INTRODUCTION

It is not easy to set down a concise definition of the word ‘identity’, for it has become a

concept rather than a noun. If one was to ask a number of different people to define the

word, there would be as many, if not more, explanations put forward as individuals asked.

Some of these would refer to physical characteristics, while other suggestions would

consider personalities, upbringing, class, gender, race, nationality, religion, and

profession. Some may say that your identity is not simply who you are, but what type of

music you listen to, what football team you support, or who your friends are. The original

source for the word ‘identity’ was the Latin idem meaning ‘same’. This formed the basis of

the Latin word ‘identitas’ that literally meant ‘sameness’. The word identity was first

recorded as being in use in England in the 16th century, and was defined as meaning,

‘individuality, a set of definite characteristics’, which arose from the notion of something

always being the same or always being itself, rather than something else. Thus, it is not

surprising that the word ‘identity’ has come to engender some very emotive responses.

Because, ever since it entered the English language, it has had a dual personality-

meaning both sameness as well as individuality.

The concept of having and keeping one’s own identity is a fundamental one in Western

culture and this maybe due to the fact that at the beginning of the Bible, God not only

names the elements, thereby differentiating between ‘day’ and ‘night’, ‘land’ and ‘seas’, but

in creating man in his image from the dust of the ground, he clearly endows the human

race with a very special identity. However, man loses this close identification with God

along with his hopes for immortality, when he allows himself to be seduced by Eve into

eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God’s reaction is not only to

banish the couple from Eden, but he tells them that their sin has caused them to forgo the

right to eternal life. God tells Adam that he henceforth will not only have to suffer the pain

of relentless toil, but there will be no end to this labour until he returns to the dust from

which he was formed. Thus through the story of Adam death became associated with the

loss of identity, as well as the concept of abjection, as described by Julia Kristeva in

Powers of Horror. In being rejected from Eden, Adam not only experiences dishonour but

through the loss of his special rank, he is degraded. This degradation becomes absolute

abjection when, at the end of his life, he becomes dust once again, and it is as if he never

existed. For Kristeva the corpse in its degraded state displays all the elements that were

rejected by the living body in order to maintain itself. Death is the ultimate abjection not

because of its decayed and unclean state, but because it represents the loss of identity.

Freud suggested that the notion of the immortal soul may have been introduced in

response to the fear of death, and if the fear of death is also a fear of the loss of identity

then funerary commemoration is a form of immortality or resurrection of identity. Thus,

commemoration might be read as Adam’s attempt to return to Eden, to a non-abject state.

It is not uncommon to fear losing our identities whether through amnesia, or through

senile dementia. It may be that it is to maintain our sense of identity that we surround

ourselves with objects that help define our personalities, and it is also the reason why we

endeavour to establish ourselves into societies, whether political, familial or professional

alliances, through which we achieve a public identity. However, we have also sought to

disassociate ourselves from those who live beyond the accepted, and identifiable parts of

our society. We would not want to know the names of the refugee, or the beggar because

by acknowledging that they also have a unique identity, we empower them.

In a world of constant change over which we have no control, we cling to the notion that

we have the power to retain, re-shape, or completely recreate our own individual

identities. There are aspects of our identities over which we have no influence: what

gender we are, where we were born, and how we were brought up are crucial

components of our sense of ourselves, which are pre-determined. However, if we wish to

deny these fundamental elements of our identities, the act of changing them still is a

fundamental part of who we are. When asked, the artist, James McNeil Whistler,

variously gave his place of birth as Lowell, Massachusetts in America, or St Petersburg

in Russia, in his desire to de-construct any identification with a fixed place of birth that

might lead to assumptions being made about him.

There have been several recent studies carried out by scholars on the subject of the re-

fashioning of the Renaissance artist. In her post-doctoral thesis, ‘Artists into Heroes: The

Commemoration of Artists in the Art of Giorgio Vasari’ Joan Stack argues that Vasari’s

illustrations for the 1568 edition of the Lives, as well as other visual memorials such as

his work for the funeral and tomb of Michelangelo helped to change the status of artists

from artisans into “cultural icons and heroes.” While Frances Ames-Lewis examines the

changing identity of an individual artist in ‘Reconstructing Benozzo Gozzoli’s artistic

identity,’ Joanna Marsden -Woods, looks at the subject of changing identity through the

theme of Renaissance Self-Portraits.

For this thesis I argue that it was during the 18th century, inspired by the cult of the

individual formulated during the Renaissance but central to Enlightenment thought, that

there was a general recognition that burial places and memorials erected in honour of

individuals expressed and consolidated the professional identity of the deceased. The

emphasis on commemoration of British worthies at this time greatly influenced the move

by artists of the Royal Academy of Arts, to whom the notion of professional identity was

paramount, to make their own acts of public commemoration.

It is also evident that it was the funeral of Michelangelo, arranged by the members of the

Florentine Accademia del Disegno, that influenced the decision by the Royal

Academicians to celebrate the life and work of their first President with a splendid and

ceremonial funeral in 1792. This in turn prompted the families or friends of those artists

whose image of themselves was formulated by their membership of the Royal Academy,

to seek similar observances. However, as the professional identity of the artist became

more established into the 19th century, there was less uniformity in these acts of

commemoration, and a greater awareness of the potential of the funerary monument to

establish individual identity through placement, design, and choice of designer.

This move towards greater variety in form of monument, and also in use of imagery,

conveys something of the lessening of the Academy’s influence as well as a growing

desire on the part of artists that it should be their artistic, rather than professional identity,

that they wanted recognised for posterity. This move was curtailed by the great numbers

of casualties of the First World War, which forced commemoration to become less

individualistic as the many casualties were buried in great war cemeteries whereby they

were identified through their nationality and their dedication to a cause.

Family members who were often also artists themselves generally commissioned the

artist’s monument, and it was always designed by fellow artists to celebrate the life and

fame of a colleague. Therefore, these monuments can be seen as an image coded with

certain significant messages. These messages, in common with monuments erected to

honour other people, were intended to convey information about the status of the

deceased and his/her family, as well as establishing their fitness for heaven on the Day of

Judgement. However the commemorative monument of the artist, when erected,

commissioned, designed by other artists, conveys messages beyond simple piety or

honour, or even an advertisement for an artist’s work. It established the status of the

artist through either his/her professional or artistic identity, while also symbolising the act

of resurrection. In the case of the latter, commemoration not only gave the artist back his

identity, but was an opportunity to create a new identity through placement, form or

imagery. In some cases this provided the 18th and 19th century artist with an opportunity

to associate himself with a prestigious institution through which he might establish an

elevated position within society as well as consolidating his professional identity. Many

artists believed that the act of leaving behind a body of work would be sufficient to ensure

immortality. However, the cyclical nature of the arts as described by Giorgio Vasari still

had influence in the 18th and early part of the 19th centuries, and in an age which was

experiencing great economic, religious, sociological, and technological changes, many

suffered a loss of faith and belief in an afterlife, which produced a corresponding fear of

absolute oblivion.

This thesis is divided into two parts. Part One consists of three chapters that explore how

the influence of Enlightenment thought, and the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts

affected the commemoration of the artist in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Chapter

One, “Arts and Sciences rewarded with Laurels, Fame”: The Effect of the Enlightenment

on the Commemoration of the Artist in 18th Century Britain’ focuses on how the

commemoration of artists after the foundation of the Royal Academy was informed by the

desire to see the status of the artist raised from artisan to that of a liberal artist who was

also a creative genius. Chapter Two, ‘The Last Honours Splendid and Grateful: The

Effect of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s funeral on the attitudes to Death, Burial, and

Commemoration of the Individual Academician’ examines the burial and commemoration

of a number of Academicians from Reynolds to Etty, considering the propriety of making

the funerals of senior Academicians, ‘academical’ in nature. This chapter introduces the

theory that it was the funeral and commemoration of Michelangelo that influenced the way

in which Sir Joshua Reynolds was honoured over two hundred years later. Chapter

Three, ‘According to the Ceremonial adopted on the Public Internment of the Late Sir

Joshua Reynolds: Burying the President of the Royal Academy in the 19th Century’

concentrates on the move to establish the ceremonial burial of the presidents of the

Academy in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral as a tradition which would confer prestige.

Part Two also consists of three chapters, and each of these deals with a different aspect

of the way in which artistic identity is conveyed through the monument. Chapter Four,

‘Delivering Down the name with Glory: The Significance of the Palette and Brushes as

Funerary Identifier’, explores the variety of ways in which the motif of the palette and

brushes was used in the 19th century, in particular as a symbol of the artist claiming

back his/her right to be identified as a manual worker. Chapter Five. ‘An Artist Lives and

Acquires Fame through his Works: The Preservation of the Artist’s Identity through the

Sculptural Representation of Specific Works’, discusses the reasons why a number of

monuments to artists during this period incorporated sculptural representations of the

works of the deceased. Chapter Six, ‘It might make one in love with death, to think one

should be buried in so sweet a place: Death and the Painter’, looks at the relationship

between art and death with emphasis on the monuments to three painters. It also

examines the notion that in designing one’s own monument, the artist’s monument

functioned less as an act of commemoration, and more as a work of art in itself.

It is hoped that by examining a selection of the monuments erected to commemorate

artists from the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, until the horror of the mass

deaths of the First World War, this study will provide a valuable and study of the attitudes

to death, and commemoration held by a single social group, in relation to the preservation

of an artistic identity which would help to ensure that individual would indeed achieve

immortality, and thus triumph over death.

CHAPTER ONE

“Arts and Sciences rewarded with Laurels, Fame”: THE EFFECT OF THE

ENLIGHTENMENT ON THE COMMEMORATION OF THE ARTIST IN 18TH CENTURY

BRITAIN

It is not surprising that the Enlightenment, the profoundly influential philosophical and

intellectual movement, affected the way in which 18th century artists promoted

themselves and their art. The fundamental individualism that lay at the centre of

Enlightenment thought encouraged the belief that it was the self-made man, whose status

had been gained through his achievements rather than his birthright, who should be

honoured and celebrated. Artists not only advocated that the art of painting should be

regarded as a profession, a gentlemanly pursuit on the same level as the highest

branches of law and of medicine, they also wanted to be seen as practitioners of a liberal

art raising the status of painting to that of literature or poetry. With the formation of the

Royal Academy of Arts during the 18th century, the painter was able to look forward to

removing him or herself as far as possible from his/her artisan origins and gaining

professional status. As it was also during this century that there was an upsurge in the

erection of commemorative monuments to the literati, alongside scholars and divines, in

what Joseph Addison had described in 1711 as the “poetical corner” of Westminster

Abbey, the most prestigious burial place in England, it is not surprising that members of

the Royal Academy of Arts began to look for similar honours.

This chapter will seek to explore the status and commemoration of the artist, native and

non-native, before and after the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, as well as

looking at 18th century attitudes to public commemoration and how these impacted on the

way in which painters were commemorated.

[I] “LIES CROWN’D WITH PRINCES HONOURS, POETS LAYS”: The Status and

Commemoration of the Artist in England prior to the foundation of the Royal Academy

Although membership of the traditional guild of the Painter-Stainers’ Company, which had

controlled the artist’s trade in London since it was formed in 1581, had been limited to

native artists, the taste of art loving monarchs such as Charles I, and the aristocracy

who preferred to promote themselves through association with the high art of the old

masters, had effectively reduced native art and artists to artisan status. Despite the

obvious skills of 17th century artists such as William Dobson (1610/11-1646) and Michael

Wright (c1617-c1700), the work of non-native artists dominated, and while native artists

were appointed by the monarch to the esteemed position of Serjeant-Painter, a post

normally held for life, it was not a job that carried with it much recognition of the artistic

skill of the holder because it mostly involved acting as an overseer, taking responsibility

for a wide range of painting activities. John de Critz (c1552-1642) held the position of

Sergeant-Painter from 1603 to 1642, but was mostly distracted by the supervision of

large teams of men at work in the palaces involved in decorating and restoration. At the

same time the Flemish artist, Anthony Van Dyke (1599-1641) was treated as an equal by

his aristocratic sitters and granted extraordinary favours by Charles I. The king not only

provided the artist with a house outside the area controlled by the Painter-Stainer’s

Company, and arranged his marriage to an English lady of noble birth, but he also

knighted Van Dyke on 5 July 1632. As Waterhouse states, “no artist had received such

favours before.”

The next artist to be so honoured in England was Peter Lely (1618-1680), who was born

in Westphalia, and came to prominence when he was asked to paint Charles I and his

children while the king was in the custody of the Earl of Northumberland. After the

Restoration in 1660, Lely was appointed Principal Painter to the King, on a pension of

£200 a year (the sum which had also been granted Van Dyke), and knighted by Charles

II on 11 January 1679/80.

After the death of Lely, English art was dominated by yet another foreign artist. This was

the German born Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), whose vigorous portraits of some of the

most fashionable ladies and influential gentlemen under the reign of three monarchs led

him to be regarded as the country's most successful painter. After the Glorious

Revolution of 1688, Kneller, together with native artist John Riley (1646-1691), was

appointed joint 'Principal Painter' to the crown. Kneller went on to assume the whole office

after Riley's death in 1691. He was knighted on 3 March 1691/2 and created a baronet by

George I on 24 May 1715, an honour which gave the rank of principal painter a greater

social eminence that was unsurpassed until 1896 when Queen Victoria conferred a

peerage on Frederic Lord Leighton.

It is not surprising that the attitudes towards the funerary commemoration of artists in this

period can reflect the status of both the native and non-native artist. English born artist

William Dobson was buried in St Martin’s in the Fields on 28 October 1646, while his

contemporary, Sir Anthony van Dyke, was honoured with burial in the choir of St Paul’s

cathedral, on 9 December 1641. Both burial markers have since been lost, Van Dyke’s

during the Great Fire of l666, and Dobson’s due to extensive re-building of the church

during the 18th century, but records exist showing that Van Dyke’s burial marker

represented the artist as the Genius of Painting with an inscription in Latin epitaph

apparently composed by the King himself:

ANTONIOUS VAN DYKE

QUI, DUM VIVERET, MULTIS IMMORTALITATEM DONAVERAT VITAM.

FUNCTUS EST CAROLUS PRIMUS, MAGNAE

BRITANNIAE, FRANCIAE ET HIBERNIAE REX, ANTONIO VAN DYCK, EQUITI

AURATO

In contrast there is no record as to what form Dobson’s burial marker took, which in itself

could be taken as an indication of the difference between how these two artists were

regarded. However, research has shown that commemoration on a grand scale was

largely dependent on private wealth and or rank. Sir Nathaniel Bacon, an amateur native

born artist, painted only himself and his family, but his position as a member of the landed

gentry led his family to erect a substantial monument, decorated with garlands

suspended from a palette and brushes, in their parish church at Culford, Suffolk. As is

pointed out by Gittings, the death of a person of rank was seen as a threat to social

stability and thus the erection of a commemorative monument, while marking the burial

place, and celebrating the life and achievements of the deceased, also preserved the

social body, and acted as a denial of the death of the rank. Lely’s knighthood was

conferred just before his death and burial in St Paul’s, Covent Garden, and although his

monument was later lost in the fire which destroyed the church in 1795, records show

that it included a portrait bust by Grinling Gibbons who was paid £125 for his work.

Henry Stone (c1616 – 1653) was an English artist working at the same time as Lely, but

of whom little is known. However, on his death in London on 24 August 1653, he was

buried near his father in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, and his brother set up a

monument. Although no records exist which describe the form of the tomb, the lengthy

and fulsome epitaph recorded by Horace Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting in England,

suggests that this was a substantial monument:

To the memory of Henry Stone of Long-acre painter and statuary, who having

passed the greatest part of thirty-seven years in Holland, France, and Italy,

atchieved [sic] a fair renown for his excellency in arts and languages, and

departed this life on the 24th day of August, A. D. 1653, and lyeth buried near the

pulpit in this church:

His Friends bewail this thus

Could arts appease inexorably his fate,

Thou hadst survived this untimely date:

Or could our votes have taken place, the sun

Had not set thus at its glorious noon:

Thou shouldst have lived such statues to have shown

As Micheal Angelo might have wished his own:

And still thy most unerring pencil might

Have rais’d his admiration and delight,

That the beholders should enquiring stand

Whether ‘twas Nature’s or the Artist’s hand.

But thy too early death we now deplore

There was not art that thou couldst live to more,

Nor could thy memory by age by lost,

If not preserved by this pious cost;

Thy name’s a monument that will surpass

The Parian marble or Corinthian brass.

John Stone to perfect his fraternal affections erected this monument

While a significant monument inscribed with such great praise might suggest that this

artist had produced an extensive body of work and was therefore extremely highly

regarded by his contemporaries, there is little evidence to support this. Waterhouse

states that it is known that the artist spent some time abroad, having received training

with his uncle, the Dutch painter Thomas de Keyser, in Amsterdam, but there is only one

known work bearing the inscription ‘H. Stone F, 1649’ which is identified by Waterhouse

as possibly a work by this artist. It would appear that this monument, with its splendid

epitaph, was erected solely as a result of familial pride. Later in the century another

inscription was added to the monument:

June 1699

Four rare Stones are gone

The Father and three Sons

In memory of whom their near kinsman

Charles Stoakes, repaired this monument

Sir Godfrey Kneller’s artistic status and awareness of his own social standing even

before he was knighted is reflected in his decision to move, in 1682, into a larger and

grander property in Covent Garden Piazza possibly because it was where Lely had run

such a profitable studio only a few years before. After his knighthood was awarded in

1702 Kneller was able to move again, into an even larger property in Great Queen Street,

not far from the Piazza. In 1711 Kneller was elected first Governor of the Academy of

Painting that had been established close to his new studios. Kneller showed a keen

interest in the work of the Academy and this interest helped to establish the style of

British portraiture which was to last for at least a generation after his death.

In 1722, Kneller painted the portrait of the great 18th-century poet, Alexander Pope

(1688-1744). A year later, as he lay on his deathbed the artist called for Pope with a view

to asking the latter to compose an epitaph for the monument he had designed for himself.

After Kneller’s death Pope wrote to his friend, Joseph Spence, about this last visit to the

artist, he said:

I think I never saw a scene of such vanity in my life. He was lying in his bed and

contemplating the plan he had made for his own monument. He said many gross

things in relation to himself and the memory he should leave behind him. He said he

should not like to lie among the rascals at Westminster Abbey, a memorial there

would be sufficient and he desired me to write an epitaph for it.

However, Kneller intended the grandiose monument he had designed to be erected in the

church of St Mary’s, Twickenham which was not far from Kneller’s country estate,

Whitton House, and another reason he wanted to talk to Pope was because the position

he had in mind for his monument was already occupied by the monument to Pope’s own

father. Although Pope agreed to write the epitaph he refused to allow the re-positioning of

his father’s monument despite Lady Kneller’s petition to the Doctors’ Commons for its

removal. Pope based his legal defence on the grounds that the proposed design, “a vast

three-hundred -pound-Pyle”, would damage the fabric of the church as well as posing a

threat to the safety of those sitting nearby. Pope won his case and although Kneller was

buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, his monument was eventually erected in

Westminster Abbey in 1730 by the young Flemish sculptor, Michael Rysbrack

(1694-1770) (Figure 1).

Kneller’s reputation as a vain man suggests that he probably cut a very conspicuous

figure in society, and his self-portrait of c.1711 confirms that supposition. In this, he

identifies himself as a courtier (wearing the gold medal awarded him by the King when he

was knighted), and as a land-owner (in the background the artist includes a view of

Whitton Hall, built by Kneller between 1709-1711). This work was painted around the

same time as the foundation of the Academy of Painting in Covent Garden. It is also

obvious from his design for his monument that Kneller wanted to appear as a younger

man than he was, handsome and full of vigour. Rysbrack translated this pose into that of

a poet, en neglige, in full command of his creativity. However, there are no obvious

attributes identifying the deceased as an artist. On the other hand, it is significant that

Kneller designed the monument, and included a medallion portrait of his wife, and

therefore this can be read as an indirect identification.

In contrast, the epitaph written by Alexander Pope refers to Kneller’s skill both literally and

through its imitation of the last two lines of Pietro Bembo’s epitaph in tribute to Raphael.

Kneller, by Heav’n and not a Master taught,

Whose Art was Nature, and Whose Pictures thought;

Now for two ages having snatch’d from fate

Whate’er was Beauteous, or Whate’er was Great,

Lies crown’d with Princes Honours, Poets Lays,

Due to his Merit, and brave Thirst of Praise.

