INGENIOUS ITALIANS
immigrant artists in eighteenth - century britain
Katherine
Jean McHale
Ingenious Italians
IMMIGRANT ARTISTS IN
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN
KATHERINE JEAN MCHALE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Longstanding cultural exchanges between Italy and Britain culminated in the eighteenth century, when immigrant Italian artists arrived in Britain to sell their wares and to guide and motivate developing native artists. As Britain’s expanding economy enabled more customers to purchase artists’ works, Italians used their creative ingenuity to meet new market demands. They also could serve as closeto-home resources for aspiring indigenous artists, who could turn to them as teachers, colleagues, and sources of inspiration for their own art.
The focus of attention in books on British art has been on native artists. And despite the fact that Hans Holbein, Anthony Van Dyck, Peter Lely, Godfrey Kneller, and others learned their craft in and came from Europe, they are frequently referred to as English. David Solkin’s recently published Art in Britain does credit the establishment of a growing art market in Britain from the mid-seventeenth century to a ‘flourishing community of immigrant and native-born artists’, but his emphasis is decidedly on indigenous artists.1 A study of foreign artists working in Britain is overdue since their contributions to British visual culture constitute a substantial portion of the country’s artistic heritage. From Hans Holbein through the artists of the eighteenth century, the history of British art is the history of works created by immigrants.
In particular, an analysis of the degree to which the numerous Italians present in Britain throughout the eighteenth century contributed to the growth of British visual arts provides a new perspective on the impact of foreigners as they integrated into a new society. The presence of
these artists coincided with a significant expansion of the art market and with swelling ranks of well-trained British artists. It is possible that the confluence of the Italian artists’ presence and surging attention to the arts was unrelated, but the historical record reveals the active role played by immigrant Italians as they worked alongside British colleagues to promote a thriving artistic culture.
IMMIGRANT ITALIANS AND BRITAIN
Italy and its culture have long engaged the British imagination. From the arrival of the Romans in the first century through E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View in the twentieth century, Italian civilisation has influenced British thought and society. Throughout the British Isles, evidence of Italy’s impact remains visible. The archaeological remains of the Romans are scattered from Scotland to Chichester. Cosmati mosaics at Westminster Abbey dating to the mid-thirteenth century suggest the appeal of Italian arts in the Middle Ages, while the double tomb of Henry VII and his Queen Elizabeth in the King’s Chapel, designed and carved by Michelangelo’s rival Pietro Torrigiano, attests to Italian hegemony in the arts two centuries later. During the Tudor and Elizabethan reigns, contacts between the two countries’ scholars, merchants, and envoys became more frequent, and the English looked to Italy for models of civilised behaviour. The first English printer, William Caxton,
1. David Solkin, Art in Britain 1660–1815 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), p. 1.
published an English translation of Buonaccorso da Montemagno’s instruction manual on proper conduct as the Declamacion of Noblesse in 1481. Shakespeare and Marlowe used Italian settings in many of their plays, while Thomas More translated works by the philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
Immigrants have played a part in connecting Britain to Europe for centuries, advancing the exchange of information and goods. In common with other immigrants, artists bring new ideas and skills with them. This phenomenon ‘literally makes our world go round, and advances our civilization’.2
Economists have noted the high productivity of immigrants since they frequently arrive in a host country after their unproductive youthful years have passed and leave before they reach old age. Many immigrants are attracted to large cities, which provide the most opportunities for interacting with others and for sharing ideas and practices. In 1682, William Petty observed: ‘As for the Arts of Delight and Ornament, they are best promoted by the greatest number of emulators. And it is more likely that one ingenious curious man may be found among 4 million than 400 persons’.3
Economists and demographers have identified a ‘blue banana’, a swathe of urban centres stretching from Italy to England that led the continent in commerce and trade, from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries.4 Within this band, the dominant cities boasted a high number of immigrants, including Venice during the sixteenth century and Amsterdam during the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, Britain became the world’s foremost power, replacing the Netherlands as its economy grew. London became the leading metropolis and housed a large immigrant population. In 1740, a trade directory for the city listed skilled craftsmen and shopkeepers with surnames that were Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.
