1.
1756 in art
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Events from the year 1756 in art. Richard Trevor, Prince Bishop of Durham, acquires 13 paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán depicting the patriarch Jacob and 12 of his sons for his palace at Auckland Castle in north east England, françois Boucher paints portraits of Madame de Pompadour. John Singleton Copley paints pictures with Rococo influence, szymon Czechowicz paints Bishop Stanislaus bringing back to life Piotrawin. Thomas Gainsborough paints The Painters Daughters Chasing a Butterfly Joshua Reynolds paints portraits of Susanna Beckford, johan Zoffany paints his Self-portrait as David with the head of Goliath
2.
1766 in art
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Events from the year 1766 in art. July 19 – A baronetcy is created for British sculptor Henry Cheere, englands oldest surviving Georgian theatre is constructed in Stockton-on-Tees. The Drottningholm Palace Theatre is reopened as an house in Stockholm, Sweden, in its surviving form. Denis Diderots Essais sur la peinture is published
3.
1762 in architecture
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The year 1762 in architecture involved some significant events. King George III of the United Kingdom begins remodelling Buckingham Palace as his familys main London residence, construction of the Petit Trianon in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in France to the design of Ange-Jacques Gabriel begins. Construction of the Brick Market in Newport, Rhode Island, to the design of Peter Harrison begins, milsom Street, Bath, England, is built by Thomas Lightholder. Plymouth Synagogue in England, the oldest synagogue built by Ashkenazi Jews in the English-speaking world, is built, St Georges German Lutheran Church in London is built. Old St. Thomass Church, Dublin, Ireland, designed by John Smith after Palladio, is completed, old City Hall in Denmark, built by Daniel Popp, is completed. Old State House is substantially completed, faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, is rebuilt after a fire. Richmond Place on the River Thames at Richmond, England, designed by Robert Taylor, is completed for Sir Charles Asgill, schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York, designed by John Gaborial, is completed. Upton Scott House in Annapolis, Maryland, is built by William Brown, james Stuart and Nicholas Revetts Antiquities of Athens. - Charles Labelye, Swiss civil engineer date unknown - Rosario Gagliardi, Sicilian architect
4.
1762 in literature
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1762. The Académie française produces a new edition of its dictionary of the French language, in Paris, the Comédie-Italienne is merged with the Opéra-Comique and performs at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Benjamin Victors adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is staged by David Garrick at Drury Lane and it is the earliest known performance of that Shakespearean play in any form. Christoph Martin Wieland begins publishing his prose translations of 22 Shakespearean plays, hugh Blair is appointed first Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh by King George III, the first such chair in English literature
5.
Trevi Fountain
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The Trevi Fountain is a fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci. Standing 26.3 metres high and 49.15 metres wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city, the fountain has appeared in several notable films, including Federico Fellinis La Dolce Vita. The fountain at the junction of three marks the terminal point of the modern Acqua Vergine, the revived Aqua Virgo. In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, however, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22 km. This Aqua Virgo led the water into the Baths of Agrippa and it served Rome for more than 400 years. Legend holds that in 19 BC thirsty Roman soldiers were guided by a girl to a source of pure water thirteen kilometres from the city of Rome. The aqueduct served the hot Baths of Agrippa, and Rome, in 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding the earlier fountain insufficiently dramatic, asked Gian Lorenzo Bernini to sketch possible renovations, but the project was abandoned when the pope died. Though Berninis project was never constructed, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it exists today, competitions had become the rage during the Baroque era to design buildings, fountains and even the Spanish Steps. Work began in 1732 and the fountain was completed in 1762, long after Salvis death, the Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who substituted the present allegories for planned sculptures of Agrippa and Trivia, the Roman virgin. It was officially opened and inaugurated on May 22 by Pope Clemens XIII, the majority of the piece is made from Travertine stone, quarried near Tivoli, about 35 kilometres east of Rome. Restoration work began in June 2014 and was completed in November 2015, the fountain was reopened with an official ceremony on the evening of November 3,2015. The restoration included the installation of more than 100 LED lights to improve the illumination of the fountain. The backdrop for the fountain is the Palazzo Poli, given a new façade with a giant order of Corinthian pilasters that link the two main stories. Taming of the waters is the theme of the scheme that tumbles forward, mixing water and rockwork. Tritons guide Oceanus shell chariot, taming hippocamps, in the centre a robustly-modelled triumphal arch is superimposed on the palazzo façade. The centre niche or exedra framing Oceanus has free-standing columns for maximal light, in the niches flanking Oceanus, Abundance spills water from her urn and Salubrity holds a cup from which a snake drinks. Above, bas reliefs illustrate the Roman origin of the aqueducts, the tritons and horses provide symmetrical balance, with the maximum contrast in their mood and poses. Coins are purportedly meant to be using the right hand over the left shoulder
6.