Living, Great Nature fear’d he might outvie

Her works; and dying, fears herself may die

The more formal Latin inscription confirms the status of the deceased as principal painter

to five British monarchs and reflects his impressive status:

GODEFREDI KNELLER EQUITIS ROM. IMP. ET ANGLIA

BARONETTI PICTORIS REGIBUS CAROLO II JACOBI II

GULIELMO III ANNE REGINAE GEORGIO . QUI OBIIT

XXVI OCT. AN. MDCCXXIII. AETAT LXXVII

It was not until the 18th century that a British born artist achieved some measure of the

distinction formerly granted foreign artists. Sir James Thornhill (1675/6 - 1734) was an

historical painter working within the Baroque decorative style. He began one of his most

important and most visible commissions, the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital, in 1707

under the reign of Queen Anne, but his most significant job as a native artist was that of

the cupola of St Paul's cathedral. His competitors for the commission were the French

artist Louis Laguerre (1663-1703), and the Italian artist Marco Ricci (1676-1729), but it is

evident that Thornhill’s success at Greenwich, as well as his ability to push himself

forward politically, led to this English artist being awarded the commission in 1715. While

Thornhill's ability was not in dispute it may be that it was a wave of nationalistic feeling,

encouraged by the notion that it was more appropriate that London's finest, Protestant

cathedral should be adorned by the hand of a Protestant native artist, rather than a

foreign 'popish' painter, that gave Thornhill the upper hand.

Following this success, Thornhill was awarded many commissions to produce decorative

schemes for private houses in London and throughout the country. Mayhew says that as

his professional reputation grew he was anxious to “found a national school of art.” This

is why he became involved with the first Academy of Painting as a Director on the Board,

and when the internal bickering and power struggles drove Kneller to stand down in 1716,

Thornhill took over as governor. This in turn led to Thornhill gaining greater social status.

In 1718, he was appointed History Painter in Ordinary to the King, and in 1720, he was

elected Serjeant-Painter and Master of the Painter-Stainer's Company. In that same year

he was knighted - the first native artist to receive such an honour. Such recognition

evidently spurred the artist into consolidating his rank. A year later, he bought back the

family seat of Thornhill Park, in Dorset which had passed into other hands some years

earlier. Having established himself as a member of the landed gentry, Thornhill was made

a Freeman of the town of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in 1721, and in the following

year, he became a Member of Parliament.

It is believed that a design for a ceiling by Thornhill that is held in the Department of Prints

and Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum and engraved by C.M. Metz, was

intended for Thornhill Park. In this engraving, there is an image of Minerva, often

regarded as the patroness of institutions of learning and the arts, crowning a portrait of

Thornhill. A drawing of four spandrels of a ceiling, also held at the V and A, includes a

series of attributes and motifs, which presumably Thornhill felt applied to himself and his

achievements. These are accompanied by notes made by the artist: "Industry rewarded

with Plenty... Liberty, Trade, Vigilance...Merchandise" and "Heroick Virtues &c. with

Honour Loyalty, Lord of my Country Valour, Justice, Temperance", "Arts and Sciences

rewarded with Laurels, Fame" and finally "Religion, Charity, Chastity with Imortality [sic]

Magnanimity; Truth".

Thornhill’s obvious awareness of his achievements and the attributes with which he

chooses to represent these achievements reflect many of the elements with which the

Enlightenment movement was concerned. The use of classical motifs; the celebration of

progress in industry and trade; the dissemination of knowledge to a much wider audience

through books, newspapers and prints; and the valorisation of the individual. The

annotation for the top right spandrel reads, “Arts & Sciences rewarded with

Laurels” (Figure 2). Here Thornhill represented the arts and sciences with measuring

devices such as set squares alongside the trumpet of epic poetry, as well as the bow,

quiver and lyre of Apollo. However, the palette and brushes are not included in this

grouping but are found on the opposite side of the design, within the attributes of industry

and trade (Figure 3). Thornhill, as self-made man, is undoubtedly celebrating the fact that

he has gained his status through hard work and skill, which for others was simply a

matter of birthright, but in placing the palette away from the arts such as poetry and

music, which were traditionally seen as being intellectual pursuits, he emphasises the

mechanical, and commercial nature of painting.

When Thornhill died on 4 May 1734 at Thornhill Park, he was buried in a family vault in the

churchyard of St Mary’s, Stalbridge. The monument that was erected to mark his burial

place has disappeared, possibly during the extensive restoration carried out in the 19th

century. No records exist describing its form, but there is reason to believe that it would

have primarily celebrated the deceased ‘s rank in society, and his achievements as artist

would have been relegated to a passing mention.

[II] “If not, for earthly glories die away, read this monument”: Attitudes towards the public

commemoration of the individual in the 18th century

It is against the rich background of radical intellectual endeavour in philosophy and the

sciences, born in England but fostered and nurtured by the French philosophes, that

attitudes to commemoration in 18th-century England should be examined because it was

the valorising of the individual in general, and the literati in particular, that impacted most

especially on attitudes to public commemoration at this time. The profoundly fundamental

individualism, that lay at the centre of Enlightenment thought, led to the notion that the

self-made man, whether his status had been gained through his achievements in the arts

or in the sciences, was more worthy of public commemoration than the man whose

status was achieved simply through inheritance. This undoubtedly encouraged an

increase in the former’s sense of self worth alongside his sense of his own place in

society, and in turn this led to the desire to consolidate this hard-won status for posterity.

In his article, ‘Encyclopedie’ Diderot indicates his attitude to honouring individual

achievement over birthright. He says:

But our weaknesses follow our mortal remains into the tomb and disappear with

them; the same earth covers them both, and there remains only the total result of

our attributes immortalised in the monuments we raise to ourselves or in the

memorials that we owe to pubic respect and gratitude - honours which a proper

awareness of our own deserts enables us to enjoy in anticipation, an enjoyment

that is as pure, as great, and as real as any other pleasure and in which there is

nothing imaginary except, perhaps, the titles on which we base our pretensions.

Having entered an age that almost universally celebrated the scientist, the philosopher,

and the man of letters, there was a corresponding desire in many countries, driven by a

sense of national pride, to see their own great men commemorated in locations not

necessarily where they had been buried. In Britain, recently termed Great Britain, since

the Act of Union in 1707 joined England and Scotland, this patriotism was to be reflected

in the cult to honour British worthies, particularly those men to whom Enlightenment owed

so much. This resulted in such a demand for portrait busts that it was deemed a subject

worthy of general interest, a report in The London Tradesman (1747) noted, “The taste of

busts and figures… prevails much.” In 1732, Queen Caroline herself commissioned a

series of portrait busts of great Britons from Michael Rysbrack, among which there was a

predominance of philosophers, and scholars including Locke, Newton, and Bacon. This

was an act of patronage that was to draw considerable attention from the press.

Rysbrack and another Flemish sculptor, Peter Scheemakers (1696-1781), received a

similar commission from Lord Cobham of Stowe in 1734 who wanted to fill his Temple of

British Worthies with stone versions of those commissioned by the Queen representing

the heroic as well as the intellectual might of Britain, alongside literary giants William

Shakespeare (1546-1616), John Milton (1608-74), and the then still living Alexander Pope

(1688-1744).

Pope’s own attitudes to commemoration at this time is reflected in the interest he took in

lapidary art, in the recording of inscriptions, as well in his composing of epitaphs, an

interest shared by many including Dr Samuel Johnson whose ‘Essay on Epitaphs’ was

published in 1740. The theme of commemoration, especially of British worthies, is also to

be found in much of Pope’s poetry such as in The Temple of Fame: A Vision (1711-15);

Windsor Forest (1713); and Epistle to Addison (1721)

In 1720, Alexander Pope became involved in the creation of a poet’s corner in

Westminster Abbey, the most conspicuous, and esteemed burial place in England. The

Abbey, founded by Edward the Confessor in 1065, was not only significant as the

coronation place of kings and queens of England, it was also where many of them chose

to be buried following the most splendid of ceremonial funerals. Of thirty-eight monarchs

who ruled from William the Conqueror (1027/8-1087) to George I (1660-1727), fourteen

lay buried either within the sanctuary of the Abbey or Henry VII’s Chapel, and most were

also commemorated by the erection of substantial monuments which included effigies of

the deceased. These effigies were not just to provide a reminder to the living for whom

they should direct their prayers, but they also acted as a permanent image of the social

body, of the ruler, denying the death of the rank while the body of the individual monarch

decomposed. This was a necessary act of preservation of social cohesion- an important

factor in the days when royal accession was never too certain.

The first poet to be buried in the south transept of the Abbey was Geoffrey Chaucer

(c1340-1400), but this honour was less likely to have been due to his achievements as a

poet, but rather more to do with his status as brother-in-law to John of Gaunt, chief power

behind the throne, as well as Chaucer’s official position within the royal household of

Richard II. For 150 years his burial place was marked by a simple leaden plate on which,

Caxton states, was written, “his epitaphye, maad by a poet-laureate” A substantial

monument of Purbeck marble, incorporating altar chest and canopy, was erected in 1556

during the reign of Mary I by a minor poet, Nicholas Brigham (d.1558). There were

originally two painted figures either side of the tomb chest, one was of Chaucer and the

other presumed to be of Brigham, who, it is said, was buried close to Chaucer. These

figures have since disappeared. Even if Brigham is not buried close to the monument he

erected for Chaucer, the fact that Brigham’s portrait was included identifies the monument

as belonging to Brigham as well as Chaucer. The Latin epitaph, in translation, ends with

the line, “N. Brigham charged himself with this in the name of the Muses/1556”. Thus,

Brigham identifies himself as an individual through the use of the portrait, and also as a

good and pious Christian, who has prepared for his own death by setting up a monument

within his lifetime. A second inscription, now lost, is a type of memento mori, warning the

viewer against expecting earthly fame to bring about immortality. In translation this reads:

What once I was some fame perhaps may tell.

If not, for earthly glories die away, read this monument

This commemorative monument can be read as a symbol of the monumental body of the

poet. The design and placement, set as it is within such a prestigious place, gives the

onlooker the impression that the deceased was of social standing. The heraldic devices,

both sculpted and painted, reinforce this (Figure 4). The combination of the painted

portraits and text serves to link Brigham with Chaucer on a professional level. The

painted portrait of Chaucer acts as symbolic of the poet’s social body seeking

preservation after the death of the natural body. If the portrait of Brigham was painted at

the same time as that of Chaucer, then Brigham was insinuating his own position as a

poet worthy to assume the mantle discarded by the dead Chaucer, and thus preserve

the poet’s place in society and uphold the social structure.

The architectural features include gothic fan–vaulted tracery, which is reminiscent of the

vaulting found in Henry VII’s Chapel built in the place of the old Lady Chapel, which was

pulled down, along with the house in which Chaucer had lived at the end of his life, to

make way for the new chapel. Henry VII intended that the chapel, begun in 1509 and

consecrated in 1519, would be a splendid public display symbolising the legitimacy of his

claim to the throne, as descendent of John of Gaunt, and as member of the House of

Lancaster. Chaucer’s monument also includes a series of cusped ogee arches

crocketed and finialled, as well as a cornice decorated with sculpted flowers.

Although a small number of monuments were erected during the 17th century to poets

and writers such as Edmund Spenser (died 1599; erected 1620); Michael Drayton (died

1631); Abraham Cowley (died 1667); and Thomas Shadwell (died 1692; erected 1700) in

Poet’s Corner, the greatest number were commissioned in the 18th century, and it was

then that Alexander Pope, who said that “a monument in so beautiful a place as

Westminster Abbey, [restores] them to a kind of second life among the living”, became

involved. The first monument to be erected was that in honour of the poet John Dryden

(1631-1700) and it is believed to have been commissioned as a result of Pope reminding

people in his ‘Epitaph to Nicholas Rowe’ that although Dryden had been accorded a

splendid funeral, a monument had not been forthcoming. This prompted John Sheffield,

Duke of Buckinghamshire to offer to pay for a monument with Pope acting as executor of

the design which was to be the work of the architect, James Gibbs. That Gibbs, the first

English architect to take an interest in funerary commemoration which had formerly been

the preserve of mason sculptors, was chosen for this job, may be an indication of the

importance granted the location as well as a belief in commemorating the worthy

individual.

The design of the monument – a bust of the deceased wreathed in laurel and set upon a

simple pedestal against an architectural frame in a classical style – reflects another

characteristic element of the Enlightenment which had an impact on commemoration.

This was the movement’s veneration for the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. A

grounding in the classics formed part of the basic education of the privileged throughout

Europe, and even though the movement was progressive, it looked back to ancient

Athens and Rome, not only because these cultures were associated with civic virtues,

but there were many who believed that with Christianity a veil of darkness, characterised

by superstition and blind authority, had fallen over human existence. In the effort to bring

clarity and reason to the world, enlightened thinkers took up the ideals promulgated

during the Renaissance, and promoted the merits of the classical world. Therefore,

references to classical antiquity in commemoration engendered an image of decency,

austerity, and respect (Figure 5).

This monument was unveiled in January 1721, and in July of the same year Pope was

involved with the creation of another memorial, this was to commemorate the satirist

Samuel Butler (1612-80) who had been buried in St Paul’s, Covent Garden, but who had

not yet been honoured with a monument. This was commissioned by Alderman John

Barber who consulted Pope over the design and the epitaph. Although there is no record

as to who designed the monument, which includes a bust set on a simple pedestal

framed against a black marble pyramid, the portrait bust has been attributed to Rysbrack.

Pope was not directly involved in the commissioning of the monuments in Poet’s Corner

to Matthew Prior (erected 1723); John Gay (erected 1740); and Nicholas Rowe (erected

1739) but letters written by Francis Atterbury, Dean of Westminster, indicate Pope’s

interest in the monument to Prior, and his friendship with John Gay (d.1732) may have

led to the inclusion of the epitaph the writer of The Beggar’s Opera had asked for, despite

Atterbury’s concern that it was too flippant.This is accompanied by a verse composed by

Pope, which suggests that although the writer earned his place among the “heroes” and

“kings” of the Abbey, his true worth might only be recognised by his fellow literati. Pope

also composed the verse epitaph for the monument raised in honour of the poet and

dramatist, Nicholas Rowe, by his widow. As has been said in connection with the

Monument to Dryden, this epitaph was published in 1720, long before the monument itself

was commissioned. However, Pope revised it in order to take the location as well as the

design into consideration.

Two other monuments erected in the 18th century to commemorate men of letters of the

century before have also been attributed to Rysbrack, but have no other connection to

Pope. The earliest of the two monuments, that which was erected in honour of the

playwright, Ben Jonson (c1573-1637), who was buried in the north aisle, was

commissioned by an anonymous “person of quality” in c1723 and was designed by

Gibbs, with the relief portrait by Rysbrack. The later monument to the poet John Milton

(1608-1674), who was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate, was also the work of

Rysbrack who had been commissioned to create a bust of the poet in marble for “Mr

Tho. Serjeant Esq. of the Tower.” After the death of Serjeant, the bust eventually ended

up in the hands of William Benson (1682-1754), who had succeeded Wren as Surveyor

of the Works. Benson then commissioned Rysbrack to sculpt a setting for the bust that

was placed on the wall alongside those of Butler, and Jonson.

Perhaps the most important monument raised in Poet’s Corner during the 18th century

was that to the greatest of British literary heroes, William Shakespeare. Its importance not

only lies in the fact that this was the first monument to be erected as a result of public

fund-raising as opposed to private patronage, but also that it was the first full-length

statue erected in Poet’s Corner of a man of letters in dress which firmly identifies the

writer with a particular time, and nationality. Although the bust to Milton identifies the poet

with his period to some extent, it is also draped in a way which suggests the

philosopher’s robe; while the use of the relief portrait format for Jonson, despite the fact

that the portrait depicts the dramatist in contemporary dress, also carries similar

connotation through reference to antique coinage.

Another important aspect of the Shakespeare monument to consider is the distance, both

in location as well as in time, between what might be called the social body as

represented by the monument, and the placement of the natural body which was in the

poet’s parish church in Stratford-upon-Avon. This in itself is not so unusual as many of

the commemorative pieces in the Abbey are also distanced. However, what is interesting

to consider is the fact that the commemorative monument of Shakespeare was erected

150 years after the playwright’s death and, as pointed out by Roscoe, in a time of patriotic

need as England prepared to go to war with France. Thus, this monument assigns

Shakespeare with a different social body to that suggested by the monument erected not

long after his death close to his burial place in the Church of the Holy Trinity.

This original monument, erected by his widow, and carved by Gerard the Younger,

consists of a painted half bust of the poet, portraying him as a man of letters, with pen in

hand. As described by Roscoe, it is “a portrait of a prosperous, doughy-featured burgher

in a silk gown with curled moustache, pointed beard and …domed head…” This is an

appropriate portrayal for the writer and for the placement of the monument. It also

conveys a comforting image for his widow, as the natural body of the head of the family

decays and disappears; the monument preserves the social body, and in doing so

identifies Shakespeare as a respectable, dignified man of the town (Figure 6). However

the statue in London, far removed in time and location could, and indeed does, display an

entirely opposite identity, which proposes the preservation of a different type of social

body.

This near life-sized figure in white marble set within a grey and white pedimented niche

does not present Shakespeare as the writer caught in the physical act of writing, but

instead represents him as the poet (Figure 7). He is relaxed and confident, leaning

nonchalantly on a pile of books. His head is resting on his right hand in a gesture which,

as pointed out by Roscoe, was recognised as a theatrical gesture conveying mental

activity. Instead of holding a pen, as he does in the monument in Stratford –upon-Avon,

the playwright points to a passage from his play The Tempest, written on a scroll. This

has the effect of suggesting that his words were divinely inspired, rather than the result of

physical labour. In this location, in the capital of a country preparing for war, this

resurrection of a national hero depicted as a genius can be read as an attempt to present

a monumental body which not only replaces the playwright’s natural body, but also points

to the role of the commemorative monument as an effective propaganda tool.

The use of the portrait heads of Queen Elizabeth, and Henry V were highly appropriate at

this time, as Elizabeth represented the British triumph over the Armada, and Henry V was

not only one of Shakespeare’s great characters, but also a military genius who had made

England a great continental power during his reign. The inclusion of a portrait of Richard

III is more complex, as the reputation of this king suffered a great deal through Tudor

propaganda, augmented by Shakespeare’s depiction of the king as a malevolent force.

Roscoe points out that he may have been included because Richard III was one of the

most popular plays in London playhouses, and two members of the committee involved

with the commission, Burlington and Mead, were also called Richard. However, the

speech written by Shakespeare and delivered by the King on the eve of the Battle of

Bosworth Field refers to the fact that Henry Tudor had spent his early years in exile in

Brittany, and had come to challenge the English king with soldiers from France.

Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;

Lash hence these overweening rags of France,

These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;

Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,

For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves:

If we be conquer'd, let men conquer us,

And not these bastard Bretons; whom our fathers

Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,

And in record, left them the heirs of shame.

Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives?

Ravish our daughters?

Therefore, at this point in time, the inclusion of Richard III may have been regarded as

justified. Richard was also the last King of England to die on the battlefield, a fact that may

have gone some way to restore his reputation during the 18th century when his military

ability, as well as his adept administrative qualities, was beginning to be recognised. The

Great Debate, as the study of Richard's reputation became known, truly began when

Horace Walpole wrote his Historic Doubts on Richard III, which was published in 1768,

and undoubtedly rattled the cages of the traditionalists. However, as Roscoe says,

despite Walpole’s ‘doubts’, in 1771 he wrote that he did not see why the portraits of

Richard III, and even Henry V, were placed on the pedestal.

[III] “Member of the Royal Academy of Arts”: The Effect of the foundation of the Royal

Academy on attitudes towards burial and commemoration of artists

The foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768 not only helped establish a British

school of painting, but it also encouraged artists to further their claim for genteel status,

although it was not until the census report of 1861 that painting was first listed as a

profession. While artists such as Thornhill recognised the need for an academy of the

arts, previous attempts to set up such institutions had met with little success, partly

because many artists were reluctant to submit to the type of strict regulation that was

found in continental academies.

In 1734, William Hogarth (1697-1764) re-established the St Martin’s Lane Academy,

which had been originally founded by Thornhill in 1724. This was run on democratic lines,

and flourished until the 1760s. In 1739, Captain Thomas Coram established a Foundling

Hospital and the collection of pictures collected under his patronage was opened to the

public in return for a donation. The success of this enterprise which drew a great number

of visitors from the fashionable elite, gave an indication to the artists who contributed to

the collection, that there was an educated art public who would not only pay to view

works of art but might be persuaded to buy works by native artists rather than employing

those from the continent.

Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was elected to the Society for the Encouragement of the

Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (Society of Arts), in 1756, and was a member of the

committee of artists who petitioned the Society to use the Great Room in their spacious

premises in the Strand for the first true public exhibition of pictures ever held in England.

