- 71
George Romney Dalton 1734 - 1802 Kendal
Description
- George Romney
- Lady Hamilton as the Magdalene
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Marquis of Hertford, May 27, 1810;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, May 1, 1875, lot 92 (as "Lady Hamilton as the Tragic Muse"), where acquired by Colnaghi;
W. Stirling Crawford, Esq.;
Caroline, Duchess of Montrose;
Her sale, London, Christie's, July 14, 1894, lot 38, where acquired by H.L. Bischoffsheim, Esq.;
His sale, London, Christie's, May 7, 1926, lot 87;
Rt. Hon. The Earl of Inchape, London;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, July 8, 1938, lot 112 (where bought in);
By whose Estate sold, London, Christie's, July 28, 1939, lot 97, to Cheoky;
With French and Co., New York;
With Hartmann Galleries, Inc., New York, 1968.
Literature
W. Hayley, Esq., The Life of George Romney, Esq., London, 1809, p. 158;
Richard Cumberland, "Memoires of Mr. George Romney", in European Magazine and London Review, vol. 43, Jan-June 1803, p. 442;
Lord R. S. Gower, F.S.A., Romney and Lawrence, London, 1882, p. 91;
H. Ward and W. Roberts, Romney, A Biographical and Critical Essay with a Catalogue Raisonné of his Works, London 1904, Vol. 2, pp.179-187;
O. Millar, The Later Georgian Pictures of the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1969, vol.1 XXV, note 66;
J.C. Watson, "Romney's Paintings of Emma Hamilton", in Country Life, Oct. 7, 1976, p. 974 (inquiry about the location of "Lady Hamilton as the Magdalen" and other works).
Catalogue Note
This recently rediscovered portrait of Lady Hamilton as the Magdalene, has not been seen on the market since it’s sale at Christie’s, London in 1939. It was commissioned by George IV in 1791 (when Prince of Wales) together with its pendant Lady Hamilton as Calypso, now hanging in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. It is one of seventy-nine recorded paintings which depict or take Lady Emma Hamilton as their defining feature, but one of very few commissioned from Romney by a member of the Royal Family. The reappearance of this picture offers an opportunity to further explore the artistic and emotional relationship between Romney and his ‘divine’ Emma.
Over the course of their friendship, Romney nurtured Lady Emma's talents and capitalized on her looks. Romney was drawn to Emma’s ideal beauty, an ethereal combination of the classical and the Rubensian. Emma also had a strong physical presence and the ability to hold poses much like a professional model. Romney became so obsessed by Emma that it became increasingly hard for him to engage creatively with his more routine commissions. In June 1791, shortly before painting the present picture, Romney wrote of her to his future biographer William Hayley, “At present, and for the greater part of this summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the divine lady. I cannot give her any other epithet, for I think her superior to all womenkind” (William Hayley, Esq. The Life of George Romney, Esq., London 1809, p. 158).
Lady Emma Hamilton was born Amy Lyon on April 26, 1765, the daughter of a Cheshire blacksmith. Determined to overcome her humble origins she began by changing her name to Emma Hart. She was an attractive and ambitious woman who quickly learned to use her talents to her best advantage. Her personal charms encouraged a triumvirate of powerful or creative men to grow addicted to her affection and loyalty. Most importantly it was to be her relationships with George Romney, Sir William Hamilton and Lord Horatio Nelson that launched Emma into society and ensured her a place in British history.
Romney first met and became infatuated with the beautiful and uneducated adventuress, Emma Hart, when she was brought to his studio by her lover at that time the Hon. Charles Greville (1749-1809) who had taken the 16 year-old Emma into his 'care'. Though Greville intended to commission a series of pictures of Emma as a commercial speculation, it was Emma and Romney who had the most to gain from this artistic meeting. Emma captured Romney's imagination to such an extent that from their first meetings in 1782, Emma occupied the position of artist's muse.