abroad who shaped British visual culture. Hans Holbein’s (1497/8–1543) memorable portraits recorded the Tudor court for posterity. The Stuart monarchy employed Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641), while the principal portraitists of the later seventeenth century were Peter Lely (1618–80), born in Germany and trained in Haarlem, and Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723), born in Lübeck and trained in Leiden. The Netherlandish Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721) provided his carvings for St Paul’s, Petworth House, and numerous other buildings.
Italian artists had also come to Britain to work in earlier centuries. The denization letters for John Andrea Cyny (or Cini) in 1484, dating to the reign of Richard III, are the first record of an Italian artist active in England. He produced banners and flags for ships and designed horse armour. Several decades later, Henry VIII hired a number of Italians as artists and engineers who could plan military outposts. They worked as far north as the Scottish border; the Venetian Gian Tommaso Scala designed fortifications at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the engineer Jacopo Aconcio was also stationed there. Giorgio Vasari noted that Girolamo da Treviso (1497–1544) worked as both an artist and an engineer in England. Vasari also recorded the English travels of the sculptor Pietro Torrigiano (1472–1528), a rival of Michelangelo who was reportedly responsible for his broken nose. Torrigiano designed tombs while in England, first signing a contract on 23 November 1511 for Margaret Beaufort’s sepulchre. His best known work was the double tomb of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey. His funerary monument for Dr John Yonge was the first designed in a fully Renaissance style, and he introduced the English to new techniques and materials, such as polychrome terracotta portrait busts.
The increasing migration of Italian artists to Britain was preceded by that of other famous figures from
In anticipation of designing Henry VIII’s tomb, Torrigiano went to Florence during 1519 and returned to England with various assistants, among whom were Benedetto da Rovezzano (1474–after 1552), Benedetto da Maiano II (1487–after 1542), and Antonio del Nunziato (1519–54), frequently
2. Julian L. Simon, The Economic Consequences of Immigration (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p. 8.
3. Quoted in Simon, p. 174.
4. Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, ‘Introduction’, in A Miracle Mirrored: The Dutch Republic in European Perspective, ed. Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 11.
referred to as ‘Toto’. Torrigiano departed for Spain before the tomb was completed, leaving its execution to Maiano and Rovezzano. Toto became Serjeant Painter to Henry in 1544, the first foreign-born artist to occupy that position.
Elizabeth I also employed Italians at her court, including a goldsmith, a tutor, doctors, sword masters, and Federico Zuccaro (c.1543–1609), who stayed only from March to August 1575. While two full-length portraits, of Elizabeth and Robert Darnley, are securely attributed to him, he is also credited with devising the ‘Darnley’ portrait of the Queen, a composition that was the most widely copied face pattern of its time. Another full-length portrait, of Mary, Queen of Scots and her son, is ascribed to him. A widely circulated eighteenthcentury print of it, drawn by Spiridione Roma (c.1735–86) and engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi (1727–1815), demonstrates the contributions of Italian artists across the centuries (fig. 1).
