike unfamiliar. Allan Cunningham, who wrote a picturesque but inexact life of Bird, said that his father was a clothier, and that the future artist was so precocious that when he was only three or four years old he would rise at dawn and draw figures with chalk on the walls and furniture. Through this, says Cunningham, *““he was continually in disgrace with the servant maids of his father’s house, who had to make use of their mops and scrubbing brushes after these early risings’’. But a reviewer of Cunningham in Blackwood’s scoffed at his stories of Bird. The reviewer, who had known the artist, said that his father was not a clothier but a journeyman carpenter, who had never had a servant-maid. Cunningham was also reprimanded for libelling the people of Bristol in allegations of unfair treatment of their townsman, and in conclusion the writer in Blackwood’s quoted the following letter he had received from Bird’s brother: Sir, I have sent you the information I promised concerning the late E. Bird, R.A., the historical painter. He was born in Wolverhampton on April rath, 1772. His father was a carpenter by trade. My brother served his apprentice- ship at Messrs Jones and Taylor’s, painters and japanners. He left this town for Bristol in his 23rd year, where he resided until his death. Yours resp. T. Bird. The year 1819 also witnessed the death of John Wolcot, a remarkable man who was something of an artist but is best known to the world for his satirical verse, particularly the delightful Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians. “Dr Wolcot,”’ said the Morning Herald of January 22nd, “‘known by the name of Peter Pindar, was buried yesterday in St Paul’s, Covent Garden, Churchyard, close to the grave of Butler. The body was drawn in a hearse, preceded by a man bearing a plume of black feathers; three mourning coaches followed. Several literary gentlemen were present.” 393 [7879] ART IN ENGLAND John Taylor, who knew Wolcot well, says that he lost money over the publication of the Lyric Odes, although they were widely read and keenly appreciated. He produced many things besides — satires, for his muse was versatile, as his friend the composer, William Jackson of Exeter, claimed in the following appiec tion—little known because it was not published until both the — poet and musician had been many years in their graves: Wolcot gave me at different times many beautiful songs and other pieces of his charming poetry, of which I afterwards made great use. He is one of the most extraordinary men of the present times. In his poetry he is by turns vulgar, delicate, abusive—and sometimes sublime. He neither begs, borrows or steals, but is always himself and himself alone. His conversation is rarely entertaining and never informing. ‘‘What mortal could suppose,” said a lady, ‘*‘that such a man had written so many fine things?”’ Wolcot began his career — in the great world by abusing the painters and the King, but long before his “Exhibition Odes” he published a poem in the Gentleman’s Magazine, the — subject “‘A Cornish Ball in a Barn”’, truly original and full of humour. —_ On November ist Constable was at length elected an Associate — of the Royal Academy. His name had been on the candidates’ list for many years, and he had received occasional support at — elections, only to be passed over by men of inferior ability. The attendance of members was small on the occasion of his election, and he received but eight votes, against five for his future biographer, Charles Robert Leslie, who was a candidate for the first time. Two or three other artists received single votes. To — Constable, this year brought nothing but good luck, for he came © into £4000, his share of his father’s estate, and a legacy of a similar amount was left to his wife by her grandfather, Dr Rhudde. These sums together were equivalent to more than — £20,000 to-day, yet Constable, who lived simply and in a small house, was pleading poverty little more than two years after- — wards. Writing to Archdeacon Fisher in April, 1822, he Says: ““T want money a and must beg a great favour of you... — the loan of £20 or £30”. aa, 8 Turner was not present on the occasion of Constable’s election. — He was in Italy with Lawrence, Chantrey, Jackson and Tom ’ Moore, sightseeing and working, though not showing anything. — O04: © wa q _ et ee al oo! SS ee la ae So ae es, ner ae oe a a - . aj Pd ae a oN ee ee nerd yrs. ‘VY ‘uo[eyDH sowef uyof Ag SONILSVH WUNASN]T 142Q] ff PUY 01401914 ay] Ul BulzUIMg AY] MOAT ~~. t ts ee — Py oe . % = - ee S + ‘ - = Pg re * 5 Ps ae hi e Tee ” + ! é » é res = \ N s =e ws « + . a a > n x 4 ‘ 3 sf mt Pe *% CHANTREY AND THE BRIGANDS [rér9] The Rome correspondent of a London journal, after speaking of the “‘constellation” of English talent lately gathered together in the city, says: Turner was here some time but did nothing for Rome, to our very great disappointment. His magic powers would have confirmed the enchantment of the Italians. He reserves himself for London, but he has not been idle, having made innumerable sketches of compositions which he permitted no one to see—not from any illiberality as some thought, but simply because they were too slight to be understood. While the English artists were in Italy rumours were circulated in London that Chantrey, who was known to be wealthy, had been captured by brigands and compelled to pay a ransom before he could obtain his release. Some of the newspapers got hold of the story, which was believed even by the careful Wilkie, who retailed it thus to a Suffolk correspondent: Chantrey the sculptor has been at Rome, and as he has met with an ad- venture not uncommon there now, I shall relate it. When travelling from Rome to Naples he was attacked by banditti, seized and carried off to the mountains (they say blindfolded). Here he was offered his ransom for a hundred guineas, which he accepted by giving a draft for the money upon his banker in Rome, and when the brigands were assured that the draft had been honoured, and the money paid into the hands of their bankers!!!, they set him at liberty, probably well content that he got off so cheap, for it is well known that they had cut off a part of the ears of an English officer just before that, because he could not satisfy them with his ransom. It was a romantic story and by no means impossible of truth at the time. But it was destroyed by the postscript of a letter written by Chantrey to his friend Holland, on January 4th, 1820. Chantrey says, “‘I have not been robbed nor been carried off into the mountains, nor have I had my ears cut off.”’ CHAPTER 2x 1820 Ow February ist the servants of the Royal Academy were put | into mourning for George III, the founder of the institution, and on March 11th, “‘ between twelve and one o'clock in the morning”’, the Academy lost its President, Benjamin West. With the exception of George Dance the architect, West was the last survivor of the foundation members of the Royal Academy ~ who were appointed by George III in 1768. West, who was — born in the same year as the King, with whom he was for a long period on intimate terms, told a friend that His Majesty once asked how old he was. When told, the King said, “Ah! Then when J die, West, you will shake in your shoes’’. The President : was confined to his bed with the illness from which he was never to recover, when the death of the King was announced. Raphael West, who knew how much it would distress his father, tried to keep the newspapers from him, but he guessed the reason. ‘“‘T am sure,” he said, “‘that the King is dead and that I have lost the best friend I ever had in my life.” West’s funeral was conducted with more state even than that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, his predecessor in the Presidential chair. : The pall-bearers included the American Ambassador, Lord Aberdeen and Sir George Beaumont; and in the long procession © that followed the hearse from Somerset House to St Paul’s Cathedral were the carriages of three Dukes, two Marquises, nine Earls, an Archbishop and four Bishops, and the Lord Mayor. The major part of the cost of this imposing funeral was borne by the family. The Academy defrayed the expenses at- tached to the lying-in-state at Somerset House, the attendance ~ of its members, etc., and for this the undertaker’s bill was £221. 306 ae wr te ee en Se ae a F Fe : te et od RL ee eee ee igees — 7 atl Ie WEST IN NEWMAN STREET [7820] When Sir Joshua was buried the similar charges were met, not from the Academy chest but by a levy of thirty shillings each upon the Academicians and Associates. The cost of the funeral to West’s family was £694. The house in Newman Street in which West died had been his home for nearly fifty years. He bought it when a young man and added to and developed it according to his requirements. It was built round three sides of a garden with a grassplot in the centre, and contained in addition to the living rooms, two painting-rooms and a long and lofty gallery filled with its owner’s works. Leigh Hunt, who was related to West, often visited the house when he was a little boy, and describes the painter as always smart and well dressed, and looking what he was— the painter to a Court. In the intervals of painting he talked to the youthful visitor, and even teased him at times. “‘I re- member,” says Hunt, “being greatly mortified when Mr West offered me half a crown if I would solve the old question, ‘Who was the father of Zebedee’s children?’, and I could not tell him.” The child, when he visited West’s house, was always accompanied by his mother, who regarded the painter’s achievements with reverence. “‘We used to walk down the gallery,’? Hunt says, “‘as if we were treading on wool, and she would stop before some of the pictures with a countenance quite awe-stricken.”’ That Leigh Hunt’s mother should stand awe-stricken before some of West’s pictures was not surprising at a time when the general public regarded his work as inspired. We are told that when his Christ Rejected was exhibited in Pall Mall, “‘the spectators who thronged to view it, impressed with reverential awe, spon- taneously approached the picture uncovered’’. When Mrs Hof- land, the wife of the landscape painter, published in 1814 her novel, A Visit to London, she gave what purports to be an exact description of West, whom she knew intimately, and of the effect produced by his pictures. Miss Bouverie, the heroine of A Visit to London (a young lady of fashion), is taken to Newman Street by a noble Lord to be introduced to the President and see his work. They enter the gallery, she sees the picture, Christ 307 20-2 [1820] ART IN ENGLAND before Pilate, and immediately bursts into tears. Her escort speaks to her of West with reverence and when, presently, he comes in, she gazes “‘with no common admiration on the surprising artist, — whose conversation was only inferior to his unequalled pencil”. West brings out a small unfinished work and tells her that it was his first effort and that he painted it when he was eight ~ years old. This recollection of his childhood in America “affected the venerable man; he paused, and his glistering eye drew tears of delightful sympathy from his audience’’. While they are all — crying together over West’s first painting another visitor enters. It is a lady, who, seeing in one of the sketches a figure that reminds her of her mother, “‘at once bursts into tears and weeps hysterically”. The little picture which caused West so much emotion had — been sent to him some years earlier by his brother, who was still — living in America. It was painted at Newtown, a few miles from Philadelphia, West’s birthplace, to which he always looked ~ back with affection. In a letter written from Newman Street ~ in 1798 he recalls happily its “shady groves and refreshing streams’’, memories of which had been revived by a friend of — his boyhood, to whom he writes: Were I able to revisit those abodes I should feel a greater joy than that felt by Dr Johnson (that great luminary in the lettered world) whom I heard say at his club when a friend asked the Doctor—then just returned from visiting the place of his nativity after a space of forty years absence-—what gave him the greatest delight when there? ‘‘Why Sir,” replied the Doctor, “it was to jump over that stile when seventy years of age which I had been accustomed to jump over when I was a boy going to the day school.” From my feelings in the recollection of my juvenile footsteps I am persuaded that the Doctor spoke the dictates of his heart. West told his biographer, Galt, that there were touches in his — performance of eight years old which he had never surpassed. — This should not be taken too seriously, but it is certain that he — was precocious and that in his teens he had already made for — himself a reputation as a portrait painter in Philadelphia. In — February, 1758,.the American Magazine of that city published © 308 rE oat J te an Fl a ee i oe oe Poe at ee ee ee ae A anti’ hse Pcie Pan ee Gea ee, ge ee ee eee ee eer f a P- ; faire A Lr Te Pe Me Ne oe eee eke MA eee te 7 : ae” , , ee ae ee ee Rg ne A ag AN AMERICAN ROMANCE [r820] some verses, of which the following is one, ‘‘Upon seeing the portrait of Miss......by Mr West”: The easy attitude, the graceful dress, The rapt expression of the perfect whole, Both Guido’s judgment and his skill confess, Informing canvas with a living soul. In a note on the verses in the American Magazine the editor says that he prints them with particular pleasure: The lady who sat, the painter who guided the pencil, and the poet who so well describes the whole, are all natives of this place and very young. We are glad of the opportunity to make known to the world the name of so extraordinary a genius as Mr West. He was born in Chester County in this province, and without the assistance of any master has acquired such a delicacy and correctness of expression in his paintings, joined to such a laudable thirst of improvement, that we are persuaded when he shall have obtained more experience, and proper opportunities of viewing the pro- ductions of able masters, he will become truly eminent in his profession. A self-portrait of West at this early period was shown to him in 1816 by an American visitor to London, Mr Cook, of Phila- delphia, and the sight of it brought forth from the old artist some interesting reminiscences of his youth. He looked earnestly at the portrait and asked where it came from. Mr Cook told him that he had brought it from Philadelphia, and that West himself when there had given it to Miss Steele. She afterwards married a Mr W.... and was the mother of Mr Cook’s wife. “Yes, Sir,’ said West, ‘‘and well I remember it, tho’ it is now sixty years ago. And there is something more about it that maybe you don’t know. We were very much in love with one another, Sir, and this I did and gave her previous to my going to New York, whither I was sent for, to paint some portraits.” West, it appeared, might have married Miss Steele had it not been that her mother objected to a man of his profession as a son-in-law. It is common to speak of West as a Quaker, probably because he was in constant association at Philadelphia with members of the Society of Friends. But he never belonged to that Society. When Benjamin Smith Barton, the naturalist, came from America 309 [1820] ART IN ENGLAND to England in 1789, one of his fellow-passengers on the ship Apollo was John Pemberton, a native of Philadelphia and an eminent Quaker preacher. They discussed West in their con- — versations, and Barton preserved in a written note what Pem- — berton said of his religion. ‘‘Mr West was born in Chester County, about fourteen miles from Philadelphia. His father was” not a Quaker, although he frequented the meetings of the Friends and brought up his children to the same, but neither the father nor his son, the historical painter, were ever received into the ~ Society of Friends. Old Mr West was a very sober man. ~ A brother of Mr (Benjamin) West is now living in Newtown, — he is a very hard-working man and poor. This brother was ~ received into the Society of Friends.” 3 West was always happy when painting. He had no doubt that ~ he would rank with or before the greatest painters of all time, — and it is not surprising that he should believe this, con- sidering the fulsome flattery bestowed upon his achievements by — apparently sane and intelligent people. So clever a woman as ~ Jane Porter was moved in 1818 to beg of him as a precious relic a brush that he had used in producing one of his vast — religious canvases, and West, replying to her in all seriousness — says: APTS Te Pe AE Ve ee Me ee With this letter you will receive three brushes which have been used by — my hand in painting the pictures of Our Saviour receiving the Lame, Blind and Sickin the Temple; Christ Rejected; and of my greatest work, Death on the Pale Horse, now before the public on exhibition. You will see by the brushes that they have been much used in doing their duty in painting, as they are stumps not of any value; but to you the more valuable for the fact they have been engaged on to effect the before named works. A cast of the painter’s hand was long preserved in the picture — gallery of Sir John Leicester, as ‘‘an unostentatious but feeling — memorial of Mr West’s genius”. The cast was taken by Behnes — the sculptor, an hour after West’s death, and is said to have been curious in that it was in the exact action of holding a brush. The profound belief of West in himself was encouraged by the newspaper critics, who in the painter’s later years wrote the PB Peg ee) Reema Le ee eee ya ns y Fr Te I ge Ra BT Ge rae ee ak a oe degen ~~ , he pan, Pg) a 310 SALE OF WEST’S COLLECTION [1820] most egregious nonsense about the pictures he exhibited; pic- tures they compared constantly with those of the great Italians. One of the most foolish of his admirers was his biographer, Galt, who thus summed up his hero: “‘As an artist he will stand in the first rank. His name will be classed with those of Michael Angelo and Raphael; but he possesses little in common with either. As the former has been compared to Homer and the latter to Virgil, in Shakespeare we shall perhaps find the best likeness to the genius of Mr West.” West left all his property to his sons, Raphael and Benjamin. It included, besides a vast number of his own pictures, many by Old Masters, some of which were interesting and valuable. A contemporary estimate of the worth of the estate was £100,000. Whatever it was, Raphael West exhausted his share, and was obliged on two occasions to appeal to the Academy for help, which was given. It is not generally known that one of West’s executors was the notorious Henry Fauntleroy, the banker, who in 1824 was executed for forgery. Fauntleroy lived in Newman Street and much of the artist’s financial business was conducted by him. The collection of Old Masters made by the former President of the Royal Academy was sent to Christie’s soon after his death, but many of the pictures did not reach the reserve prices set upon them, and were withdrawn. Among these was the Titian, Death of Actaeon, for which it was said that West had refused £4000, although he had picked it up for a trifle in an auction room. At the sale it was bought in at 1700 guineas. The beautiful little Giorgione, A Man in Armour (often described as a portrait of Gaston de Foix), realized £147. It is not known from whom West bought this picture, but it was possibly from Sir Joshua who once owned A Warrior, by Giorgione, for which he paid 30 guineas at Sir John Taylor’s sale. The pictures from West’s own brush were not sold until some years after his death. Several are at the National Gallery, but West’s reputation has faded so completely that not one of them is now thought worthy of exhibition. There is, however, a picture by him at the Victoria B11 [1820] ART IN ENGLAND and Albert Museum, which is interesting though not very characteristic of his work. It shows West in Windsor Park, leaning against a tree, sketch-book in hand, while his servant and model, James Dyer, stands by his side, holding his master’s horse and his own. With the exception of one or two of his earlier pictures, such as the Death of Wolfe, West produced nothing that can survive. But if a bad painter, he was a good man and by his death the Academy students and many struggling artists lost a valued friend. No young painter was denied admission to his studio. “‘He had generally,” says Leslie, “‘a levee of artists at his house every morning before he began work. Nor did a shabby coat or an old hat ever occasion his door to be shut in the face of the wearer.”