Reynolds had four pictures in the show that was held on 21 April 1760, and it was so

successful that he and other artists soon formed an independent group known as the

Society of Artists of Great Britain who held an exhibition at Spring Gardens the following

year. In 1765 this group, which now numbered over two hundred members, obtained a

Royal charter as The Incorporated Society of Artists in Great Britain and continued to

hold successful exhibitions, but the viewing conditions were not ideal and quarrels broke

out over the hanging of the pictures. In the autumn of 1768, the Society dissolved, but

within a few weeks King George III was approached by a group of artists, led by the

architect Sir William Chambers, who asked the monarch to agree to be the patron of a

Royal Academy of Arts. The king, keen to be seen as a cultivated man, agreed to

recognise the institution as well as to make up for any financial deficit it incurred out of the

Privy Purse. Reynolds was named as one of the original thirty-six founder academicians,

but although Chambers might have expected to be elected first President of the

Academy, it was generally felt a painter should have the post and thus Reynolds was

offered the job, and after some carefully orchestrated hesitation, he accepted this

prestigious position.

The aims of the Academy were primarily to promote the fine arts, and to educate and

train young artists with the intention of identifying the painter, sculptor, and architect as

the practitioner of an intellectual art. By describing themselves as ‘academicians’ the

founder members hoped that this would convey a sense of philosophical debate

demonstrating that the social rank of the artist was on a level with that of a scientist or

scholar. The annual exhibitions held by the Royal Academy of Arts which provided the

Academy with the means to maintain independence from state interference, were also

seen as a way for artists to advertise their work in an arena which was deemed to be

more respectable than any previously available. Moreover, while the Constitution allowed

that the opportunity to exhibit would be “open to all Artists of distinguished merit” many

artists became aware that membership of the Academy lent a certain cachet to their

entries.

As members of the Royal Academy, artists were encouraged to see themselves as

visualisers of the radical new age heralded, discussed, and formulated by the forward-

thinking men of the Enlightenment. At the end of the century this was to have an effect on

attitudes regarding the public commemoration of artists, possibly partly fuelled by the

move to raise memorials to commemorate British literati in Westminster Abbey, but in the

main caused by the desire by the first President of the Academy, Reynolds, to be buried

in St Paul’s Cathedral.

There were no statutes in the constitution of the Royal Academy dealing specifically with

death, burial, and commemoration of members, but in 1796 the landscape painter,

Joseph Farington (1747-1821), records in his diary that the widow of Dominic Serres

(marine artist and founder member) was granted £26. 5.0 to help with her husband’s

funeral expenses”. Later, in 1805 Farington records that at a meeting of 4 January 1806,

the Council had voted “10 guineas to Sally Davis, daugtr of Mrs Baker, to pay for her

mother’s funeral”. Mrs Baker was the widow of founder member, John Baker, who had

died aged only 35 in 1771. At the end of the same year Farington records the death of

Royal Academician, Edward Edwards (1738-1806), as well as the information that Mrs

Edwards was granted £50 because her "husband had died and left her without money"

Farington states that half of this money was intended to help with the funeral costs. This

event had taken place on 17 December 1806 at St Pancras and had been attended by

many members of the Academy including the recently re-elected President, Benjamin

West. As stated by Julie Rugg in her essay ‘From Reason to Regulation: 1760-1850’

during this period even the poor attempted to give their loved ones a worthy send off in

order not only to avoid the stigma of a pauper's funeral, but also to identify the family as

having a respectable position in society. Mrs Edwards may have been left without any

money but her husband had been highly thought of by his colleagues at the Academy.

Apart from being elected Professor of Perspective in 1788 (a post he held until his death)

he contributed to Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, and was the author of Anecdotes of

Painters (published in 1808).

For the Royal Academy, a body that was very much a product of the age of reason, the

recording of the death of a member was prompted by the rationale that a death meant

there was a vacancy to be filled. For example on 3 March 1791 an entry in the Council

Minutes reads: "The President gave notice of the death of Mr William Parry and declared

the vacancy for an associate of the Royal Academy". On 11 May 1807 the members of

the Council were advised that there was “a vacancy of an Academician and Professor of

Painting through the death of Opie”.

One of the main reasons why the Academy did not become more involved in the funeral

provision to members is probably because in desiring to be seen as gentlemen, they

wished to distance themselves as far as possible from guild status. From the 14th

century until the end of the 17th century funeral arrangements had generally been the

province of the guilds, secular organisations of the laity originally brought into being to

bury the poor who could not afford to pay for the endowment masses, which were

supposed to reduce the amount of time one spent in Purgatory. It is not certain as to what

degree the guilds took responsibility for the funeral of an individual, but as Litten says, it is

likely they performed three actions: “the marshalling of their members to attend, and the

selection from that company of those to carry the coffin… to see the coffin safely into the

church and to ensure the burial equipment was in place; and to attend the full obsequies

on the following day, including the funeral feast.” Litten also points out that officially, at the

end of the 16th century, “there were only three strata of funeral…monarchical, noble and

guild…” but in reality the type of funeral accorded to one “depended entirely on one’s

status.” The funeral of a monarch or other members of the royal family, as well as peers

of the realm, had traditionally been performed by the College of Arms, a corporation of

heralds and part of the Royal Household, and as such was an extremely complex and

splendid, formal affair. At the end of the 17th century economic growth led to a increasing

desire for funerals which were not only more secular in outlook but also contained

something of the pageantry of the funerals provided by the College of Arms. Unable to

handle such demands the guilds looked to various tradesmen to provide the different

elements and thereby the trade of undertaker came into being. Litten states that William

Boyce was the first recorded person trading as an undertaker in London c1680, but by

the beginning of the 18th century there were a growing number of businesses trading as

undertakers. The Royal College of Arms remained in charge of royal funerals until 1751,

when a private undertaker organised the funeral of Frederick, Prince of Wales.

In general, attendance of members of the Royal Academy at the funerals of their peers

largely depended on individual circumstance. When founder member Richard Wilson

(1713-1782) was buried far from London, in the churchyard of his parish church in Mold,

Wales, his was a simple funeral and it is likely that only his loyal servant and the relatives,

with whom he had been staying at the end of his life, accompanied the coffin. However

the lyrical Welsh epitaph carved into the lid of his box tomb not only links the artist with his

native Wales, but Wilson is also proudly identified, in English, as a “Member of the Royal

Academy of Arts” (Figure 8).

On the other hand when Thomas Gainsborough died in London in 1788, his funeral was

deemed important enough to be covered by the General Evening Post (12 August 1788).

Here it was recorded in some detail, and the writer stated that it was attended "by a few

select friends who included some of the most celebrated people of the age", and six

Royal Academicians, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Chambers, Benjamin West, Paul

Sandby, Francesco Bartolozzi, and Samuel Cotes, had been invited to act as pall-

bearers. One of the rules of etiquette established by the College of Arms was on the

matter of pallbearers –generally six in number, and they were supposed to consist of

one’s peers.

The differences between the ways in which the two landscape artists were buried are

largely dependent on how prominent they were at the time of their deaths, and the simple

fact that Wilson had retired far from London, the home of the Academy and the centre of

artistic activity, while Gainsborough had remained in London. The presence of so many

important members of the Academy at Gainsborough’s funeral, including the President

himself, was undoubtedly seen as reflecting well on the deceased who, despite his

quarrels with the Academy, was highly regarded, and the subject of Reynolds’s

fourteenth discourse delivered on 10 December 1788. According to the Morning Post, the

discourse was delivered in an “attempt to ascertain and record the genius of an eminent

painter.” Another effect of the attendance of so many of the most senior academicians

was to impress upon the spectators, or readers of the newspaper reports, that the

Academy was a solemn and dignified public body, paying due honours to an eminent

artist. The Academy may have also seen it as fortuitous that the funeral took place at St

Anne’s Church, the parish church of Kew Gardens, a small village which had become

fashionable since it had become a centre for botanical research under royal patronage.

Gainsborough’s wish for a simple monument was respected and the stone tomb slab

raised on a plinth and surrounded by an iron railing is inscribed with the words:

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH ESQ

DIED AUG the 2D 1788

AGED 61 YEARS

The commemoration of the 18th and the 19th century artist generally remained linked to

the status, wealth or sometimes patronage of the individual, and as such did not become

a direct concern of the Academy as an institution. However, it is evident that membership

often not only generated patronage and therefore wealth, but also status, and therefore in

the century following the foundation of the Academy there was an increase in artists

being buried in prominent burial locations, as well as a number of splendid monuments

being erected which proclaimed the artist’s newly-won position in society. As the Council

Minutes show, the degree to which the Academy felt it should, as an institution, get

involved in the arrangements for the burial and commemoration of its members was to

become a frequent question for debate. Only for the President of the Academy was it

deemed necessary for the organization to establish a protocol, which took its lead from

the funeral and burial of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a noble and public figure.

CHAPTER TWO

"the last honours splendid and grateful": THE EFFECT OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’S

FUNERAL ON THE ATTITUDES TO DEATH, BURIAL, AND COMMEMORATION OF

THE INDIVIDUAL ACADEMICIAN

It was undoubtedly the public funeral and prestigious burial of Reynolds that helped to

consolidate the professional status of the British artist. Furthermore, the public funeral

and burial of the President encouraged individual Academicians, or their families, friends,

and patrons on their behalf, to seek similar treatment in death, using funerary

commemoration to display social position, and in some cases wealth, primarily through

association with Reynolds, as well as through identification with the most prestigious arts

establishment of the 19th-century. There is no doubt that the funeral organised by the

Royal Academy in honour of their first President identified the Royal Academy of Arts with

the Accademia del Disegno, under the leadership of Giorgio Vasari. Many of the

members of the Royal Academy were highly familiar with the writings of the Renaissance,

especially the Lives of the most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects first published

by Vasari in 1550, and would have recognised that identification with artists of this

particular period, through funerary ritual, burial placement, monument design, and

inscription, undoubtedly conveyed authority and prestige. However, although individual

members became eager to see their senior academicians honoured with public

ceremonies the Royal Academy, as an institution, was not willing to demonstrate any

special distinction that would detract from that which was accorded the President.

[I] “the dignity of the dying art might be revived”: Vasari and the commemoration of the

artist in 18th and 19th century Britain

It is evident from reading the Discourses that Reynolds generally upheld Vasari’s theory

of the history of art which in turn harked back to Petrarch’s notion that the affairs of men

were cyclical in nature. In the 1450s the Florentine artist, Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455)

had taken this theory and applied it to the history of art, while Vasari used it as the basis

for his theory of the cyclical development of the arts since antiquity, which he described

as having gone through a period of rise, maturity and decay. He believed that the Goths

and other barbarian invaders had destroyed many of the great works of antiquity while

Christianity, in the desire to wipe out the old pagan faiths, destroyed many temples as

well as artworks “inflicting severe damage on the practice of the arts…”

Vasari likened the achievements of antiquity to what was happening in Florence in his

own time. However, rather than countenance the notion that even the art of the ‘divine’

Michelangelo might also experience neglect, fall into decline and even be lost, Vasari

proposed that the cycle involved three stages which were childhood, youth and maturity.

He suggested that a regression, after his own time, was possible, but if artists and

patrons attempted to emulate their illustrious forbears, this decline might be averted. One

of the reasons he gives for his recording of the lives and works of great artists in his

book was that the artist’s fame rested on his works, “but with the passing of time, which

consumes everything, these works - the first, then the second, then the third – fade

away. When there were no writers there was no way of leaving for posterity any record

of works of art, and so the artists themselves also sank into obscurity.”

Although Vasari’s cyclical model gradually lost its position as the key to the historical

development of the arts during the 18th century when scholars began to reassess the

qualities of medieval architecture in the form of the Gothic style, which had been rejected

by Vasari as the very epitome of barbaric, his writings continued to influence British art

and artists into the 18th century and beyond. An English edition of the Lives entitled

Choice Observations upon the Art of Painting together with Vasari’s Lives of the Most

Eminent Painters from Cimabue to the time of Raphael and Michelangelo with an

explanation of the difficult terms by William Aglionby was published in 1719. However, the

earliest edition found in the library of the Royal Academy is an Italian edition and this was

published in 1759. As Hilles points out Reynolds’s own copy of the Lives was an Italian

edition published in Bologna in 1647. Reynolds turned to Vasari’s judgements on several

occasions in his Discourses, and certainly agreed with Vasari that the arts had achieved

perfection in the age of Michelangelo. He said in his final Discourse, delivered on 10

December 1790, that it had to be acknowledged that, “Art has been in a gradual state of

decline, from the age of Michael Angelo to the present.” He believed that this had

occurred because artists had become lazy, and content to produce works, which were

“commonplace”. However, although this appears to sound a note of pessimism despite

the foundation of the Royal Academy under whose auspices Reynolds had said, in his

first Discourse delivered on 2 January 1769, that, “the dignity of the dying art might be

revived…” it is apparent that Reynolds believed that British art had at last begun to

progress towards a state of perfection. He said in his Discourse XIV, delivered on 10

December 1788, that it must be acknowledged, “our reputation in the Arts is only now

rising…” Cosway, West, Fuseli, Romney, Leighton, Watts are just a few of the artists who

often referred to Vasari both as an art historian, and for source material. In the middle of

the 19th century a writer of a review on a new edition of the Lives by Mrs J Foster,

praises Vasari for keeping the arts alive, and advises that no artist should be without a

copy.

[II] ‘primo Accademico e capo’: The Royal Academy’s Homage to the First President on

his Death in 1792

It is unlikely that Sir Joshua Reynolds, although a greatly esteemed portraitist as well as

author of the highly influential Discourses, would have been accorded such a high profile

funeral after his death in 1792 had he not been the first President of the very

distinguished Royal Academy of Arts founded only twenty-four years previously. The

correlation between the Academy and the first official academy of art in Florence, the

Accademia del Disegno, had undoubtedly occurred to the founder members, especially

Reynolds, who had dedicated the 1778 collection of his Discourses to the King, just as

Giorgio Vasari had dedicated his Lives to Cosimo de'Medici, but it is doubtful that

Reynolds expected, or hoped for, a funeral on the scale of that organised by the

Accademia for Michelangelo, the man the Florentine academicians had elected ‘primo

Accademico e capo’. However Reynolds’s wish, apparently privately expressed to his

niece and executors, to be buried in London's much acclaimed new cathedral church of

St Paul's might have given rise to the notion among many of the Academicians, just as it

had to Borghini and Vasari when news reached them that Michelangelo had died in Rome

on 18 February 1564, only one year after the foundation of the Accademia del Disegno

that this was an ideal opportunity to identify the Royal Academy with the Florentine

Accademia thus demonstrating the importance accorded to the arts in 18th-century

Britain.

Although there is no actual reference in Reynolds’s writings, or in the Council minutes of

the Academy, which can be used to demonstrate that there was a deliberate decision to

emulate the funeral of Michelangelo as arranged by Vasari and Borghini, it is likely that, as

the Florentine Accademia’s role in the extensive preparations for the occasion was

described by Vasari in his ‘Life of Michelangelo’, any artist with access to a copy of

Vasari’s Lives would have undoubtedly been aware of how important a pubic funeral

would be in ensuring that the Royal Academy maintained its position of prestige in the

eyes of the nation and even abroad. As has been said, Reynolds often referred to

Vasari’s writings in his Discourses, and it is therefore unlikely that Reynolds missed the

fact that nearly every biography in the Lives ends with reference to the burial location

and, where existing, a description of the commemorative monument.

"On the 23rd February twixt Eight and Nine in the evening, died our worthy President."

This was how the death of the first President of the Royal Academy was recorded in the

Council minutes on 24 February 1792, prompting Sir William Chambers to call for a

further meeting of the Council members for 26 February to discuss the funeral

arrangements. At this point it is possible that, although some of the Council members may

have had an idea that Reynolds had indicated to his executors that he wanted St Paul's

cathedral as his resting place, because he had long harboured a deep desire to see the

adornment of the cathedral under the control of the Academy, most of the members

expected a funeral similar to that of Gainsborough.

However, the Council were informed that Reynolds's executors (Edmund Burke

(1729-97), Edmund Malone (1741-1812,) and Philip Metcalfe (1735-1818)) hoped that the

body of the President could be brought to the Academy the night before the internment

where it would lie in state. Litten says that as part of the heraldic funeral arranged by the

College of Arms, it became the custom from the mid 17th century, for the “bodies of

armigerous families to lie in state in their own houses.” Therefore the academy might

have expected the body of Reynolds to lie in state in his own house, and the novelty of

the request made by the executors is reflected by the fact that the minutes of the General

Assembly of the 28th February begin with a statement which demonstrates that the

Council members had not been sure how best to deal with it, and therefore had not

granted the request before consulting the King. The monarch in turn had approved of the

"caution the Council had taken by their non-compliance which, however desirous they

were to show that mark of respect, they were not empowered to grant...” However, it was

“His Royal Will that that mark of respect be shown". A committee met to discuss the

arrangements and on the 29th February reported to the General Assembly that it was

decided that the body should lie in state in the Model Academy, which would be hung with

black draperies, and lit by candles in silver sconces. The Academicians had already also

decided that although the Academy, as an institution, would pay for the hangings which

amounted to £18 12s 6d, as well for the refreshments given to the mourners, costing £12

9s 0d, the individual members would each contribute thirty shillings, thereby covering the

undertakers' charges of £76 10s 11d which included the "Coaches, Attendants, Gloves,

Hat-bands, Cloaks, &c. &c." The rest of the expenses were to be met by Reynolds's

executors.

The discussion as to who among the members should take precedence in the

procession to St Paul's was not settled so readily. A dispute is mentioned in the Academy

Minutes but the names of those involved are not mentioned. Whitley says that Barry laid

claim to be their “representative mourner" because as "Professor of Painting...it was his

province to give lectures of instruction to the other members." Barry's reasoning

obviously did not convince the other Academicians and it was decided that Chambers, as

Treasurer, should lead the procession of Academicians. The fact that there was a

dispute over this suggests that some of the artists were well aware of their unique status

as members of the Royal Academy and they were determined to be identified as such.

They were also anxious to establish a hierarchy within the membership.

As the most public element of the proceedings, it would have been obvious to the Council

members that a solemn yet magnificent procession would call to mind the heraldic

funerals of members of the nobility, provided by the College of Arms. As Litten points out,

the College of Arms “arranged the funerals of monarchs, those of royal blood and other

members of the nobility, they also acted for archbishops, bishops, knights and

gentlemen-at-arms, together with those of armigerous status.” Although, as has already

been stated, the popularity of this type of funeral was on the wane before the death of

Reynolds, the details of those few which were carried out during the century were

recorded in great detail in the papers and journals of the time. Those of past Kings and

Queens had also been commemorated in print; such as that of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603

(Badoureau of Paris); and later Queen Mary II in 1694 (Lorenz Scherm after Carel

Allard). The effect of these comparisons would undoubtedly be to identify Reynolds as an

important public figure thus consolidating the Academy’s position as one of the nation's

most prestigious institutions. Therefore, as Fanny Burney is credited with saying,

"nothing was spared, either in thought or in expense, that could render the last honours

splendid and grateful."

On the morning of March 3rd 1792, the route to the cathedral was closed to traffic. By ten

o'clock crowds of people began to line the streets. The coffin, accompanied by 10

pallbearers, all peers, as well as family, friends and the members of the Academy left

Somerset House. Ninety-one coaches followed the hearse, with its great black plumes of

ostrich feathers, to the cathedral and the people watching would have had no hesitation in

identifying the deceased artist as much more than just a simple craftsman. The

procession, and also the chosen place of burial, London's finest and still relatively new

Protestant cathedral, also carried to the participants and the onlookers the simple

information that the arts in England at this time were greatly respected and therefore

artists were in the enviable position of being able to amass a great deal of money despite

relatively humble beginnings. Reynolds, the son of a provincial Devon schoolmaster, had

achieved, realised his fortune and his reputation because of his great skill, not his

birthright; and the wording of the epitaph on his tomb slab acknowledges his status as a

gentleman, and a public figure :

Here lie the Remains of

Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS KNt

PRESIDENT of the

ROYAL ACADEMY

OF

PAINTING SCULPTURE

and ARCHITECTURE.

He was born at

Plympton in Devonshire

the 16th of July 1723

And died at LONDON

the 23rd of Feb. 1792

[III] “COLOSSAL DIMENSIONS”: Reynolds’s Role in the Commemoration of the Great

and Good

For Vasari one way of keeping the arts alive was the erection of public memorials, such

as the monuments commissioned in 1490 by Lorenzo de’ Medici in honour of Giotto in

Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (Figure 9); and to Fra Filippo Lippi, erected in the

duomo of Spoleto. Vasari also described the monument to Fra Angelico in S Maria sopra

Minerva, Rome, commissioned by Pope Nicholas V in 1455. All three monuments were

given highly conspicuous and public placements. Reynolds may have also noted that, in

the 16th century, the artist had developed an even more profound sense of his elevated

status as well as his own unique identity as a creator, and thus artists such as Andrea

Mantegna (1431-1506); Rafaello Sanzio (1483-1520); Michelangelo Buonarroti

(1475-1654); as well as Giorgio Vasari himself (1511-1574) chose their burial places and

planned their own memorials, which not only ensured the preservation of the identity of

the deceased after death, but were also intended to resurrect his/her identity in a highly

individualistic way (Figure 11).