Stuart patronage of Italian artists continued with Charles I, an avid connoisseur. He invited Italian artists to England, including Guercino, Francesco Albani, Angelo Caroselli, and Pietro Tacca, all of whom declined employment. Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639) and the sculptor Francesco Fanelli (1572–1664) agreed to make the journey. Orazio’s daughter, Artemisia (1593–c.1656), joined him shortly before his death, but she remained less than two years. Orazio worked for Marie de’ Medici in France before travelling in 1626 to the court of Charles and Henrietta Maria, who was part Florentine. His annuity from the King was £100, but van Dyck, as Principal Painter to Charles from 1632, was paid double that amount. Fanelli’s annual pension from the King was £60. Charles II and James II employed Benedetto Gennari (1633–1715) from 1674 to 1688. A relative of the more famous Guercino, he painted religious and secular subjects as well as some portraits of the nobility. Gennari chose to leave the country when William III and Mary arrived, but Antonio Verrio (c.1639–1707), who had come to England at the same time, remained until he died in 1707. As a well-known artist whose career in England continued into the eighteenth century, Verrio’s experience is discussed in the first chapter. Artists, including those renowned on the Continent, continued to emigrate to Britain across
the eighteenth century. Antonio Pellegrini (1675–1741), Jacopo Amigoni (c.1685–1752), and Francesco Zuccarelli (1702–88) were admired throughout Europe, even though their reputations have not been maintained up to the present day. Widely travelled artists, such as Pellegrini and Amigoni, who produced major works in numerous European countries, are victims of art historical studies that focus on separate nations, leaving such painters unclaimed by any one country. A separate issue involves well-respected and highly skilled artists, including Andrea Soldi (c.1703–71), Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727–85), and Agostino Carlini (c.1718–90), who spent most of their professional lives in England but who are barely mentioned in texts on British art. The absence of scholarship on these artists may be due to a focus on native-born artists, who were acquiring more technical proficiency.
As was true in previous centuries, British patrons of the eighteenth century wanted works by Italian
FIG. 1.
Spiridione Roma and Francesco Bartolozzi, after Federico Zuccaro, Mary Queen of Scots, 1779. Engraving, 15 1/16 × 10 15/16 in (38.3 × 27.8 cm). Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT.
to employ Italian artists. Jacopo Amigoni’s royal commissions in the 1730s were mainly for portraits. The Hanovers, arriving in 1714, were uninterested in ambitious projects like those by Verrio.
Verrio spent many years in England as the most prominent Italian painter in the country. While Antonio Mocenigo and Giovanni Battista Catenaro (active c.1700–17) were his assistants, there is no indication that they enjoyed significant, independent careers. It is thus unlikely that they provided their master with new contacts when he needed additional work. Verrio probably relied on referrals from patrons for new commissions, such as the familial connections among Montagu, Exeter, and Devonshire. Fellow artists, for instance Laguerre or the members of the Virtuosi of St Luke’s, also could have supplied suggestions for work. Verrio’s Chatsworth interlude poses interesting questions concerning how he obtained that commission. Devonshire was Exeter’s brother-in-law, but a recommendation could also have come from Laguerre, who was the principal painter at Chatsworth and Verrio’s former assistant.
When Antonio Pellegrini and Marco Ricci arrived in Britain, they also relied on referrals from patrons for new commissions. However, the appearance of Italian stuccatori early in the 1700s, followed by increasing numbers of Italians working as scene painters, architects, and sculptors, created new possibilities for learning of employment opportunities. Since these emigrants frequently crossed paths, the networks among them increased their chances for success.
COMPETITION OR COLLABORATION? THE EARLY VENETIANS
Eighteenth-century Britain experienced a substantial influx of Italian artists throughout the century. Their presence has generally been attributed to invitations issued by patrons who met them while touring Italy, although this perception is not entirely accurate. Some individual patron–artist relationships have been studied, but the connections among the patrons who commissioned works from Italian artists living in Britain have not been explored fully. More
importantly, the networks established by the artists themselves, through which they could exchange information, have never been acknowledged. A new look at renowned artists, such as Antonio Pellegrini, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, and Antonio Bellucci, alongside their Italian colleagues about whom little is known reveals multifaceted relationships and sheds light on the reasons Italians immigrated to Britain.
Pellegrini, the Duke of Manchester, and His Circle
The role played by Charles Montagu, 4th Earl (later 1st Duke) of Manchester, in encouraging Antonio Pellegrini and Marco Ricci to emigrate to England has been frequently discussed. According to Vertue, Pellegrini and Ricci travelled from Venice to England with Montagu and worked for him when they arrived.16 These sketchy and misleading details, however, fail to take into account the web of relationships that led Ricci and Pellegrini to London.