? And Leslie, who must have had his own opinion ~ about West’s pictures, declares nevertheless that no one was better qualified than he to give advice on every branch of the art. Sir Thomas Lawrence, whose promotion to the Presidentship was regarded as certain, was abroad when West died, and ar- rived in London only a few hours before the meeting of the Academicians held on the evening of March goth to choose a new leader. Lawrence was elected, but not unanimously as Sir Frederick Eaton states. Twenty-one votes were given to him and one each to Flaxman and Jackson. While Lawrence was on the continent two new Academicians had been elected, on February 1oth. Abraham Cooper, who was appointed to the place made vacant by the death of Mrs Lloyd (Mary Moser), defeated William Collins by fourteen votes to ten in the first 4 contest. In the second Collins was chosen to succeed Bird by a similar majority over Baily. It will be recollected that in 1816 when Hazlitt was reviewing in the Champion the modern work at the British Institution, he remarked on the consistent good fortune of Hofland. “‘At these rooms,” he said, ‘“‘we do not remember to have seen an ill- hung Hofland,” and he suggested that the landscape painter owed his excellent places on the walls to the good offices of Mr Young, the Keeper of the gallery. This favouritism was 312 AN INDIGNANT EDITOR [1820] noticed by others besides Hazlitt, and so too were the notices in the newspapers of Hofland’s work, frequent, lengthy, and always flattering, although as a painter he was by no means in the first flight. Hazlitt did not praise him in 1816, but in this year another critic was writing for the Champion—a critic so appreciative of Hofland that he commenced a notice of his pictures at the British Institution by stating that he was beyond question one of the first landscape painters of his age or country, or indeed of any age. All his landscapes were described and praised and such epithets applied to them as “a beautiful little picture’’, ‘a delicious picture”’, and “‘not unworthy of Claude”’. ‘And yet,” said the writer, indignantly, “‘Mr Hofland cannot get admission among the Academicians—where, however, it could be but little honour to mingle with many of his inferiors, and where jobbery and intrigue, not sterling pretensions, are the requisite qualifications for successful candidature.” A week later the following letter appeared in the journal in which this criticism had been published: To the Editor of the Champion. Sir, You will oblige me if you will state in your next paper what you charge for such puffs as that you got up for Mr Hofland; and whether you receive your payment in money, or in meat, pudding, etc., as I may perhaps want your services in that way? A Casual Reader. P.S. I am very generous at my table. The editor of the Champion, John Scott, was highly incensed at the suggestion that paid-for puffs could appear in his journal. He had never eaten with Mr Hofland or Mr Hofland with him, and no price could obtain the admission of a puff for any person or purpose, except as an advertisement. The letter, he said, was a curious effusion of meanness and malignity probably written by “‘a disappointed artist smarting under the lash of some former and well merited castigation”’. Wilkie, who had been accustomed to receive favourable notices of his work ever since he exhibited for the first time at the 313 [7820] ART IN ENGLAND Academy, must have been shocked to read the criticisms of one of the pictures he contributed to the British Institution, No. 109, Bacchanalians gathering Grapes. It was first attacked by the re- viewer of the Champion, Hofland’s friend, who, after praising a Highland subject shown by Wilkie, remarked: Of his Bacchanalians we must boldly say that it is a disgrace to his talents and to the gallery in which it is placed. We are informed that the figures were painted from life in the Royal Academy by Mr Wilkie when visitor there; but that is no reason why the disgusting objects that body of artists may be compelled by want of choice to place before the students, should be exhibited to the public. This criticism, unflattering to the models of the Royal Academy schools, seems to convey a suggestion of impropriety, from which no artist’s work is farther removed than that of Wilkie. Equally — unkind was this notice in The Times: Wilkie has three paintings. One of them, No. 109, Bacchanalians gathering Grapes, it is difficult to conceive that any artist possessing an idea of beauty could have painted; the figures are coarse, repulsive and out of drawing; and the whole is one of those errors men of genius make when they desert their proper sphere. On the others we can bestow unmixed commendation. Nothing is said in Wilkie’s diary of his motive in painting the ~ Bacchanalians or of the attacks upon the picture. He mentions it as a “fancy subject” for which he asked 100 guineas, and notes on April 2oth that it was returned to him unsold. In March, Haydon showed at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, the large picture, Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Ferusalem, upon — which he had been engaged for six years and for which he asked ~ 3000 guineas. Its exhibition was a great popular success and brought him not only credit but money, of which he was badly in need. He had a brilliant private view for which he sent out ~ 800 invitations, each signed by himself, and addressed to “all the Ministers and their Ladies, all the Foreign Ambassadors, all the Bishops, all the beauties in high life, and all the geniusesin town”. Mrs Siddons was there, and her approval of Haydon’s Christ, publicly stated while standing before the picture, im- pressed the listening crowd. Haydon has mentioned this, and ~ 314 HAYDON’S ADVERTISEMENT [7820] it is recorded by a journalist present at the private view. *“Mrs Siddons,”’ he says, “‘was very decided in her approbation of the head of Christ, and thought that its paleness, to which some objection was made, gave it an awful and supernatural air.” ‘he geniuses present in addition to Mrs Siddons included Wilkie and John Jackson—who were not too enthusiastic— Hazlitt and Keats. Scott, who visited London this spring, did not arrive until after the private view, and had his first account of the picture from Haydon himself, whom he met at a dinner party. Haydon’s description made Scott so curious, and so anxious to see the great work, that when the porter went to open the gallery at the Egyptian Hall next morning he found the author of Waverley sitting patiently on the stairs waiting for the door to be unlocked. Haydon’s picture was belauded in the newspapers, and his accomplishment compared with that of the great masters, as West’s had been. “Its colouring,” said The Times, “‘would stand well by the best productions of Titian’s pencil; while the character of the heads, the grand style of drawing in the figures, and the correctness and gusto displayed in the hands and feet, would not suffer by a comparison with Raphael himself.” Not long after this notice appeared, Haydon published in The Times a letter three-quarters of a column in length, On the Relative Encourage- ment of Sculpture and Painting in England, in which he complained that the sculptor while engaged on a national monument re- ceived monetary support, though none was given to the painter when immortalizing his country’s achievements on canvas. This was a preamble to much more about Haydon’s own business and particulars of some of his expenses. For models, he said, he had frequently been obliged to pay as much as half a guinea an hour. The letter appears to have been written chiefly with the idea of keeping its author’s affairs before the public, and its publication must have cost him something. For it is headed ** (Advertisement) ””! When Haydon engaged the room at the Egyptian Hall for the exhibition of his picture, he congratulated himself on the 3t5 [7820] ART IN ENGLAND absence of rivals, as West’s Christ Healing the Sick and his Death on the Pale Horse, though still on view in Pall Mall, had now lost their novelty and the enthusiasm about them had cooled. He — little thought that in two or three months his picture would be challenged by another as large, and bringing with it a continental reputation—and that it would be shown in the same building as his own. The picture was Gericault’s famous representation of the survivors of the crew of the French frigate, the Medusa, crowded together on the raft and seeing in the distance the ship that was to rescue them. The picture was much admired by the public and Gericault is said to have made £800 by exhibiting it in England, but it is not mentioned in Haydon’s memoirs, although it was shown for a long time in a room adjoining that in which the English painter’s work was hung. Gericault’s tragic canvas, though not extravagantly praised by most of the critics, touched one of them deeply. “‘ We confess,” he said, ‘‘that we have never been more penetrated in heart by any performance of the pencil. We never left one more re- luctantly, or thought of it more after we had left it, with a charmed melancholy. The impression can never forsake us.” At the Royal Academy, Farington, the elder Smirke and Hilton composed the Hanging Committee. The exhibition, according to John Wilson Croker, was of inferior quality. How- ever, he may have been put out of temper by the speeches at the dinner, upon which he comments in his diary: I sat at a small table with Messrs Bankes, Phillips, Campbell, Mulready, __ Turner, Sir Thomas Heathcote and Sir William Elford. The Duke of Sussex — speechifying—I never heard anything so bad! In one speech he got into certain ramifications out of which he could not extricate himself. It is the first time I ever heard him, and with my good will should be the last. A bad exhibition. There are but two good pictures in it to my taste, Sir William Grant, by Lawrence, and two boys by Mulready. All the rest is common- _ place except Fuseli, who is madder than ever. Mulready’s picture admired by Croker was The Wolf and the Lamb (106), which was bought by George IV, with whom it — was a particular favourite. For some reason or other the paint 316 THE KING AND THE CANDLES [7820] of this picture afterwards cracked so badly that Mulready declined