The aforementioned examples probably prompted Titian (c1487-1576), who was one of

several Venetian artists who had signed a letter written to the Accademia after

Michelangelo’s funeral applying for membership, to prepare a Pieta as an altarpiece to

mark his own burial-place. He had already chosen the site in Santa Maria Gloriosa, the

location of two of his greatest and most innovative works. It is likely that he chose the

Frari not only aware of its importance as the burial place of powerful Venetians such as

Doge Francesco Foscari (d.1457), but also in the expectation that his name would

continue to be identified with his works close by. Although Titian’s Pieta was not placed in

the Frari, probably because it was left unfinished when he died of the plague, a huge

stone monument was later erected over the place of the artist’s remains between

1843-1852 into which are incorporated sculptural versions of five of the artist’s works

including: the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1516/8), the Martyrdom of St Lawrence

(1559), and the Martyrdom of St Peter (1553).

In 1627 Anthony Van Dyke (1599-1641) returned to his hometown of Antwerp because

he had received news that his sister, Cornelia, was dead. This prompted the artist, who

remained a devout Catholic throughout his life, to draw up his own will in which he asked

to be buried in the choir of the church where two of his other sisters, Isabella, and

Susanna were Beguines. He also painted a large Lamentation of Christ for the high altar,

possibly donated in memory of his sister, but the funerary theme may equally have been

chosen due to his avowed intention to be interred in the church.

It is quite likely that Reynolds himself hoped for a monument that would not only

commemorate his achievements, but would consolidate his position as a public figure for

posterity. Not only, as has been seen, was the 18th century a period which saw an

intensified national movement to commemorate the great and the good; but Reynolds had

also concerned himself with the erection of monuments in honour of two of his closest

friends, fellow members of the literary Club proposed by Reynolds in 1764.

When Oliver Goldsmith died in 1774, Reynolds’s affection and respect for the writer, who

was also the first honorary Professor of Ancient History at the Academy, led him to

organise a subscription amongst the members of the Club. Having commissioned a mural

monument from Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823) Reynolds visited Westminster Abbey

personally to choose an appropriate placement for the memorial in Poet’s Corner (Figure

12). His pupil, James Northcote, reported that his master “thought himself lucky in being

able to find so conspicuous a situation for it. Reynolds’s interest went even further, for the

centrepiece of the marble monument is a medallion portrait of the deceased based on one

painted in 1772 by Reynolds, described by Frances Reynolds as “a very great likeness.”

The second monument that Reynolds was to become deeply involved with was also

prompted by the artist’s great depth of admiration for a literary man. His determination to

see an appropriate monument erected to Dr Samuel Johnson after the latter’s death in

1784, led the President to become heavily embroiled in arguments with other members of

the Academy. Reynolds, having decided that an appropriate monument was “a whole

length statue of him in the ancient style of sculpture”, put forward the argument that there

was not enough room for such a statue to stand out in Poet’s Corner. He therefore

proposed that the monument, which would be of “colossal dimensions” ought to be

erected under the dome in St Paul’s cathedral.

Since the 1770s Reynolds had tried to persuade the Dean of St Paul’s to allow the

cathedral to be adorned with paintings. In 1773 he wrote to his patron and friend, Lord

Grantham, that he hoped “St Paul’s would lead the fashion in Pictures as St James does

for dress.” He went on to say that he foresaw that the scheme could be extended to

include “future Monuments erected there instead of Westminster Abbey” and the design

and placement of these should come under the jurisdiction of the Royal Academy.

Unluckily for Reynolds, although the Dean was in favour, when the plan was officially

proposed to the Bishop of London it was met with an adamant refusal on the grounds that

decoration of the cathedral would led to “the introduction of popery.” However, in 1787 a

new Bishop was elected and permission given for the erection of statuary in the

cathedral. In 1790 the design for Johnson’s monument, which was to be a full-length

statue commissioned from John Bacon (1740-1799), was approved by Reynolds (Figure

12).

Although Reynolds had concerned himself with the erection of monuments to his two

literary friends, he expressed no interest in the commemoration of his fellow artists. This

fact was referred to in a letter written by Sir William Chambers, which was sent to the

General Meeting of the Academy that had been assembled on 2 July 1791. This meeting

had been called to discuss the proposal put forward by Reynolds that the Academy

should contribute to the proposed monument to Dr Johnson. Chambers wrote that this

proposal was "totally foreign to the business and views of the Academy" which was the

education, and encouragement of young artists. He reminded them that those revenues

which were collected by the Academy were intended to support its own members: "to

assist the Sick or distress'd artist; to extend its beneficence to the relief of his family; to

help the Widows and Children of such as leave them unprovided for." Coming to the point

of his letter, Chambers appealed to his fellow academicians' sense of pride and

brotherhood saying "If Monuments were to be our objects, how could we without Shame

or Contrition, vote one to Dr Johnson, whilst Cipriani, Moser, Gainsborough, Cotes,

Wilson, and so many other of our departed Brother Academicians are left un-noticed and

forgotten in the dust." Despite this impassioned plea, the Academicians voted in favour of

the donation, but the King later vetoed this. The reason for this was likely to have been

partly that Chambers was a favourite of the King who also harboured an antipathy

towards Reynolds. This hostility meant that when, in 1805, the Council of the Academy

was discussing to what degree they would subscribe to the commemorative statue that

was to be erected in St Paul’s in honour of Reynolds himself, the King refused to allow the

Academy, as an institution, to make a contribution.

[IV] “His admirers and friends have set up this statue”: Commemorating the Artist as a

Public Figure

A notice had appeared in The Times early in 1793, stating that, “A Splendid monument is

about to be erected in the cathedral church of St Paul’s, to the memory of the late Sir

Joshua Reynolds, by the Countess of Inchiquin”. However, it was to be 21 years before

the deed was finally carried out. It was Reynolds’s niece and principal heir, Mary Palmer,

who had married the Earl of Inchiquin, later Marquess of Thomond, who first promoted

the idea that a public monument should be erected. However, it was not until 1803 that

she asked Joseph Farington (1747-1821) to help her organise the commission. Farington

states that although Lady Thomond’s first choice of sculptor was Joseph Nollekens, he

felt too old to undertake such a great piece of work, so she asked Farington to

commission John Flaxman (1755-1826) to make a design, saying that “the monument

must be erected in St Paul’s, that she knew was the wish of Sir Joshua himself”.

It is not known whether Reynolds had actually expressed a desire to have a monument

erected in the cathedral after his death, but it is quite likely that Mary Palmer’s instruction

to Farington was prompted by familial pride. Apart from working tirelessly to see an

appropriate monument raised in St Paul’s, she also urged the Academy to present a

medal in his honour to his family; as well as helping to arrange a memorial exhibition of

her uncle’s works at the British Institution in 1813, telling her sister, “My heart swells

when I contemplate the works of this great Man & the public estimation of them.”

However, she was determined to have the cost of the statue (£1,100) paid for through

public subscription, and she also looked for a large donation from the Royal Academy as

a body, despite having received an estimated £80,000 from her uncle’s will. This fact was

public knowledge and had been remarked upon by Sir George Beaumont when Farington

spoke to him regarding the subscriptions for the statue. Therefore her attitude suggests

that she was looking for recognition of her uncle’s status not only as a great artist but

also as the unanimously elected leader of an elite body. In 1805 Farington confirms this

when he notes in his diary “she only wished for the name [Farington’s italics] of the

Academy so that it might not seem her own act.” Unfortunately the King’s long held dislike

for the late president meant that when a letter was sent from Farington and Benjamin

West asking for permission to allow the Academy to contribute to a monument of

Reynolds, the King replied that he would “ not allow the Academy’s money to be

squandered for purposes of vain parade.”

This reaction must have dismayed Lady Thomond, but Reynolds was not without

admirers among his fellow artists, and they obviously understood her reasons for not

simply putting up the money herself, for they were prepared to pay subscriptions

individually. Subscriptions were also to be collected from the Literary Club, to which

Reynolds had once belonged; and a devout admirer of Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence,

collected donations from the Society of Dilettanti. Despite this fervent activity, the

expense of the monument could only be met if Lady Thomond contributed the sum of

£300 which she was so loath to do that she proposed an advertisement should be put in

the papers calling for subscriptions from the public. This plan appalled Farington, and

Reynolds’s other executors but fortunately the problem was solved in 1806 when

Edmund Malone informed Farington that the sale of the copyright of Reynolds’s Life and

Works had raised enough money to ensure that the monument could go ahead.

The statue was finally erected in 1813, and it would seem that Farington’s interest in it

was over, for he does not refer to it in its final state. This may simply be due to the fact

that Farington was no longer involved with the commission, or because in 1802, the

Treasury had given control over the commissioning of public monuments for St Paul’s to

the Committee of National Monuments. Those appointed to the committee were men of

wealth and status, and therefore presumed to be men of taste; this led it to become

known as the Committee of Taste. None of the members were artists, and the Academy

was not represented at all. Farington records the fact that in 1805 the Academy

attempted to reassert its authority by arranging a meeting with the committee to discuss

the positioning of various monuments, including that to Nelson. The Academy did not get

its own way, and Farington, in a moment of pique, wrote in his diary that the committee

“had very little knowledge of art.”

In 1808 Flaxman had been awarded the commission for the prestigious monument to

Lord Nelson, which was to stand across the nave of the cathedral from the statue of

Reynolds. Like Flaxman’s other monuments that commemorate heroes of the period, the

Nelson is classically stoic rather than romantically human. The aloof figure of Lord Nelson

stares out over the heads of the ordinary people. Although the epitaph on Flaxman’s

monument pays tribute to Nelson’s “moment of victory” and “glorious death”, the only

aspect of emotion in the sculptor’s composition is to be found in the two children, possibly

young seamen, who stand at the base of the monument. They are placed so that they

are forced to lean backwards in order to get a glimpse of the great man. It is this human

element that brings some warmth to the work, as well as a hint of the immense feeling felt

by the people of the nation for this hero.

There is no documentary information concerning Flaxman's intentions for his statue of

Reynolds but the overall design had been suggested by Lady Thomond who wanted a full

length figure of the artist who, she felt, should be dressed in his doctoral robes, “to render

it more picturesque”. This suited Flaxman who, unlike many sculptors of the period such

as Thomas Banks, and John Bacon who continued to drape their naval, military, and

political heroes in togas, preferred his heroes in contemporary dress, with just the

occasional suggestive use of a draped cloak. However, Flaxman treated the statue in a

uniquely expressive way which suggests that in this age of hero-worship the sculptor

unconsciously saw Reynolds as the patron saint of artists. Furthermore it would appear

that Flaxman’s treatment also worked for other artists. Sir David Wilkie, attending the

funeral of Benjamin West seven years after the erection of the statue, told his friend

Benjamin Robert Haydon that on entering the nave of the cathedral he “looked round at

the statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds...which seemed to regard us with a look that the

immovable stillness of the marble rendered to one’s fancy particularly impressive.”

To most people of the 19th century Sir Joshua Reynolds would hardly be described as a

hero, certainly not in the way that Nelson and Wellington were regarded, or even

statesmen such as William Pitt or Charles James Fox, who both died in 1806 and were

immortalised through monuments erected by Richard Westmacott in Westminster Abbey.

However, members of the Royal Academy greatly missed their illustrious president,

especially as it seemed that the reputation of the Academy had lessened slightly under

the leadership of Benjamin West, who was generally regarded as undistinguished as a

leader.

Although Sir Joshua Reynolds had not the national heroic status of Nelson, Flaxman

managed to imbue the statue of Reynolds with a heroic essence. This is because, to his

fellow artists, Reynolds was regarded as a hero born out of the English Enlightenment.

He was one of its illuminati, he had helped to establish and promote the art of painting as

an intellectual pursuit, by the application of a rational method of study. His personal

involvement with the foundation of the Academy helped to consolidate the status of the

artist as a conspicuous member of English society, just as Vasari’s involvement with the

Accademia del Disegno helped to elevate the status of the artist in Florence. To this end,

it is apparent that Flaxman endeavoured to incorporate within his design, elements that

best convey his and his fellow artists’ admiration for Reynolds (Figure 13).

To engender these qualities Flaxman appears to have been inspired by Donatello’s St

George (c1415-1417), the patron saint of the Florentine guild, Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai,

which occupies a niche at the Orsan Michele in Florence (Figure 14). Among 15th

century sculptors, Flaxman most admired Donatello whose St George he praised for its

“simple and forcible sentiment”. For sculptors this work had a special status for its radical

nature, its heroic grace which did not simply exalt a saint but illustrated a new awareness

of human dignity and excellence of man. Donatello achieved this by giving his hero a

proud and challenging stance coupled with an expression of anxious doubt. It is George’s

intention to fight the dragon; he is armed and ready to step off his pedestal but just for a

moment there is also a sense that he feels that he might not succeed. It is this

expression that Flaxman chose to give Reynolds. The President is also armed and ready

for battle; his weapons are his Discourses, held prominently in front of his chest in the

style of a 16th century apostle, and the fingertips of his other hand touch the small

pedestal into which a medallion with a bas-relief portrait of Michelangelo is engraved, as if

for luck (Figure 15). The expression on the face of the president suggests that like

Donatello’s St George, Flaxman’s Reynolds is also experiencing a moment of doubt.

Giorgio Vasari’s description of the earlier statue in his Lives is memorably emotive; he

says that the head of this saint expresses “the beauty of youth, courage and valour in

arms, and a terrible ardour.”

In Discourse XV (delivered on 10 December 1790), Reynolds had said that he believed

that it had been his purpose to “stimulate the ambition of Artists” to follow in the footsteps

of Michelangelo. He said that his own ambitions had been thwarted by his modest

abilities, as well as by “the taste of the times”; but were he to get a second chance, “I

would tread in the steps of that great master: to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the

slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man.”

At this time of his life, Reynolds may have been persuaded by his peers that his abilities

were far from modest, and his achievements merited being publicly honoured but, that his

youthful ambitions came to be tainted by regret in his maturity can be read in the

expression on the face of Flaxman’s statue. His stance is proudly proclaiming his right to

be honoured in the finest cathedral in the land but has he fulfilled his artistic vision or

allowed himself to be distracted by the easy path that portraiture gave him?

Strictly speaking Flaxman’s statue of Reynolds is a commemorative statue rather than a

funerary monument, but being erected so close to where the president lies in the crypt it

performs much of the same functions as a monument which has been erected over the

actual burial site. The fulsome Latin epitaph on the pedestal and the imagery presents the

viewer or visitor with an opportunity to remember the life and deeds of the dead man

regardless of where he lies.

Although Flaxman did not produce a monument which made obvious references to

Reynolds’s artistic works, choosing instead to identify Reynolds with his most important

piece of written work, the Discourses, it is possible that he, who had so often been

inspired by Reynolds’s portraits for his own works, chose to use a combination of two of

Reynolds’s most important self-portraits to imbue his statue with the essence of the inner

man. Flaxman may have taken the facial expression from an early self-portrait in which

Reynolds depicts his youthful self as an artist rather than as an intellectual. Entitled Self-

portrait Shading the Eyes, it was probably painted just before Reynolds went to Italy in

1750 at the beginning of his career, and the young man is shown looking directly out at

the viewer, his hand shading his face on which there is the same slightly anxious,

uncertain expression which is found on Flaxman’s statue (Figure 16). However, the

authoritative stance of the figure may have been taken from the public self portrait painted

by Reynolds at the pinnacle of his career, and was intended to assert his position both as

President of the Royal Academy and also as successor to the great traditions of art

history, despite being regarded as a portraitist rather than a painter of great historical

pieces (Figure 17). To do this Reynolds included his plaster cast of Michelangelo in

profile. This was a copy or version of a bust by Daniele da Volterra (c1509 - 66) a friend

of Michelangelo’s who had also supplied a bust as the prototype for the marble bust

produced by Battista Lorenzi for the artist’s tomb in Santa Croce. Reynolds’s Discourses,

still unbound at this point, also feature prominently emphasising the intellectual qualities

Reynolds felt were necessary to a professional artist. This portrait was probably painted

c1770s and intended to hang with the portrait of Sir William Chambers in the Assembly

Room of the Academy’s new premises in Somerset House. Flaxman’s statue of

Reynolds as patron saint of the Academy also carries the now familiar attributes: a

portrait of Michelangelo, and a copy of the Discourses. The shape of the president’s face,

with its lines and other marks of age is almost identical to that painted by Reynolds

himself. The youthful expression combined with the self-important stance might have

been chosen to give an impression of the older, financially secure, well-respected artist

who wonders what might have happened if he should have been prepared to go against

“the taste of the times” and sacrifice wealth and status to follow in the “steps of that great

master”.

SECTION B

[I] “In memory of his genius and his art”: Establishing the Academical Identity of the

Individual through Burial Placement and Funerary Commemoration

In the years following the Academy’s remarkable and splendid homage to its first

President, there developed a greater awareness, especially on the part of senior

Academicians or, it has to be said, their respective friends and families, of the potential of

the public funeral and prominent burial place to establish status. As shall be seen it is

evident that the Academy, as a body, did not consider it appropriate to fund grand public

funerals for any member of the Academy save the President, and even though individual

members of the Council often argued for public ceremonies in honour of those who had

held a senior position within the Academy, the majority continued to consider such notice

inapt. Even after the death of Angelica Kauffman in 1807 when John Hoppner’s motion to

show greater respect to all academicians by convening a General Assembly to mark the

event of their deaths was passed unanimously, the deaths of less senior academicians

often went completely unrecorded. Farington reports that when Edmund Garvey (c.

1740-1813) died the Academy was not aware of the fact until they were informed in a

letter 3 days after the artist had already been buried at St Paul's Covent Garden.

Of the Academicians who held senior positions in the years immediately following the

death of Reynolds, seven had already achieved the status of Associate at the time of the

President’s death, and thus were quite likely to have witnessed the funeral at first hand.

Of these seven men, 4 were to have a public funeral and burial in the crypt of St Paul’s

alongside Reynolds: James Barry (Professor of Painting 1782-1799); John Opie

(Professor of Painting 1805-1807); Henry Fuseli (Professor of Painting 1799-1805 and

1810-1825); and one of the original founder members of the Academy, George Dance

(Professor of Architecture 1798-1805). In general it is not documented whether the

deceased specifically asked for this treatment, or whether it was more often a case of

familial pride, but it does demonstrate awareness of the significance of such tributes. Of

the three who were not buried there; Thomas Sandby (Professor of Architecture

1768-1798); Henry Tresham (Professor of Painting 1807-1809); and Edward Edwards

(Professor of Perspective 1788-1806) were buried in family vaults.

Although the Academy remained determined to their decision to honour only its

Presidents with public burial in St Paul’s, the desire to be buried in such a hallowed place

inspired men such as the little known Royal Academician, George Dawe (1781-1829), to

leave instructions that he wished to be buried in St Paul’s. Dawe had been portraitist to

Alexander I of Russia in whose employ he had made a fortune, and it was reported in The

Times (October 28) that Sir Thomas Lawrence and the Russian Ambassador were

among the pallbearers, and “a long cortege of artists and literary men attended.” His

remains were placed next to those of Henry Fuseli, and his epitaph includes a list of the

ranks he had held, and the various academies to which he had belonged.

The notion that this particular part of the crypt of St Paul’s had become the ‘painter’s

corner’ since the burial of Reynolds continued to gain weight during the19th century, and

many other Academicians, or their families, who could afford the expense chose to be

buried in the crypt alongside Reynolds. Among these were Joseph William Mallord Turner

whose determination to be honoured in St Paul’s led him to leaving a sum of money for a

statue to be erected; Charles Robert Cockerell, who had been Surveyor of the cathedral

works and Professor of Architecture (1860-1865); Sir Edwin Landseer, who had been

offered the position of President on the death of Sir Charles Lock Eastlake but declined;

the Royal sculptor Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm who died in 1890; and also Sir Lawrence

Alma-Tadema.

Even when burials took place elsewhere the friends, admirers and family of

Academicians often paid for the erection of commemorative memorials for the walls of the

crypt. These include monuments to painters: John Constable (1776-1837); Frank Holl

(1845-1888); and John Singer Sargent (1856-1925); sculptors Sir George Frampton

(1860-1928); and Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854-1934); and architects Albert Edward

Richardson (President of Academy 1954-1956); and Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens

(President of the Academy 1938-1944). The notion that commemoration in this particular

place conveyed a sense of status and prestige influenced the erection of monuments to

artists who had not been academicians, notably William Blake and George Cruikshank,

who had been buried in Kensal Green on his death in 1878 and honoured there by a fine

marble monument topped by a bronze bust by William Behnes, but later his body was re-

interred in St Paul’s at the request of his wife, Eliza, who had another, less splendid

monument erected in “memory of his genius and his art”.

