The English Prize
THE CAPTURE OF
THE WESTMORLAND
An Episode of the Grand Tour
17 May–27 Aug 2012
The English Prize
THE CAPTURE OF
THE WESTMORLAND an Episode of the Grand Tour
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Capture of the
Amazone
Robert Dodd
The capture of the Amazone by HMS
Santa Margarita, 29 July 1782
Oil on canvas, 77.5 x 120 cm
© National Maritime Museum,
Greenwich presented by Eric Miller
through The Art Fund
The American War of Independence led to the declaration of war on Britain by France in July 1778. Captain of the
Westmorland, Willis Machell, applied to the High Court of Admiralty for a letter of marque that would give him sole
rights to proceeds from enemy vessels taken as a prize of war. We do not have any images of the Westmorland or
records of its engagement with the two French frigates, the Destin and the Caton that captured it in January 1779.
However this atmospheric and turbulent scene by Robert Dodd of a British ship taking a French prize in 1782 gives
a sense of dramatic clashes on the high seas in this wartime period.
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Francis Basset
Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787)
Portrait of Francis Basset, 1st Baron of
Dunstanville
1778
Oil on canvas, 221 x 157 cm
Signed and dated: “Pompeius de
Batoni. Pinx. Romae 1778”
© Museo Nacional del Prado,
Madrid
Two portraits of Basset by Pompeo Batoni arrived unframed in Madrid: a full-length portrait, which was passed
eventually to the Museo del Prado; and a smaller-sized copy which remained at the Real Academia.
Dodd exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in London in 1784 with a companion piece. Their lengthy titles
explain the action: “L’Amazonne of 36 guns, 301 men, after an hour and a quarter’s engagement, striking to his
Majesty’s frigate Santa Margaritta of 36 guns, 255 men, Elliott Salter commander, on the evening of the 29th July,
1782”. The companion painting depicted the potentially disastrous event of the following day, “The Santa Margaritta
cutting her prize adrift the next morning at day-break, on the appearance of 13 sail of the enemy’s line of battle
ships.”
The full-length image conforms to the Grand Tour portrait model. The composition, with St. Peter’s Basilica and the
Castel Sant’Angelo in the background, as well as the antique architectural fragment on the ground, are found in
earlier portraits by Batoni, although this is the only known example in which the low-relief group entitled Orestes
and Electra is depicted in reverse and the sitter holds a reduced copy of Giambattista Nolli’s Topografia di Roma. The
painting is considered to be the last portrait of this size to be wholly painted by the artist. Basset must have posed for
Batoni during his Roman sojourn, between December 1777 and May 1778. Batoni would have been well paid, given
that the commission involved a full-length image and a replica.
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The English Prize
THE CAPTURE OF
THE WESTMORLAND an Episode of the Grand Tour
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George Legge
Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787)
George Legge, Viscount Lewisham,
later 3rd Earl of Dartmouth
c. 1777
Oil on canvas, 127 x 100 cm
Signed and dated: “Pompeo de Batoni
Pinx Romae 1778”
© Museo Nacional del Prado,
Madrid
Like the full-length portrait of Basset, the portrait of Lord Lewisham was sent to the residence of the Prime Minister,
José Moñino y Redondo, conde de Floridablanca, shortly after its arrival in Madrid. From there it entered the royal
collections and subsequently the Museo del Prado when that museum was founded.
Correspondence between Lewisham and his father, William Legge, second Earl of Dartmouth, refers directly both
to the canvas and to Pompeo Batoni’s working methods. A letter of April 25, 1778, sent to Lewisham in Rome by
his father refers to the costs of his trip and states: “I do not at all lament the expense you have put me to with Signor
Pompeo Battoni [sic]. I do not know whether I should not have proposed it to you if I had thought you could spare
so much time as he used to require. I think he kept me between 40 & 50 hours in all.” The reference to the number
of hours that he posed for Batoni is interesting. The portrait of the Earl of Dartmouth is one of the first that Batoni
painted for English Grand Tour clients when he was establishing his reputation as a portraitist. By the time the young
Lewisham arrived in Rome in 1777, however, Batoni had been painting Grand Tour portraits of the English nobility
for twenty-five years and had become highly adept in the genre. He probably required only two or three sittings,
painting the costume and accessories without the need for Lewisham to pose. He is shown with a celebrated antique
sculpture, the Bust of Faustina the Younger, and he looks up from perusing a map of Italy.