to attempt to restore it, although he could accomplish wonders in that way. Redgrave says that when the picture was sent to Mulready to see if he could repair the damaged surface, he found that the whole of the lower part of the frame was covered with wax. It had dropped from the candles held by the King from time to time when he stood before The Wolf and the Lamb and explained its story to his friends. The portrait of Sir William Grant (171) was the most praised of Lawrence’s contributions, which to the general disappointment included none of the studies of monarchs and statesmen he had painted abroad. It was understood that the King objected to their exhibition. Some of the critics this year deplored the paucity of subjects of what they termed High Art, and lengthy notices were given of a picture by Fuseli which perhaps they regarded as in that category. But of the pictures generally not much was said. Etty’s Coral Finder (13) and Hilton’s Venus in search of Cupid (170) were praised; but Turner’s solitary contribution, Rome from the Vatican (206), did not arouse much enthusiasm. Constable showed two works, of which the principal was the large Landscape (17), a representation of Stratford Mill, not far from Bergholt. Of this picture—the one engraved by Lucas as The Young Waltonians —the Examiner said: | We shall arouse the jealousy of some professors, and of some exclusive devotees of the Old Masters in saying that the Landscape by Mr Constable has a more exact look of nature than any picture we have ever seen by an Englishman, and has been equalled by very few of the boasted foreigners of former days, except in finishing. The most popular picture at the Academy was one hanging in a place of honour in the Great Room, Wilkie’s Reading of the Will (151), for the possession of which the Kings of England and Bavaria had contended. It was now the property of the last named monarch. On the composition and planning of this picture Wilkie had bestowed immense pains. He had worked on a system that appears to have been new to him, and one which 317 [7820] ART IN ENGLAND is not mentioned in his voluminous biography by Allan Cun-— ningham. Writing to a friend in July of this year, Wilkie says that the Academy exhibition is closed and that his picture has been returned to him. He adds that he is now engaged princi- pally on the picture of the Chelsea Pensioners for the Duke of Wellington, and that the Hospital and other buildings in the background suit his composition so well that he intends to represent them in exact facsimile. Wilkie continues: There is an assistant which has been of great use to me in the picture of the Will, which I mean also to try in this: i.e. a model in clay of the groups of figures which I am to make, and which being properly coloured and put in a proper light and shadow, is one of the most powerful helps, next to nature © itself, for determining the effect of a picture. | This contrivance is a revival of the old system that is recorded of the Venetian and some of the Dutch painters, and to which they probably owed much of their science in the branch of clairobscure for which they were distinguished. I have now by me the entire model of the figures Reading the Will, who are placed in a wooden box made with all the doors and windows of the apartment; and who, with all the little tables, chairs, carpets, and even pictures on the walls are painted of their own natural colours, and when a proper light is let in upon them through one of the windows you will — believe me when I say that it is one of the most beautiful sights the eye of an artist can behold. To this I may say I owed a degree of force and cer- tainty in the effect of the picture that no other method could have secured me. This model has lately been seen by a number of artists with very great admiration. | Wilkie’s experiments in this direction are referred to by his friend, Mrs Thomson, who mentions in one of her notes about ~ him the little dolls he made for a model house, into which he could introduce the light from various directions. “‘It was Wilkie’s hope,”’ she says, “to attain the power of matching the different effects of daylight—morning, evening, etc. Pieces of © : gauze were stretched along an aperture at the extremity of the little structure, and these were doubled as daylight declined.”’ 7 7 The Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, which had developed from the original Society of Painters in Water Colours founded in 1804, altered its constitution this year. At the close a 318 ROBES FOR THE ACADEMICIANS [1820] of its exhibition, held in the old gallery in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, the Society issued the following advertisement, signed by Copley Fielding as Secretary: The Society of Painters begs to inform the Public that they have engaged the Great Room at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and will there open their seventh annual exhibition in April 1821, in the name of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, as it is their intention to admit paintings in water colours only into their future exhibitions, on the principle of those preceding the year 1813. Some change was necessary, for at the last exhibition at Spring Gardens the attendance was small and the expenditure exceeded the receipts. Nothing else was to be expected if the opinion of _ The Times art critic on the exhibition was a just one. He de- clared that out of the four hundred pictures shown it would be difficult to find half a dozen with any pretensions to excellence; and said in conclusion: “The collection altogether shows a poverty of intellectual power and a feebleness of mechanical talent which we have rarely ever encountered in a greater degree’. The resumption of the old title by the Society proved fortunate, for the former prosperity returned with it and has remained unbroken until the present day. During the autumn some of the newspapers gave currency to an interesting rumour concerning official attire for Royal Academicians and Associates. According to the Morning Herald, whose statement was the most explicit, members of the Royal Academy upon all public occasions in future were to wear robes or gowns according to their several ranks in the institu- tion, ‘‘similar to those which distinguish the different degrees at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge”. The Academy minutes of 1820 contain no reference to anything of this nature, but it is not improbable that the question of a distinctive cos- tume was discussed at one of the meetings of the Council. Several times in the history of the Royal Academy suggestions have been made that robes should be provided, and worn by the members on particular occasions; and it is recorded that in 1856 William Dyce, R.A., made definite proposals for an 349 [z820] ART IN ENGLAND Academic costume. In this connection it may be mentioned that in 1792, soon after the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, official coats were provided for the Keeper and Secretary (both Royal Academicians) to be worn by them as resident officers. Nothing is said of the style of the garments, but they were probably very elaborate as each coat cost twenty pounds. On November 6th the election of an Associate of the Royal Academy took place, and resulted in the return of Henry Edridge, who had been a candidate, on and off, for twenty-five years. He defeated Samuel Lane in the final ballot by eighteen votes to four. John Martin was a candidate, but received no support. The last event of importance in the world of art in 1820 was the formal re-election of Lawrence as President of the Royal Academy on the evening of December 9th, on which occasion he wore the gold medal and chain which had been presented to the Academy by the King, soon after his accession earlier in the year. The King, who was a real lover of the arts, and possessed of good taste to judge by the pictures he collected, showed his interest in the Academy students by presenting at the same time for their use a fine collection of casts from Italy, and these gifts were acknowledged in fitting terms by Lawrence immediately after his election. With this mention of the Presi- dent’s speech at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Academy on December gth, I conclude this record of my additions to the history of art in England during the period, 1800-20, covered by the present volume. INDEX Abbotsford, 284 diploma pictures of Hoppner and Aberdeen, Lord, 306 Humphry, 164, 165; Council Room Academy, The Royal, position of, in thrown open during exhibition, 172; 1800, 4, 5; reform of the Schools, 12; Constable a student, 13, 14; copies of Raphael’s Cartoons presented to, 14, 15; new law concerning reception of pictures, 18; the Udny collection offered to, 29; French Princes at the dinner, 34; dispute between the General Assembly and the Council, 50-51; election of Dr Burney as Pro- fessor of Ancient History, 50; Copley and the Knatchbull portrait group, 52; West’s Hagar and Ishmael rejected, 53- 55; programme of music at the dinner in 1803, 57; Smirke elected Keeper, 69; the King cancels his appointment, 69; James Ward withdraws his pictures from the exhibition, 71; West’s re- election as President opposed by Tres- ham and others, 78; triumph of West, 80; his letter to Trumbull, 79, 80; Fuselielected Keeper in place of Smirke, 81; Farington and others censured by the General Assembly, 90, 92; West resigns the Presidentship, 94; Wyatt elected in his place, 95; the legality of Wyatt’s election questioned, 95, 96; varnishing days, 103; alleged abuse of privilege, 103, 104; the Academy sub- scribes to Stubbs’ work on anatomy, 112; Wyatt resigns, West re-elected President, 115, 116; proposed purchase of a picture by Rembrandt, 128; Turner elected Professor of Perspective and Tresham Professor of Painting, 130; Carlisle elected Professor of Anatomy, 137; gifts of portraits of Gainsborough and Hone, 138; in- creased charge for catalogues, 147; cost of the banquets, 147; varnishing days appointed, 148, 149; improved lighting of Lecture Room, 149; Soane’s addresses on architecture suspended, 163; Flaxman elected Professor of Sculpture, and Fuseli of Painting, 163; last attendance of a woman Academi- cian at the General Assembly, 163; pictures stolen, 172; bust of