Although this thesis is concerned with the commemoration of painters, as opposed to

sculptors and architects, it is interesting to note that when one of the most prominent of

the original founder-members, Sir William Chambers, was buried in Westminster Abbey in

1796, the Academy was officially represented by the Council members, but Farington

makes the point of saying that only the architects, James Wyatt, and John Yenn were

there as “visitors”. This is an indication both of the dislike many of the painters felt for

Chambers, and of the Academy’s acknowledgment that it was important to be identified

with such a public figure especially as Chambers was to be buried in Poet’s Corner.

In contrast, Benjamin West persuaded the Council of the Academy that it was not

appropriate to make the funeral arrangements of Chamber’s successor as Surveyor-

General, James Wyatt, “Academical” [Farington’s italics] when he died in 1813, even

though Wyatt had also served temporarily as President of the Academy in 1805 when a

series of squabbles with a faction led by Copley caused West to resign. His reason was

that “Wyatt did not [hold] a situation in the Academy such as to make particular attention

to his funeral a proper measure for the Academy to interfere in.” It would appear that the

real reason for West’s decision not to agree to the Academy showing Wyatt some show

of distinction was personal, although it is also apparent that the Academy as an institution

did not officially recognise Wyatt as a former President, because the inscription on

Frederic Lord Leighton's (1830-1896) tomb slab in St Paul's cathedral describes him as

the '7th President', but acknowledgement of Wyatt would have made Leighton the '8th'. As

it turned out, despite the fact that the architect was rumoured to be “in very distressed

circumstances”, at his death, his internment took place in Westminster Abbey. A brief

report in The Times of 30 September 1813 mentions only that Wyatt’s remains were laid

to rest near to those of Sir William Chambers. It is possible that the impecunious state of

the architect led his family to hold a small private service elsewhere, before burying Wyatt

in the Abbey. That the Burial Fees Book of the Abbey has no entry for Wyatt suggests

that this was the case, and his position as Surveyor-General to the King, as well as to the

Abbey itself may have led to the fees being waived.

[II] “The Great Historical Painter” James Barry (1741-1806)

The Royal Academy also distanced itself from one of their most notorious members--the

history painter James Barry. In 1799 Barry published A Letter to the Dilettanti Society in

which he described the Academy as “this most odious of jacobinical confederacies,

where the mere scum and offal direct and govern”. He believed that many of the

members were instrumental in blocking history painting because they profited by, and

also achieved their status, through the practice of the lower genres. This attitude

ultimately led to his expulsion from the Academy later that same year-the only member

ever to have achieved that dubious distinction. In March 1799 Nathaniel Dance, Robert

Smirke, Thomas Daniell, and Joseph Farington had appeared before the Council to

deliver their respective condemnations of Barry. The latter had some support from John

Opie and James Northcote who were unhappy with the vindictive nature of the criticisms.

Northcote remarked, “What a thing it would be for landscape painters, an inferior branch

of Art, to prosecute a Historical painter of distinguished merit and an author...” which

suggests that despite his arrogance and abrasive nature, Barry was still highly esteemed

as an artist. However it was his republican sentiments that further condemned him in the

eyes of many of the members of the Academy who suggested that his anti-monarchical

bias was incompatible with belonging to an institution under royal patronage.

Prior to this, Barry had achieved renown for his great dedication to the painting of a series

of murals, entitled The Progress of the Civilization of Ancient Greece from its Origins to

its Zenith, for the Great Room of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts,

Manufactures, and Commerce, begun in 1774 and finished in 1783. It was proposed by

the Society that once complete the Room would be opened to the paying public, and

Barry would take his payment from the profits. The public in general gave it a favourable

reception, but attendance was low and it brought no new historical commissions. Barry’s

payment from the profits amounted to just £500 for 7 years work but he earned the

reputation as a heroic figure whose financial sacrifice in the name of art was noted and

applauded by his admirers. However, after his expulsion, the poverty-stricken Barry

became increasingly embittered, believing that members of the Academy, jealous of his

artistic genius, were intent on completely destroying him. His erratic behaviour, slovenly

appearance, and derelict habitat was widely reported by both friends and foes alike, to

such a degree that a paragraph appeared in The Times, 18 July 1806, a full 5 months

after the artist’s death, which bemoaned the fact that the death of the artist “ attracted little

attention” from the public in the way whereas the stories of the artist’s behaviour in the

months prior to his death had been greatly enjoyed. It was probably this type of notoriety,

unbecoming of a member of a public body, which led to the Academy virtually disowning

Barry at his death, which was not even recorded in the Council Minutes.

Ironically however, it was also the stories of Barry’s greatly reduced circumstances that

led to the decision on the part of the Duke of Buchan, a great admirer of the artist, to

approach the secretary of the Society of Arts to start a fund for the impoverished artist.

Many individuals were happy to contribute and £1,000 was raised. In 1805 the money

was handed to Sir Robert Peele in return for an annuity of £120 to be paid quarterly for

the rest of Barry’s life. Unfortunately the artist died before the first payment could be

made, and Peele’s embarrassment at having made money out of the artist’s death,

resulted in him offering £200 towards the cost of the funeral.

Having expelled Barry, it is not surprising that the Academy as a body were unwilling to

be identified with the artist at his funeral, but in an echo of that of Reynolds, the friends of

the deceased arranged to have his body placed in state in the centre of the Great Room

of the Society. His coffin, draped in black and surmounted with black plumes, was fittingly

surrounded by Barry’s own monumental work. It is quite likely that this scene would have

reminded many of the mourners of Giorgio Vasari’s description of the funeral of Raphael

which had also inspired the artists of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1609 to

arrange Annibale Carracci’s body on a catafalque with his own painting, Christ Crowned

with Thorns being Mocked, placed at the head.

It is not known who chose St Paul’s cathedral as the venue for Barry’s funeral and

internment. The artist had had very little contact with any of his family in Ireland since he

had left nearly 40 years earlier. His sister, Mary Ann Bulkley, only benefited because

Barry had died intestate and she was his next-of-kin. It is likely that the decision was

made by Barry’s loyal friends, Dr Edward Fryer and Thomas B Clarke, who also helped

to manage Barry’s estate, with the support of men such as the Duke of Buchan. Certainly

it was Fryer (and possibly Thomas Clarke) who commissioned the bust that adorns the

monument that was placed on a wall near Barry’s grave in the crypt of St Paul’s.

The placement and the form of the monument, which consists of bust and pedestal

engraved with a heart-felt eulogy of the artist identifies Barry as an intellectual, a

philosopher, and a gentleman. This was a deliberate attempt to re-fashion the image of

this artist whose public persona had been severely damaged by the end of his life (Figure

18). The bust is in the classical style with draped torso which might suggest to the viewer

that the deceased was a man of public virtue; a liberal citizen of a republic of taste such

as had lived in Athens during the time of Plato or Aristotle. The head may have been

based on any of Barry’s many and varied self-portraits which span the whole of his

career, however it is closest in form to an engraved portrait of the artist taken from a life

mask by William Evans around the time Barry died. In contrast to some of Barry’s own

visions of himself at the end of his life as either a tormented genius, or disappointed and

weary, Evans’s depiction of Barry is an affectionate portrayal of a clever, pensive man,

well dressed and dignified. The features are relaxed and there is a sense of confidence

which does not sit well with the descriptions of the artist as a depressed recluse who, in

1802, the poet Robert Southey had described as wearing “ an old coat of green baize, but

from which time had taken all the green that incrustations of paint and dirt had not

covered...His wig was one which you might suppose he had borrowed from a

scarecrow...”

The epitaph, though written in English, also repeatedly reaffirms Barry’s identity as an

intellectual as well as giving him a heroic image by reminding the reader of the artist’s

financial sacrifice in the name of his art:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

JAMES BARRY

WHO,

TO STRONG NATIVE POWERS OF MIND,

ADDED THE INTELLECTUAL RICHES,

(THE ONLY RICHES HE EVER HEEDED OR POSSESSED)

WHICH SPRING FROM

LEARNING, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

HENCE,

BOTH AS A PAINTER AND A WRITER.

A LOFTY CONCEPTION,

A MORAL TENDENCY,

AND A GRECIAN TASTE,

ENNOBLED, SANCTIFIED, AND ADORNED

ALL HIS WORKS.

------------------

BORN AT CORK 1741

DIED IN LONDON 1806

Above these words the Christian monogram chi-rho combined with the Greek letters

Alpha and Omega, is prominently engraved. Although this early sign of Christianity came

to be one of the most common found on Christian tomb slabs, indicating the belief of the

deceased in the eternal nature of Christ, it is not found on any of the other memorials in

the crypt. A smaller version is also engraved into the tomb slab that marks the burial

place of Barry alongside that of Reynolds. This inscription reads:

THE GREAT HISTORICAL PAINTER

JAMES BARRY

D. 22 FEBRUARY 1806

AGED 64

In choosing this description of the deceased, and it is not known who decided the wording

but it is likely that his admirer and biographer, Dr Edward Fryer was the author, the visitor

to the crypt in 1806 was made aware of the difference between Reynolds and Barry who

were alone until John Opie joined them the following year. Whereas the knighted

Reynolds is identified as a holder of a public office, Barry is not just an artist, he is

proclaimed as an artist who belongs to an important lineage of painters whose genius and

learning enabled them to be identified as superior artists.

[III] “Member of and Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy”: John Opie (1761-1807)

There is no documented evidence to either prove or disprove that the decision to be

buried alongside Reynolds in the crypt of St Paul’s was made by the artists themselves,

but in some cases it was obvious that it was the artist's family and friends who aspired to

see their loved ones in such illustrious company. Documentary evidence is often very

slight because, as Philippe Aries has said, from the 18th century onwards the last will and

testament of the dying person was drawn up to deal with the distribution of his/her

fortune, and the dying person's feelings about the choice of burialplace and tomb were

more often only expressed orally to those closest to them.

In the case of John Opie it is to be wondered whether, without the proud dedication of his

wife Amelia, Opie would have been considered, on the basis of his artistic achievements,

worthy enough to be interred in St Paul’s cathedral alongside Sir Joshua Reynolds. The

news that this had been proposed caused a great deal of dispute between the members

of the Academy, some of whom were against the notion of the Academy acting in an

official capacity. Joseph Farington reports that at first it was understood that Opie himself

had said, three days before his death, that he wished to be buried in St Paul’s but the

artist, Thomson, told Farington “privately” that it was actually Mrs Opie who wished it.

When Mrs Opie’s intention to have her husband buried in the cathedral’s crypt was made

known, the Council of the Academy were advised to call a General meeting in order to

discuss how they should respond. Many fellow artists, friends, and patrons of the

deceased thought that a funeral in St Paul’s would show the proper respect for a “publick

Officer of the Academy”. However Northcote was vehemently against the idea believing

that “All that had been proposed arose out of the vanity of Mrs Opie” and he dismissed

the story that Opie had communicated this before his death because, as Northcote said,

“most persons cd. [sic] not have borne to think of his funeral while He was living.”

Sandby, Fuseli, and Northcote, were all against according Opie the type of observances

given to Reynolds, others such as Beechy believed that Opie deserved “all possible

honour”, and said to Thomson that he thought “all Professors of the Academy ought to be

buried at the expense of the Academy, and all Academicians ought to have the respect

paid of a general attendance of the members.” Fuseli continued to show great reluctance

to attend the funeral saying that the last time he had been to a funeral he had caught such

a severe cold “that it had cost him 5 teeth.” The architect, George Dance, who was also

to be buried in St Paul’s in 1825, told Farington that he approved “of much respect being

shewn to Opie by attendance at his funeral, as He thought it would have a good effect if

men of talents were so distinguished.” The dispute continued until it was finally decided

that although the Academy would not act in an official capacity, cards would be sent to all

“Academicians, Associates, & other Artists & to Nobility & other persons of distinction”.

Despite the lack of accord amongst the Academicians, Opie’s funeral was evidently a

splendid, and well-attended affair, which obviously impressed the writer of a report in The

Times (dated 20 March 1807) who wrote a lengthy description of the event, saying that

the artist had “lived as an ornament to his profession, and a respected member of

society”. Farington records the names of those he saw at Opie’s house on the day of the

funeral, including that of Fuseli, but he decided he would not go to the cathedral because

he had a head cold. In a tone of self-justification, Farington states that “Thomson sd. [sic]

I had shewn fully my disposition to express respect for Opie’s memory.” It is to be

wondered though whether Farington was unwilling to alienate himself from the faction who

had argued against such a display, but Lawrence later reaffirmed the views expressed

by both Beechy and Dance, saying to Farington that “He thought our profession wd. [sic]

gain by the respect paid to Opie’s memory”. This suggests that he, as well as many of

the other members of the Academy, believed that this form of tribute played an important

role in raising public awareness of the artist as a prominent member of society.

[IV] “The highest Praise of Painting earned an empty tomb in the Temple of the

Pantheon”: Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807)

It was the news of founder member, Angelica Kauffman’s death in Rome on 5 November

1807 that spurred Hoppner into saying, at the General Assembly on 23 December 1807,

that he did not think the deaths of Academicians had generally been observed with proper

respect, and therefore he proposed that “upon the death of an Academician, a General

Assembly should be convolved to receive a report”. This proposal met with unanimous

approval, and a copy of the letter, which had been sent to Joseph Bonomi detailing the

circumstances of the artist’s funeral in Rome, was placed in the records.

It may be imagined that it was with some satisfaction that the members received the

description of the splendid way in which one of their own, Kauffman, had been treated at

her funeral. They heard how when she died the whole of Rome had mourned, and

Antonio Canova had made the arrangements for a grand funeral, inviting all the greatest

artists, many of whom were members of the prestigious Accademia di San Luca. It was

written that the “corpse was accompanied to the church by two very numerous

brotherhoods, fifty capuchins and fifty priests”, and the church, S Andrea delle Fratte,

was decorated as it would have been for funerals of the nobility. Behind the coffin a

plaster cast of Kauffman’s hand with a pencil placed between the fingers was carried, and

members of the Academy carried in triumph two of her pictures.

It is not possible to say whether Kauffman’s awareness of her own status as an artist

was such that her intention was to commemorate herself when she had a memorial

erected in honour of her husband, Antonio Zucchi, an Associate member of the

Academy, who had died 12 years before. This grey marble wall tablet with inset medallion

portrait head of Zucchi is accompanied by a Latin epitaph, composed by Angelica in

which she admits that the memorial was set up against Zucchi’s wishes in “praise of his

highly celebrated painting.” Although this reflects the piety of the deceased, it also

conveys a sense of Kauffmann’s desire to identify her husband as an artist, although his

reputation had been that of a craftsman, having worked mainly on the decorative interiors

of country houses such as those which were remodelled by the architects, James and

Robert Adam.

The Latin inscription engraved into the simple marble tablet added onto Zucchi’s in

memory of Kauffmann also identifies her as a painter, but although her skill had “earned

[her] an empty tomb in the temple of the Pantheon”, which was also the burialplace of

Raphael and Annibale Carracci, she had wanted her ashes be placed next to those of her

husband in the small church of S Andrea delle Fratte.

[V] “Keeper and Professor in Painting of the Royal Academy of Arts in London”: Henry

Fuseli (1741-1825)

Although the artists of the Royal Academy were aware that the pomp and ritual observed

at the funeral of Kauffman were unlikely to be acceptable in Protestant England, the notion

of being honoured in death and commemorated for posterity, however restrained, was

gratifying, and despite the fact there are few instances of artists leaving formal

instructions as to how and where they wished to be buried it is evident that the prestige

conveyed by a public funeral and prominent placement was one of the prime

considerations when family, friends, or executors were planning these funerals.

It is to be wondered, considering Fuseli’s protestations at the notion of his predecessor,

Opie, being honoured publically, whether he had discussed his wishes with his family or

friends when he died in 1825 at the home of one of his great friends and admirers, the

Countess of Guildford. The Countess immediately told his executor and biographer, John

Knowles, that she hoped that the artist’s remains would be granted a public funeral and

she felt sure that “the Royal Academy will pay that tribute to his memory.” However, she

also said that if the Academy declined to do so, she would pay for “ such a funeral as is

due to the high merits of the deceased.

Knowles asked the President, Thomas Lawrence, whether the Academy would be

favourable to mounting a public funeral, but although Lawrence himself was a great

admirer of the deceased artist, and acknowledged that Fuseli’s appointment as both

Professor of Painting and Keeper might add weight to the claim by the executor that a

precedent might be set, Lawrence doubted whether the Council would indeed be willing to

accord such an honour.

Lawrence’s reservations were confirmed, it was agreed that the body of the artist should

be taken to Somerset House to lie in state but the Council were only prepared to

recommend that the “President, the Secretary, and Council, should be desired to attend

the funeral of Mr. Fuseli.” Knowles notes that many of Fuseli’s colleagues were not

satisfied that this showed sufficient honour to “so distinguished an artist and professor”

and they expressed their disgust, but objections continued to be raised and therefore the

Council’s original resolution was confirmed. Knowles compares this treatment with that of

Reynolds when Sir William Chambers objected to the body of the President lying in state

without sanction from the King, and he states that this well known episode was referred to

at the General Assembly.

Having been informed of the Council’s decision, Fuseli’s executors were determined to

organise the funeral on as grand a scale as possible, they arranged several of Fuseli’s

works such as The Lazar House and The Bridging of Chaos around the room in which

the body lay, in what must have been a conscious reflection of the funerals of Raphael

and Annibale Carracci, and fixed to deposit the remains of the artist in the crypt of St

Paul’s at the head of the tomb of John Opie, with the agreement of Fuseli’s wife. An article

in The Times on the day after the funeral (26 April) reported that “The funeral, though

private, was sufficiently attended to show the deep respect in which the worth and genius

of this highly-gifted man were held. His acquirements in literature and science shed a

lustre upon the arts, and dignified the institution of which he was a member.” The

inscription on Fuseli’s tomb slab reiterates the importance given to the identification of the

artist as “Royal Academician” and “Keeper and Professor in Painting of the Royal

Academy of Arts in London” thus linking Fuseli with Reynolds, but in alluding to Fuseli as

“this eminent historical painter” he is also identified as a descendant of that

misunderstood genius-James Barry.

Of the many artists who attended the funeral out of a genuine affection and admiration for

Fuseli was a young artist, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847), who was later to

achieve notoriety not through his art but because he almost certainly murdered his uncle,

mother-in-law, and sister-in-law. There was not enough evidence to prove this, but he

was convicted of forgery, and transported to Tasmania. In a recent work of fiction

Wainewright is credited with experiencing a great feeling of shock, when he attended the

internment of Fuseli and saw that the space under the floor slabs was full of “real and

ordinary mud” because he had expected something far more impressive, and awe-some

of the burialplace of such great artists.

[VI] “An enduring monument of his exalted genius”: William Etty (1787-1849)

The fact that the Academy as a body was only willing to fund the burial of its Presidents,

angered many who believed that all those who were most representative of the Academy

should be also honoured. Alexander Gilchrist, the biographer and friend of William Etty,

held the Royal Academy, “to which his name had been so signal an honour,” in great

disdain for their apparent lack of respect for Etty at his funeral, which took place in his

hometown of York. He says, “such tokens are not ‘usual’ towards its great men. It is in

the habit of honouring only Itself; in the person of its President, -whether a Reynolds or a

West.” He also reported that Etty had “sometimes contemplated a ‘monument, a la

Rubens:” and on his sickbed he had written to his friend that he would most like to be laid

by his last painting which he described as “my Bride; she who is so lovely to mine

eyes...”

As has been seen in the case of James Barry, the notion of the body of the artist being

laid out in a room either surrounded by his own works, or accompanied by one special,

maybe even the last work to be painted, by the deceased artist, had grown in popularity

in the 19th century. This practice was almost certainly inspired by the reading of Vasari’s

‘Life of Raphael’, an artist whose life and work was particularly admired in both the 18th

and 19th centuries. As Francis Haskell points out in his essay, 19th-century artists were

keen to identify themselves with the masters of the Renaissance, and therefore many

developed a new genre - that which was devoted to depicting events from the life, and

often death of earlier artists. Vasari’s vivid portrayal of the lying in state of Raphael’s dead

body in front of his great last painting, The Transfiguration, which he described as a

“living work of art” became a very popular subject for artists of the 19th century (Figure

19), and almost certainly inspired Ary Scheffer’s romantic depiction of his friend,

Gericault, on his deathbed in 1824. William Etty’s recorded thoughts also reflect the

artist’s awareness of his own status as well as that of the arts in general. Having decided

to imitate Sir Peter Paul Rubens –whose own Madonna and Child with Saints had graced

the artist’s funerary chapel in Sint Jacobskerk, Antwerp, Etty chose to be laid near a

work dear to him, confirming his hope in the notion that an artist might achieve immortality

through his earthly work.

However, it is apparent that these requests were romantic musings on the subject and

Etty’s pragmatic instructions were that he wanted to be buried in York Minster.

Unfortunately he left no instructions in his will for the disposal of funds for that purpose,

the cost of burial in York Minster was recorded by Gilchrist as being almost £500, and the

authorities were not willing to waive the costs of burying “their great Painter in York’s

famous Church,..as a fitting honour to the man, and graceful fulfilment of his known wish.”