Montagu served as England’s ambassador to Venice in 1697–98, returning for a second tour of
16. Vertue, 1:38–39.
FIG. 8.
Rosalba Carriera, Gustavus Hamilton (1710–46), Second Viscount Boyne, in Masquerade Costume, 1730–31. Pastel on paper, laid down on canvas, 22 1/4 × 16 7/8 in (56.5 × 42.9 cm).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
duty in 1707. His secretary, Christian Cole, was a friend of Rosalba Carriera, the pastellist whose portraits were so popular with Grand Tourists (fig. 8). Her sister Angela married Antonio Pellegrini in 1703–04, so he might have come to Montagu’s notice through Cole’s suggestion. Montagu wanted an artist to work for him in England for two reasons: he needed a painter for his residence, Kimbolton Castle, and, as a patron of the opera, he knew that theatres in London required talented scene painters. While in Venice, Montagu was informed that the south front of Kimbolton had partially collapsed, and the architects John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) and Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736) were then consulted about the reconstruction. Vanbrugh shared Montagu’s enthusiasm for Italian opera. He built and served as a director of the Queen’s Theatre, Haymarket from its inception in 1705; Montagu and Charles Howard, the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, were among the Theatre’s founding members. In their correspondence, Vanbrugh kept Montagu informed about the latest plans for finding singers for the London season and provided regular updates on Kimbolton’s reconstruction. In a letter dated 17 August 1708, he remarked, ‘If the Painter yr. Ldship brings over be a good one, he may find work enough; but the New Room at Kimbolton can’t be ready for him this Winter’.17 This comment indicates that Vanbrugh knew of Montagu’s intention to invite a Venetian painter to England with the promise of a commission. Given both men’s interest in the opera, the work alluded to by Vanbrugh may have included theatrical painting.
Pellegrini’s ties to the Carriera family could have
brought him to the attention of Cole and Montagu, but he enjoyed a significant reputation of his own by 1708, as many of his works appeared in Venetian churches. In 1707, he executed two immense canvasses depicting scenes from the life of Moses in San Moisé.18 His secular paintings included frescoes completed before 1708 at Villa Giovanelli in Pente di Brenta on the mainland. The designer and architect William Kent (1685–1748) remarked on these frescoes in his journal on 18 August 1714, stating that the villa was ‘painted within by Rizzi and Perigreene’.19
It has been suggested that a receipt for £100 dated 8 September 1708 from Montagu and signed by Pellegrini reflects payment to facilitate his move to England.20 However, when Pellegrini left for Britain, he was not part of the ambassador’s entourage; instead, he made his own travel arrangements. Carriera reported in a letter of 6 April 1708 that Lord Manchester would soon leave Venice, but Cole noted Manchester’s continued presence in Venice on 4 October 1708 and his intention to leave the following week. The same letter mentioned that Angela and Antonio Pellegrini were already en route to London via Frankfurt.21
Since Kimbolton was still being repaired, Pellegrini and Ricci were employed elsewhere when they arrived in London in late 1708 or early 1709. At Montagu’s Manchester House, they painted the staircase and the entry. An article in the Daily Courant of 30 March 1709 also reported that they designed scenery for the opera Pyrrho & Demetrio, playing at the Haymarket Theatre on 2 April 1709.22
Pellegrini accepted yet other projects while awaiting Kimbolton’s completion. A set of twelve
17. Geoffrey Webb, The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, vol. 4 (New York, AMS Press, 1967), p. 26.
18. Moses and the Brazen Serpent and The Crossing of the Red Sea contain landscapes reminiscent of Marco Ricci’s style, leading to speculation about his involvement, George Knox, Antonio Pellegrini 1675–1741 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 45. However, others note Marco’s employment with his uncle Sebastiano at the Tuscan court between 1706 and 1708, Francesco Valcanover, ‘Sebastiano Ricci and the New Century’, in The Glory of Venice, ed. Jane Martineau and Alexander Robison (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 74. In 1733, Zanetti attributed the San Moisé paintings solely to Pellegrini. Only in 1964 was Marco proposed by Egidio Martini as a contributor, Annalisa Scarpa Sonino, Marco Ricci (Milan: Berenice, 1991), p. 19.
