DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31962#0040
20
INTRODUCTION.
he married the young lady to whom he had so long been attached, Anna Eliza, the only daughter of
the late John Kempe, Esq. of the New Kent Road. In July following she accompanied him in his
third expedition to France, which he made with a view of completing the Bayeux Tapestry.
His task being accomplished, he proceeded with Mrs. Stothard on a tour of investigation through
Normandy, and more particularly Britanny. In order to render their families participators in some
degree of the pleasure of their journey, Mrs. Stothard addressed to her mother^ Mrs. Kempe, a parti-
cular detail of it in a series of letters, which her husband illustrated by various beautiful drawings of
the views, costume, and architectural antiquities, which they thought worthy of notice in their route:
these formed the ground-work of the publication of Letters to which we have referred.
In 1819 Mr. C. Stothard laid before the Society of Antiquaries the complete series of his Drawings
horn the Tapestry of Bayeux ; and a paper highly creditable to his discrimination, in which he proved
from internal evidence, that the Tapestry was coeval with the period immediately succeeding the Con-
quest, refuting the assertions of the Abbe de la Rue. This Essay was printed in vol. xix. of the
Archseologia. On the 2d of July of the same year Mr. Stothard was unanimously elected a Fellow of
the Society of Antiquaries. In the following autumn he made a series of exquisitely finished draw-
ings for the Society, from the paintings then lately discovered on the walls of the Painted Chamber
in the ancient royal palace of Westminster. Fearlessly ardent in his pursuit, he took his stand on the
highest and most dangerous parts of the scaffold erected for the repairs; and on one occasion there,
narrowly escaped the fate which afterwards befel him. The Society of Antiquaries are in possession
of these admirable drawings; and they will, doubtless, when it shall be practicable, be carefully
engraved for one of their annual publications.
Some characteristic anecdotes of the ardour of Mr. Charles Stothard in his antiquarian pursuits
may find admission here.
The monument of Aveline Countess of Lancaster, in Westminster Abbey, was concealed by the
lofty cenotaph of Lord Ligonier, and thus rendered inaccessible to the tight of day. Never daunted
by any difficulties which offered themselves to an antiquarian pursuit, Mr. Stothard furnished his
pockets with wax-candles, clay, and a percussion tube (a German invention for producing fire). Tlius
prepared, he watched his opportunity, scaled the monument of Lord Ligonier, lit and fixed his
candles, and in the situation above described, smothered with dust, actually completed the drawing of
the beautiful monument which embellishes his series of Effigies, without the knowledge of any of the
attendants in the abbey.
In one of his customary rambles with the writer, he had the good fortune to meet with the monu-
ment of Sir John Peche, or Pechy, as the name is pronounced, at the site of an old baronial man-
sion, Lullingstone Castle, near Eynsford, in Kent. The effigy afforded a fine specimen of the
military costume of the age of Henry the Eighth. The whole was in admirable preservation; but
the very circumstance which had contributed to that perfect state, rendered it almost impossible
for an artist to gain such an entire view as might enable him to draw it correctly; it was covered by
an horizontal slab, distant not more than eighteen inches from the face. (See the Vignette.) This
difficulty did not repulse Mr. Stothard. By the aid of a graduated line (he drew all his monuments
by scale), he brought all the parts into their due relative proportion, and in two days produced the
drawing of which the late Mr. Bartholomew Howlett made a very satisfactory etching, after Mr.
Stothard's death, for this work.
Often when a monument was so disfigured as, to the eye of any ordinary observer, to appear hope-
less as the subject for a drawing, would Mr. Stothard, by industriously stripping it, by means of a
penknife, of its barbarous coat of whitewash, or other plastering (called by country churchwardens
yh restore the sharpness of the parts, and produce a drawing replete with the finest minutiae
of detail. Never was there an eye more accurately observant of the characteristic points of art in
INTRODUCTION.
he married the young lady to whom he had so long been attached, Anna Eliza, the only daughter of
the late John Kempe, Esq. of the New Kent Road. In July following she accompanied him in his
third expedition to France, which he made with a view of completing the Bayeux Tapestry.
His task being accomplished, he proceeded with Mrs. Stothard on a tour of investigation through
Normandy, and more particularly Britanny. In order to render their families participators in some
degree of the pleasure of their journey, Mrs. Stothard addressed to her mother^ Mrs. Kempe, a parti-
cular detail of it in a series of letters, which her husband illustrated by various beautiful drawings of
the views, costume, and architectural antiquities, which they thought worthy of notice in their route:
these formed the ground-work of the publication of Letters to which we have referred.
In 1819 Mr. C. Stothard laid before the Society of Antiquaries the complete series of his Drawings
horn the Tapestry of Bayeux ; and a paper highly creditable to his discrimination, in which he proved
from internal evidence, that the Tapestry was coeval with the period immediately succeeding the Con-
quest, refuting the assertions of the Abbe de la Rue. This Essay was printed in vol. xix. of the
Archseologia. On the 2d of July of the same year Mr. Stothard was unanimously elected a Fellow of
the Society of Antiquaries. In the following autumn he made a series of exquisitely finished draw-
ings for the Society, from the paintings then lately discovered on the walls of the Painted Chamber
in the ancient royal palace of Westminster. Fearlessly ardent in his pursuit, he took his stand on the
highest and most dangerous parts of the scaffold erected for the repairs; and on one occasion there,
narrowly escaped the fate which afterwards befel him. The Society of Antiquaries are in possession
of these admirable drawings; and they will, doubtless, when it shall be practicable, be carefully
engraved for one of their annual publications.
Some characteristic anecdotes of the ardour of Mr. Charles Stothard in his antiquarian pursuits
may find admission here.
The monument of Aveline Countess of Lancaster, in Westminster Abbey, was concealed by the
lofty cenotaph of Lord Ligonier, and thus rendered inaccessible to the tight of day. Never daunted
by any difficulties which offered themselves to an antiquarian pursuit, Mr. Stothard furnished his
pockets with wax-candles, clay, and a percussion tube (a German invention for producing fire). Tlius
prepared, he watched his opportunity, scaled the monument of Lord Ligonier, lit and fixed his
candles, and in the situation above described, smothered with dust, actually completed the drawing of
the beautiful monument which embellishes his series of Effigies, without the knowledge of any of the
attendants in the abbey.
In one of his customary rambles with the writer, he had the good fortune to meet with the monu-
ment of Sir John Peche, or Pechy, as the name is pronounced, at the site of an old baronial man-
sion, Lullingstone Castle, near Eynsford, in Kent. The effigy afforded a fine specimen of the
military costume of the age of Henry the Eighth. The whole was in admirable preservation; but
the very circumstance which had contributed to that perfect state, rendered it almost impossible
for an artist to gain such an entire view as might enable him to draw it correctly; it was covered by
an horizontal slab, distant not more than eighteen inches from the face. (See the Vignette.) This
difficulty did not repulse Mr. Stothard. By the aid of a graduated line (he drew all his monuments
by scale), he brought all the parts into their due relative proportion, and in two days produced the
drawing of which the late Mr. Bartholomew Howlett made a very satisfactory etching, after Mr.
Stothard's death, for this work.
Often when a monument was so disfigured as, to the eye of any ordinary observer, to appear hope-
less as the subject for a drawing, would Mr. Stothard, by industriously stripping it, by means of a
penknife, of its barbarous coat of whitewash, or other plastering (called by country churchwardens
yh restore the sharpness of the parts, and produce a drawing replete with the finest minutiae
of detail. Never was there an eye more accurately observant of the characteristic points of art in