Nicola Salvi
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Nicola Salvi or Niccolò Salvi was an Italian architect, among his few projects completed is the famous Trevi fountain in Rome, Italy. Admitted to the Roman Academy of Arcadia in 1717, Salvi became an architect only after studies in mathematics and his mentor in architecture was Antonio Canevari, who served also as consulting architect of the king of Portugal. In 1728, Canevari left for Lisbon, and Salvi continued his commissions in Rome, among these were ephemeral decorations and small decorative projects. In Rome, the patronage for building of structures had declined relative to the past century. In 1732, competitions were held by Clement XII, for two large projects, one was to create a new façade for the church of St John the Lateran and another was for a public fountain at Trevi. The former completion was won by Alessandro Galilei, though Salvi’s design had much praise, Salvi’s design for the fountain however was chosen instead of plans by Ferdinando Fuga and his friend Luigi Vanvitelli. Salvi did not live to see the completed by his friend Pietro Bracci. Salvis other remaining works are few, he rebuilt the id, Chiesa di Santa Maria a Gradi ] in Viterbo, but it was destroyed by bombs in World War II and is currently being restored
7.
Giovanni Paolo Panini
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Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini was a painter and architect, who worked in Rome and is mainly known as one of the vedutisti. As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of Rome, among his most famous works are his view of the interior of the Pantheon, and his vedute—paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome. Most of his works, specially those of ruins, have a fanciful, in this they resemble the capricci of Marco Ricci. Panini also painted portraits, including one of Pope Benedict XIV, as a young man, Panini trained in his native town of Piacenza, under Giuseppe Natali and Andrea Galluzzi, and later the stage designer Francesco Galli-Bibiena. In 1711, he moved to Rome, where he studied drawing with Benedetto Luti, in Rome, Panini became famous as a decorator of palaces, including the Villa Patrizi, the Palazzo de Carolis, and the Seminario Romano. In 1719, Panini was admitted to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon and he taught in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca and the Académie de France, where he influenced Jean-Honoré Fragonard. In 1754, he served as the principal of the Accademia di San Luca, Panini died in Rome on 21 October 1765. Paninis studio included Hubert Robert and his son Francesco Panini, some British landscape painters, such as Marlow, Skelton and Wright of Derby, also imitated his capricci. In addition to being a painter and architect, Panini was a professor of perspective and his masterful use of perspective was later the inspiration for the creation of the Panini Projection, which is instrumental in rendering panoramic views. Death Leap of Marcus Arisi, Ferdinando, gian Paolo Panini e i fasti della Roma del 700. Arisi, Ferdinando, Giovanni Paolo Panini 1691-1765, Milano,1993, Horak, Marco, Quellopera prima di Panini gemella del dipinto esposto al Lombardi di Parma, in LUrtiga - Quaderni di cultura Piacentina, Piacenza, n. Horak, Marco, Lopera prima del Panini in una collezione privata, in Panorama Musei, anno XVIII, n.3, dicembre 2013 Horak, Marco, Panini al Fine Art Museum di San Francisco, in Panorama Musei, anno XXI, n
8.
Joseph Smith (art collector)
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His collection of drawings were bought for George III of Great Britain and form a nucleus of the Royal Collection of drawings in the Print Room at Windsor Castle. Beside Canaletto, among the living painters whom he patronised were Francesco Zuccarelli, of Florence, and his favoured architect for rebuilding the façade of his palazzo was Antonio Visentini. It was his pleasure to issue lavishly-printed books in extremely limited editions, for which he had the services of Giovanni Battista Pasquali, whose press he bankrolled. A reproduction of Boccaccios Decamerone from the Pasquali press, guided by Smith, was so exact a facsimile of the edition of 1527 that only close examination tells them apart. A Catalogue Librorum Rarissimorum was in fact a partial catalogue of the rarities in Smiths own library. A second edition adds thirty-one titles, a general catalogue of his library was published in 1755. Smith himself was a collector of contemporary Venetian painting and drawings. In 1768 he published a facsimile of the edition of Palladios Quattro libri dell architecttura of 1570. In 1762 Smith sold the vast majority of his books, gems, coins, prints, the books today form the nucleus of the Kings Library at the British Museum, while the Royal Collection retains his other treasures. Smiths other passion was for music, which he indulged in part by marrying the noted and he retained the post until the accession of George III in 1760. In expectation of his appointment Smith purchased outright Palazzo Balbi on the Grand Canal, soon thereafter he commissioned Antonio Visentini to redesign the façade in the Palladian style. Smiths summer villa in the terraferma was at Mogliano, George III began to form his library by purchasing Smiths in virtually its entirety in 1765, for £10,000, they form that part of the British Library known as the Kings Library. Smith did not stop collecting, the dispersal of his collection of books by auction in London. Many of Smiths paintings also went to the British Royal Collection, through the mediation of James Smart Mackenzie, a generous selection of his manuscripts were purchased by Lord Sunderland for the library at Blenheim Palace, which was dispersed in turn in the nineteenth century. At quite an advanced age, the widowed consul Smith, his wife having died in 1746, married a sister of John Murray, resident at Venice and afterwards British ambassador to Turkey. His grave was on the Lido, where Goethe, travelling in the late seventeen-eighties, stopped to pay respects, to him I owe my copy of Palladio, and I offered up a grateful prayer
9.