19. Annalisa Scarpa, Sebastiano Ricci (Milan: B. Alfieri, 2006), p. 65. Kent fails to specify whether ‘Rizzi’ (Ricci) was Sebastiano or Marco. Scarpa believes the reference is to Sebastiano. Lino Moretti, ‘Miscellanea riccesca’, in Sebastiano Ricci 1659–1734. Atti del convengo internazionale di studi, 14–15 dicembre 2009, Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, ed. Giuseppe Pavanello (Verona: Scripta, 2012), p. 119 points out that Scarpa cites a report by Rossetti, a late eighteenth-century traveller who was an enthusiast rather than an expert.
20. Knox, Antonio Pellegrini, p. 50.
21. Cole’s letter from Venice to Lord Sunderland in London, dated 12 October 1708, stated, ‘This morning my Lord Manchester is sett out for Hannover & I am come to my own house’. (British Library, Add. MS 61532, fol. 19).
22. The Manchester House works have been destroyed.
vertical canvasses portraying single figures of gods and goddesses in the Little Banqueting House at Hampton Court may have been painted around this time (fig. 9).23 Their similarity to Pellegrini’s recently completed work in Italy, as well as subsequent English work that reflected his presence at Hampton Court, suggest an early date for them. His Villa Alessandri frescoes at Mira were completed before 1708 and were similar to the Hampton Court compositions, featuring a series of single figures with loosely painted foliage and skies. Endymion appears in both locations, asleep in a semi-reclining position with his legs prominently angled toward the viewer. Moreover, Hampton Court’s Mars in armor and a plumed helmet resembles Villa Alessandri’s figure of Cadmo, and the paintings in both series are surrounded by frames set into the walls. Thus, with his Italian works fresh in his mind, Pellegrini may have composed variations of them for the Little Banqueting House.
Caesar at Hampton Court in 1701–02 and so would have seen Verrio’s paintings. Another circumstance points to an early connection to Hampton Court. When Pellegrini turned to the Kimbolton commission, he painted a triumphal procession modelled on Mantegna’s renowned Triumphs of Caesar canvasses, which had recently been refurbished by Laguerre and put on display at Hampton Court. An inventory of 1710–12 lists these paintings in the Queen’s Gallery in the Fountain Court, not far from the Little Banqueting House. Pellegrini’s interpretation of Mantegna’s work suggests that they inspired his Kimbolton scenes (fig. 10). In Pellegrini’s version, ‘Caesar’ again is on an ornate chariot at the end of a procession with banners, lances, and flags, but William III is now Caesar. Gold and silver trophies carried by triumphant soldiers show both artists’ skill in painting glistening metals. Other details inspired by Mantegna’s paintings include a singing musician facing outward, although his tambour becomes a lyre in Pellegrini’s version, and an African in rich gold drapery and armor, who serves as the model for a similar richly attired figure at Kimbolton. The colourful, varied crowd in Pellegrini’s procession conveys an excitement analogous to the spirit of Mantegna’s masterpiece. Since multiple engravings of the Triumphs of Caesar