Etty’s eventual burial place in the churchyard of St Olave’s, close to the ruins of St Mary’s

Abbey, was chosen by an old friend, Mr Brook, as it was another of the artist’s favourite

places. It is probable that it was Etty’s brother, Walter, who commissioned the large,

rectangular monument which was erected over his burial-place, and the fulsome

inscription which proudly proclaims that Etty, “in his brilliant works has left an enduring

monument of his exalted genius”.

It is apparent that Reynolds, in choosing to be buried in St Paul’s cathedral, was not only

using the benefit of his experience in the erection of monuments to his friends, Goldsmith

and Johnson, but he was also very aware of the importance of burial placement, and

appropriate commemoration accorded by Vasari in his Lives. When the Royal Academy

seized the opportunity provided by Reynolds to make the burial of their first President a

ceremonious occasion echoing the dignity of the great heraldic funerals arranged by the

College of Arms, his fellow Academicians became even more aware of the prestige and

status such a ceremony would confer on the arts in Britain at this time. This also

presented to them the chance to develop a ‘painter’s corner’, which might in time rival the

‘poet’s corner’ in Westminster Abbey. Furthermore, the prestigious funeral and burial of

the President encouraged individual Academicians, or their families, friends, and patrons

on their behalf, to look at the idea of using funerary ritual, burial placement, monument

design, and inscription to convey elevated social status.

CHAPTER THREE

“ACCORDING TO THE CEREMONIAL ADOPTED ON THE PUBLIC INTERNMENT OF

THE LATE SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS”: BURYING THE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL

ACADEMY IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Just as the public funeral of Reynolds inspired some individual members and their

families to seek similar treatment to demonstrate their status, it also prompted members

of the Council of the Academy to establish the ceremonial burial of their Presidents as a

tradition which also had its antecedence in the obsequies arranged for Michelangelo thus

evoking a sense of authority further increasing the status of the institution. Although in

general members of the Academy agreed that it was important to demonstrate esteem for

deceased members because this type of display could only benefit the reputation of the

institution, as well as British art in general, it is evident that they thought it important to

establish a hierarchy for the Academicians even in death.

Farington reports that, on the occasion of Opie’s funeral, some of the members were

keen to do “all possible honour to Opie’s memory” and Mrs Opie was willing to pay for the

expense of a “full Choir of Musick [sic] employed”; but the idea was dropped because,

this had been done for the funeral of Reynolds and also Nelson, therefore, as Farington

told Thomson and Beechey, “care shd. [sic] be taken not to do too [Farington’s italics]

much, as shd. [sic] there appear to be a disproportion between the claim on this occasion

and what might be done, remarks might be made that wd. take off from the respect.”

[I] ” The Funeral of our venerable President”: Sir Benjamin West (1738-1820)

The opportunity to consolidate the funerary convention established by the very public

funeral of Reynolds came when the second President of the Academy, Benjamin West,

died on 11 March 1820. The news was reported at a meeting of the Council of the Royal

Academy the same day. West was regarded by many as the most prominent artist in

England and America. His arrival in England coincided with the formation of the Royal

Academy of Arts of which he was to be a founder member, and as the self-styled

"Historical Painter to the King" he was fortunate enough to be supported in his history

painting while others who aspired to succeed in the same genre found themselves

struggling to find financial encouragement. West's most renowned work, The Death of

General Wolfe (1770) which depicted the general dying on the battlefield having led the

English army to victory over the French at Quebec, was engraved by William Woollet and

became one of the most commercially successful prints ever published.

This was followed by a dramatic depiction of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s heroic death

in 1805, at the Battle of Trafalgar. West’s Death of Lord Nelson was destined to be

extremely popular and therefore financially successful. Furthermore, the event also

somewhat fortuitously coincided with the upset in West's career as President of the Royal

Academy when a series of squabbles with a faction led by Copley had caused him to

resign. He told Farington that "it had been a great motive to induce him to paint that

picture The Death of Nelson to shew the Academy what they had done..." In his self-

imposed exile West exhibited the work in his own studio in 1806 and Farington later said

that he believed at least 30,000 people had been to see it. He was persuaded back to the

presidency that same year.

When West died in 1820, his sons requested that the Academy should pay all due tribute

to the memory of their father in respect of his funeral obsequies. The members of the

Council agreed that it was "highly becoming the Royal Academy to show every mark of

respect to the memory of their late President, and it is their opinion that the precedent

afforded in the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds should as far as practicable be adopted on

the present occasion." It is apparent that the Academy was happy to arrange the

ceremony, as well as pay any costs incurred under their own roof but did not consider it

appropriate to pay the whole costs of the funeral.

As West's sons were determined that their father should rest not far from the burial place

of Reynolds in the crypt of St Paul's it is evident that they were prepared to pay the cost

of internment (c£150) and also the large sum of money needed to arrange a public

ceremony, in order that West should be remembered as the leader of an elite body. The

Minutes of the Council contain several references to the communications that took place

between Academy and the family concerning the arrangements for the ceremony. Once

the family had obtained the necessary permission from the Dean and Chapter of the

cathedral the Academy formally agreed to defray any funerary expenses incurred under

their own roof, and by the attendance of their members. At the meeting of the General

Assembly on 13 March John Soane had proposed that these costs should come from the

funds of the Academy and not from each member individually as had happened in the

case of Reynolds's funeral, this motion was seconded by John Flaxman, and carried.

This rapid acceptance of Soane's proposal is an indication of how the members were

keen to identify the Academy as an institution with a cultural heritage, and the

establishment of traditions and customs helped to connote authority.

West's funeral took place on 29 March and the next day The Times carried a report

which described the event in great detail, beginning with the information that the Academy

had sent a deputation to West's sons and executors to apprise them of the "intention of

that body to honour the remains of their late President, by attending them to his grave,

according to the ceremonial adopted on the public internment of the late Sir Joshua

Reynolds in St Paul's Cathedral." The writer continues with a full description of the

procession and the funerary trappings including a detailed list of the mourners in order of

precedence, observing that the Royal Academicians and Associates "according to

seniority, as members, two by two..." and some of the students of the Academy, also

"two by two", followed the chief mourners (Benjamin and Raphael West). That the

reporter also mentions how West's funeral "procession was attended on each side by 50

constables, to preserve order" and that the ceremony which was "witnessed by an

immense concourse of people" gives some indication of how newsworthy the funeral

procession had become, even though the deceased had not the grandeur of a statesman

like William Pitt, whose state funeral had taken place in 1806 (and incidentally whose

moment of death had also been the subject of a painting by West) or the heroic status of

Lord Nelson.

After the ceremony, the Royal Academician, David Wilkie, sent his friend, Benjamin

Robert Haydon, his own personal observations which confirm that West had not only

earned the respect of many of his colleagues but that his status merited the type of

funeral that had become synonymous with the death of the public figures West had

become renowned for painting. Wilkie wrote that:

The Funeral of our venerable President was very solemn; there was not so many

of our nobility as I expected, but the company was highly respectable. As the

procession went up the steps and entered the great west door of St Paul's, it was

really very fine...The funeral service was read by Mr Wellesley, brother of the Duke

of Wellington, who it seems had volunteered to officiate on the occasion, and the

whole thing was conducted in a highly respectable manner.

[ii] "Their high regard for his memory ": Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830)

The sudden and "lamented decease" of Sir Thomas Lawrence, the third President of the

Royal Academy of Arts on 7 January 1830, was announced at a meeting of the Council.

Lawrence's executor, Archibald Kneightley, asked "all honours that were done by the

Academy to the memory of former presidents would be considered due to Thomas

Lawrence." However, it is obvious that the Academicians needed no persuasion, they

were "anxious to testify with deepest concern and in every profitable manner, their high

regard for his memory". Having seen what an impact the funerals of Reynolds and West

had made, the Council was convinced that the Academy as an institution benefited

greatly from involving itself in such public displays.

Thomas Lawrence had been very highly regarded not only by his peers and his noble

patrons, but also by the general exhibition-going public who enjoyed his portraits of men

and women who were otherwise out of their reach. His obituaries show him to have been

seen as a romantic figure, driven by reckless ambition, emotion and impulse. His

unexpected death at the height of his powers ensured that his funeral would be regarded

as a national event. On 22 January 1830, the day after the funeral, a report in The Times

described how "a multitude of people had assembled in the open space in front of

Somerset House", and the writer claimed that not even Byron's funeral had "excited so

much public attention." He went on to say that it was believed that "the expectation of

beholding the spectacle doubtless was a strong inducement to many among the

thousands who yesterday lined the streets between Somerset House and St Paul's, but

we are willing to believe that not a few were influenced by the interest which they felt in

the fate of a man whose talents shed a lustre on his country, and acquired immortality for

him."

However, unlike his two predecessors Lawrence died deeply in debt, and although he

had been an assiduous collector of Old Masters, and other objects, which were to be

sold to pay his creditors, there was no money left even to honour the small bequests he

had made to his relatives. Only his executor, Archibald Kneightley, and those closest to

Lawrence would have been aware of this fact at this time (his will was not proved and

made public until March) but the minutes of the General Assembly called on 11 January

show that it was agreed that the protocol established with the funerals of Reynolds and

West would be followed for Lawrence, and therefore the Academy would defray any

expenses incurred under its roof. The overall cost of the funeral was later reported as

being c £700. However, this figure seems very high considering that, the Academy’s

records of expenses incurred in covering the whole cost of the funeral of Lord Frederic

Leighton in 1896, show that this cost £349. It is more likely that the cost of Lawrence’s

funeral was closer to c £300, which would include the internment costs of c £152 and the

costs of the undertaker, and the lying-in-state which, 38 years earlier, had cost the

Academy £100. Kneightley, who had also been a very dear friend, probably covered any

other expenses. It is likely, in the light of what transpired when Lawrence's successor

(Sir Martin Archer Shee) died in 1850, that the Academy's recognition of the propaganda

value role of such momentous occasions might have led to the decision to pay all the

expenses, had the executor been unwilling to take responsibility for them.

The 19th-century funeral had become an event, which not only established the

respectability of the deceased but also conferred distinction and status on those who

were responsible for organising the affair. Since the funeral of Admiral Nelson, the

arrangements of the funerals of illustrious people were reported in great detail in the

newspapers before the event, giving the public a chance to find a good place along the

funeral route. As a celebrity, Sir Thomas Lawrence's funeral arrangements were the

subject of at least six separate reports in The Times alone. These reports covered the

placement of the body, which was to be "in the immediate vicinity of the grave of Sir

Christopher Wren..."; his lying-in-state at Somerset House; a detailed description of the

coffin which was "covered in rich black velvet superbly ornamented..." as well as a

transcript of the inscription to be placed on the coffin. The writer of the piece dated 20

January concludes by saying, "on the whole, this will be one of the most splendid

exhibitions ever witnessed since the funeral of the immortal Nelson." Descriptions of the

ceremony, as well as full lists of all the mourners, and other prestigious personages

appeared in the papers the following day.

Although there was immense popular interest in the funeral, Joseph William Mallord

Turner noted that, despite the great number of carriages in the procession (The Times

report stated there had been around 200 in all), many of them, including that of the Duke

of Wellington who had been one of Lawrence's best known subjects, were empty.

Turner's other response to the occasion was a sketch of the scene outside the cathedral

as the coffin was carried up the steps. In the foreground he placed the conspicuous

figure of the Duke of Wellington, a deliberate though fictitious detail (Figure 20). Although

the crowds in the sketch appear to be more interested in the fictional appearance of the

Duke than in the reality of the artist in his coffin, an indication that Turner felt that the

artist's talent did not guarantee that he/she would receive much more than a passing

interest in the minds of a fickle public, Turner attempts to draw his viewer's attention back

to the subject of the funeral by placing a monumental stone sarcophagus in the

foreground, inscribed with the words:

Funeral of Sir Tho Lawrence PRA

Jan 21 1830

Sketch from Memory JMW

Although Lawrence was actually interred under a simple stone ledger bearing his name

and dates, the substantial stone monument that Turner has bestowed upon Lawrence in

his sketch tends to suggest that Turner himself believed that the artist was at least as

heroic as the soldier and/or politician, and should be honoured as such. Turner also

draws attention to the monument in the sketch by placing a strange shadow across it.

Eric Shanes suggests that it is the shadow of a man holding a spear, which, "falls across

the structure, although, eerily, it has no physical source." While the fact that the shadow

does not appear to have a source is strange in itself, it could be explained when added to

the other unreal elements of the scene. As such, the sketch becomes rather discordant

and bewildering, suggesting the precariousness of life as an artist, whose place in society

was so dependent on the will of others. It might refer to the long held belief that the origin

of the art of portraiture was in the observation and tracing of a shadow; and just as it is

not possible to have a shadow without an object, it was not possible to have an image of

a person, perhaps the Duke of Wellington, without an artist. The shadow cast across the

fictitious sarcophagus might also represent the spirit of the dead genius, ignored by those

who had utilised his talent to assert their status, and by the crowds to whom the occasion

was just a spectacle. Apparently during the funeral service John Constable saw Turner

"turn away in disgust when David Wilkie remarked that the ceremonial made a fine artistic

effect.". The painter Richard Redgrave, who was created full Academician the year of

Turner's death, wrote, "Turner as an artist was quite aware of the greatness of his own

powers, and jealous of their proper recognition".

[iii] ”Circumstances of a private nature precluded them from co-operating in any public

demonstration at the funeral of their father": Sir Martin Archer Shee (1768-1850)

Sir Martin Archer Shee was the first President not to be honoured with a splendid public

funeral and burial in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral (apart from James Wyatt). The

decision, not to accord Shee with the same honours as those granted his predecessors,

was not made by the Royal Academy but by the artist's heirs- apparently according to his

own wishes. This comes as something of a surprise when one considers the great

impression the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds had made on the young Irish artist who

was only newly settled in London when he was chosen to be one of the four students

forming part of the academic cortege, which accompanied "their illustrious President to

his last earthly resting place".

Shee was greatly impressed by the "numerous array of rank and talent, comprising the

most distinguished names in the social, political, and literary world." Many years later his

son, also called Martin Archer Shee, published an account of his father's life in which he

recorded the artist's impressions, and also stated that the event was enough to "stimulate

the ambition" of the young man because he saw this "respect to departed genius and the

high social position by which its efforts had been rewarded." His son wrote that it inspired

the young artist to believe that he too might one day achieve a "similar distinction while

living, and entitle himself to a similar measure of observance when dead." Only two years

later, Shee painted a self-portrait which owes a great deal to the work of Reynolds,

seeming to combine both the brooding Romanticism of the youthful Reynolds, and the

self-assurance of the elder (Figure 21).

Like Reynolds and Lawrence before him, Archer Shee was largely a portraitist but, unlike

his predecessors, Shee's name and his works are generally unknown today. This may

be because both Reynolds and Lawrence, the former through his lasting reputation for

the introduction of a style which managed to close the gap between portraiture and

history painting: the latter for his affectionate and romantic portrayals of the colourful men

and women of the Regency continued to overshadow the gracious and agreeable

portraits of the court of the genial King William IV (who reigned from 1830 - 1837) that

were painted by Martin Archer Shee. Shee was elected president on the death of Sir

Thomas Lawrence, whose funeral he had also attended, and his impressions were again

recorded by his son who wrote that his father had been affected by the, "imposing

solemnity of the ceremonial with which his remains, escorted by a numerous and brilliant

cortege of his friends and admirers-comprising the highest and most conspicuous names

in the political and social world, -were consigned to their last earthly resting place". Of

course, the less cynical Shee, unlike Turner, overlooked, or perhaps was not aware of,

the fact that most of these "conspicuous names" had sent empty carriages.

Notwithstanding the impact that the funerals of these two Presidents had on Shee at the

time, his son states that one of the main reasons why the President was not given similar

tributes was that, having retired from public life his father had often expressed the desire

"that no such display should take place in the event of his death". During the latter years

of his career, ill health had prompted the Shee to resign his position as President in order

that he might retire with his beloved wife to his home in Brighton. The Academy, unwilling

to let him go, sent a letter begging him to rescind his resignation that was, they said,

"adverse to the interests of the Academy". They wanted him to remain as President with

an appointed deputy who would carry out the necessary obligations of the job, and to this

Shee agreed. In 1846 having recovered some of his health he was eager to return to

London to attend the opening of the annual exhibition, and to preside at the Academy

dinner, but news came that his wife was dangerously ill, and he returned immediately to

Brighton. She died the next day, and Archer Shee's son wrote that this was a blow from

which his father never recovered; his health rapidly declined and he remained in Brighton

until his own death, four years later, on 18 August 1850.

The Council received the news of Archer Shee’s death on 20th August, and anxious to

take control of the funeral arrangements in order to maintain the unbroken tradition

established with the public funeral of its first President, the secretary of the Academy

(John Prescott Knight) was immediately sent to Brighton to convey not only condolences,

but also to assure the family that they would be pleased to take charge of the

arrangements for the obsequies. However, the Minutes of the Council of 23 August

record that the family "expressed their high sense of gratitude ... [but] circumstances of a

private nature precluded them from co-operating in any public demonstration at the

funeral of their father". The secretary had then proposed that the Royal Academy "would

conduct the funeral in any way gratifying to the family at the expense of the institution"

suggesting that the body be brought to London by train, and that the Academicians would

meet the family at the 'terminus' to conduct the body to its final resting place. Despite this

offer, the family replied that a public funeral was out of the question and it was intended

that the ceremony would be strictly private, to be attended only by his family, his friend

the Reverend Richard Cook, and his doctor, Mr Scott.

It is possible that with the passing of time the youthful ambition fired at the funeral of

Reynolds had diminished. However, considering his tireless devotion to the Academy, as

well as his desire to revive traditions which had been established by Reynolds but

allowed to lapse in the years before Shee's presidency, it becomes apparent that there

must have been other, more personal reasons why Shee (or perhaps his family) chose

to break with one of the customs the Academy had shown themselves so anxious to

uphold. As has been shown, his son claimed Shee wanted a private ceremony, and the

two reasons he gives for this were that Shee was no longer in the public eye, and that the

finances of his heirs precluded a grand ceremony. In the biography, Shee’s son notes

that Lawrence’s funeral had cost “700l”, but there is no evidence to support this

statement. What Archer Shee (the younger) fails to add is the fact that, despite his

seclusion, Shee's prestige in the eyes of the Academy had never diminished, and the

Minutes of the Council specifically state that the funeral would be carried out "at the

expense of the institution" which suggests that the Academy was, for the first time,

prepared to pay all the expenses. What cannot be certain is whether this fact was made

clear to Shee’s heirs, but it is possible that the Academy, mindful that it was a delicate

situation, felt unable to make the offer any clearer. However, if it is to be assumed that

the Academy had made their offer to cover all the expenses quite plain, then it is possible

that there might have been other reasons for the stubborn refusal of the family to allow a

public ceremony, which might or might not have been the last wish of Shee himself.

It is apparent from reading the artist's biography that he (and perhaps more importantly,

his son) never forgot that Archer Shee was both Irish and a Catholic, two factors which

could have, especially at this time, combined to guide a man to ruin rather than eminence.

Shee was proud of his ancient lineage, despite the lowly status of his family at the time of

his birth. His son states that at this time there were not many opportunities open to a

member of the Irish Roman Catholic gentry, and therefore it was a wonder that many

managed to maintain an intellectual and social level of distinction comparable to that of

their Protestant countrymen. Once in London Shee continued to worship as a Catholic,

but following the French Revolution, the growing number of Catholic immigrants in London

caused a great deal of hostility towards people of that faith.

It can be supposed that Shee died, as he had lived, as a Roman Catholic and therefore a

reaffirmation in his own faith in the face of imminent death, may be the simple yet perhaps

very confidential reason why Shee requested a private burial in Brighton. This supposition

is borne out by the fact that in the biography his son states that "the funeral office of the

Roman Catholic Church was performed over his coffin" in the privacy of his own home

before the body was taken for burial. Therefore it may be that the notion of being buried in

what was seen as essentially the Church of England's equivalent to St Peter's in Rome,

did not, at the end, sit well with the Catholic Shee. His family may have felt that it was not

wise to let it be generally known that this was the real reason why they refused the offer

of the Council of the Academy; and remained so adamant in the face of the Academy's

supplications. Furthermore when Shee's son gave the cost of the funeral as the main

obstacle to their acceptance, he was not to know that the minutes of the Council meeting

would show that the Academy had offered to take charge of the funeral at their own

expense.

The internment took place on 26 August 1850, and Sir Martin Archer Shee was laid to

rest next to his wife in the churchyard of St Nicholas (incidentally there was no specific

Roman Catholic burial ground until 1862, at the time of She’s death, Roman Catholics

were buried in the parish churchyard), near to his home in Brighton. The stone erected

over his grave no longer exists but a transcript of the inscription shows that in death, he

was identified as an intellectual and a professional man rather than an artist.