Reynolds presented, 177; repeal of law excluding water colour painters, 177; Turner’s first lecture on perspective, 180; at- tempt to encourage sales of pictures at exhibition, 187; the Prince gives the Academy a chandelier, 202; the Academy pictures by Reynolds and Gainsborough restored by Rising, 204; purchase of self-portrait by Richard Wilson, 227; Raeburn’s diploma work, 240; fall of the Prince Regent’s chande- lier, 241; increasing receipts, 246; School of Painting established, 253; Dulwich lends pictures, 253; difficulty about Prince Leopold’s portrait, 259; Turner reproved, 265; the Academy lighted by gas, 271, 277; crayon por- trait by Cotes presented, 276; proposed official history of the Academy, 276; the Academy and West’s funeral, 306, 307; Lawrence elected President, 312; a medal and chain for the Presidents presented by George IV, 319 Academy, The Royal, elections, of Mem- bers, 5, 28, 69, 103, 138, 156, 163, 185, 193, 209, 223, 239, 254, 270, 283, 300, 312; of Associates, 16, 27, 64, 77, 94, 115, 129, 138, 156, 177, 191, 204, 219, 235, 251, 265, 280, 292, 304, 319; of Members of Hanging Committees, 5, 18, 34, 56, 69, 88, 103, 120, 133, 146, 168, 187, 198, 209, 224, 240, 256, 271, 283, 300, 316 Ackermann, Rudolph, publishes the Re- pository of Arts, 154. his ancient house in the Strand, 154; his water colours, 155, 218, 280; see Roberts, James Acropolis, The, 136, 260 Agar, Captain, buys Hewlett’s picture, 118 Agar, Welbore Ellis, 129 Aix-la-Chapelle, 8; Lawrence paints at, 290, 291 Albion Flour Mill, 40 Alderson, Dr, 120 wa 321 21 INDEX Algiers, 271 Allingham, Mrs, 85 Allston, Washington, A.R.A., 475; por- trait of Coleridge, 235; picture at Spring Gardens, 255; premiums at the British Institution, 292; elected an Associate, 292 Alva, Duke of, 233 American art critic, 133 American Magazine, the, 308 Anatomy, Professorship of, 137, 138 Anderdon, J. H., and Guy Head, 16; notes on Girtin, 44; extended Royal Academy catalogues, 22, 44, 280 Andras, Catherine, wax modeller, 99 Andreossi, General, 56 Anecdotes of Painters, 116 Anecdotes of Painting, 116 Angerstein, John Julius, 4; buys the Bouillon Claudes, 62; lends pictures to copy, III, 254, 293; portrait by Law- rence, 258; letter from Lawrence, 288; 106, 215, 296 Annals of the Fine Arts, 262 Annesley, Francis, M.P., 70 Ansell, Robert, auctioneer, 67 Antwerp, 291 Apollo Belvedere, 263 Apollo, The (ship), 310 Arbuthnot, Mrs, 272 Archer, Jasper, gives portrait to the Royal Academy, 138 Argyll, Duke of, 299 Arnald, George, elected an Associate, 177 Artaud, W., 191 Art students, want of access to picture galleries, 3 _ Artist’s and Amateur’s Magazine, 302 Artists the best judges of pictures, Law- rence’s letter, 132 Artists, The Incorporated Society of, sale of gallery, 4, 26, 219 Artois, 12 Ashburton, Lord, portrait by Reynolds, 10 Ashford, W., and the British School, 46, 48 Associated Artists in Water Colours, The, 141, 153, 176, 198, 219 Athenaeum, The, 121 Athens, 260; removing the Elgin Marbles from, 261 Attorney-General, 174, 268, 269 Atwell, sheriff’s officer, 76 Auckland, Lord, translates the French Ambassador’s speech, 56 Auction Rooms, the students’ only picture galleries, 3 Augusta, Princess, 36 Bacon, J. H. F., A.R.A., 28 Bacon, John, Junior, 64, 77, 191 | Baily, E. H., R.A., elected an Associate, 280; models a bust of Haydon, 286, 287, 300, 312 Bankes, Henry, M.P., 316 Banks, Sir Joseph, 57, 152 Banks, T., R.A A., 5, 19, 16,1095 Sie ports The British School, 46, 47; charges Farington with intriguing, 87; death of, 86; affection for Hoppner, 158 Baretti, Joseph, 208 Barford, Henry, auctioneer, 66 Baring, Sir ‘Thomas, I11 Baring family, Lawrence’s group of, 170 Barker, Benjamin, 119 Barker, Thomas, of Bath, 10, 206 Barker’s Panorama, 23, 40 Barrow, John Charles, 219, 220 Barry, James, R.A., his ruinous house in Castle Street, g9-102; death of, 100; 5» 13, 103 a" Bartolozzi, Francesco, R.A., engravings by, 10; gives evidence for Delattre against Copley, 23-24; leaves England for Portugal, 237; letter from, 238; house at Fulham, 239; death at Lisbon, 2373 254 Bartolozzi, Gaetano, 239 Bartolozzi, Mrs, 239 Barton, B. S., naturalist, 309 Baseley, Rev. Thomas, dealings in pic- tures, 214-218; owns Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne and Rubens’ Judgment of Paris, 214; defends action brought by Sir G. Page Turner, 217-218 Bath, The Circus at, 113; Hewlett’s colour shop, 118 Bath Literary Club, The, 114 Bathurst, Earl, his portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Lawrence, 287, 288 Battersea, 142; the Jens Wolff collection — a of casts at Sherwood Lodge, 212 Bavaria, The King of, buys Wilkie’s ag Reading of the Will, 317 Baxter, T., candidate for Associateship, 4 IgI Bayley, Mr A. R., notes on Sheridan, 230 Beau Monde, The, 146 a BS Beaufort House, Strand, 154, 155 Beaumont, Sir George, and Girti ae P Pe eee ee, Lee ae ge eee ee a ios a - Aye Fr rn - . ’ 7 ' , ns ee a Oy a ee ee ‘ ie i A —— a. Oe a ee, ee ee ty ee ee Girtin, 98; 61, 62; a founder of the British Inst- am tution, 106; lends pictures to it to be copied, 111; his version of Wilson’s Niobe, 183; at Zoffany’s sale, 186; his ‘brown tone’’, 215; 247, 253; one of West’s pall-bearers, 306 . Beaumont, Lady, buys Rubens’ Chdteau de Steen as a gift to her husband, 62; 71 — 322 INDEX Beckford, William, sale at Fonthill, 128, 129; 7, 12 Bedford, Captain, H.M.S. Thunderer, 69 Bedford, fourth Duke of, 15 Bedford, fifth Duke of, presents copies of Raphael’s cartoons to the Royal Academy, 14, 15; a founder of the British Institution, 106; 247 Beechey, Sir William, R.A., 5; the Beechey Room at Buckingham House, 6; 13, 24; portrait of Princess Augusta, 36; group of the Symons family, 57; 71, 78, 95, 116, 117; assists Wilkie in his candidature for the A.R.A., 156; paints Wilkie’s portrait, 157; 171, 189; damaged frame, 204; portrait of Lord Exmouth, 271 Beechey, Lady, evening parties, 157 Behnes, W., takes cast of West’s hand, 310 Bell, Sir Charles, and the Elgin Marbles, 136; on Flaxman and Fuseli, 137; can- didate for the Professorship of Anatomy, 137, 138 ae Bell, Mr C. F., and date of Girtin’s birth, 44 Bell, Lady, portrait painter, 26 Bell, Sir Thomas, 26 Bell, William, Academy gold medallist, 2 Bell's Weekly Messenger, attacked by Blake, 105; Wilkie and Watteau, 210 Belvoir, the fire at, in 1816, 263, 264 Bentham, Jeremy, 145 Berchem, 268, 277, 278; “‘the English Berchem”’, 278 Beresford, the Rev J., destroys Dubost’s picture, 174 Bernard, Sir Thomas, and the British Institution, 106; 111 Berners Street, picture gallery in, 31, 46 Bernini, bust of Charles I, 61, 67, 68 Bernini Palace, The, 61 Berwick, Lord, 123 Betty, Master, portraits of, 89 Bewick, William, 178, 299 Bible, Macklin’s illustrated, 9 Biers, H., 259 Bigg, W. R., R.A., 185, 223, 240; re- stores Gainsborough’s Cottage Door, 2 Birek, W., Délices de la Grande Bretagne, 219 Bird, Edward, R.A., challenging Wilkie, 201; elected an Associate, 204; future fame predicted, 206; 210; defeats Rae- burn at election, 240; picture bought by Prince Regent, 302; death of, 302; Bird’s father, 303 Blackfriars Bridge, 40, 41 Blackwood’s Magazine, 303 323 Blake, William, engraving by, 10; champions Fuseli, 105; quarrel with Cromek and Stothard, 127, 128; Sar- tain’s explanation, 127, 128; 155 Blenheim, insolence of servants at, 2; visit of Louis XVIII, 3 Bligh, Lady E., Hoppner’s portrait of, 58 Bolognetti, Palazzo, picture from, 12 Bonaparte, portraits of, 22; his envoys at the Royal Academy dinner, 34, 56 Bone, Henry, R.A., 27; at ‘Turner’s ae 184; elected an Academician, 105 Bone, H. P., 13, 191, 206, 292 Bonomi, Joseph, A.R.A., 5; his ill- fortune at Academy elections, 28, 103; shelters Barry when dying, 100 Boothby, Penelope, monument at Ash- bourne, 88 Borghese, Villa, pictures from, 12 Botanical Exhibition, portraits at, 72 Both, Jan, 32 Bourgeois, Sir Francis, R.A., 51, 56, 78; Turner’s friendship for, 181 Boydell, Alderman John, 9, 10 Boydell, Alderman Josiah, offers prize for picture of death of Nelson, 98; sale of his gallery, 106 Braham, John, singing compared with Turner’s pictures, 37 Braun, Robert, page to George IIT, 115 Breadalbane, Lord, buys pictures at Heathcote’s sale, 94 Bridgewater, Duke of, buys Turner’s Dutch Boats in a Gale, 20 Bridgewater House, opening of the pic- ture galleries at, 108-110, 117 British Gallery, 107; see British Institu- tion British Institution, The, foundation of and purchase of the Shakespeare Gal- lery, 106; description of the Gallery, 107; scarlet-coloured walls, 107; the first exhibition, 108; school of copyists established, 111; Lord Stafford buys fifteen pictures from the second ex- hibition, 117; West’s picture pur- chased for 3000 guineas, 189; the Reynolds exhibition, 206; inaugural banquet, 207; exhibition of Hogarth, Wilson, Gainsborough and Zoffany, 226-228; criticized by Hazlitt, 2209, 230; opening of the first Old Masters exhibition held in England, 247; imi- tated by the Royal Academy, 253; loses favour among artists, 254; charges of unfair hanging, 255; exhibition of Italian and Spanish pictures, 256; De Wint paints a picture in the In- ai=2 INDEX British Institution, The—continued stitution’s gallery, 270; exhibition of works of deceased British artists, severe criticism by The Times, 275, 2 “6; Hay- don on the evening exhibitions, 289; administration criticized, 289; pre- miums, 292; Martin’s Fall of Babylon, 2098; Hofland and his friend the Keeper of the Institution, 312 British Magazine, 249 British Museum, 1; 40; 114; statue of Mrs Damer, cows 213; purchase of the Elgin Marbles, 261; freedom of ad- mission granted, 262 British Press, The, on Hewlett’s flower paintings, 118 British School, The, 4; a forgotten art institution, 45; first exhibition in Berners Street, 46; the Prince of Wales the patron, 47; supported by pro- minent artists, 47; failure of the scheme, 47 Bromley, William, A.R.A., 24 Brouwer, A., 268 Brown, Arnesby, Mr, R.A., 28 Brushes, see Dagneaux, King, and Ben- jamin West Bubb, J. G., 191 Buccleuch, Duke of, and Wilkie, 285 Buchan, Lord, on Scottish artists, 134, 135 Backoane. William, picture dealer, 12; imports Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, Rubens’ Peace and War, Autumn, Chateau de Steen, The Rainbow, and the portrait of Charles I by Vandyck, 60-62; his enterprize and ability, 68; sends Wallis to Spain