At Castle Howard and Kimbolton, Pellegrini employed a technique that he had not used in Italian wall paintings. His first documented fresco, the 1700 ceiling of the Biblioteca Antoniana in Padua, was in traditional fresco secco, as were his Mira paintings. In England, however, he worked in oil on dried and prepared plaster. This method had been used by Verrio, whose work at Hampton Court included oil paintings that adjoined Pellegrini’s twelve canvasses in the room of the Little Banqueting House. A visit by Pellegrini to Hampton Court prior to his employment at Castle Howard in 1709 would have allowed him to study Verrio’s work before adopting this new process for his own English wall paintings. It is also possible that Pellegrini consulted with Laguerre, Verrio’s former assistant and a co-director with Pellegrini at the Kneller Academy. Laguerre had been charged with restoring Andrea Mantegna’s The Triumphs of 23. They were in place by 1733, appearing in Mercier’s painting, The Music Party, Brett Dolman ‘Antonio Verrio (c.1636–1707) and the Royal Image at Hampton Court’, British Art Journal, 10 (2010), p. 19. The paintings were trimmed, and are currently narrower than the canvasses shown in Mercier’s interior. According to one theory, the paintings originally belonged to Lord Cadogan and were purchased for the Royal Collection prior to 1733, Knox, Antonio Pellegrini, p. 146. However, the 1726/7 sales catalogue for Cadogan’s collection list canvasses of twelve gods and goddesses by Pellegrini that are of differing sizes and so do not constitute a uniform set. The lots are 8, 10, 48, 49, 50, and 51, A Catalogue of the Rich Furniture of the Right Hon The Earl of Cadogan Deceas’d … As Likewise an Excellent Collection of Pictures By the Most Celebrated Italian and Flemish Masters ll Sold at Auction at His Lordships House in Piccadilly on Tuesday 14 February 1726–7 (London: [s.n.], 1726–27). Another theory posits that the paintings came from Norfolk House, where the Prince of Wales resided from 1737–41, but the Prince of Wales’s residence at Norfolk House postdates Mercier’s 1733 canvas showing the paintings at Hampton Court, Michael Levey, The Later Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 121.
9. Antonio Pellegrini, Ariadne, 1709–13. Oil on canvas, 64 1/2 × 28 1/2 in (163.8 × 72.4 cm). Little Banqueting Hall, Hampton Court Palace.
FIG.
▶ FIG. 34
▼FIG. 35.
Andrea Casali, Sophonisba Taking Poison, c.1743. Oil on canvas, 60 5/8 × 95 7/8 in (154 × 264 cm). Sotheby’s, London.
Andrea Soldi, Henry Somerset, 3rd Duke of Beaufort, 1748. Oil on canvas, 120 × 58 in (304.8 × 147.3 cm). Oriel College, University of Oxford.
Madona [sic] reading is, I think, rather awkward; and the Arm not very happily foreshortened. His Imitation of Stone and Alto Relievo are very just; and his Lucretia a very capital Picture.221
While the reviewer announces that he is ‘no connoisseur’, he nevertheless asserts his credentials as a knowledgable critic by referring to the technique of foreshortening and by comparing Casali’s work to that of another contemporaneous artist, Benjamin West. The reviewer may have been a self-educated pundit, such as Thomas Martyn or Arthur Young, since many of his observations are generalized, for
221. Public Advertiser, 5 May 1765.
instance calling Casali a ‘Painter of Great Merit’ and Lucretia ‘a capital Picture’. These general remarks signalled approval to a novice viewer.
Artists themselves expressed their views in the press. During 1759, Reynolds anonymously authored three articles in the Idler, although his identity as the writer soon became known. He decried ‘shallow’ critics and cognoscenti, arguing for the superiority of the Italian school because it focussed on universal themes: ‘The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great, and general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a
FIG. 36
Andrea Casali, Gunhilda, Empress of Germany, and the Emperor, Her Page with the Head of Her Accuser, 1760. Oil on canvas, 100 × 81 7/8 in (254 × 208 cm). Burton Constable Hall, Yorkshire.
