DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.66024#0129
ITALY AND GOETHE 71
This same year was also memorable for the fact that Angelica became a
member of that curious society in Rome called the “ Arcadians.” This we
learn from the memoirs of Madame de Stael, and in Lady Blennerhasset’s
biography (Vol. III., p. 130) there is the following allusion : “ Amongst these
Romans, Madame de Stael became acquainted with Veri, the author and poet;
Rossi (who wrote Angelica’s life), and with members of the Roman Arcadian
Academy, presided over by the Abbe Godard.” This Academy, which had
named Goethe an Arcadian Shepherd in 1786, invited Madame de Stael to be
present at one of its sittings, and to recite something. The same work mentions
that Angelica Kauffmann also was an Arcadian, and certainly no one could be
better qualified than she to be a member of this somewhat exclusive society.
Vernon Lee, in her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, gives us further
information, and describes the proceedings : “ The Arcadians all met at the
Bosco Paradisio. Heterogeneous, cosmopolitan and rather frivolous Arcadians, ’ ’
she calls them, “ very unlike those Metastasio had seen there sixty years before;
English milordi led about by tutors, German princes led about by equerries,
artists, antiquaries of all nations, Angelica Kauffmann, Piranesi, Gavin Hamilton,
Tischbein, Zeoga (a Danish archaeologist), and a motley crowd, not knowing very
well, nor caring very much, what this Arcadian business might be.”
1787 seems to have been just as busy a year as the previous one, and there
were quite a number of English people who sat to her : Sir Cecil and Lady
Bishop, whose pictures are now owned by the Baroness Zouche; Lord Clive
and the Hon. Miss Clive (not Lady Clive, as the MS. gives it), the latter of
whose portraits now belongs to Lord Powis; Lady Almeria Carpenter, Mrs.
Bryer (or Bowyer of London), whom we have not been able to identify; and her
old patron, Mr. Borchell (or Burchell), who had required two more ovals
representing classical scenes.
More important, however, than either of these were the sittings she received
for the portraits of the Duke of Gloucester’s two children, Prince William and
Princess Sophia : “ the portrait,” as Angelica calls it, “ painted for the
brother of the King of England,” an interesting group of two children, which
now belongs to Lord Waldegrave.
Not only English people visited her studio in 1787. A Russian nobleman,
Count Rossomersky, required the figures of three nymphs to be set in a land-
scape, and we have evidence of the influx of work in the fact that Angelica
herself records that the landscape for this picture was painted by another artist,
Philipp Hackert,1 who represented Ischia in the distance, and that she herself
only put in the figures. A Viennese nobleman, Count Flyes, also sat to her
for his portrait.
Meantime, she had not wholly neglected her old friends in England,
because, in 1786, she had sent in three pictures to the Academy; one the
1 Jakob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807) was a Prussian landscape painter and engraver, who
in 1782 was in the service of the King of Naples, but later on living in Rome and in Florence,
in which city he died.
This same year was also memorable for the fact that Angelica became a
member of that curious society in Rome called the “ Arcadians.” This we
learn from the memoirs of Madame de Stael, and in Lady Blennerhasset’s
biography (Vol. III., p. 130) there is the following allusion : “ Amongst these
Romans, Madame de Stael became acquainted with Veri, the author and poet;
Rossi (who wrote Angelica’s life), and with members of the Roman Arcadian
Academy, presided over by the Abbe Godard.” This Academy, which had
named Goethe an Arcadian Shepherd in 1786, invited Madame de Stael to be
present at one of its sittings, and to recite something. The same work mentions
that Angelica Kauffmann also was an Arcadian, and certainly no one could be
better qualified than she to be a member of this somewhat exclusive society.
Vernon Lee, in her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy, gives us further
information, and describes the proceedings : “ The Arcadians all met at the
Bosco Paradisio. Heterogeneous, cosmopolitan and rather frivolous Arcadians, ’ ’
she calls them, “ very unlike those Metastasio had seen there sixty years before;
English milordi led about by tutors, German princes led about by equerries,
artists, antiquaries of all nations, Angelica Kauffmann, Piranesi, Gavin Hamilton,
Tischbein, Zeoga (a Danish archaeologist), and a motley crowd, not knowing very
well, nor caring very much, what this Arcadian business might be.”
1787 seems to have been just as busy a year as the previous one, and there
were quite a number of English people who sat to her : Sir Cecil and Lady
Bishop, whose pictures are now owned by the Baroness Zouche; Lord Clive
and the Hon. Miss Clive (not Lady Clive, as the MS. gives it), the latter of
whose portraits now belongs to Lord Powis; Lady Almeria Carpenter, Mrs.
Bryer (or Bowyer of London), whom we have not been able to identify; and her
old patron, Mr. Borchell (or Burchell), who had required two more ovals
representing classical scenes.
More important, however, than either of these were the sittings she received
for the portraits of the Duke of Gloucester’s two children, Prince William and
Princess Sophia : “ the portrait,” as Angelica calls it, “ painted for the
brother of the King of England,” an interesting group of two children, which
now belongs to Lord Waldegrave.
Not only English people visited her studio in 1787. A Russian nobleman,
Count Rossomersky, required the figures of three nymphs to be set in a land-
scape, and we have evidence of the influx of work in the fact that Angelica
herself records that the landscape for this picture was painted by another artist,
Philipp Hackert,1 who represented Ischia in the distance, and that she herself
only put in the figures. A Viennese nobleman, Count Flyes, also sat to her
for his portrait.
Meantime, she had not wholly neglected her old friends in England,
because, in 1786, she had sent in three pictures to the Academy; one the
1 Jakob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807) was a Prussian landscape painter and engraver, who
in 1782 was in the service of the King of Naples, but later on living in Rome and in Florence,
in which city he died.