in search of picture, 1243; Memoirs of Painting, 124; Lawrence visits him on behalf of Penrice, 132; 150, 198; and Lord Kinnaird, 212; Yates succeeds to his gallery, 233 Buck, Adam, candidate for Associate- ship, 115 Builder, The, 84 Bunbury, H. W., pictures engraved, 10 Bunsen, Baroness, 110 Burch, Edward, R.A., 239 Burke, Edmund, and James Barry, 102 Burlington Fine Arts Club, Old Master exhibitions, 205 Burlington House, 14, 107, 165, 205; Gainsborough’s landscape at, 229; 276 Burlington Magazine, The, articles on Turner’s lectures, 178, 180, 223 Burnell, Benjamin, candidate for As- sociateship, IgI Burney, Dr Charles, 208 Burney, Dr Charles, the younger, elected 324 Professor of Ancient History to t Royal Academy, 50; his conviviality i 70 . Burr, Aaron, visits England, 145; his bust by Turnerelli shown at the home : Academy, 145 Bet Burrel, Edinburgh museum keeper, 134 ee _ Albin, and Lady Hamilton, Be. 4 Byfield, George, architect, cannes fo Associateship, 130 Byrne, W., 24 q Byron, Lord, at the Reynolds exhibition as 207; portraits of, by Phillips at th Ae Royal Academy, 224, 225 ‘ Cagliostro, Count, furniture sold Christie, 66, 67 Caldwell, ‘Andrew, on Turner; 37 Callcott, Sir Augustus, R.A., a proble1 landscape, 19; 47; a rival to Turner, — 88; elected an Associate, 115; 1 53> 1563 — elected an Academician, 1 183; in- fringes the laws of the n 1685 18 187; success of his Passage Boats, 244; serves on Hanging Committee, 187, Ph tie Campbell, Lord Frederick, Raeburn portrait of, withdrawn from the Aca demy exhibition, 198 es Campbell, Thomas, at the Royal A demy banquet, 316 Canaletto, Sir John Soane buys his View of Venice, 129 ae Canning, George, his collection of G ray’s caricatures, 248 Canova, A., visits England, cuteHaiied! by. the Academicians, 251; ; on West’s _ paintings, 252; on the Elgin Marbles 259; exhibits at Somerset House, 272 Canvas, cheap, 283 Cardon, Anthony, cancioas for Associ ateship, 103 Carey, William, 1 31; onJ.R. Smith, 1 1 197; on Bartolozzi at F ulham, 239; o . Haydon’s exhibition of his pupils is drawings, 299 Carlisle, Sir A., elected Professor o Anatomy to the Royal Academy ig: Turner’ s physician, 138; attend Turner’s lectures, 184; 252 is oe Earl of, buys Westall’s Eloi 100; 174 Carr, Rev. W. Holwell, a founder ok British Institution, 106; lend Rubens to. be copied, 13155 7) am Carracci, A., 111, 129, 215, 253 Carracci, i , self-portrait of, 12 Carse, A., as Castle Steer Barry’s house, 101 INDEX Castlereagh, Lord, 170; lLawrence’s portrait of, condemned by Hazlitt, 225, 226; at Aix-la-Chapelle, 291 Casts, Westmacott and Howard deputed to buy for the Academy schools, 212; the Pope sends a collection to the Prince Regent, 262; George IV pre- sents some to the Royal Academy, 319 Cathcart, Earl, 86 Ceracchi, G., bust of Reynolds by, pre- sented to the Royal Academy, statue of Mrs Damer at the British Museum, 177 Chalmers, G. P., 83 Chalon, A. E., R.A., 141, 191; elected Associate, 204; Academician, 254; Aca- demy laws altered to admit his portrait of Prince Leopold to the exhibition, 259; on Hanging Committee, 271 Chalon, H. B., 191 Chalon, J. J., R.A., 301 Chambers, Sir W., R.A., 39; buys Rising’s picture for George III, 265 Champernowne, Arthur, James Irvine buys pictures for him in Italy, 61; obtains by exchange the Rainbow land- scape by Rubens, 61; buys Rubens’ sketch from Mantegna’s Triumphs of Julius Caesar, 61; his connection with Ozias Humphry, 62; owns the triple portrait of Charles I by Vandyck, 68 Champion, The, Hazlitt’s criticisms in, 229, 230, 243, 246, 254, 255, 257; his prophecy about Turner and Wilkie, 243; sarcastic comments on the Prince Regent, 246; the Champion charged with puffing Hofland, 313 Chancellor, The Lord, on the case ‘Turner, Bart. v. Rev. Baseley’’, 217 Chandelier, presented by the Prince Regent to the Royal Academy, 202; Sir Walter Scott and the fall of, 240 Chantrey, Sir Francis, R.A., first ex- hibited work a painting, 71; borrows designs from Mrs Banks, 88; love for varnishing days, 148, 149; candidate for Associateship, 191; busts of Stothard and Northcote, 201; elected an Associ- ate, 265; 270, 272; elected an Academi- cian, 283; his portrait by Phillips, 287; friendship with Turner, 291; bust of West, 292; on Hanging Committee, 300; story of his capture by brigands, 395 Chapman, J., engraver, 10 Chapman, Miss, married to James Christie, 67 Charles I, portrait by Vandyck, 61, 67, 68; cap he wore when beheaded, 129 Charlotte, Princess, 258; the Prince Re- gent and her portrait at the Academy, 287 Charlotte, Queen, and Penelope Booth- by’s monument, 88; Reynolds’ por- trait, 168 Chatham, Lord, 24, 169 Chedworth, Lord, 131 Chinese jugglers, 198 Chiswick, sale of Hogarth’s pictures from, 141 Christie, James, auctioneer, 14; sells Romney’s house and casts, 17, 18; 26; sells Girtin’s pictures, 43; death of, 65; notes on career, 65, 67; sales of the Borough of Gatton and Cagliostro’s furniture, 66; marriages, 67 Christie, James, the younger, sells Rom- ney’s pictures, 48; 58; succeeds his father, 65; 68; Mrs Forster complains of him, 87; 114; sells Innocent’s stock, 129; 131; sells Hogarth’s pictures from Chiswick, 141; the rivalry of Phillips, 142; 162, 176, 214, 296; sells West’s Old Masters, 311 Churchill, Charles, 151 Cipriani, G. B., R.A., 24, 239 Clarke, T., elected an Associate, 64 Claude, the Altieri pictures, 12; 32; Angerstein buys two for 8000 guineas, 62; Claude and Turner, 120, 188, 211; Claude and Wilson, 229; De Wint and Glover’s experiments at the British Institution, 270 Clint, George, A.R.A., 273 Coates, Romeo, 213 Coleridge, S. T., portrait and bust by Dawe, 201; Washington Allston’s por- trait, 235; “‘Coleridge the Poet”’, 299 Collins, Richard, exhibits at the British School, 47 Collins, Mr W., owns the group of Ho- garth’s servants, 275 Collins, William, R.A., 121; Hazlitt on, 2243; 255; elected an Associate, 235; 300; elected an Academician, 312 Colours, artists’, prices in 1809, 155; Hoppner’s, sale of, 162 Colton, W. R., R.A., 28 Commons, House of, and the Elgin Marbles, 259 Connoisseur, The, 40 Constable, John, R.A., 5; admitted to the Academy schools, 13; on Watteau 33; 58, 59; and Sam Strowger, 86; first newspaper criticism, 122; 146, 170; sketch stolen from Burlington House, 172; candidate for an Associ- ateship, 191; Academy landscapes 375 INDEX Ree Constable, John—continued praised, 200, 201; at the Reynolds dinner, 207; exhibits Boat Building, 244, 2453; 256; critics disagree, 257, 258, 269; supported in an Associate elec- tion, 280; 285; 286, 292; sells a picture, 299; ‘‘Constable’s White Horse’’, 300; elected an Associate, 304; 317 Constantinople, panorama of, 39 Cook, Mr, of Philadelphia, 309 Cook, Richard, R.A., elected an As- sociate, 265; 283 Cooke, Henry, 14 Cooper, Abraham, R.A., elected A.R.A., 280; succeeds Mary Moser as Academi- cian, 312 Cooper, Sir Astley, 137 Cope, C. W., R.A., 281 Copley, J. S.,R.A., 5; Copley v. Delattre, 23-253 34, 50, 51; the Knatchbull por- trait group, 52, 53; and West’s Hagar and Ishmael, 54, 553; 58, 78; sale of his Death of Chatham, 108, 125; portrait of the Prince of Wales, 146, 147, 170; burlesqued by Pasquin, 168, 169; pre- sides at Turner’s lecture, 181; 190; death of, 247, 248; portrait of Welling- ton, 249; disappointment, 249; 250, 254, 275 Copley, J. S., the younger, candidate for Professorship at the Royal Academy, 50; 64, 250 Copying of pictures, 111, 112; 208, 253; Etty at the Academy schools, 293 Correggio, 268 Corsini, Palazzo, 12 Cosse, L., 191 Cosway, Richard, R.A., 5, 24, 95; on Hanging Committee, 103; 104, 155; diploma picture stolen, 172 Cosway, Mrs, pictures by, engraved, 198 Cotes, Francis, R.A., 276 Cotman, J. S., 223 Courier, The, violent attack on Hoppner’s Mary, 35; and Benjamin West, 54; 251 Covent Garden Theatre, 194 Cox, David, and James De Maria, 39; 153, 295 : Coxe, Peter, auctioneer, 124; sells Lord Grosvenor’s pictures, 129; sells De Loutherbourg’s collection, 194 Cranch, J., and Opie, 119 Cranmer, C., 191 Cremorne, Lord, buys West’s Hagar and Ishmael, 55 Crewe, Mrs, portrait by Romney, 49 Cribb, William, letter about Harlow, 273, 274 Cristall, Joshua, 39 326 Croker, J. W., on the Academy dinner of 1820, 316 ta Crome, John, 92; early criticism of his _ work, 1463; 257 Cromek, R. H., dedicates Stothard’s Can- — terbury Pilgrims to the Prince of Wales, — 127; his quarrel with Blake, 127; Sartain’s story, 127, 128 iat Cumberland, Duke of, brother of George III, 46 by — Cumberland, Duke of, portrait Beechey, 36; 270 umber George, and the Elgin © Marbles, 135, 136 a Cumberland, Richard, 127 Re Cunningham, Allan, 84; on Turner and Wilkie, 121; 198, 199; errors about Lawrence, 226; his life of Bird, 303 ( Curran, J. P., Lawrence’s portrait of, 6 Cuyp, A., 32; and Turner, 144; 183, 211; — 244, 253 Dagneaux, 194 Daily Advertiser, 76, 119 Daily Mail, 172 ; Dallaway, Rev. James, 237 Damer, Mrs, 177 Dance, G., R.A., 69, 198, 277, 306 Dance, N., R.A., 5; last landscape, 6; __ portrait of Garrick, 114 Daniell, T., R.A., 53, 130, 133 ee Daniell, W., R.A., 130, 193, 209, 223, 240 Darnley, Lord, 254 Dartmouth, Lord, and the British In- | stitution, 107, 117 . Darwin, Erasmus, portrait of, 72 David, J. L., 169 Davies, Mr Randall, 43 Davison, Alexander, buys Copley’s Death of Chatham, 108, 125 , Dawe, G., R.A., 156, 163, 184, 185; and Coleridge, 201; 210; praised by Haz- litt, 224. ee oe Day, The, 231 Dayes, E., 44 De Calonne, C. A., 30, 32 Ae De Cort, Henry, pictures at Fonthill, 129 — De Heem, David, 117 A Delahante,; A., sells Old Masters to Pen- rice, 131; hires Gainsborough’s paint- — ing room, 198; buys Titian’s Bacchus — and Ariadne and Rubens’ Judgment of Paris, 213; notes on, 215 a Delattre, J. M., engraver, damages from Copley, 23, 24 Uae. De Loutherbourg, P. J., R.A., 5; out- shone by Turner, 37; 69, 95, 112, 116; death of, 193; not a scene painter, 193; supposed healing powers, 193; large recovers INDEX De Loutherbourg—continued library, 194; makes models of ships, 194; house at Hammersmith, 195; and Turner, 195; Mrs De Loutherbourg, 195 De Maria, James, his panorama of Paris, 38; friendship with ‘Turner and David Cox, 39 Derveaux, artists’ brushmaker, 194 Desenfans, N. J., his dealings in pictures, 30; skilful self-advertiser, 30; collects pictures for the King of Poland, 31; sale of the collection, 32; dealings with Sir Abraham