Sacred to the Memory of Sir Martin Archer Shee, Knt

President of The Royal Academy of Arts, OXON, FRS

Born in Dublin 20 December 1769

Died in Brighton 18 August 1850

[iv] ”The Academy, not having hitherto borne the expenses of attending the funerals of

their Presidents…”: Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1865)

Even during his lifetime, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake was regarded more as a writer and as

a public servant, spending his time acquiring pictures for the National Gallery, as well as

conducting the business of the Academy, rather than as an artist. Indeed, it was his

many duties in the service of the arts in Britain, especially as President of the Academy

(1850-1865), which ultimately led him to put aside his brush. In view of the great regard in

which Eastlake was held during his life, it may come as a surprise that like Shee before

him, but for different reasons, Eastlake was not buried in the crypt of St Paul’s.

Eastlake was in Pisa when he died suddenly on Christmas Eve in 1865. His wife, herself

a respected figure in the literary-artistic world of the day, arranged for her husband to be

buried in the Protestant cemetery in Florence, where he would lie alongside such

notables as the much admired poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning who was buried in this

cemetery only four years previously. However, when Lady Eastlake received a letter

from the Council of the Royal Academy requesting that she allow the Academy to take

charge of the arrangements for the disinterment and re-burial of the President in England,

she agreed (with the proviso that there should be no excessive ostentation) partly

because she was concerned that a proposed extension of the cemetery might disturb

her husband’s burialplace, and partly because 14 years earlier they had buried their

“beloved child” (who had been stillborn) in the notable cemetery of Kensal Green, and

Lady Eastlake said that her husband had expressed a desire to be buried there. The

Minutes of the Council record that the body was brought back to England, and the

Secretary of the Academy accompanied Lady Eastlake to Kensal to select a plot for a

vault. They chose a prime position that was not far from the Royal tombs of Augustus

Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843); and Princess Sophia (1777-1848), the most

prestigious of Kensal Green’s residents at this time. The Council Minutes of 18 January

1866 contain an important statement concerning the burial of Eastlake - “the Academy

not having hitherto borne the expenses attending the funerals of their Presidents” wish to

record that Messrs Holland and Son were paid £342.00 for the funeral, purchase of the

ground, and the building of a vault.

Despite the fact that Eastlake’s wishes were adhered to and therefore he was not given

the ceremonial (and what had become traditional) Academy funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral

in the heart of London, the Academy’s Annual Report (begun in 1860) carried a lengthy

description of the occasion (18 January 1866) which suggests that it was every bit as

impressive as those of Eastlake’s predecessors. The writer of the report notes with a

degree of satisfaction that not only did the Queen show her respect by “commanding

attendance of one of the Royal carriages”, but most of the family carriages were filled with

“eminent representatives of the Arts, Sciences, and Literature” while the long procession

also “testified to the esteem” in which the President of the Royal Academy was held.

Eastlake’s simple stone monument in Kensal Green has been described as a “strange

Greek Revival pedimented tablet...the pronounced classicism [of which] is miles away

from his interest in the Italian Primitives.” Although the form of the monument does not

identify Eastlake’s own particular artistic taste it is correspondent with his status as the

holder of several public offices which allowed him to promote the interests of the arts in

and gave him the scope to buy the early Italian paintings which so interested him, for the

National Gallery (Figure 22). The writer of an article on Eastlake in The Art-Journal states

that Eastlake reached his lofty position as a public figure, “as much because he is an

educated gentleman, as because he is an accomplished artist” Apart from a simple

incised cross, the only other form of decoration is an engraved wreath of laurel encircling

the entwined initials of the deceased, the only overt indication that suggests that Eastlake

was an artistic, or a literary figure. The epitaph identifies Eastlake as “President of the

Royal Academy, Director of the National Gallery”.

[v] ”Gratifying to remark the respect shown”: Sir Francis Grant (1803 -1878)

So few of Sir Francis Grant’s works are well-known today that it may be thought that

Grant, like his predecessor Eastlake, put aside his painting on being elected President of

the Royal Academy, to devote his life to the promotion of that institution. The

academician, and one of Grant’s pallbearers, Richard Redgrave, later wrote, “Perhaps

his handsome person, kindly nature, and natural qualities, fitted him better for this office

than did his artistic ones.” However, as his lengthy obituary states, after his election in

1866 he continued to send “six works to the public exhibition every year with but two

exceptions...” Certainly in his own lifetime, his work was very highly regarded and he was

commissioned to record the likenesses of many members of the nobility, gentry, and

celebrities of the day including Queen Victoria, the Marchioness of Waterford, and the

great writer, Sir Walter Scott, who was to say “I am no judge of painting, but I am

conscious that Francis Grant possesses, with much cleverness, a sense of beauty

derived from the best source-that is, the observation of really good society...”

It was with sporting pictures that Grant first made his name. His debut at the Royal

Academy was in 1834 with The Melton Breakfast, which depicts members of the Melton

Hunt finishing breakfast before setting off. One the reasons why this work attracted so

much attention was that these sporting men were recognised and celebrated as heroes

in their day. Grant’s greatest triumph was with The Meeting of His Majesty’s Staghounds

at Ascot Heath, known as the Ascot Hunt, which was shown in 1835, and engraved in

1838 when it was accompanied by a key, and a commentary that described the

character of the protagonists in great detail. The hunters included “the supreme dandy,

the Count D’Orsay...the recklessly brave Mr Bainbridge; the water-loving Col. Rowley, an

admiral’s son who would swim the Thames in pursuit of the Royal hounds...” Grant

received a great deal of praise from the Sporting Magazine for his depictions of sporting

subjects because it was believed that it was a genre that had been greatly neglected, and

to the writer Grant was the ideal artist to promote the genre because he was “a

gentleman, a sportsman, and a man of letters.”

On receipt of the news of Grant’s death on 5 October 1878, the Academy called a

General Assembly for 7 October when it was decided to send condolences and to

resolve that the Academy would, “assume conduct of the funeral”. It was proposed that a

sub-committee should be set up to approach the Dean and Chapter for permission to

hold the funeral in St Paul’s, and that the Secretary would travel to Melton, to “convey the

decisions to Lady Grant, and to ascertain her wishes on the subject.” There is no record

of how the Academy received the news that, although Lady Grant was very gratified by

their offer, Sir Francis had wanted to be buried at Melton Mowbray. However, it might be

imagined that the initial reaction may have been irritation that yet again the opportunity to

publicly demonstrate the prestige of the Royal Academy was being denied them. They

probably thought that Grant’s reputation, as a respected gentleman, a highly fashionable

and celebrated artist, would have ensured a highly conspicuous funeral on the scale of

that of Lawrence, or even Reynolds.

However, although the Minutes of the General Assembly record the wishes of Lady

Grant that the funeral was to be a private affair in Melton Mowbray, the Academy decided

to issue invitations to all “Royal Academicians, Associates, Honorary members,

Professors, Curators, Teachers...” as well as a few of the students with a notice

explaining the arrangements for transport to and from the funeral. The minutes of the

meeting of the General Assembly also state “All the expenses of the funeral will be paid

by the Academy.” This presumably refers to the arrangements, which were made with

the Midland Railway Company for special carriages to be attached to the morning

express for those who had been invited. The cost of the funeral expenses of the late

President is given as £219.19.3.

There is no documented reason why Grant did not wish to receive the privileged burial

that was his due as President of the Royal Academy. It may simply be that Grant wanted

to be buried in the village to which he had been drawn ever since his first visit in 1820,

and which was regarded as the metropolis of fox hunting. It was in Melton that he had met

John Ferneley (1782-1860) an artist was known as the ‘Landseer of the Midlands’ and

who had set up his studio in the village. It is thought that Grant may have had some

painting lessons from Ferneley, and they collaborated on several pictures, Grant painting

the portraits of the riders in Ferneley’s hunting groups. Another reason for Grant’s

affection for Melton may be that it was also forever associated with The Melton Breakfast,

the work that had brought him to the attention of the art establishment at the beginning of

his career as an artist.

The funeral was every bit as splendid as the Academy could have hoped for despite the

provincial nature of its location. There is a full description of the event in the Annual

Report which is concluded with the note that it was “gratifying to remark the respect

shown.” The Grantham Journal (19 October 1878) carried a lengthy report listing all the

most important mourners who had attended including many Academicians and

Associates by name. Josiah Gill, a tradesman from Melton who had been one of the

representatives from the Corn Exchange wrote that “about three hundred members of

the Royal Academy” had attended, but this was probably an exaggeration. However

erroneous, it is evident that the members of the Academy, dressed in mourning, made a

deep impact on the crowds many of whom were unlikely to have witnessed such a sight

before, and the image must have gone a long way in the identification of the Academy as

a very influential, prestigious institution.

The memorial that was erected in St Mary’s Church of England burial ground is a simple

stone, and bears no visual sign that it commemorates an artist. It consists of a standing

tombstone with a pointed arch that is framed with a heavy moulding (Figure 23). In a list

of Thomas Woolner’s works compiled by his daughter there is, under the year 1880,

mention of a “memorial headstone to Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A”. It is possible that a design

was made but not carried out, however where there was only a design and not a finished

work in other cases, the author makes mention of it. Despite the fact that Woolner was by

now a highly respected sculptor, there is no mention that he was responsible for this

design in any of the available family papers. Above the epitaph which identifies Grant as

“President of the Royal Academy”, there is an engraved, stylised cross, decorated with

what appears to be four tongues of fire, which might be read as a Christian symbol of the

belief in the immortality of the soul. Although one might expect a portrait medallion to be

part of a design by Woolner, this might have been at the request of the family who had

after all, preferred a quiet burial place rather than the very public arena of the crypt of St

Paul’s. Without Woolner’s name in the frame as author of the stone, there would be little to

suppose the memorial had been anything but the work of an anonymous craftsman,

however, the simplicity of the stone with its quiet yet elegant symbol of Christianity

confirms Woolner’s authorship.

For the inside of the church where the funeral had taken place, the relatives of the artist

commissioned a stained glass window, consisting of 3 lights. St Luke, the patron saint of

painters appears in two separate panels. In the centre panel he faces the viewer, holding

the attributes of the artist, palette and brushes, prominently in front of his chest (Figure

24). This image resembles a photograph taken of Grant in the last decade of his life in

which he is also depicted at work on a portrait of his daughter, Daisy Markham (Figure

25). It may be that it was this photograph that was the inspiration for the commemorative

window because in the panel below St Luke is depicted working at an easel on which

there is a portrait of a figure with a halo. This particular image echoes Vasari’s altarpiece,

St Luke painting the Virgin, in the funerary chapel in Florence. Thus Grant through his

funeral ceremony as well as through his commemorative window is firmly identified with

the artists of Vasari’s Accademia. That the work on the easel is a portrait suggests that

the intention was to honour Grant’s achievement as portraitist to the great, in fact it is the

portrait on the easel that assumes the most important role in the window as it faces out at

the viewer as if it is being exhibited. Thus, this beautiful, spiritual and thoughtful act of

commemoration truly celebrates the deceased as an artist, rather than as a public officer.

[vi] “The remains were reverently saluted by the crowd”: Frederic Lord Leighton of

Stretton (1830-1896)

On 1 January 1896 the highly esteemed artist and quintessential academic, Frederic

Leighton, was raised to the peerage, the first artist to be so honoured. He became Lord

Leighton, Baron of Stretton, but his pleasure in this unique recognition of his devotion to

his art, and his work as the President of the Royal Academy, was to be short-lived

because he died 24 days later. Fittingly, his last words were reported as being “Give my

love to all at the Academy.”

As in the case of Reynolds, West, and Lawrence, the funeral of this most highly visible

personality was bound to draw the attention of the general public, as well as many of the

country’s most prominent patrons including members of the British Royal Family.

Therefore it soon occurred to the Council of the Royal Academy that it was important that

they take steps to establish their role. A Council meeting was convened immediately and

a “unanimous expression of heartfelt sorrow and respect at the terrible loss sustained by

the Royal Academy” was recorded in the Minutes.

The members then passed a series of numbered resolutions suggesting that the

ceremonial adopted on the public internment of Reynolds had, to all intents and purposes,

become formulaic, reflecting that the Academy had succeeded in its desire to establish

the ritual burial of their Presidents as a tradition. It was agreed that expressions of

condolences should be sent to Leighton’s family, his sisters - Mrs Orr and Mrs Matthews,

along with the request that the Academy take charge of the funeral arrangements. A sub-

committee was nominated to obtain permission form the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s. It

was agreed that Holland and Sons would be employed as undertakers for the occasion.

A General Assembly was held three days later at which the members were told that all

permissions had been granted and the funeral would take place on 3 February, and all

the costs would be met by the Academy.

The body of the President had first lain in state in his own studio surrounded by his latest

pictures before being moved to the Central Hall of the Royal Academy. A written

description of the scene is contained in the Annual Report, which states that the coffin

was laid on a bier covered by a magnificent piece of old Spanish embroidery, and a

bronze bust of Lord Leighton, created by one of his protégées - Thomas Brock, was

placed at the head of the coffin, and Leighton’s palette and brushes were placed on top.

At the base were arranged his orders and medals, as well as many wreaths. The most

conspicuous of these was the laurel wreath of the Royal Academy. A photograph of the

lying in state was taken, and the Council Minutes of the meeting held on 28 January

record that permission was given to the Graphic to reproduce it (Figure 26).

A full description of the arrangements undertaken by the Academy is recorded in the

Annual Report for 1896 and this not only confirms Leighton’s own status but also once

again reaffirms the prestige the institution had risen to by the end of the 19th century. It is

recorded that telegrams of condolence were received from the Queen, the Prince and

Princess of Wales as well as other monarchs from the continent. The Academy had

distributed 1070 tickets for the funeral itself, and determined that the Royal

representatives and senior members of the Academy would have front seats, and the

remaining visitors were divided into three groups:

A- persons of distinguished rank

B- families and connections of the Royal Academy

C- all others with invites

The coffin left Burlington House at 11.00am. People lined the route and “flags were at

half-mast on many public buildings, and as the solemn procession passed slowly along,

the remains were reverently saluted by the crowd”. When the service was over, the body

of the President was interred next to the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren.

For the first time, the Council minutes reveal that the Academy took charge of the design

for the tomb slab that was to mark the resting place of the late President’s remains. Prior

to this occasion, the marker was not mentioned in an official capacity, and therefore it can

only be assumed that it was the Academy’s habit to leave the design of the markers to

the families of the deceased. When Eastlake had died a proposal to erect a tablet in St

Paul’s was recorded in the Minutes of the General Assembly held on 11 January 1866,

but this project was not realized. However, in Leighton’s case, it was recorded on 25

February 1896 that “a granite slab should be placed over the grave of the late President

in St Paul’s with the same inscription as on the coffin.” However, on the 12 May 1896 the

Minutes show that it had been decided that the slab should be made of bronze, but “the

cost was not to exceed £100”. This marker is engraved with Leighton’s coat-of-arms

bearing the motto ‘Dread Shame’, as well as the simple inscription (Figure 27):

Frederic

1st Baron Leighton of Stretton

7th President of the Royal Academy

Born December 3 1830

Died January 25 1896

The inclusion of the coat-of-arms, and wording of the inscription reflects the position to

which the dead artist had risen, while the motto “Dread Shame” reiterates the 19th

century preoccupation with respectability, the lack of which could prove so damaging to a

reputation. Below this is a large frond of palm, signifying fame, both in secular terms as

well as the early Christian’s triumph over death. In this case the palm can be read as a

combination of the triumph of fame over death because of the immortality of the artist’s

work.

[vii] “And he among those glories takes high rank”: Sir John Everett Millais Bt., (1829

-1896) and Sir Edward John Poynter Bt., (1836 -1919)

The deaths of Leighton’s’ two successors at the Royal Academy - John Everett Millais

(who died only 7 months after Leighton); and Edward John Poynter were the last to be

celebrated with all the pomp and ritual associated with the great ceremonial public

funerals held at St Paul’s which had been established with the funeral of Reynolds.

Although most of the Presidents of the Academy continued to be commemorated in the

crypt of the cathedral with the erection of discreet marble tablets, the burial of their earthly

remains took place elsewhere. In 1930, Sir Aston Webb was buried in Gunnersbury

Cemetery, and a marble plaque decorated with a medallion portrait was placed in the

crypt of St Paul’s overlooking the tomb slabs of his predecessors. When his successor,

Sir Frank Dicksee had died in 1928 his funeral was celebrated at Westminster Abbey, but

his body taken to Hampstead Cemetery for burial, and a simple rectangular tablet

designed by Alfred Drury (1856-1944) was later placed in St Paul’s with that of Webb.

The Council Minutes record that the Academy assumed responsibility for the

organisation, as well as the expenses of the funerals of both Millais in 1896, and Poynter

in 1919. As has been noted in regard to the funeral of Leighton, the arrangements had

become standardised although the funerals of both Millais and Poynter were to take place

from their respective houses at the request of the families.

Millais’s funeral was not only an occasion for public mourning, but more importantly it was

also an occasion for a celebration of national pride (Figure 28). Many newspapers carried

reports of the funeral, and published tributes to the deceased that recognised both the

burden as well as the prestige of the position to which he had risen. Therefore he was

praised not only as a great artist but was identified as a national hero. Millais’s son (John

Guille Millais) included in his biography of his father a lengthy verse that had appeared in

Punch just after the funeral. It begins with:

At last Death brings his Order of Release,

And our great English painter lies at peace,

Amid a nation’s sorrow...

The verse goes on to say:

English he was, and England’s best inspired

His skill unfailing and his toil untired.

On his strong canvas live

Her loveliest daughters and her noblest sons,

All that to a great age, which swift outruns

Its greatest glories give.

And he among those glories takes high rank.

Painter more masterly or friend more frank

Its closing scarce shall show.

Our good, great MILLAIS gone! And yet not dead!

His best lives on, though that worn, noble head

In rest at last lies low!

Millais was buried at the foot of Leighton’s bronze marker and his own tomb slab, in black

marble inlaid with bronze, is similar in design. It carries a simple inscription recording

Millais’s name, position, and dates under the coat-of-arms Millais had adopted as his own

having had an hereditary baronetcy conferred on him in 1885 by the Prime Minister,

William Gladstone, whose portrait he had painted 3 times. The Latin motto Millais chose

was Ars longa vita brevis which translates as ‘Art is long, life is short’. This not only

echoes the sentiments of the verses in Punch but ensures that the deceased is

commemorated as an artist as well as a public figure. The wreath of laurel (an attribute of

Apollo -traditionally the god of poetic inspiration) encircles the coat-of-arms thus

reiterating the artistic connotation.

The life and work of Sir Edward John Poynter has not attracted the same amount of

attention as his immediate predecessors. In the Oxford Companion to Art he receives a

mere paragraph describing him “one of the last upholders of the Classical academic

tradition in England. He was a fine draughtsman, but his importance lay chiefly in his

ability as a teacher and administrator.” Despite this he was much admired as a

draughtsman, a painter, etcher and also a sculptor. He was the first Slade professor at

University College, as well as Director of Art Training Schools at South Kensington, and

President of the Royal Academy for 22 years, during which time he continued to uphold

the academic tradition, encouraging students to copy from past models, as well as from

the antique cast collections he himself helped to establish at the Slade and at South

Kensington. However, in the first decade of the 20th century this academical approach

began to seem too stale and conservative in the face of the innovative work of artists

influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, (especially after the two

exhibitions featuring the work of Manet, Cezanne, and Van Gogh organised by Roger Fry

in 1910 and 1912). Despite his rather stuffy reputation Poynter’s death and funeral

arrangements received the full attention of the Academy even though he had retired his

position as President the year before. The Council Minutes record the notification of

Poynter’s death at 3.00 a. m. on 26 July 1919 and the Academy ‘s decision to assume

conduct of the funeral.

The Annual Report contains details of the funeral that reflect how the Academy, despite

the fact that many younger artists dismissed the institution as being dull and lifeless, had

consolidated itself at the pinnacle of high society. The pallbearers included Viscount

Bryce, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, Mr. Stanley Baldwin M. P., and Rudyard

Kipling. The report concluded with a description of the wreath sent by Queen Alexandria

that bore the inscription, “In the memory of our dear old friend and a great artist, Sir

Edward Poynter, who will be greatly missed among his admirers and friends, from

Alexandria. May he rest in peace.”

The members of the Council had discussed where Poynter’s remains should be buried,

and the position approved by Poynter’s successor, Aston Webb. The crypt was already

quite full, and although the burial place was in a prominent position because it was directly

the front of the O.B.E chapel, it was also the furthest away from Reynolds. Like that of

Millais, the black marble marker is inlaid with Poynter’s name, dates and a list of his titles

with a coat of arms in bronze. This includes a tiny cameo portrait of Queen Victoria and

the French motto, “Pense a Pointer”. This is a play on the name of the deceased and can

be best translated as: “to think is to soar”, which reflects one of the central theories

behind Reynolds’s Discourses that great art was created by the power of the intellect. At

the bottom of the marker is engraved a quotation attributed to historian and founder of the

National Portrait Gallery, Philip Stanhope (1805-1875), which reads: “Whatever is worth

doing, is worth doing well.” The monogram, EJP, arranged in the manner with which

Poynter signed his works, accompanies it.