Consul (representative)
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A consul is distinguished from an ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another. In Classical Greece, some of the functions of the modern consul were fulfilled by a proxenos, unlike the modern position, this was a citizen of the host polity. The proxenos was usually a rich merchant who had ties with another city. The position of proxenos was often hereditary in a particular family, modern honorary consuls fulfil a function that is to a degree similar to that of the ancient Greek institution. Consuls were the highest magistrates of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, the term was revived by the Republic of Genoa, which, unlike Rome, bestowed it on various state officials, not necessarily restricted to the highest. The Consolat de mar was an institution established under the reign of Peter IV of Aragon in the fourteenth century and it was primarily a judicial body, administering maritime and commercial law as Lex Mercatoria. Although the Consolat de mar was established by the Corts General of the Crown of Aragon and this distinction between consular and diplomatic functions remains to this day. Modern consuls retain limited powers to settle disputes on ships from their country. The Consulado de mercaderes was set up in 1543 in Seville as a merchant guild to control trade with Latin America, as such, it had branches in the principal cities of the Spanish colonies. The connection of consul with trade and commercial law is retained in French, in francophone countries, a juge consulaire is a non-professional judge elected by the chamber of commerce to settle commercial disputes in the first instance. Like the term embassy, the consulate may refer not only to the office of consul. The consulate may share premises with the embassy itself, a consul of the highest rank is termed a consul-general, and his or her office a consulate-general. He or she typically has one or several deputy consuls-general, consuls, vice-consuls, consulates-general need not have their offices in the capital city, but rather could have them in the most important/appropriate cities in terms of bilateral relations. In the United States, for example, most countries have a consulate-general in New York City, consuls of various ranks may have specific legal authority for certain activities, such as notarizing documents. As such, diplomatic personnel with other responsibilities may receive consular letters patent, aside from those outlined in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, there are few formal requirements outlining what a consular official must do. Nonetheless, consulates proper will be headed by consuls of various ranks, and although it is never admitted publicly, consulates, like embassies, may also gather intelligence information from the assigned country. Contrary to popular belief, although many of the staff of consulates may be career diplomats, in practice, the extension and application of consular privileges and immunities can be subject to wide discrepancies from country to country. Consulates are more numerous than diplomatic missions, such as embassies, ambassadors are posted only in a foreign nations capital
10.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
11.
Canaletto
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Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, was an Italian painter of city views or vedute, of Venice. He also painted views, although the demarcation in his works between the real and the imaginary is never quite clearcut. He was further an important printmaker using the etching technique, in the period from 1746 to 1756 he worked in England where he created many sights of London. He was highly successful in England, thanks to the British merchant and connoisseur Joseph Smith and he was born in Venice as the son of the painter Bernardo Canal, hence his mononym Canaletto, and Artemisia Barbieri. Canaletto served his apprenticeship with his father and his brother and he began in his fathers occupation, that of a theatrical scene painter. Canaletto was inspired by the Roman vedutista Giovanni Paolo Pannini, and started painting the life of the city. After returning from Rome in 1719, he began painting in his topographical style and his first known signed and dated work is Architectural Capriccio. Studying with the older Luca Carlevarijs, a painter of urban cityscapes. It is like Carlevaris, but you can see the sun shining in it, much of Canalettos early artwork was painted from nature, differing from the then customary practice of completing paintings in the studio. However, his paintings are notable for their accuracy, he recorded the seasonal submerging of Venice in water. Canalettos early works remain his most coveted and, according to many authorities, one of his early pieces is The Stonemasons Yard which depicts a humble working area of the city. It is regarded one of his finest works and was presented by Sir George Beaumont in 1823/8, later Canaletto painted grand scenes of the canals of Venice and the Doges Palace. His large-scale landscapes portrayed the citys pageantry and waning traditions, making use of atmospheric effects. For these qualities, his works may be said to have anticipated Impressionism and his graphic print S. A Giustina in Prà della Vale was found in the 2012 Nazi loot discovery. Many of his pictures were sold to Englishmen on their Grand Tour and it was Smith who acted as an agent for Canaletto, first in requesting paintings of Venice from the painter in the early 1720s and helping him to sell his paintings to other Englishmen. In the 1740s Canalettos market was disrupted when the War of the Austrian Succession led to a reduction in the number of British visitors to Venice and he remained in England until 1755, producing views of London and of his patrons castles and houses. His 1754 painting of Old Walton Bridge includes an image of Canaletto himself and he was often expected to paint England in the fashion with which he had painted his native city. Historian Michael Levey described his work from this period as inhibited, the artist was compelled to give public painting demonstrations in order to refute this claim, however, his reputation never fully recovered in his lifetime
12.
