DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.66024#0088
42
ANGELICA KAUFFMANN
her account, and to have told her that she was being treated unfairly. In
consequence, she took her complaint to Sir Joshua, who had the omitted
pictures re-hung, and thus four of them do not appear in their proper place
in the catalogue, but appear in a list of omitted pictures, on page 34.
It was in this year that the difficulty happened respecting Angelica and
Nathaniel Hone, to which Smith, in his life of Nollekens, refers at considerable
length. Hone was, as we have already said, an envious and bad-tempered
man, and particularly jealous of the success of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He
believed that Sir Joshua as an artist was possessed of very few original ideas,
and that almost all his compositions were taken bodily from the works of other
painters, especially from the Old Masters; and desiring to do the President as
much harm as he could, he painted a picture, which he called “ The Pictorial
Conjurer, displaying the whole Art of Optical Deception.” The picture
does not appear to be any longer in existence, and it is therefore impossible
to say exactly what it was. Hone himself described it simply as the
picture of a Conjurer. It is said to have represented an old man with a wand
in his hand, commanding the various pictures by the Old Masters from which
the President has plagiarised his compositions, to rise out of the flames. It
has also been stated that the old man had a child leaning on his knee, and
that in his various incantations these pictures by the Old Masters floated on
the air about him. One of the floating figures in the picture was that of a
nude woman, and this, it is stated, bore a very distinct likeness to Angelica.
The Academicians were very angry at the picture being sent in. They
regarded it as an attack upon their President, and in very bad taste, libelling
him for plagiarism, and they were also annoyed at the so-called representation
of Angelica.
The suggestion that Reynolds took his ideas from the Old Masters and
adopted their subjects, set out by Hone in his picture, so nearly approached
the truth that it was most undesirable to draw public attention to it. Yet,
at the same time, although the Academicians were indignant at this aspect of
the picture, it was not easy for them to condemn it on that particular score.
The appearance of Angelica in the painting afforded an excellent pretext
for rejecting the picture. Everybody knew about the flirtation, as it had gone
on years before, and Hone had adopted it as a means of injuring both the
President and Angelica. Reynolds, no doubt, was furious at the idea of his
name and that of Angelica being brought into intimate association in any
picture, but the real cause for the disturbance was, we believe, not so much
the figure of Angelica, but the presence of the Old Master pictures, and the
cruel suggestion that Hone had made in the whole painting. The libel on
Angelica was, however, most gladly made use of by the Academy, in its
determination to reject the picture. It was at first actually hung in the exhibi-
tion, and then Sir William Chambers, and someone else on the Council of
the Academy, came to Mr. Hone, and informed him that it had been rumoured
that he had made an indecent figure or caricature of a female artist, and
ANGELICA KAUFFMANN
her account, and to have told her that she was being treated unfairly. In
consequence, she took her complaint to Sir Joshua, who had the omitted
pictures re-hung, and thus four of them do not appear in their proper place
in the catalogue, but appear in a list of omitted pictures, on page 34.
It was in this year that the difficulty happened respecting Angelica and
Nathaniel Hone, to which Smith, in his life of Nollekens, refers at considerable
length. Hone was, as we have already said, an envious and bad-tempered
man, and particularly jealous of the success of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He
believed that Sir Joshua as an artist was possessed of very few original ideas,
and that almost all his compositions were taken bodily from the works of other
painters, especially from the Old Masters; and desiring to do the President as
much harm as he could, he painted a picture, which he called “ The Pictorial
Conjurer, displaying the whole Art of Optical Deception.” The picture
does not appear to be any longer in existence, and it is therefore impossible
to say exactly what it was. Hone himself described it simply as the
picture of a Conjurer. It is said to have represented an old man with a wand
in his hand, commanding the various pictures by the Old Masters from which
the President has plagiarised his compositions, to rise out of the flames. It
has also been stated that the old man had a child leaning on his knee, and
that in his various incantations these pictures by the Old Masters floated on
the air about him. One of the floating figures in the picture was that of a
nude woman, and this, it is stated, bore a very distinct likeness to Angelica.
The Academicians were very angry at the picture being sent in. They
regarded it as an attack upon their President, and in very bad taste, libelling
him for plagiarism, and they were also annoyed at the so-called representation
of Angelica.
The suggestion that Reynolds took his ideas from the Old Masters and
adopted their subjects, set out by Hone in his picture, so nearly approached
the truth that it was most undesirable to draw public attention to it. Yet,
at the same time, although the Academicians were indignant at this aspect of
the picture, it was not easy for them to condemn it on that particular score.
The appearance of Angelica in the painting afforded an excellent pretext
for rejecting the picture. Everybody knew about the flirtation, as it had gone
on years before, and Hone had adopted it as a means of injuring both the
President and Angelica. Reynolds, no doubt, was furious at the idea of his
name and that of Angelica being brought into intimate association in any
picture, but the real cause for the disturbance was, we believe, not so much
the figure of Angelica, but the presence of the Old Master pictures, and the
cruel suggestion that Hone had made in the whole painting. The libel on
Angelica was, however, most gladly made use of by the Academy, in its
determination to reject the picture. It was at first actually hung in the exhibi-
tion, and then Sir William Chambers, and someone else on the Council of
the Academy, came to Mr. Hone, and informed him that it had been rumoured
that he had made an indecent figure or caricature of a female artist, and