In 1786, Emma left London for a new life in Naples with Greville’s uncle, Sir William Hamilton the British Envoy to the Neapolitan Court. Romney was deeply affected by Emma's departure and slumped into an artistic decline. Upon her arrival in Naples, Sir William Hamilton quickly set to commissioning portraits of Emma by various local and visiting artists. Emma had been painted by Reynolds shortly before her departure from London and in Naples was to be painted by Vigée le Brun and Angelica Kauffman amongst others and she was always depicted playing a role. In that sense there are few paintings, which can be described as portraits. The real Emma remained hidden, perhaps the reason for her constant allure. Within 6 months in Naples, Emma had become Hamilton's mistress and captured the attention of all who visited the Neapolitan court. When the German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang Goethe visited Naples, in 1787, he described life at Hamilton's Villa Sessa:
After many years of devotion to the arts and the study of nature, [Hamilton has] found the acme of these delights in the person of an English girl ... with a beautiful face and a perfect figure ... she lets down her hair and, with a few shawls, gives so much variety to her poses that the spectator can hardly believe his eyes.
(J.W.Goethe, Italian Journey 1786-1788, translated by W.H. Auden and E. Mayer, London 1962, pp. 199-200).
In 1791, Emma returned with Sir William to London to marry. Romney, reinvigorated by her return, responded to his old subject with the enthusiasm of a young suitor and wrote excitedly to his close friend and biographer, William Hayley, “I have two pictures to paint of her for the Prince of Wales…she said, she hoped you would have much to say of her in the life, as she prided herself in being my model…“ (William Hayley, op. cit.) In June and July, Romney commandeered Emma’s time for dozens of sittings, and by August he had roughed in eight or nine further fancy pieces depicting Emma as a bacchante, as Joan of Arc, and as we see her here in the present picture as Mary Magdalene, part of his commission for the Prince of Wales.
Lady Emma is here portrayed seated upon the ground in a cavernous grotto, leaning against a stone pedestal, resting her head on her right hand and dressed in grey muslin, an hourglass and book by her elbow. The hourglass represents a possible allusion to the transitory nature of life and was a traditional attribute of the Saint. Emma’s chestnut hair cascades to the ground, a visual reminder that the Magdalene bathed the feet of Christ with her tears and wiped them with her hair. Emma is beautiful and fair and her cheeks are flushed. The composition and pose of Emma recall Pompeo Batoni’s depiction of the Magdalene formerly in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie. Engraved in 1752, by Joseph Camerata and later J.F. Bause and others, it was an image that was easily accessible. Ward and Roberts (see Literature), confirm that Romney painted two portraits of Lady Emma Hamilton in character of Calypso and Magdalene, about 1792, for the Prince of Wales at a price of 200 pounds sterling for the pair. Originally measuring 47 1/2 by 61 in., the present picture was reduced in size to the current vertical format at some date after the 1939 sale. The Calypso hanging at Waddesdon Manor remains the original dimensions. Romney also painted two small oval versions of this subject of Lady Hamilton as Magdalene and Calypso, but their current whereabouts are unknown.
Lady Emma seemed to have been involved in the Prince’s commission, for shortly after her return to Naples in 1792 she wrote to Romney asking whether he had heard from the Prince of Wales ( See Hilda Gamlin, George Romney and His Art, London 1894, pp. 221-4). Romney responded that he had just heard from him a few days before through Benjamin West. West, the President of the Royal Academy and a friend of the Prince was called to inspect the pictures and by early 1792 Romney reported to his friend William Hayley that they were to be “sent home to the Prince” (Hayley, op. cit., p. 172). The subsequent provenance of the two pictures is slightly more complicated. In 1810 they were given by the Prince of Wales to the Marquis of Hertford for the collection he was creating to hang in Manchester House. They remained in the collection of the Marquis of Hertford until the time of his sale at Christie’s May 1, 1875. It is at this point that the pair were separated. The Calypso was sold as, "Lady Hamilton as the Comic Muse," to Agnew's for £325, who ultimately sold in 1882 to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, and it has remained at Waddesdon since that date. The Magdalene was sold as "Lady Hamilton as the Tragic Muse" for £252 to Colnaghi and from there went to the collection of W. Stirling Crawford and onto the collection of Duchess Caroline of Montrose in whose sale it was sold at Christie's in July, 1894. At the sale it was purchased for £420 by H.L. Bischoffsheim, Esq. who owned it until 1926 when he offered it at Christie's on May 7, 1926 where it was purchased by de Casseres. The dimensions remained the same throughout and also at the 1938 sale at Christie's from the Property of the Rt. Hon. Earl of Inchscape. Therefore one must deduce that it was reduced in size after the 1938 sale and prior to its appearance at French and Company gallery.