George III of the United Kingdom
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He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. However, many of Britains American colonies were soon lost in the American War of Independence, further wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France from 1793 concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In the later part of his life, George III had recurrent, although it has since been suggested that he had the blood disease porphyria, the cause of his illness remains unknown. After a final relapse in 1810, a regency was established, on George IIIs death, the Prince Regent succeeded his father as George IV. Historical analysis of George IIIs life has gone through a kaleidoscope of changing views that have depended heavily on the prejudices of his biographers and the sources available to them. Until it was reassessed in the half of the 20th century, his reputation in the United States was one of a tyrant. George was born in London at Norfolk House and he was the grandson of King George II, and the eldest son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. As Prince George was born two months prematurely and he was unlikely to survive, he was baptised the same day by Thomas Secker. One month later, he was baptised at Norfolk House. His godparents were the King of Sweden, his uncle the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, George grew into a healthy but reserved and shy child. The family moved to Leicester Square, where George and his younger brother Prince Edward, Duke of York, Family letters show that he could read and write in both English and German, as well as comment on political events of the time, by the age of eight. He was the first British monarch to study science systematically and his religious education was wholly Anglican. At age 10 George took part in a production of Joseph Addisons play Cato and said in the new prologue, What. It may with truth be said, A boy in England born, historian Romney Sedgwick argued that these lines appear to be the source of the only historical phrase with which he is associated. Georges grandfather, King George II, disliked the Prince of Wales, however, in 1751 the Prince of Wales died unexpectedly from a lung injury, and George became heir apparent to the throne. He inherited one of his fathers titles and became the Duke of Edinburgh, now more interested in his grandson, three weeks later the King created George Prince of Wales. Georges mother, now the Dowager Princess of Wales, preferred to keep George at home where she could imbue him with her moral values
13.
Royal Collection
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The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family and the largest private art collection in the world. The Queen owns some objects in the collection in right of the Crown, the Queens Gallery at Buckingham Palace in London was built specially to exhibit pieces from the collection on a rotating basis. There is an art gallery next to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The Crown Jewels are on display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London. About 3,000 objects are on loan to museums throughout the world, few items from before King Henry VIII survive. The most important additions to the collection were made by Charles I, a collector of Italian paintings. Many works have been given from the collection to museums, especially by George III and Victoria, in particular, most of the then royal library was given by George III to the British Museum, now the British Library, where many books are still catalogued as Royal. The core of this collection was the purchase by James I of the collections of Humphrey Llwyd, Lord Lumley. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth II, there have been significant additions to the collection through purchases, bequests and through gifts from nation states. Numbering over 7,000 works, spread across the Royal Residences, numbering over 300 items, the Royal Collection holds one of the greatest and most important collections of French furniture ever assembled. The collection is noted for its range as well as counting the greatest cabinet-makers of the Ancien Régime. The Royal Collection is privately owned, although some of the works are displayed in areas of palaces, some of the collection is owned by the monarch personally, and everything else is described as being held in trust by the monarch in right of the Crown. All works of art acquired by monarchs up to the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 are heirlooms which fall into the latter category. Items the British royal family acquired later, including official gifts, ambiguity surrounds the status of objects that have come into Queen Elizabeth IIs possession during her reign. The Royal Collection Trust has confirmed that all pieces left to the Queen by the Queen Mother belong to her personally, non-personal items are said to be inalienable as they can only be willed to the monarchs successor. The legal accuracy of this claim has never been substantiated in court, in a 2000 television interview, the Duke of Edinburgh said that the Queen was technically, perfectly at liberty to sell them. In 1995, Iain Sproat, then Secretary of State for National Heritage, a registered charity, the Royal Collection Trust was set up in 1993 after the Windsor Castle fire with a mandate to conserve the works and enhance the publics appreciation and understanding of art. It employs around 500 staff and is one of the five departments of the Royal Household, buildings do not come under its remit
14.
Nicholas Revett
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Nicholas Revett was a British architect. Revett is best known for his work with James Athenian Stuart documenting the ruins of ancient Athens and he is sometimes described as an amateur architect, but he played an important role in the revival of Greek architecture. Revett is believed to have born in Framlingham, Suffolk. He was baptised in the Church of St Michael the Archangel and he studied with the proto-Neoclassical painter Marco Benefial. He died in London, and was buried in Brandeston, revet met James Stuart in Italy where they had gone to further their artistic education. They decided to travel on to Greece, the Society was founded by men including Gray who had been on the Grand Tour, its patronage was to prove important to Revett. In Greece they stayed mainly in Athens, where they arrived in 1751 and they also visited the Aegean Islands including Delos. In England Revett and Stuart prepared their work for publication and found subscribers for The Antiquities of Athens, the project was intended to consist of four volumes, although a supplementary volume also appeared. The illustrations include 368 etched and engraved plates, plans and maps drawn at scale, the first volume, in which the authors are described as painters and architects, appeared in 1762/3. Revett gave up his interest in the project after the first volume, the fourth volume appeared in 1816, the year the Elgin Marbles were acquired by the British government. Revett took part in an expedition in the 1760s. He travelled with Richard Chandler and others to Greece and Ionia under the auspices of the Society of Dilettanti, there are not many buildings attributed to Revett. He considered himself a gentleman and he was probably sufficiently well-off not to have to earn his living, Revett designed two Greek additions to English country houses which arguably commenced the British Greek Revivalist period in architecture from the 1760s. Both owners were members of the Society of Dilettanti, the properties in question were, Standlynch Park, Wiltshire, now known as Trafalgar Park Revett added a portico to this house which was the home of Henry Dawkins. West Wycombe Park, Buckinghamshire Revett added a portico to this house, the portico is based on a temple at Teos. with James Stuart, The Antiquities of Athens. Richard Chandler, Nicholas Revett, Travels in Asia Minor and Greece, Richard Chandler, Nicholas Revett, W. Pars, Ionian Antiquities London 1769. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Revett
15.