Hume—the Dulwich Watteau, 33, 34; letter about the quarrels at the Royal Academy in 1803-4, 51, 52; deceived by Ibbetson’s copy of a Teniers, 277, 278 De Tabley, Lord (Sir John Leicester), sale of pictures, 121 Devis, A. W., candidate for Associate- ship, 191 De Wint, Peter, early newspaper criti- cism, 141; enters the Academy schools, 153; eulogized in the Beau Monde, 153, 154; his Cornfield at the Royal Academy, 245; experiment at the British In- stitution’s gallery, 270; 286, 295; badly hung at the Academy, 300 Dictionary of National Biography, The, 40, 65, 73, 143, 247 Diploma Gallery, Royal Academy, Hopp- ner’s portrait, 164; Humphry’s lost picture, 165; Cosway’s picture stolen, 172; pictures restored by John Rising, 204; Raeburn’s self-portrait refused, 240; he sends Boy and Rabbit, 240; error of his biographers, 240; Chantrey and West’s bust, 291 Disney, Mrs, portrait by Guy Head, 15, 16 Dixon, Sir A. C., Captain, R.N., 69 Dixon, E. F., Registrar, Royal Academy, 178 D’Oggione, Marco, 276 Dolci, Carlo, 32 Domenichino, 189 Doncaster, 197 Donegal, Lord, portrait of, by Romney, non, Gerard, 32 Downman, John, A.R.A., exhibits at the British School, 47 Drakelow House, Paul Sandby’s paint- ings at, 152 Drummond, S., A.R.A., elected Associ- ate, 138; 202 Dublin, James Malton’s, drawings of, 73 Dubost, A., exhibits his Damocles in Pall Mall, 125; bought by Thomas Hope, 126; exhibits libellous picture of Hope, 173; picture cut to pieces, 174; Du- bost’s action for damages, 174; sale of Damoeles in 1917, 176 Dudley, Sir Henry Bate, and Perdita eae ee 8; portrait by Gainsborough, 27 Dulwich Gallery, 30; Watteau’s pictures at, 33; Wilkie’s visit to, 33; Gains- borough’s portraits at, 230; 247; Royal Academy borrows pictures from, 253; 262; Master and Warden at the Academy dinner, 271 Duncan, Lord, 250 Dunkarton, R., 10 Dunthorne, J., 13, 59 Duppa, Richard, presents bust of Rey- nolds to the Academy, 177 Earle, Mr, of Philadelphia, buys James Ward’s Serpent of Ceylon, 72 Eastlake, Sir Charles, P.R.A., and Academy varnishing days, 149; repairs Rubens’ Judgment of Paris, 214 Eaton, Sir Frederick, errors in The Royal Academy and its Members, 13, 95, 96, 148, 312 Edinburgh, Trustees’ Academy at, R. S. Lauder’s pupils, 83; proposed ex- hibition of pictures, 134; 245; Francis Horner’s bust at the Advocate’s Library, 287 Edridge, H., A.R.A., 191; elected an Associate, 320 Edwards, Edward, A.R.A., Anecdotes of Painting, 25; death of, 116; sister pen- sioned by the Royal Academy, 116; Teacher of Perspective at the Royal Academy, 184 Egremont, Lord, 71; buys ‘Turner’s Forest of Bere, 140; and his Scene near Windsor, 1513 170, 174, 2543; De Wint and Lord Egremont’s Claude, 270 Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, Haydon’s picture on view, 314; Gericault ex- hibits The Raft of the Medusa, 315; hired by the Society of Painters in Water Colours, 319 Eidometropolis, The, 40, 42 Eldon, Lord, Ozias Humphry’s letter to, 166 Elford, Sir W., 208, 316 Elgin, Lord, 23; brings the Elgin Marbles to his house at Hyde Park Corner, 135; invites the Academicians to see them, 136; 259, 261 Elgin Marbles, The, notes on their re- moval from Greece, 260; Sala’s story of the Greeks’ resentment, 261; their 327 ~ S)- e =, ae a bo i INDEX Elgin, Marbles, The—continued place of exhibition at Hyde Park Corner, 136; the figures compared with those of English athletes, 136; purchased by the Government and placed in the British Museum, 261 Ellenborough, Lord (Lord Chief. Justice), judgment in the Dubost v. Beresford action, 176; in Sir G. Page Turner’s action against Stroehling, 217; and in action Gray v. Gwennap, 267 Eller, Irwin, list of the pictures by Rey- nolds burnt at Belvoir, 264 Ellis, Sir Henry, acquisition of the Elgin Marbles by the British Museum, 261 Elwin, W., buys a Leonardo at the Font- hill ‘sale, 129 Englefield, Sir Henry, forgery of signa- ture, 175 Engleheart, George, sale of his minia- tures, 211 Erard, ’ Sebastien, sells two Claudes to Angerstein, 62; tragic death of his daughter, 215 Erskine, Lord, counsel for Copley, 23; his portrait by Lawrence, 36 Essex, Lord, buys Turner’s ‘Purfleet, 140 Etty, William, R.A., 82, 189; his brush- maker, 194; a flattering criticism, 272; his copy of Angerstein’s Ganymede, 293; exhibits the Coral Finder at the Royal Academy, 317 European Museum, 45 Euston, Lord and Lady, 166 Examiner, The, hostility to Sir Anthony Carlisle, 137; praises the youthful De Wint, 141; notices Turner’s first per- spective lecture, 180; 244; Gillray’s attempted suicide, 248; criticizes Con- stable, 258, 269; Haydon’s bust, 287; eulogy of Martin’s Fall of Babylon, 298; compares Constable with Turner, 300; 317 7 Exmouth, Lord, Beechey’s portrait of, 271 Fagan, Robert, letter from Rome, 12; 11, ) Fallacies of Hope, Turner’s, 182; quoted, 200; quoted and contemptuously criti- cized, 243 Farington, Joseph, R.A., 52, 53, 69; Banks’ charge of intriguing, 86, 87; serves on Hanging Committee as sub- stitute for Lawrence; accepts picture by Northcote six days after the proper date, 90; Farington and the rest of the Committee censured by the Academy for ‘‘a gross and partial violation of the interests of the institution”, 90, 91; Farington reproached in the Morning Post, 913 138, 198, 277, 288, 316 Farington Diary, The, mention of The British School, 45; 91, 95, 124, 178, 191 Farnborough, Lord, 205; see Long, Si Charles Farnley, Yorkshire, 60, 295 Fauntleroy, Henry, executor to West, 311 i Fauvel, M., 69 Fawkes, Walter, of Farnley, 60; at the Academy dinner, 271; Dort Packet Boat at the private view, 285; — exhibition of Turner’s drawings at his London house, 294; letter to Turner, __ 295; collection of criticisms of the ex- hibition, 296 Field, George, a founder of the British School, 46 Field, George, his Chromotogr graphy, 280 Fielding, Copley, 256, 295; 319 Finnerty, Peter, journalist, 226 : Fischer, Mrs, Gainsborough’s elder daughter, 227 Fisher, Archdeacon, 304 Flatford, 200, 245 Flaxman, John, R.A., elected an Aca- demician, 5; 18; Romney leaves him a mourning ring, 48; and Michael __ Angelo, 136; 163, 164; on Turner’s Snow Storm, 199; 212; on the casts at the Academy schools, 262; 283, 312 Flower paintings, extraordinary prices . for, see Hewlett, James Fonthill, Turner’s drawings of, 7; sale of — E 4 pictures at, 128, 129 Foote, Samuel, friend of Paul Sandby, 151 Forster, Mrs, daughter of Banks and grandmother of Sir Edward Foren = 2 P.R.A., 87 Fountain Tavern, Strand, the, 154; a meeting place of the Society of Vir- 2 tuosi, 155 Fountaine, Sir Andrew, 131 Fox, C. fs Opie’s portrait of, oo a : Coleridge, 201 Frame, splendid, of West’s colossal Christ ae Rejected, 232 “i Francia, L. F., 141; candidate fos ee Associateship, 219; his account of © J. C. Barrow, 219, 220 as Freebairn, Robert, 130 French war, effect on English artists and on printsellers, 11 y Frenchman, A, on the exclusion of the poorer English from picture gallerer ‘ a 297, 298 328 buys Turner’s ecretary of — a the Society of Painters in Water Colours, = INDEX Frith, W. P., R.A., on Turner as a public speaker, 179 Fuseli, Henry, R.A., 5, 13; exhibition of his pictures in Pall Mall, 16; appointed Keeper of the Royal Academy, 69; 79; as teacher in the Academy schools, $82, 83; Leslie on his methods, 82; the Polytechnic Journal, 81; 82; a deaf and dumb student, 83; Miss Patrickson’s reminiscences, 83-85 ; Fuseliand Strow- ger the porter, 85; 95; championed by Blake, 105; 120;an American critic con- demns his picture, 134; Sir Charles Bell’s opinion of him, 137; 160; teacher of J. J. Halls, 161; elected Pro- fessor of Painting, 163; resemblance in figure to Ozias Humphry, 167; 178, 184, 222; at Turner’s lectures, 223; goes to Dulwich to choose pictures, 253; proposes lighting the Academy by gas, 277; pictures ‘‘madder than ever’’, 3163 317 Gainsborough, Margaret, thanked by the Royal Academy for her father’s por- trait, 138; 227 Gainsborough, Thomas, R.A., portraits out of fashion, 1; and Turner, 7; Mrs Robinson’s portrait, 7; pictures for Macklin, 10; 26; and Desenfans, 30; pictures at the British School, 47; the Blue Boy, 49; portrait sold for a guinea, 49; and John Taylor of Bath, 113; his portrait presented to the Royal Aca- demy, 138; his house in Pall Mall sold for an auction mart, 171, 172; Turner on Gainsborough, 182, 183; The Cottage Door, 186; 190; Wilkie’s exhibition of 1812 held in his studio, 198; picture at the Royal Academy restored by Rising, 204; proposed exhibition of work, 208; 223; the exhibition at the British Institution, 226-230; Wilkie on _ his work, 228; ‘‘a respectable portrait painter”, 228; Hazlitt on his land- scapes, 229; the Sheridan Gains- boroughs, 230; the Mrs Sheridan and Mrs Tickell at Dulwich, 230; 264, 275; his ‘“‘tinselled manner’, 276; The Cottage Door restored by Bigg, 297 Galt, John, biographer of West, 3, 308, II Gry, Joseph, A.R.A., elected an Associate, 64; 300 Gardner, Daniel, 25 Gardnor, Rev. James, candidate for Chaplaincy of the Royal Academy, 142 Garrard, George, A.R.A., elected an Associate, 16; 69 Garrick, David, and Taylor of Bath, 113, 114; 151; poem by, mentioned, 234, 235 Garvey, Edmund, R.A., 95; on Hanging Committee, 103; 223 Gatton, Borough of, sold by Christie, 66 Geddes, Andrew, A.R.A., 265 Genoa, Irvine buys Rubens’ Peace and War at, 61; Wallis at, 124 Gentleman’s Magazine, date of Géirtin’s birth, 43, 66; verses on Taylor of Bath, 114; decline of modesty in England, 263; poem by Wolcot, 304 George III, and the quarrels at the Royal Academy, 51; declines to accept Smirke as Keeper, 69; supports West as President, 78-80; approves Wyatt when elected President, 96; owns pic- tures by Taylor of Bath, 114; 115; employs Biagio Rebecca at Windsor, 139; Sir Joshua’s portrait of, 168; 238; buys picture by Rising, 265; death of, 306; his remark to West, 306 George IV, buys Vandyck’s portrait of Charles I, 68; admiration for Mul- ready’s picture The Wolf and the Lamb, 316-317; presents to the Royal Aca- demy a gold chain and medal for the President, and a collection of casts for the students, 319. See ““Regent, The Prince’’, and ‘‘ Wales, The Prince of” Gericault, J. L. A. T., exhibits The Raft of the Medusa in London, 316 Gibbs, Jimmy, Morland’s attendant, 76 Gibbs, Lord Chief Justice, Owen’s por- trait, 224 Gifford, William, crushes Pasquin, 143; admiration for Hoppner, 160 Gilbey, Sir