THE IMPACT OF ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS:
‘EXCITING
A SPIRIT OF ARDENT EMULATION’
Since the time of the memorable revival of the arts in the fifteenth century, Italy, without doubt, is the country which has produced the most celebrated painters. There are none who have penetrated so deep as they into the secrets of this art, or reached to such a height in the sublime. A purity and correctness of design, the most noble expressions, elegant forms, just proportions, elevated ideas, and a fertility of genius, give a superiority to their productions, which no other artists would have been able to attain. It is only by studying and meditating upon the works of the Italian masters that we can reasonably expect to form a true taste, and to defend ourselves against the destructive and capricious sorcery of fashion, which changes almost with the seasons, and of which the most applauded and finest efforts, in the space of a few years, generally appear to be, what they really are, unnatural and ridiculous.
– SIR ROBERT STRANGE, 1769
These comments by the engraver Robert Strange and his brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden, reflect the importance assigned to the Italian school by Britons interested in the development of the arts in their own country.1 For centuries, artists have looked to the works of their illustrious predecessors to CHAPTER 4
There are indeed some painters from our country who, after a much shorter stay abroad, have made their fortunes at home: but as their fortunes have been owing to accident and not to merit, we cannot use them as examples. Perhaps it is owing to their remaining so short a time abroad, that we have had so few who deserve the name of painters. Bred up to design & colour in a bad manner before they come abroad, the time they generally remain in Italy scarce serves to get free of their first prejudices: Whereas the painters of this country are educated from their infancy in proper principles, and have always before their eyes the best of models.
– ANDREW LUMISDEN, 1759
1. James Dennistoun, Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange, Knt., Engraver, Member of Several Foreign Academies of Design, and His Brother in Law Andrew Lumisden, Private Secretary to the Stuart Princes, and Author of “The Antiquities of Rome” (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855), pp. 283–83; letter of Andrew Lumisden to David Nevay, 4 June 1759 (National Library of Scotland, MS 14526, fol. 5v6r).
challenge, inspire, and teach them. Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, in his Idea del tempio della pittura of 1590, counselled artists to search for the finest works and to use the best qualities of these works for their own creations. In his Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti, Vasari treats the history of art as a progression, each generation building upon the works of its predecessor. Artists’ lives are discussed in the context of teachers who pass their knowledge on to their pupils, while Vasari traces the impact of one artist on following generations. This type of analysis continued in the seventeenth century with Giovanni Pietro Bellori and others. Bellori’s biography of Annibale Carracci cites Correggio, Titian, and Raphael as influences, and Annibale in turn is said to have influenced his pupils, including Albani, Reni, Domenichino, and Lanfranco. 2
In a field requiring technical skills, handson training is prized above attempting to learn through books or by merely copying printed images. Across Italy, apprentices could train in workshops and, from the sixteenth century, could also learn in academies. They were part of an artistic tradition that could directly and indirectly affect them as they sought to establish careers in the arts. While masters could provide instruction and concrete examples of certain types of art, students could also look to their surroundings and evaluate new creative ideas as they appeared.
When nearly two hundred Italian artists travelled to Britain during the eighteenth century, they provided aspiring local artists with new opportunities to learn by doing and by looking. They taught in institutions, hired apprentices, and worked alongside British colleagues. The works that they created in Britain could be available for first-hand study, and reproductive prints began to circulate to an even wider audience interested in analysing composition and style. Of course, paintings and drawings by renowned sixteenthand seventeenth-century Italian artists were also available in Britain and could be studied; for example, part of Reynolds’s training involved copying Guercino drawings. Some British artists also studied in Italy, following in the footsteps of seventeenth-century Britons, such as John Michael Wright. Ramsay’s study with Imperiali and Solimena between 1736 and 1738 improved his technical skills, resulting in a firmer grasp of anatomy and modelling. However, the Italians’ presence in Britain provided increased possibilities for disseminating ideas and traditions.