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Lake Albano
John Robert Cozens (1752–1797)
Lake Albano from Palazzuolo
Watercolour and graphite on paper,
43.5 x 60.5 cm
Inscribed on mount, upper left: “No.
4”; on verso at top in both pen and in
pencil, the latter possibly in Cozens’s
hand: “Lake of Albano”; at bottom in
ink: “Lago de Albano desde lo alto de
Marino”
© Real Academia de Bellas Artes de
San Fernando, Museo
This is an accomplished watercolour, in spite of the too-wet wash in the top of the sky, which is compensated for
by its deeper blue reflection in the lake. The bright clear day turns the normally darkly wooded slopes a brilliantly lit
green, and a pair of pine trees provides an elegant foreground feature to frame the lake and lead the eye to the sheep
grazing on the meadow below.
For this composition, Cozens has walked around the Galleria del Sopra, which had recently been improved by Pope
Clement XIV, skirting the rim of the southern part of the lake and ending at the Convento di Palazzuolo tucked into
the southeastern slopes of the crater just below Monte Cavo. From this convent, at one time thought to be on the
site of an ancient city that was the home of the first founders of Rome, Cozens has taken a view of Lake Albano with
Castel Gandolfo on the opposite shore and the Tiber River beyond it, winding through the Campagna and the Lazio
plain to the sea in the far distance. Palazzuolo has been home to Benedictines, Cistercians, Franciscans, and more
recently, in the summers, to the English College of Rome. To reach it, the traveler still passes tufa cliffs dotted with
grottoes that housed hermits in the tenth century, before emerging from the trees that line this ancient public path
and arriving at the convent terrace, with its spectacular view and fountains to refresh the pilgrim.
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The English Prize
THE CAPTURE OF
THE WESTMORLAND an Episode of the Grand Tour
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Unknown Man
Unknown artist
Portrait of an Unknown Man
c. 1777
Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
© Real Academia de Bellas Artes de
San Fernando, Museo
This painting is described from the outset in the lists of the Real Academia as a portrait of a young man in a gilded
frame. It is one of the few instances in which a painting from the Westmorland was framed. The portrait still has
its original, wooden frame with a simple moulding and gold leaf. The identity of the sitter remains unknown. Its
presence in John Henderson’s cases might suggest that it is his portrait, which, like those of Francis Basset and
George Legge, Viscount Lewisham, he would have had painted in Italy. However, this is not a likeness of Henderson
and it differs from the normal Grand Tour image. It does not contain any element that refers to Italy or to Roman
antiquities. The bust-length, three-quarter-profile format is unusual, and the small size (not quite twenty inches high)
and informal dress do not correspond in any way to the models developed by Anton Raphael Mengs and Pompeo
Batoni. The unknown artist, clearly with the aim of emphasizing the gaze and expression, has not included any
accessories that might detract attention from the face, resulting in an image that looks closer to Romantic portraiture.
Henderson was particularly keen to recover this painting which may have depicted a close friend.
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Venus
Unknown sculptor
Head of the Medici Venus, copy of
the antique Roman original
1770s
Marble, 40 x 23 x 23 cm
© Real Academia de Bellas Artes de
San Fernando, Museo
This slightly more than life-size head of extremely fine white marble, a typical souvenir of the type acquired by
Grand Tour visitors passing through Italy, is based on one of the classical sculptures that was most celebrated in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The original had been in the Tribuna of the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence
since 1688, along with other masterpieces of painting and sculpture. Johan Zoffany’s painting of the Tribuna,
finished not long before the capture of the Westmorland, conveys the atmosphere of enthusiasm and admiration
characteristic of the English travellers who visited the Medici collection in Florence, with a group of identifiable
English visitors admiring the statue. The present, exceptionally well-executed head, which is smaller in size than the
original, was in a crate together with a packet containing three books on Italian literature and language, as well as
two parts of the cornice of a chimneypiece. It was part of a larger shipment of marbles destined for William Henry
(1743–1805), First Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III.
The prestige of the Medici Venus was increased by the presence of an inscription on it in Greek stating that it was
the work of the Athenian Cleomenes, son of Apollodorus. It was thus considered for some time to be a Greek work
taken to Rome during the classical period. The subject of eulogies by poets, scholars of art, and intellectuals, the
sculpture’s fame meant that it was reproduced on a commercial scale for the art market in numerous different types
and materials.
www.ashmolean.org
The English Prize
THE CAPTURE OF
THE WESTMORLAND an Episode of the Grand Tour
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