James Durno

Commissioned in Rome by Frederick Augustus Hervey (1730–1803), 4th Earl of Bristol, in 1787;

Possibly sold at auction in Rome following the Earl's death in 1803;

Private collection, Florence, until 2019.

J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800, New Haven and London 1997, p. 324.

This monumental canvas is one of the most ambitious large-scale history paintings made by British artist James Durno during his sojourn in Rome. Richly painted and dramatically modelled, the work was commissioned in 1787 by Frederick Augustus Hervey (1730–1803), 4th Earl of Bristol, during the course of his six visits to Italy where he established himself as one of the most extravagant and eccentric patrons of the 18th century.¹ He was described by the Rev. William Gunn (1750–1841) as 'lively, odd and half mad'.²

The painting appears mentioned for the first time in May 1787 in a letter to the Earl by Jacob More, the Earl’s Roman agent: ‘[Durno] is making studdies for the Large Picture of Priam for Your Lordship. I have receved the flastaff and the Picture from Cymbeline the other picture from Hector not being sufficiently dry must be sent by the next opportunity’.³ The work was completed a couple of years later and a letter from the artist Charles Grignion the Younger (1754–1804) to George Cumberland dated 16 November 1791 relates: ‘Durno [...] exhibited his large picture of Priam returning to Troy with the body of Hector, we think it the best thing he has done’.⁴

Durno's highly charged canvas captures the moment King Priam returns to the city of Troy with the body of his son Hector. The King is depicted to the left of the composition, seated on a chariot, contemplating the corpse of his son. Hector’s widow Andromache is shown lying prostrate across his body while his mother Hecuba is leaning over them with her arms outstretched. At the far left stands Hector’s brother Paris, dressed in Phrygian costume. In the background, behind the chariot, the artist includes Helen, who also mourned the loss of Hector because of his kindness. Following Homer’s account of this episode, the chariot is surrounded by a multitude of Trojans mourning their prince. 

Durno’s frieze-like composition is indebted to Gavin Hamilton’s sequence of depictions of the Iliad which had been widely published in engravings by Domenico Cunego. More specifically Hamilton’s own rendition of Andromache Bewailing the Death of Hector commissioned by Lord Compton and completed in Rome in 1760. The finished picture is now lost and known via an engraving,⁵ and an oil sketch in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.⁶ 

Note on Provenance

Between 1765 and 1803, Frederick Augustus Hervey spent lengthy periods of time travelling across Italy, his ample funds allowing his to amass a significant collection of paintings, sculptures and works of art intended to form the basis of galleries arranged to illustrate ‘the Progress of Painting’ open to ‘young Geniusses who can not afford to travel into Italy’.⁷ He planned galleries dedicated for public viewing at Downhill and Ballyscullion House in County Derry, and at his family seat Ickworth in Suffolk.⁸ In a letter dated 20 March 1792 to his daughter he relays:

‘My own collection is forming from Cimabue thro’ Rafael & delicious Guido down to Pompeio Battoni, the last of the Italian School. – & in Germany from Albert Durer’s Master down to Angelica. – but I have no good Rafael, nor any satisfactory Guido, but a Correggio that is invaluable and two Claudes […]’.⁹

The fate of the Earl’s collection dramatically changed at the end of the century during the French invasion of Italy. In 1798 the artworks which he had gathered in Rome were sequestrated and he was arrested, imprisoned and accused of alleged spying activities.¹⁰ The following year, the Earl was released and his collection relinquished. He spent the last few years of his life drifting between Italy and Germany, failing to ship his collection back to his home. The reason for this is unknown and is possibly explained by the fact that he regarded it as secure under the protection of the new papal government that had been re-established in Rome in September 1799. Another reason may be that by then the Earl was hugely in debt and could not afford to pay the high import duties into England.¹¹

He died a couple of years later in July 1803, leaving his collection, as well as his significant outstanding debts, to his second cousin, Rev.d Henry Hervey Bruce (d. 1822). It is probably for this reason that Bruce was forced to sell off most of the Earl's treasures in order to pay off his major creditors. In a letter dated 19 April 1805, Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807) wrote:

‘The death of Lord Hervey the Bishop of Derry has been a great loss to many artists, especially in present times. Now all that collection of ancient and modern paintings are to be sold, with a great number of fine columns, statues and other things of that kind he had destined for a great building in Ireland.’¹²

The fate of Durno’s Priam returning to Troy with the body of Hector remains a mystery; it is however likely the painting remained part of the Earl’s extensive property in Rome and subsequently auctioned off by the Roman authorities after his death. The later history of the work is unknown until its recent resurgence in Florence in 2019. 

A reduced, sketchier version of this composition was sold in 2020 as 'attributed to James Durno'.¹³

¹ Ingamells 1997, p. 126;

² M. Riviere, 'The Rev. William Gunn, B.D., A Norfolk Parson on the Grand Tour', in Norfolk Archaeology, 33.3, 1964, p. 361.

³ Jacob Moore letterbook; letter from Jacob Moore to Earl Frederick Augustus Hervey, Rome 5 May 1787, MS, 1786–87, Edinburgh University Library, Laing MSS, iv 25.

⁴ Cumberland Papers; letter from Charles Grignion to George Cumberland, Rome 16 November 1791, MS, 1791, British Library, Add MSS.36497, f. 69.

⁵ See for example the impression in the British Museum, London; https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1886-1124-259

⁶ Inv. no. NG 2428; oil on canvas; 64 x 98 cm.; https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5683

⁷ P. Rankin, Irish Building Ventures of the Earl Bishop of Derry, 1730–1803, Belfast 1972, p. 54.

⁸ N. Figgis, ‘The Roman Property of Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry’, in The Walpole Society, vol. 55, 1989–90, p. 77.

⁹ W.S. Childe-Pemberton, The Earl Bishop; The life of Frederick Hervey, Bishop of Derry, Earl of Bristol, vol. II, New York 1925, p. 436.

¹⁰ Childe-Pemberton 1925, p. 572.

¹¹ Figgis 1989–90, p. 81.

¹² V. Manners and G.C. Williamson, Angelica Kauffmann, R.A., New York 1900, p. 109.

¹³ Anonymous sale, Munich, Karl and Faber, 16 June 2020, lot 89.