DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62037#0051
28
JOHN RAPHAEL SMITH
Angelo admits he dare not say how many brace of his
Grace’s pheasants. He had engaged a fellow to provide
a small tax-cart with a hood in waiting, and he actually
loaded it with game.
So much for the social relations of peer and painter.
It was in far other fashion he was viewed among his
cronies, at the genial banker Mr. Mitchell’s, for instance.
There, in the roomy apartments in Beaufort Buildings,
Strand, after the closing of the Banking House, Bannister
and Rowlandson, Wolcot and Smith, would sit through
the protracted darkness of the winter’s night, until the
sun struggled through the fog in the early morning,
telling Boccaccio-like stories, making notes for picture,
verse, or song, repaying their host over and over again for
his hot supper, generous wine, and genial presence. Then
Bannister reeled out his “ When on board our trim
vessel we joyously sailed,” and the sketch for the stipple
of “ Expectation ” was drawn on the back of an old
programme. Then the song of the “ Progress of the
Race Horse” was ribaldly parodied into “Beautiful
Sally ” ; and
See the Park thronged with loungers, the nobles all round,
To view the dear angel; her ruin’s begun,
Prince, dukes, lords, and bankers came first in her train,
Enraptured they ogle, as yet but in vain,
climaxed into an unprintable termination which yet gave
the inspiration for the popular set of engravings of
“ Loetitia,” called, by the way, “ Seduction ” in their first
issue. The whereabouts of only five of these pictures is
known. The sixth is lost, apparently.
There was trouble between the painter and engraver
over these pictures, and the commission was thrown up
more than once before Morland’s perpetual want of
money, and Smith’s undoubted power in influencing the
painter, forced it unwillingly through. The fact was,
Morland’s first designs were as unprintable as the parody,
yet he resented the alterations upon which Smith insisted.
Those who say that Raphael Smith in his private life was
but an expurgated edition of George Morland must
JOHN RAPHAEL SMITH
Angelo admits he dare not say how many brace of his
Grace’s pheasants. He had engaged a fellow to provide
a small tax-cart with a hood in waiting, and he actually
loaded it with game.
So much for the social relations of peer and painter.
It was in far other fashion he was viewed among his
cronies, at the genial banker Mr. Mitchell’s, for instance.
There, in the roomy apartments in Beaufort Buildings,
Strand, after the closing of the Banking House, Bannister
and Rowlandson, Wolcot and Smith, would sit through
the protracted darkness of the winter’s night, until the
sun struggled through the fog in the early morning,
telling Boccaccio-like stories, making notes for picture,
verse, or song, repaying their host over and over again for
his hot supper, generous wine, and genial presence. Then
Bannister reeled out his “ When on board our trim
vessel we joyously sailed,” and the sketch for the stipple
of “ Expectation ” was drawn on the back of an old
programme. Then the song of the “ Progress of the
Race Horse” was ribaldly parodied into “Beautiful
Sally ” ; and
See the Park thronged with loungers, the nobles all round,
To view the dear angel; her ruin’s begun,
Prince, dukes, lords, and bankers came first in her train,
Enraptured they ogle, as yet but in vain,
climaxed into an unprintable termination which yet gave
the inspiration for the popular set of engravings of
“ Loetitia,” called, by the way, “ Seduction ” in their first
issue. The whereabouts of only five of these pictures is
known. The sixth is lost, apparently.
There was trouble between the painter and engraver
over these pictures, and the commission was thrown up
more than once before Morland’s perpetual want of
money, and Smith’s undoubted power in influencing the
painter, forced it unwillingly through. The fact was,
Morland’s first designs were as unprintable as the parody,
yet he resented the alterations upon which Smith insisted.
Those who say that Raphael Smith in his private life was
but an expurgated edition of George Morland must