Horace Walpole
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Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford — also known as Horace Walpole — was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London and his literary reputation rests on his Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. He was the son of the first British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, as Horace Walpole was childless, on his death his barony descended to his cousin of the same surname, who was created the new Earl of Orford. Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, like his father, he received early education in Bexley, he was also educated at Eton College and Kings College, Cambridge. Walpoles first friends were probably his cousins Francis and Henry Conway, to whom Walpole became strongly attached, at Eton he formed with Charles Lyttelton and George Montagu the Triumvirate, a schoolboy confederacy. More important were another group of friends dubbed the Quadruple Alliance, Walpole, Thomas Gray, Richard West, at Cambridge Walpole came under the influence of Conyers Middleton, an unorthodox theologian. Walpole came to accept the nature of Middletons attitude to some essential Christian doctrines for the rest of his life, including a hatred of superstition. Walpole ceased to reside at Cambridge at the end of 1738, according to one biographer his love for his mother was the most powerful emotion of his entire life. the whole of his psychological history was dominated by it. Walpole did not have any relationships with women, he has been called a natural celibate. Walpoles sexual orientation has been the subject of speculation, many contemporaries described him as effeminate. Biographers such as Timothy Mowl explore his possible homosexuality, including a passionate, some previous biographers such as Lewis, Fothergill, and Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, however, have interpreted Walpole as asexual. Upon coming of age he became Comptroller of the Pipe and Clerk of the Estreats which gave him an income of £300 per annum, Walpole decided to go travelling with Thomas Gray and wrote a will whereby he left Gray all his belongings. They left Dover on 29 March and arrived at Calais later that day and they then travelled through Boulogne, Amiens and Saint-Denis, arriving at Paris on 4 April. Here they met many aristocratic Englishmen, in early June they left Paris for Rheims, then in September going to Dijon, Lyons, Dauphiné, Savoy, Aix-les-Bains, Geneva, and then back to Lyons. In October they left for Italy, arriving in Turin in November, then going to Genoa, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, Modena, Bologna, and in December arriving at Florence. Here he struck up a friendship with Horace Mann, an assistant to the British Minister at the Court of Tuscany and wrote Epistle from Florence to Thomas Ashton, tutor to the Earl of Plymouth, a mixture of Whig history and Middletons teachings. In February 1740 Walpole and Gray left for Rome with the intention of witnessing the papal conclave upon the death of Pope Clement XII, Walpole wanted to attend fashionable parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. At social occasions in Rome he saw the Old Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart, Walpole and Gray returned to Florence in July
16.
George Vertue
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George Vertue was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martins-in-the-Fields, London, his father, perhaps a tailor, at the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a prominent heraldic engraver of French origin who became bankrupt and returned to France. Vertue worked seven years under Michael Vandergucht, before operating independently and he was amongst the first members of Godfrey Knellers London Academy of Painting, who had employed him to engrave portraits. It was there that he became a pupil of Thomas Gibson, Vertue had a deep interest in antiquarian research, and much of his labour was given to this subject. From 1713 on, Vertue was a researcher on details of the history of British art. He was a member of the Rose and Crown Club, with William Hogarth, Peter Tillemans and other artists and connoisseurs and his travels to sites across England, with enthusiasts such as Edward Harley, Lord Coleraine and others, were recorded in Vertues highly detailed drawings and notes. In 1717 he was appointed engraver to the Society of Antiquaries. Most of the illustrations in Vetusta Monumenta, up to his date of death, are his work, after the death of the Earl of Oxford in 1741, Vertue was patronised by the Duchess of Portland and others. The Duke of Norfolk commissioned a work after Van Dyck of the Earl of Arundel and he produced a catalogue detailing the collections of the royal family, at the request of Frederick, Prince of Wales, an avid buyer of the engravers work. A portrait of Vertue was painted in 1715 by Gibson, his widow donated this to The Society of Antiquaries, Vertue had produced an engraving of this. A later painting, of the artist aged around 50, by Jonathan Richardson was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, another self-portrait, with his wife on their wedding-day, was etched by William Humphrey. Richardson also drew the profile used in James Basires plate in Nicholss Literary Anecdotes, Vertue died in London on 24 July 1756 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Vertues brother James was an artist in Bath who produced the view of the abbey that was engraved by him. The second of his three brothers, Peter, was a master of Chelmsford. Approximately five hundred portraits are attributed to Vertue, a number of published plates were devoted to antiquarian subjects. Many of the portraits were printed as frontispieces, most are regarded as accurate representations of the subject, twelve Heads of Poets, set of plates issued 1730 Rapins History of England, Knapton Brothers edition,1736. A task that took three years, the same publisher commissioned plates for Thomas Birchs Heads of Illustrious Persons, though his contribution is submerged by the popularity of Houbrakens brilliant but less truthful productions. The copperplates of these were acquired by the Society of Antiquaries and his publications include A Description of the Works of Wenceslaus Hollar,1745, and Medals, Coins, Great Seals, Impressions from the Works of Thomas Simon,1753
17.
George Stubbs
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George Stubbs ARA was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Stubbs was born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant, information on his life up to age thirty-five is sparse, relying almost entirely on notes made by fellow artist Ozias Humphry towards the end of Stubbss life. Stubbs worked at his fathers trade until he was 15 or 16, thereafter as an artist he was self-taught. In the 1740s he worked as a painter in the North of England. He had had a passion for anatomy from his childhood, in 1756 he rented a farmhouse in the village of Horkstow, Lincolnshire, and spent 18 months dissecting horses, assisted by his common-law wife, Mary Spencer. He moved to London in about 1759 and in 1766 published The anatomy of the Horse, the original drawings are now in the collection of the Royal Academy. In 1759 the 3rd Duke of Richmond commissioned three large pictures from him, and his career was soon secure. By 1763 he had produced works for several dukes and other lords and was able to buy a house in Marylebone, a fashionable part of London. His most famous work is probably Whistlejacket, a painting of a prancing horse commissioned by the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham and this and two other paintings carried out for Rockingham break with convention in having plain backgrounds. Throughout the 1760s he produced a range of individual and group portraits of horses, sometimes accompanied by hounds. He often painted horses with their grooms, whom he painted as individuals. Meanwhile, he continued to accept commissions for portraits of people. From 1761 to 1776 he exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain, Stubbs also painted more exotic animals including lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, and rhinoceroses, which he was able to observe in private menageries. His painting of a kangaroo was the first glimpse of this animal for many 18th-century Britons and he became preoccupied with the theme of a wild horse threatened by a lion and produced several variations on this theme. These and other works became known at the time through engravings of Stubbss work. Stubbs also painted pictures, but these are much less well regarded. From the late 1760s he produced work on enamel. In the 1770s Josiah Wedgwood developed a new and larger type of enamel panel at Stubbss request, Stubbs hoped to achieve commercial success with his paintings in enamel, but the venture left him in debt
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Whistlejacket
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The canvas is large, lacks any other content except some discreet shadows, and Stubbs has paid precise attention to the details of the horses appearance. It has been described in The Independent as a paradigm of the beauty of an Arabian thoroughbred. Stubbs was a specialist equine artist who in 1762 was invited by Rockingham to spend months at Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire. It would seem likely that leaving the portraits without the landscape background was Rockinghams idea. Here the horse is alone and in a state, producing a romantic study in solitude. To a greater degree than any earlier painter, Stubbs produced genuinely individual portraits of specific horses, minute blemishes, veins, and the muscles flexing just below the surface of the skin are all visible and reproduced with great care and realism. Whistlejacket had already retired after a successful racing career, but was painted in this unusual form to show a supremely beautiful specimen of the pure-bred Arabian horse at its finest. He suspended the cadavers with block and tackle to better able sketch them in different positions, the careful notes and drawings he made during his studies were published in 1766 in The Anatomy of the Horse. Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham was a Whig politician, later to be twice Prime Minister, in 1762 he commissioned Stubbs to produce a series of portraits of his horses, one of which was Whistlejacket. He was also a collector of art, commissioning several works in Italy on his Grand Tour in the late 1740s, but his great leisure interests were, typically for his class, horseracing and gambling. His wife wrote of her hopes that he would restrict himself to gambling just upon the turf, for there is always a possibility of some sort of pleasure in that, but not the smallest in other sorts. Wentworth House, as it was known, had been rebuilt by his father on a huge scale. Horace Walpole, on the visit in 1766 mentioned below, complained of the un-landscaped park This lord loves nothing but horses, earlier in 1762, Stubbs had painted a second portrait of Whistlejacket, with two other unnamed stallions and a groom, Joshua or Simon Cobb. The story probably originated with Stubbs himself, but is too good to be true, it clearly recalls Pliny the Elders famous story of Zeuxis. It is consistently among the top ten most popular National Gallery paintings in various forms of reproduction, the painting is in very good condition and was lined, cleaned and restored a few years before its acquisition. In one account, The painting was intended to accompany a similarly-sized equestrian portrait of George II by David Morier. Whistlejacket was a stallion, with flaxen-coloured mane and tail. His sire was Mogul and grandsire was the Godolphin Arabian, through his dam, he was descended from the Byerly Turk
19.
Thomas Davies (British Army officer)
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Thomas Davies FRS FLS was a British Army officer, artist, and naturalist. He was born c. 1737 in Shooters Hill, England and he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-general in the Royal Artillery. He studied drawing and recorded military operations in water-colours during several campaigns in North America. He later became a noted artist and naturalist and he was the first to illustrate and describe the superb lyrebird. His work was not well known until after a 1953 auction from the Earl of Derbys library and his paintings were later shown as part of a major exhibition,2 July –4 September 1972, at the National Gallery of Canada. Very little is known of his early life, in his will, he lists his father as David Davies from Shooters Hill. Davies began military service at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in 1755, there he received training in topographic drawing to provide detailed and accurate drawings for military use. By 1757 he became lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and began service abroad in Canada. His earliest work is a drawing of Halifax during the failed Louisbourg expedition in 1757, the next year, he recorded the military operations during the Siege of Louisbourg, including the Expulsion of the Acadians. Starting in 1759, he was with General Jeffery Amhersts forces, first at the Fort Ticonderoga, in 1760, he fought in the attack against Montreal and commanded a boat in a naval battle, which he also illustrated. After the attack against Montreal, he surveyed the regions surrounding Lake Ontario for several years and he painted a series of waterfalls, including views of Great Seneca Falls and Niagara Falls. His 1762 watercolour of Niagara Falls, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, was the first eyewitness painting, in 1776, Davies returned to North America with General William Howe during the American War for Independence. After the Battle of Long Island in August, he illustrated the British fleet in the harbour, later that year, he continued with General Howe at the Battle of White Plains and the subsequent Battle of Fort Washington, where he illustrated the battle scene. Under the command of General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Fort Lee, Davies captured the landing at and this work has sometimes been attributed to Lord Francis Rawdon, since he later bought it from Davies. In 1777, he was sent to command Fort Knyphausen, previously known as Fort Washington, in 1780, he returned to England. Battle Illustrations After the war, he received promotions and was assigned to command posts in Gibraltar, the West Indies. In 1799, he was appointed commandant of the Royal Artillery. His last promotion was to the rank of lieutenant-general in 1803, in 1781, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society
20.
Nathaniel Hone the Elder
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Nathaniel Hone RA was an Irish-born portrait and miniature painter, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. While his paintings were popular, his reputation was enhanced by his skill at producing miniatures. He interrupted his time in London by spending two years studying in Italy, as a portrait painter, several of his works are now held at the National Portrait Gallery in London. His sitters included magistrate Sir John Fielding and Methodist preacher John Wesley and he often used his son John Camillus Hone in some of his works, including his unique portrait of The Spartan Boy. It also originally included a caricature of fellow Academician Angelica Kauffman in the top left corner. The combination of a girl and an old man has also been seen as symbolic of Kauffman and Reynoldss closeness, age difference. To show that his reputation was undamaged, Hone organised a retrospective in London. Distant cousins of Nathaniel include Sir Charles Hardy and William Beckford and his great-grand-nephew shared the same name and was also a notable Irish painter, known as Nathaniel Hone the Younger. He is also a relation to painter Evie Hone, media related to Nathaniel Hone the Elder at Wikimedia Commons
21.
Allan Ramsay (artist)
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Allan Ramsay was a prominent Scottish portrait-painter. Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and he later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill and his only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of Alexander Bayne of Rires, Anne died on 4 February 1743, giving birth to their 3rd child, none of their children reached adulthood. One of his pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick. He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage and his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100. Three children survived from their long and happy marriage, Amelia, Charlotte, Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754 to 1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites. He earned income painting Grand Tourists portraits and this and other trips to Italy involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, Ramsay in 1761 was appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principal Painter in Ordinary to George III and he gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits. His health was shattered by a dislocation of the right arm. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time and he left a series of 50 royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken and he died at Dover on 10 August 1784. The portrait of his wife shows the influence of French art. The large collection of his sketches in the possession of the Royal Scottish Academy, Ramsay has paintings in the collection of a few British institutions including the National Gallery in London, Sheffield, Derby Art Gallery, Glasgow Museum and Newstead Abbey. Valdes suggests that copies of paintings were sent to the colonies to be used by abolitionists as a de facto support for their cause. Most historians question whether the 13th-century ancestor, referred to in various places as a Moor and Berber, was black African. In any event, they contend that the connection, nine and 15 generations removed, was too distant to consider Charlotte black in any cultural way, as her other ancestors were all European
22.
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
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Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the wife of King George III. She was also the Electress of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire until the promotion of her husband to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814, Queen Charlotte was a patroness of the arts and an amateur botanist, who helped expand Kew Gardens. George III and Charlotte had 15 children,13 of whom survived to adulthood and she was distressed by her husbands bouts of physical illness and insanity, which became permanent in later life and resulted in their eldest son being appointed Prince Regent in 1811. Sophia Charlotte was born on 19 May 1744 and she was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince of Mirow and his wife Princess Elizabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a small north German duchy in the Holy Roman Empire, the children of Duke Charles were all born at the Untere Schloss in Mirow. According to diplomatic reports at the time of her engagement to George III, when King George III succeeded to the throne of Great Britain upon the death of his grandfather, George II, he was unmarried. His mother and advisors were anxious to have him settled in marriage and he instructed her on her arrival in London not to meddle, a precept she was glad to follow. Charlotte spoke no English but was quick to learn the language and it was noted by many observers that she was ugly, had a dark complexion and flared nostrils. She is timid at first but talks a lot, when she is among people she knows, said one observer. Three days of public celebrations followed, and on 17 Aug 1761, the Princess set out for Britain, accompanied by her brother, Duke Adolphus Frederick, on 22 Aug, they reached Cuxhaven, where a small fleet awaited to convey them to England. The voyage was difficult, the party encountered three storms at sea, and landed at Harwich only on 7 September. They set out at once for London, spent that night in Witham, at the residence of Lord Abercorn and they were received by the King and his family, which marked the first meeting of the bride and groom. At 9,00 pm that evening, within six hours of her arrival, Charlotte married George III at the Chapel Royal, St. Jamess Palace, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker, officiating. The Queen favored this residence, and spent much of her time there, as many as 14 of her 15 children were born in Buckingham House. Less than a year after the marriage, on 12 August 1762, the Queen gave birth to her first child, the Prince of Wales, in the course of their marriage, they had 15 children, all but two of whom survived into adulthood. Around 1762 the King and Queen moved to Buckingham House, at the end of St. Jamess Park. The house which forms the core of the present palace was built for the first Duke of Buckingham. Buckinghams descendant, Sir Charles Sheffield, sold Buckingham House to George III in 1761 for £21,000, the house was originally intended as a private retreat, in particular for Charlotte, and was known as The Queens House
23.
Joshua Reynolds
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Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the Grand Style in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect and he was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds and his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, in 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshuas pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson, as a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardsons An Essay on the Theory of Painting, having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, who had been born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock and he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his fathers death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, while with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, while in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi, then aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds employment as an assistant for the rest of the artists career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martins Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street and he achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific. In 1760 Reynolds moved into a house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works, in the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait, the clothing of Reynolds sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. Lay figures were used to model the clothes and he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780
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Ostenaco
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Ostenaco, lived c.1703 –1780. He preferred to go by the title he had earned at any early age, Utsidihi, He was known as a great orator. Ostenaco was a war chief of the Cherokee town Tomotley, and had resided previously in Great Tellico and he was probably born in Great Hiwassee, finally migrating later in life to the town of Ultiwa on Ooltewah Creek during the Cherokee–American wars. During the French and Indian War, Ostenaco at first aided the Colony of Virginia against the French, in 1756, he led 130 Cherokees in a joint Virginia-Cherokee campaign on the frontier of what is now West Virginia. In 1757 and 1758, his war party raided the French stronghold at Fort Duquesne, Ostenaco gave a speech and ceremonially buried a hatchet in the ground, symbolizing a state of peace between the English and the Cherokee. On January 2,1762, Timberlake returned to Tomotley with Ostenaco, Timberlake spent the next few weeks studying Cherokee habits and making notes for his maps of the Overhill country. At the end of January, rumors began trickling in from Cherokee scouts of renewed hostilities with rival tribes to the north, Timberlake grew anxious and begged Ostenaco to guide him back to Virginia. Ostenaco reluctantly agreed, and the party set out on March 10,1762, the party arrived in Williamsburg in early April. While in Williamsburg, Timberlake and Ostenaco attended a party at William & Mary College at which Ostenaco professed his desire to meet the king of England. A young Thomas Jefferson, then a student at the college, later wrote of Ostenaco, I knew much of the great Outassete and he was always the guest of my father on his journeys to and from Williamsburg. I was in his camp when he made his great farewell oration to his people the evening before he departed for England. The moon was in full splendour, and to her he seemed to address himself in his prayers for his own safety on the voyage, in May 1762, Timberlake, Sumter, and three distinguished Cherokee leaders, including Ostenaco, departed for London. Arriving in early June, the Cherokee were an immediate attraction, the poet Oliver Goldsmith waited for three hours to meet the Cherokee, and offered a gift to Ostenaco. They sat for Sir Joshua Reynolds to take their portraits, the Cherokee returned to North America with Sergeant Sumter on about August 25,1762. During the Second Cherokee War, Ostenaco was the war leader of the Cherokee Lower Towns in western South Carolina/northeast Georgia. In 1776 he led their attack against the Province of Georgia, after the destruction of the Lower Towns in the retaliation which followed, Ostenaco led his people west. The majority resettled in what is now far northern Georgia, with Ustanali as their chief town, some followed him into the Cherokee–American wars with Dragging Canoe, and settled with him in the Chickamauga region at the town of Ultiwa. Ostenaco died at the home of his grandson, Richard Timberlake, evans, E. Raymond, Notable Persons in Cherokee History, Ostenaco, Journal of Cherokee Studies, Cherokee, Museum of the Cherokee Indian,1, 41–54 Timberlake, Henry, Williams, Samuel, eds