There have been occasional references to the ‘influence’ of Italian masters working in eighteenthcentury Britain, although the meaning of the word has not been explained. Whinney and Millar claimed that the ‘seductive and superficial brilliance’ of Sebastiano Ricci’s technique affected British artists early in the century, but they failed to specify the painters or the works allegedly influenced by Ricci. 3 Most British artists of the era were portraitists, many trained by Kneller or
2. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. A. S. Wohl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 72–73, 99, 105. Baglione, Bellori, Boschini, and Malvasia also wrote artists’ biographies in the seventeenth century. 3. Margaret Whinney and Oliver Millar, English Art, 1625–1714 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 310.
FIG. 122
John Vanderbank, Portrait of a Lady, 1737.
Oil on canvas, 53 1/2 × 36 1/16 in (136 × 91.5 cm). York Art Gallery, York.
Dahl, although it is possible to find examples of the style employed by Ricci in the work of some native painters. The British-born John Vanderbank’s (16941739) Portrait of a Lady (1737) features rich coral and gold garments, with the flickering brushwork favoured by Ricci displayed in the fabrics and the lace and linen edgings (fig. 122). Highmore’s scenes from Pamela rely on loose brushstrokes in depicting draperies, but the porcelain delicacy of his figures bear no relation to Ricci’s richly modelled forms. Ricci’s bravura handling reflected the Rococo style of other Italian and French artists, any of whom might have affected British painters. Apart from technical affinities, influence could refer to any number of issues, from Aquinas’s sense of ‘having power over another’ to Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’, with an artist’s awareness of the transmission of another’s ideas impinging on the individual creative voice. 4 Without knowing more about a particular artist or a specific work, attributing influence is an uncertain proposition. Eighteenth-century commentators credited resident Italian artists with improving the nation’s art scene. Anthony Pasquin believed that Cipriani had ‘introduced a style of correctness’, which had ‘tended gradually to improve our designs, and excite[d] a spirit of ardent emulation’. 5 John Pye concurred, judging that Cipriani had ‘conferred on British art the advantage of his learning and grace’. 6 By the mid-nineteenth century, Samuel and Richard Redgrave were less willing to credit foreigners with having an impact on British art: ‘It is a characteristic of Englishmen that they are a people of marked individuality and independent thought, and this is characteristic of their art also; in the British school, although there is a marked national style, yet the manner is as varied as the men of note it includes’. 7 Yet their book on British painters contained a chapter entitled ‘Influence of Foreigners on English Art’, where they admitted the presence of some non-native artists who were ‘noteworthy’. Writing at the same time, William
Sandby was more generous, crediting some Italian artists in Britain with raising ‘the standard of our school of engravers and designers’. 8
MASTERS AND STUDENTS
While some British art students worked with Italian masters in Britain, the exact impact of their training is uncertain, since there are no first-hand accounts by Britons training with Italians. In general, apprentices were assigned a variety of tasks, from basic chores, such as preparing canvasses or grinding colours, to receiving personal supervision and instruction in preparing original works. James Northcote described his experience with Reynolds thus:
4. Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 26, 70, 148.
5. Pasquin, Memoirs, p. 123.
6. Pye, p. 59.
7. Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of British Painters (Oxford: Phaidon Press Limited, 1947), p. 74.
8. William Sandby, The History of the Royal Academy of Arts from Its Foundation in 1768 to the Present Time, 2 vols (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1862), 1:90.
FIG. 123
William Hoare, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, Prime Minister, c.1766. Oil on canvas, 90 1/2 × 66 7/8 in (230 × 170 cm). Government Art Collection, London.
Front cover image: Capriccio with St. Paul’s and Old London Bridge, Antonio Joli, c. 1745, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.
inside front flap: Rehearsal of an Opera, Marco Ricci, c. 1709, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT.
back cover image: Agostino Carlini, Francesco Bartolozzi, and Giovanni Battista Cipriani, John Francis Rigaud, 1778, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT.
inside back flap image: Captain Vincenzo Lunardi with his Assistant George Biggin, and Mrs. Letitia Anne Sage, in a Balloon, John Francis Rigaud, 1745, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT.