Pompeo Batoni (1708 - 1787)

The sitter was the younger brother of King George III and was the first member of the English Royal Family to visit Italy as a tourist.  His tour began in Genoa where he stayed with the British Consul, James Holford.  He travelled under the alias of the Earl of Ulster, and his tour was closely followed by the English and Italian press, in particular the London Gazette, and the London Chronicle.  A constant source of gossip, the Duke was alleged to have had as many romantic conquests as Don Giovanni or Casanova.  He referred to the Milanese Contessa Gambarana as 'beautiful as an angel', Madame Cambiaso and Marchesa Lomellini entertained him in the forest of San Rossore, and the Sienese sisters Vittoria and Cecila Chigi Zondarari were said to have 'employed the Duke's whole attention'.

The Duke arrived in Rome on 15th April 1764, and it was here that he commissioned the present portrait from Batoni.  The Duke lodged in Rome with Francesco Barazzi, but he was also entertained by Cardinal Albani, who arranged for Thomas Jenkins to serve as his Cicerone, or educational mentor, and for Winckelmann to advise on his purchases.

Wincklemann was not impressed with the Duke, describing him as 'the greatest princely beast that I know, [who] does no honour to his rank and nation' (Wincklemann, Vol.III, pp.39-40).

It is perhaps a measure of the Duke's vanity that the present portrait is one of a number of autograph versions by Batoni.  The prime version is probably that now in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (Inv. Nr. 3225, Levey, op. cit. p. 9, no. 358). Another version, also signed and dated, was apparently given by the sitter to Earl Howe (Sold, Sotheby's London, 12th June 2003, lot 12), and two more are in the Royal Collections.  James Martin in his Grand Tour Journal of 20 July 1764 recorded `Went to Pompeia (sic) Batoni's saw there several portraits. he has made a copy from that of the Duke of Yorke  rec'd orders for One or Two more..'.  As Clarke (op.cit.) points out, Emmerling's reading of the date as 1759 would not be possible for this portrait.  The portrait was offered at Christie's in either 1944 or 1946, but it clearly remained unsold and was returned to the collection in Hanover.

Provenance:
Braunschweig 1917, Inv. Nr. 121;
Offered for sale, Christie's, London, 21st July 1944 or 1946, lot 161, where it was probably bought in and returned to the collection of the House of Hanover

Literature:
E. Emmerling, Pompeo Batoni, sein Leben und Werken, 1932, p. 108, cat. no. 60 (as dated 1759);
A. Clarke, Pompeo Batoni, A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, 1985, pp. 294-5, under cat. no. 273;
O.Millar, Burlington Magazine, Vol.CXXIX, 1987, pp.604-05 (book review);
M. Levey, The later Italian Pictures in the Collection of her Majesty the Queen, 1991, p. 10 (a good version of the composition).