accents than in his picture of Count Ugolino?* When was infantine loveliness, or embrio-passions touched with sweeter truth than in his portraits of Miss Price and the baby Jupiter What frankness of nature in Mr. Gainsborough's landscapes; which may entitle them to rank in the noblest collections! What genuine humour in Zoffanii's comic scenes; which do not, like the works of [Ugolino and his children, in the dungeon; purchased by a late Duke of Dorset for 400l. Now at Knowle, and engraved by Dixon.] [Infant Jupiter, purchased by the late Duke of Rutland for 100l. now at Belvoir Castle; engraved by Smith, 1775. Miss Price, painted for Uvedale Price, Esq. of Foxley, Herefordshire, engraved by J. Watson, 1770.] [THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, died 1788, aged 61. “It is in his chaste and picturesque delineation of English landscape, so exquisitely exhibited in his admirable pictures of our domestic scenery; the bewitching embellishments with which he has decorated them of groups of cottage children; the charming rusticity of his husbandmen, their horses and their cattle; and the characteristic simplicity of the whole, that his transcendent merit is peculiarly conspicuous." Bryan. Sir J. Reynolds observes of him, that "his grace was not academical nor antique, but selected by himself from the great school of nature." Two of his early landscapes are in the collection of J. Hawkins, Esq. of Bignor Park, Sussex, and one of the finest of his later compositions was given by the late Sir G. Beaumont to the National Gallery. No less than sixty-nine of his works were exhibited in the Gallery of the British Institution, in 1814.] § [JOHAN ZOFFANij, a native of Frankfort, died in 1795, came to England when about thirty years old. He soon acquired celebrity by his admirable portraits of favourite dramatic per Dutch and Flemish painters, invite laughter to divert itself with the nastiest indelicacy of boors! Such topics would please a pen that delights to do justice to its country-but the author has forbidden himself to treat of living professors. Posterity appreciates impartially the works of the dead. To posterity he leaves the continuation of these volumes; and recommends to the lovers of arts the industry of Mr. Vertue, who preserved notices of all his cotemporaries, as he had collected of past ages, and thence gave birth to this formers, Garrick, Foote and Weston, in their best comic characters. The first mentioned, indeed, had many of his pictures; and may be considered as his patron. He painted Garrick's portrait with better success than Gainsborough had done-who excused himself," from the difficulty of making a true likeness of those who had every body's face but their own." He may be called the "Historian of the Stage of Garrick." Those who remember that inimitable actor, will be grateful to Zoffanij, for the accuracy with which he has recorded all that it was possible to catch of his exquisite, but evanescent art." His pictures best known, are the Royal Academy, representing thirty-six accurate portraits, and the Tribune of the Florence Gallery, into which he has introduced those of twenty English gentlemen. The late Mr. Townley had the interior of his statue room, with himself and D'Hankarville in conversation. An elaborate engraving of it has been completed within the present year, in which Mr. T. and the apartment which he delighted to embellish, are represented with no common truth of resemblance. Zoffanij afterwards went upon a speculation to India, where he painted groups, the chief of which were Nabobs, both native and British, and returned with increased fortune, but with talents and health much impaired. work. In that Supplement will not be forgotten the wonderful progress in miniature of Lady Lucan,* who has arrived at copying the most exquisite works of Isaac and Peter Oliver, Hoskins * [MARGARET COUNTESS OF LUCAN died in 1815. This singularly excellent talent of copying illuminations and miniatures was exerted in completing embellishments of Shakespeare's historical plays, in five folio volumes, now preserved in the library at Althorp. From Dr. Dibdin's Ædes Althorpianæ, v. i. p. 200, the following account of this monument of female genius is extracted. During sixteen years, this accom ،، plished lady pursued the pleasurable toil of illustration, having commenced in her fiftieth and finished in her sixty-sixth year. Whatever of taste, beauty and judgment in decoration by means of portraits, landscapes, houses and tombs - flowers, birds, insects, heraldic ornaments and devices, could dress our immortal bard in a yet more fascinating form, has been accomplished by a noble hand which undertook an Herculean task and with a truth, delicacy and finish of execution which have been very rarely imitated." The colophon of the fifth volume is illustrated by a drawing of the portrait of Lady Lucan, in her 66th year, attended by Genius, Affection and Perseverance, by her daughter Lavinia Countess Spencer. The colophon is inscribed MARGARET COUNTESS OF LUCAN Er: SUM LXVI. Genius, Affection and Perseverance Record the Completion of this beautiful work, and Zealously pursued. Begun in MDCCxc. Finished in MDCCCVI. See Lord Orford's Works, 4to. 1798, v. 2, p. 425.] and Cooper, with a genius that almost depreciates those masters, when we consider that they spent their lives in attaining perfection; and who, soaring above their modest timidity, has transferred the vigour of Raphael to her copies in watercolours. There will be recorded the living etchings of Mr. H. Bunbury,* the second Hogarth, and first imitator who ever fully equalled his original; and who, like Hogarth, has more humour when he invents, than when he illustrates— probably because genius can draw from the * [HENRY WILLIAM BUNBURY, Esq. died in 1811, aged 61. The productions of his pencil were from early infancy, the delight and admiration of his friends, and afterwards of the public. The original vein of true humour in most of his drawings, and the grace which he displayed in others, were such as to render his works justly popular in his day. His is no common instance of the union of talents of such a various and opposite character, in the same artist, had to so great an extent. It must in candour, be allowed, that Mr. W's criticism, if it were just when applied to his illustrations of Tristram Shandy, were not less so, with reference to his elucidation of scenes in Shakespear. Who would suspect the ascetic Barry of paying a compliment so refined and elegant as the following, to Mr. Bunbury? "As to Mr. Bunbury, who had so happily succeeded in the vein of humour and caricatura, he has for some time past altogether relinquished it for the more amiable pursuit of beautiful nature: this is indeed not to be wondered at, when we recollect that he has in Mrs. Bunbury, so admirable an exemplar of the most finished grace and beauty, continually at his elbow." Works, v. 2, p. 386.] † For instance, in his prints to Tristram Shandy. sources of nature with more spirit than from the ideas of another. Has any painter ever executed a scene, a character of Shakespeare, that approached to the prototype so near as Shakespeare himself attained to nature? Yet is there a pencil in a living hand as capable of pronouncing the passions as our unequalled poet; a pencil not only inspired by his insight into nature, but by the graces and taste of Grecian artists-but it is not fair to excite the curiosity of the public, when both the rank and bashful merit of the possessor, and a too rare exertion of superior talents, confine the proofs to a narrow circle. Whoever has seen the drawings, and basreliefs, designed and executed by Lady Diana Beauclerc,* is sensible * [LADY DIANA SPENCER, the wife of Topham Beauclerk, of literary distinction, died in 1808, at the advanced age of seventy-four. In so high estimation were the graphic performances of this honourable lady held by Mr. W. that he constructed an hexagon tower in 1776, and designated it the "Beauclerk Closet." "It was built (he says) purposely for the reception of seven incomparable drawings by Lady Diana Beauclerk for scenes in the Mysterious Mother :-these sublime drawings, the first she ever attempted, were all conceived and executed in a fortnight." Walpole's Works, 4to. v. ii. p. 504. Description of Strawberry-hill. She pursued this style of art, almost exclusively afterwards, and in 1796, gave designs for a Translation of Burger's German poem of Leonora, by her nephew W. R. Spencer, Esq. published in folio. In 1797, she added a series of designs for a splendid edition of Dryden's Fables, folio. These will confirm Mr. W's partiality, by proofs of an elegant and fertile imagination and classic taste.] |