Walter, biography of Stubbs, 112 Gillray, James, death of, 247; an elder brother, 248; attempted suicide, 248; Canning his patron, 248 Gilpin, Sawrey, R.A., 295 Giorgione, A Man in Armour, 254; in West’s sale, 311 Girtin, Thomas, 5; his first exhibited work in oil, Bolton Bridge, at the Aca- demy, 20; “‘in the manner of Wilson”’, 21; compared with the work of Turner, 21; candidate for an Associateship, 27; no votes for him at the election, 27; failing health, 37; visits Paris, 38; letter to his brother, 38; his panorama of London exhibited; description of the panorama, 41; views of Paris, 41; ill- ness and death, 42; bust by Garrard, 42; Mrs Girtin re-marries, 42; pic- tures sold at Christie’s, 43; poor prices, 529 INDEX Girtin, Thomas—continued 43; article on his career in the Library of the Fine Arts, 44. Gloucester, Duchess of, Humphry, 166 Gloucester, Duke of, 161, 166; owns Wilson’s Niobe, 183 Glover, John, prosperity of, 269; gold medal from France for picture painted in the Louvre, 270; 295 Gold medallist of the Royal Academy, A, see Polytechnic Journal Goldsmith, Oliver, portrait by Reynolds, 208; medical attendant, 235 Gordon, Alexander, Irvine forms collec- tion for, 61 Gower, Lord, buys Rubens’ Peace and War, 61 Grafton, Duke of, 247 Graham, Dr, and Lady Hamilton, 250 Graham, Peter, R.A., 83 Graham, Thomas, 83 Grant, Sir William, Lawrence’s portrait of, 317 Grassini, 157 Gray, collector of pictures, action against dealer, 267, 269 Great Queen Street, 220 Green, James, candidate for Associate- ship, 191 Green, Valentine, A.R.A., 256 Greenwood, John, 68 Gregson, pugilist, 136 Grenville, Lord, Owen’s portrait of, 202 Gresley, Sir Nigel, 152 Grey de Wilton, Lord, 139 Griffin, Sir J., 139 Grignion, Thomas, 12 Grimston, Miss, portrait by Hoppner, 58 Grocer’s Hall, portrait of Pitt at, 161 Grosvenor, Lord, 111; sells many pic- tures, 129; supposed to have bought Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, a Rubens and a Poussin, 213; 254; portrait of, by Jackson, 287; 296, 299 Grosvenor House, picture gallery at, 110; warning on wet days, 294 Grosvenor Place, 114, 294-296 Grosvenor Street, Lord Kinnaird’s house, and Oczias 213 G. S., letter from, about Wilkie’s father, 231 Guest, Douglas, 81; candidate for As- sociateship, 19! Guido, 32; Lot and his daughters leaving Sodom and Susannah and the Elders, 61; I : E ; Ecce Homo, 254; forgeries of, 267, 2 33° Guildhall, The, Copley’s Siege of Gibral-— tar at, 250 Gulston, Elizabeth, etcher, descendant of - Vandyck, 22 Gwennap, see Gray Halls, J. J., pupil of Fuseli, 161; candi- date for Associateship, 177, 191, 204, 235; his portrait of Dr Parr, 224 Hamilton, Hon. C., 129 Hamilton, Gavin, 61 Hamilton, Horatia, 99, 157 Hamilton, Lady, portraits by Romney sold, 49, 296; and Nelson’s effigy, 99; : 157; and Albin Burt, 250, 251 Hamilton, Sir William, and Nelson, 35 Hamilton, William, R.A., engravings — after, 10; notes on, 25, 26; 28; assists Thomas Malton, 75 Hamlet, Thomas, jeweller, sells pictures to the National Gallery, 215; 254, 271 Hammersmith, De Loutherbourg at, 193; Turner’s riverside house, 195 Hampstead, sale of Romney’s house, 17, 18; 220 Hampton Court, 14 Harcourt, Lord, 114 Hardy, Thomas, painter, death of, 77 Harleian Society, 247 Harley Street, 144, 157 Harlow, G. H., 47; early portrait by, 72; his portrait of Northcote, 258; candi- © date for Associateship, 191, 265; 272— 274 Harris, auctioneer, 66 Harris, J., frame-maker, 44 Harris, ‘Thomas, collector, 186 Harrison, John, candidate for Associate- ship, 191 Hastings, Edward, candidate for As- sociateship, 219 Havell, William, 246 Hay, Miss, copyist, 112 Haydon, B. R., 82; on Fuseli, 83; 136; “38 on Hoppner, 158; candidate for As- sociateship, 177; on West, 189; Fudg- — ment of Solomon, 232; 247; and Canova, 252; and the Elgin Marbles, 259-261; | compared with Hilton, 286; bust by Baily, 287; on the evening receptions at the British Institution, 289; pupils’ : work, 299; 300; Mrs Siddons at his private view, 314; advertises in The Times, 315; Gericault his rival, 316 Hayley, William, 48 Haymarket, The, 39 Hayter, Charles, 84 Hayter, Sir George, 255 Hayward, J. S., 38, 39 INDEX Hazlitt, John, advertisement, 251; can- didate for Associateship, 251 Hazlitt, William, 12; art critic of the Morning Chronicle, 224; reviews the Aca- demy exhibition, 224, 225; dismissal from the Morning Chronicle, the incident misunderstood by D. E. Lawrence and Allan Cunningham, 226; on Gains- borough’s portraits, 228; compares Claude and Wilson, 229; Gains- borough’s landscapes, 229; mistakes by Hazlitt’s son, 229, 230; a remarkable prediction, 243; 244; on the Prince Regent’s portrait, 246; on the Directors of the British Institution, 254; writes in the Champion, 229, 230, 243, 246, 254, 255, 257; on William Collins, 255; on Hofland, 256, 289, 312, 3133 315 Hazlitt, William, the younger, errors about his father’s criticisms, 229, 230 Head, Guy, 15, 16 Heaphy, T., candidate for Associateship, 204. Heath, Charles, engraver, 189 Heathcote, Sir Gilbert, 94 Heathcote, Robert, sale of house and pictures, 94); and the Prince of Wales, 94; 2906 *s Io. Heathcote, Sir Thomas, 316 Henderson, John, actor, 113 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 68 Herford, Laura, 85 Herkomer, Sir Hubert, R.A., 164 Hertford, Marquis of, 32 Hewlett, James, extraordinary prices given for his flower pictures, 117, 118; notes on, 118, 119 Hibernian Academy, The Royal, 46 Hickey, William, on the Malton family, 74 Hill, Benson Earle, Recollections of an Artillery Officer, 99 Hill Street, Mayfair, 94, 106, 296 Hills, Robert, 92 Hilton, William, R.A., candidate for Associateship, 191; pupil of. J. R. Smith, 197; 201, 210; elected Associate, 219; 258; comparison with Haydon, 286; his Europa, 296; elected Academician, 300; 316, 317 Histoire de la Peinture en Italie, 282 Historic Gallery, Pall Mall, 171 Hobbema, 32, 183 Hodges, William, R.A., 116 Hodgson, George, Coroner, 76 Hofland, T. C., candidate for Associate- ship, 251; Hazlitt on, 255, 256, 289; puffed in the Champion, 312, 313 Hofland, Mrs, on Ibbetson, 279; A Visit to London, description of West, 307 Hogarth, William, 24, 106; pictures from his Chiswick house sold, 1413; 190, 208; his pictures at the British Institution, 1814, 226-229 Holbein and Haydon, 233 Hollis, ‘Thomas, 15 Home, John, his tragedy, Douglas, 89; portrait by Raeburn, 171 Hone, Nathaniel, R.A., portrait of, 138 Hope, Henry, presents the Royal Aca- pie with copies by Guy Head, 16; 10 Hope, Thomas, letter to Francis Annes- ley, 70; 106, 117; buys flower painting by Hewlett, 118, 123; buys Dubost’s Damocles, 126; attacked by Dubost in a libellous picture, Beauty and the Beast, 1743 picture cut to pieces, 175; 216 Hope, Mrs Thomas, 174 Hope Heirlooms, The, 176 Hopes, The, of Amsterdam, 15 Hoppner, John, R.A., 5, 13, 24, 28; bitter criticism of his Mary, 35; com- pared with Lawrence and Beechey, 36; buys portraits by Romney, 48; 52, 533 copyist of Reynolds, 58; 89; and Farington, 91; 95; his Oriental Tales, 97; letter from Shee, 97; portrait of Pitt, 104, 133; Sleeping Nymph, 104; shows Stothard’s Canterbury Pilgrims to the Prince of Wales, 126, 127; Law- rence on the value of his opinion on pictures, 132; 147; death of, 158; various opinions on, 158; Shee’s sketch of, 159; advice to a young painter, 160; assisted by Reinagle, 161; his home life, 161; sale of colours, 162; his diploma work, 164; 167, 171, 185 Hoppner, Mrs, 164 Horner, Francis, Chantrey’s bust of, 287 Howard, Henry, R.A., elected Associate, 16; elected Academician, 138; 146, 168; takes the chair at Turner’s lecture, 184; elected Secretary to the Royal Academy, 186; 187, 212 Howard, Lord, 139 Howe, Baroness, and Pope’s Villa, 297 Howe, Earl, 250 Howe, James, 134, 135 Hume, Sir Abraham, and the Dulwich Watteau, 34; 106, 117, 247 Humphrey, Mrs, and Gillray, 248 Humphry, Ozias, R.A., 34; connection with Champernowne, 62; 95; letter to the King’s page, 115; diploma picture, story of, 164, 165; portraits of the Ladies Waldegrave, 165, 166; com- pared with Fuseli, 167; his chivalry, 167, 168; 185 331 INDEX Humphry Clinker, 113 Hunt, Leigh, description of Benjamin West, 307 Huntington, Mr C. P., collector, 183 Hutton, William, and the British Mu- seum, I Hyde Park, 94; Dubost’s picture of, 173 Ibbetson, Julius Caesar, forges pictures, 277; Desenfans deceived, 278; ad- vertising paragraphs, 278, 279; can- didate for Associateship, 279; character by Mrs Hofland, 279; his medium for painting in oil, 280; 295 Ibbetson, Julius Caesar, the younger, artist, 279, 280 Innocent, antique dealer, sale, 129 Insurance, of the Sir Joshuas at Belvoir, 264; of Desenfans’ Watteau, Le Bal Champétre, 33 Irvine, James, artist-dealer, letter from Rome, 61; buys for Champernowne, 61; and for Buchanan, 60; 62, 67 Iveagh, Lord, his collection, 36 Jackson, ‘‘Gentleman”’, pugilist, 136 Jackson, John, R.A., candidate for As- sociateship, I91; 209, 219, 235; elected Associate, 251; elected an Academician, 270; 283; portrait of Lord Grosvenor, 287; 312, 315 Jackson, schoolmaster, of Bowes, 74 Jackson, William, of Exeter, character of Wolcot, 304 etn, ee A.R.A., 139 ameson, Mrs, 110 Jefferson, Thomas, 145 ereys Mr, buys pictures at the Fonthill sale, 12 Jekyll, Joseph, counsel for Dubost, 175 Jiargionalli, 217 Johnson, Dr Samuel, 37, 49, 69, 102, 114; Mrs Piozzi’s portrait of, 208, 209, 235; West’s anecdote of him, 308 Jordaens, Jacob, 30 Joseph, G. F., A.R.A., 191, 219 Kauffman, Angelica, R.A., 156, 163 Kay, Mr H. Isherwood, 223 Keats, John, at Haydon’s private view, 315 Keenan, J., candidate for Associateship, 115, 191 Keir, deaf and dumb art student, 83 Keith, Dr, of Mayfair Chapel, 247 Kemble, J. P., painted by Lawrence as Hamlet, 19; and as Cato, 201; at the Academy dinner, 70 332 Kemble, The Family, group by Harlow, 272 a Kendal, Romney retires to, 17 Kensington, Wilkie at, 231 Kensington Gardens, 152 x Kenyon, Lord, tries the case Copley 2. Delattre, 24, 25 Killaloe, Bishop of, Chaplain to the © Royal Academy, 142 King, Miss, artists’ brushmaker, 194 King’s Mews, Charing Cross, proposed National Gallery on site of, 262 ee Kinnaird, Lord, 111, 117; sale of his)oa@ house and pictures, 212, 214 a7 Kinnoull, Lord, portrait by Raeburn, 245, 246 / Kirkley, Ralph, Reynolds’ old servant, 277 ns Pyitk Ay ci * i yn :. 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