The decision to cover all the expenses of Charles Lock Eastlake’s burial in Kensal Green

in 1866 was an important one. The public burial and prestigious placement of the

Presidents of the Academy was extremely important to its image, because it not only

confirmed the professional status of the artist but also identified the Academy with the

Florentine Accademia and its most eminent member– Michelangelo. Thus the Academy

was determined that the opportunity to bury the President with all due ceremony should

not be lost simply because of a lack of money, the argument used in favour of a private

burial by the heirs of Eastlake’s predecessor – Shee. Despite the importance attached by

the Academy, as an institution, to the pantheonistic burial of their Presidents, it was

placement and epitaph, rather than the erection of funerary monuments, which was

emphasized. Reynolds’s statue erected 21 years after his remains had been buried in the

crypt was the result of the efforts of his niece and individual admirers; and although there

was talk of a monument to West, the next President to be so honoured was Frederic Lord

Leighton whose splendid bronze monument was erected in St Paul’s cathedral in 1902.

This was also the consequence of individual endeavour rather than the result of

professional pride on the part of the Academy as an institution.

PART TWO

CHAPTER FOUR

“DELIVERING DOWN THE NAME WITH GLORY”: THE SIGNIFICENCE OF THE

PALETTE AND BRUSH AS FUNERARY IDENTIFIER

The deceased is identified on his/her commemorative monument in a variety of ways.

There is the epitaph which often records not just the name and dates, but also the life and

achievements of the deceased. Other forms of identifier is the portrait, whether in the

form of a full length statue, the bust, or portrait medallion; in some cases the deceased is

identified through the inclusion of a coat- of-arms which also establishes social status.

Another form of identifier is the attribute – traditionally used by artists to help the viewer

identify different saints in devotional works of art. Attributes on a funerary monument

might refer to the character, the earthly achievements of the deceased, or the profession

or trade of the deceased. They not only aid the preservation of the memory, but perhaps

also convey a sense of the status and worth of the person whose death brought about an

end to an earthly existence but who lies in hope that a reminder of his/her skills may fit

them for resurrection and ultimately a place in Heaven on the Day of Judgement.

This chapter seeks to explore the different ways in which the attribute of the artist – the

palette and brush was used on the commemorative monument as a form of identifier. A

study of some of the monuments, erected from mid 18th century to early 20th century

demonstrates that the motif was not used in a casual manner but carefully placed in a

variety of ways suggesting that the attribute was intended to prompt different readings of

its significance.

The desire to preserve one’s identity often through the earthly status or profession of the

individual has long been both instinctive and essential to human beings, and is

demonstrated by the discovery of ancient tombstones such as that to Marcus Favonius

Facilis in Colchester. This not only includes a full-length portrait of the deceased but he is

also identified as a centurion through the Latin inscription and through the vitis (vine

stick), which was the centurion’s symbol of office. In his Ten Books on Architecture

(written in 1452 and first published in Florence in 1485) Leon Battista Alberti praises the

monuments erected by the ancient Romans along roads such as the Appian Way. He

describes the pleasure of the weary traveller on reading the epitaphs of “their greatest

Men” and the “noble Exploits performed by those Heroes of old”. He notes that the

monuments were of a variety of designs, and suggests that the reason for this was to

stress the difference between individual monuments, so as “to draw the Eyes of Men to

take the greater Notice of them”. And while some of these monuments were simply a

container for the body, many others consisted of a superstructure erected for the

purpose of “delivering down the Name with Glory for Posterity.”

In the major Roman cemetery of Hawara, in the Egyptian district of Fayum, excavations

carried out by William Flanders Petrie (1853-1942) during the 19th century revealed the

tomb of a painter, possibly even one of the painters who made a living painting the

portraits which were to be placed in the tombs at Hawara (Figure 29). This tomb

contained a set of six pottery cups and bowls, containing different pigments, which had

been placed around the body. The colours found in the vessels were identified as: Light

blue (copper), burnt sienna (iron oxide), white (lime sulphate), yellow (ochre), pink (rose

madder), and reddish-orange (minium, lead oxide). It may be that the painter wished to

be recognised, in the afterlife, by the distinctive tools of his trade - an identification that

might earn him greater status.

As has been shown it was during the Italian Renaissance that the artist achieved

distinction and thus began to be honoured in death, but although the written epitaph might

refer to the deceased as an artist, the visual elements of the funerary commemoration

tended to identify the artist as a poet, as in the case of Mantegna, whose bronze bust

was crowned with laurel, and whose intellect is connoted through reference to Apelles, or

as a courtier.

There were only a few examples of an artist being identified by representations of the

actual tools of his trade. On Fra Filippo Lippi’s elaborately decorated monument in

Spoleto, the pen and brush form a small part of a decorative border (Figure 30); and on

the Roman sculptor Andrea Bregno’s monument in S Maria sopra Minerva the tools of his

trade, displayed either side of his portrait bust, are carved in low relief to demonstrate his

skill, and to reinforce the claim of his Latin epitaph that he was the new Polycletus (active

c.450 –420 B.C.) the most renowned Greek sculptor after Phidias. However, as these

tools are all measuring tools Bregno is likely to be identified as a scientist, the practitioner

of one of the liberal arts such as geometry, or arithmetic rather than a member of the Arte

dei Fabbricanti, the guild which encompassed all those who worked in stone, whether

builders of houses or sculptors of fine art. The white marble tomb slab, designed by

Montorsoli for the sepulchral chapel belonging to the Florentine Accademia del Disegno in

1562, is engraved with a design incorporating the tools used by artists, sculptors, and

architects such as brushes, chisels, and compasses set within an oval, and the

altarpiece painted by Vasari depicts the artist at work in the guise of St Luke, the patron

saint of artists, with his attributes – the winged ox behind the artist, and a palette and box

of brushes which are prominently placed in the foreground.

As has been shown in the examination of the monuments erected to Reynolds and Barry

in Britain in the 19th century, being identified as an intellectual, a man of virtue and a

gentleman of taste continued to be regarded as being the most appropriate form of

funerary commemoration for the member of the Royal Academy of Arts in the late 18th

and early 19th centuries. However, during the latter half of the 19th century the growth in

patronage fuelled by the prestige which the foundation of the Academy had bestowed

upon the arts saw a corresponding growth in the number of monuments erected to

honour artists, especially members of the Academy, in prominent places such as St

Paul’s cathedral and one of the most renowned public cemeteries - Kensal Green. Most

of these monuments were erected through the efforts of family, admirers, and fellow

artists as a result of pride in the artistic skills of the deceased and so no longer attempted

to identify the artist as an intellectual or a gentleman but rather through the attributes of

the painter - the palette and brushes.

Section A

The Palette and Brush as Trophy

[I] “Whose pictur’d Morals charm the Mind” :William Hogarth (1697-1764) There are a

number of different ways in which the painter’s tools -- the palette and brush have been

used to identify the funerary monument of the deceased as belonging to that of an artist.

One of these was to present the tools as trophies. In Ancient Greece and Rome trophies

consisted of the arms of vanquished armies that were set up on display as a memorial of

victory. In his description of an appropriate design for a monument to Posterity, Alberti

recommends the inclusion of a panel on the pedestal where “we place our Inscriptions or

carve Trophies.”

It is not documented who commissioned the impressive stone cenotaph which marks the

burial place and commemorates the life and work of William Hogarth in the churchyard of

St Nicholas, Chiswick (Figure 31). However, it is believed that it was erected by a group

of the artist’s close friends, including the actor David Garrick, in 1771. This may be the

reason why the monument, which consists of standard funerary elements such as a

flaming urn decorated with swags, on top of a tall, rectangular pedestal, includes motifs,

which must have been specially commissioned to commemorate the artist as an

individual (Figure 32). On one side of the plinth there is a rectangular panel engraved with

a number of attributes, in the form of a still life, which firmly identifies the deceased as an

artist. In the centre, there is a palette, brushes and maulstick. A laurel wreath, traditionally

an attribute of Apollo and used to symbolise the creative genius of the deceased, hangs

from the end of the maulstick. On the other side of the palette is a scroll and player’s

mask, attributes, which undoubtedly refer to the theatrical aspect of the genre of art that

Hogarth, had invented -the modern moral subject. The scroll had traditionally been the

attribute of the writer, and as the ancient form of the book it often denoted one of the Old

Testament prophets, however it was also the attribute of the muses of history (Clio) and

comedy (Thalia). Full-length personifications of both muses are to be found on the

Monument to Matthew Prior erected in 1723 by Michael Rysbrack in Westminster Abbey.

The mask has a twofold purpose in being symbolic of the dramatic quality of works such

as The Rake’s Progress (c1733) and Marriage a la Mode (c1743), as well as an attribute

of another of the Muses – tragedy (Melpomene). In the centre of the arrangement, behind

the palette yet placed so as not leave the viewer in any doubt as to what it represents, is

an open book. This suggests that the deceased was an intellectual and reminds the

viewer of Hogarth’s literary accomplishment – a theory of art entitled The Analysis of

Beauty and published 1753. The final attribute, which balances the maulstick and laurel, is

a small sprig of oak. This is a very important element of the bas-relief because although

the other attributes are fairly standard and are to be found on other monuments to artists,

writers, poets, and playwrights, this small sprig of oak truly personalises this monument.

The reason for this is that the oak tree was, and still is, commonly seen as a symbol of

Englishness, and therefore its use here would be as a reminder of Hogarth’s self

appointed role as defender of native creative powers against the fashion for French and

Italian mannerism. It was the prevailing fashion in the 18th century for collecting the work

of foreign artists, usually Italian, which provoked the ire of Hogarth and other British

artists. The lack of Church or State patronage on a grand scale meant that when such

commissions did occur they went to foreign artists, partly because they had the training

and experience British artists lacked, and partly because being able to employ a foreign

artist appealed to the pride of most British patrons. When the French Jean-Baptiste Van

Loo arrived in London during the late 1730s and began to monopolise the portrait market,

Hogarth responded by signing his work “W. Hogarth Anglus pinxt”.

Taken as a whole the bas-relief, carved by an anonymous mason but surely

commissioned by those who knew the artist best, paints a portrait in stone as effectively

as the defiant self-portrait painted by Hogarth, entitled Portrait of the Painter and his Pug

(1745), for which he chose a series of attributes with which he obviously wished to be

identified. Its defiance works on several levels. It is a portrait yet it is also a still life

because the self-portrait, revealed as if on a stage through the drawing back of heavy

satin drapes, is carefully arranged along with the other objects in the picture. The portrait

rests on volumes by Shakespeare, Milton, and Swift, rather than the more usual classical

works of literature such as those by Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. This careful choice

connotes the artist’s belief in himself as ranking alongside the greatest of British writers of

drama, poetry and prose while reaffirming his allegiance to native genius; the dog, a pug,

appears in several of Hogarth’s works as a symbol of natural instinct and as a device to

draw attention to the folly of human conceit, in this painting the dog achieves greater

reality than the artist himself. In the foreground, there is the painter’s palette on which

there are no mounds of paint but a simple curved line with the label ‘The Line of Beauty

and of Grace’. At the time this legend caused a great deal of debate amongst his fellow

artists which was not resolved until Hogarth explained it in the preface to the Analysis of

Beauty published eight years later.

[II] “united the accuracy of the naturalist with the skill of the accomplish’d artist”: Franz

Andreas Bauer (1758-1840)

As in the case of Hogarth’s monument, the friends of the deceased erected the

Monument to Franz Bauer. It is a white marble wall memorial mounted on black, which

has been attributed to Sir Richard Westmacott (the elder) by Rupert Gunnis but it is

actually signed by his son, Richard Westmacott Jr. However, although the palette and

brushes are positioned at the centre of the collection of attributes they are balanced by

other motifs, which identify Bauer as both scholar and scientist (Figure 33).

Franz Bauer, and his two brothers Joseph and Ferdinand, were orphaned at an early age

and brought up in the monastery at Feldsperg, Austria. Here their artistic skills were

recognised and they were put to work by the Prior, recording the plants of the monastery

garden. Later, while working in the gardens of the Imperial Palace of Schonbrunn, Franz

was discovered by the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks. Franz and

Ferdinand were both enticed to England, to work at Kew Gardens, which had become a

centre for botanical research under the patronage of George III. While Ferdinand was to

be appointed botanical draughtsman for the voyage to complete the survey of New

Holland under the command of Matthew Flinders which set sail in 1801, Franz remained

in Kew for the rest of his life, where he was to become renowned in the botanical world as

one of its finest draughtsmen, and especially for his work on orchids carried out with the

help of a microscope.

The sculptor of the monument, Richard Westmacott (the Younger) has been generally

disregarded in favour of his father. Whinney devotes a sentence to him saying that his

works were “a pale reflection of those of his father, and not, unfortunately, of his father at

his best.” Gunnis quotes the sculptor’s obituary in the Art Journal (1872), which also

suggests that his work was not of the same stature as his father’s but it was not “without

merit” and the writer goes on to praise him as an artist whose work demonstrates

“careful study and matured knowledge. He was indeed learned in art and accepted as an

authority on all matters connected with it.” Bearing this description in mind it is possible to

see that Westmacott, persuaded by his father away from his youthful desire to be a

barrister rather than a sculptor, identified with the scientific aspect of Bauer’s work, and

thus created a work which is of a higher standard than Whinney credits the sculptor with.

Although it is possible that, as the work had been attributed to Westmacott the Elder by

Gunnis, it may have been overlooked by Whinney as an example of Westmacott the

Younger’s oeuvre.

This work is very inventive and beautifully balanced, with the attributes of art and science

arranged at the base, complimenting the medallion portrait at the top. Either side of an

inscription which includes a short biography and fulsome tribute to the deceased who

“united the accuracy of the naturalist with the skill of the accomplish’d artist”, Westmacott

included a sculptural arrangement of loosely bound orchids on one side and ferns on the

other. The details of these elements must have been studied by the sculptor with the

same depth of observation Bauer had employed. Westmacott’s identification with his

subject is further enhanced by the inclusion of the attribute of the microscope without

which Bauer would not have been able to paint his orchids with such success. By

praising the sculptor for his “careful study and matured knowledge”, the writer of

Westmacott’s obituary in the Art Journal was undoubtedly referring to his ability as a

sculptor, but the description also serves to identify the sculptor’s scientific nature. This

duality means that he was the most appropriate artist for this particular monument.

[III] “George Lance, died June 18 1864 aged 62 years ”: George Lance (1802-1864)

The memorial erected by the deceased’s family in memory of the once highly regarded

but now much neglected still life artist, George Lance, is more of a burial marker than an

act of commemoration. Set in Flaybrick Cemetery near Birkenhead it consists of a

carved headstone and a low, rectangular slab with coped roof. Despite the fact that the

simplicity of the tomb, which is overgrown with the natural vegetation of the graveyard,

reflects the commonly held notion that still life was very much a lowly genre, the palette

and brushes which are carved into the headstone, draw the eye of the viewer conveying

the information that the deceased was not only an artist, but that his dedication to his art

prompted this profound yet simple expression of familial pride (Figure 34). It is also the

only element of the monument that identifies the deceased as an artist; the epitaph only

records his name, age, and death date.

Although the palette and brush motif is not part of a collection and thus appears to be the

only identifier apart from the name and dates of the deceased, the anonymous stone

mason has included a decorative border of flowers, grapes, and vine leaves. These

could be read as fairly standard Christian motifs referring to the Eucharist and

Resurrection. However, it is tempting to read them as representative of the genre in

which the deceased was renowned. Not far from the cemetery where this monument,

decorated with fruit and flora, and surrounded by lush foliage, is to be found, the

Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead displays a large number of George Lance’s equally

fertile still lives, which not only lend immortality to natural objects which would normally

perish within a short period of time, and also immortality to the artist himself (Figure 35).

Section B

The Palette as Personification of the Art of Painting

[I] “Art weeps, Taste mourns, and Genius drops the tear”:

Richard Cosway (1742-1821)

There is no record whether the flamboyant and fashionable Regency painter Richard

Cosway expressed an opinion as to the form his memorial should take. However, we do

know that at some point of his life he entertained the notion of being buried in St Paul’s or

“with Rubens at Antwerp, or Titian in Venice”. However, at the end Cosway chose not to

join his fellow Academicians in the crypt of Wren’s highly acclaimed cathedral but asked

instead to be buried in the vault of St Marylebone because, having followed a funeral into

the church one day, he was impressed by its grandeur and simplicity.

Another reason why Cosway may have decided not to claim a place alongside his fellow

Academicians in St Paul’s cathedral could be that that many of his colleagues had taken

great pleasure in his dismissal from the privileged position of Principal Painter to the

Prince of Wales which he had held from 1785 until George became Prince Regent in

1811. Cosway’s biographer records that at this time the Prince dropped many of his

former acquaintances who were considered “too familiar”. In a letter written five years

after Cosway’s death, his wife Maria Hadfield Cosway shows she was still bitter about

the treatment her husband had received, she says “George the fourth; my poor husband

was his faithfull [sic] and beloved servant, but Regency and throne drove every

remembrance beneficial to the little Man, who was too high in spirit, and also sincere in

heart to Court or fear envy.” Williamson points out that it was at the time of his dismissal

that Cosway began to view many of his own profession with suspicion, believing that their

jealousy in the face of his great talent had played a part in the loss of his princely patron.

He also began to suffer from hallucinations whereby great men of the past, came either to

praise him for his genius, or to beg forgiveness for doubting him. Despite this, and his

complete withdrawal from the Academy due to illness both emotional and physical, when

Cosway died unexpectedly while out in his carriage on 4 July 1821 his funeral (the bill for

which was £183) at St Marylebone was attended by most of the senior Royal

Academicians.

It is likely, given his supreme self-confidence in his own artistic genius, and a strong belief

in his rightful place alongside the great artists of the past, as well as his evident

acknowledgement of the importance of commemoration, his awareness of the

burialplaces of Michelangelo, Rubens, and Titian, that Cosway may have also

communicated his wishes regarding how he wanted to be commemorated to his wife,

Maria, at the end of his life.

Shortly after Cosway was laid to rest in vault no 65 under the chancel of St Marylebone,

Maria commissioned a white marble wall monument for the west wall of the church, from

the prolific sculptor Richard Westmacott (the Elder), who was also a close friend of the

Cosways. This friendship was an important factor in the design of the monument

because, although Westmacott was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries for the

inventive quality of some of his most visible monuments such as the Monument to

General Sir Ralph Abercromby (1802-5) in St Paul’s Cathedral and the Monument to

Charles James Fox (1810-23) in Westminster Abbey, much of Westmacott’s

considerable output has been generally regarded as formulaic. However, in the case of

Cosway’s monument it is apparent that friendship, coupled with affection and admiration

for both the Cosways produced a tribute that is decidedly not stereotypical, although as

Marie Busco points out, the basic design, the use of a portrait medallion combined with

allegorical figures, was a combination of forms often employed by the sculptor.

That there was a sincere friendship between Maria Cosway and Westmacott, which

ensured a genuine and individual tribute that identifies the deceased as an artist,

intellectual, and connoisseur, is confirmed by letters written by Maria to both Westmacott

and his son, from the school she had founded for the education of girls, in Lodi, Italy. A

letter sent to Westmacott (the Younger) in 1825 mentions the copy of the monument to

her husband Maria had erected in the dining room of the college. She says “You will be

pleased to see your father’s monument of Mr C. so well placed…it looks beautiful and

much admired tho’ only the cast.” Westmacott (senior) had presented Maria with the

original plaster cast of the medallion in 1823, and using it as the focal point of the dining

room where she had decorated on of the walls with a rocky landscape.

The original monument in St Marylebone consists of a portrait medallion of a youthful

Cosway set within a shallow niche (Figure 36). This image of the artist reflects his

tendency throughout his life to identify himself as perpetually young, and this form of

portrait also conveys his identity as connoisseur through the connotation of antique

coinage. An examination of the many self-portraits produced by Cosway indicates both

his compelling interest in self-identification, and also his awareness of how earlier artists

portrayed themselves. Throughout his career he had deliberately courted attention with

his flamboyant attitude and appearance. On one occasion he was spotted at Christie’s

“full-dressed in his sword and bag, with a small three-cornered hat on the top of his

powdered toupee, and a mulberry silk coat, profusely embroidered with scarlet

strawberries.” However, as Walpole points out, there were, at this time, as many as

2,000 portrait painters in England, and most of them were based in London, therefore

Cosway’s relentless self-publication was a necessary stratagem to draw the attention of

potential patrons.

He also took his status as an artist and collector of Old Masters very seriously, and in

many of his self-portraits he demonstrates his artistic ambitions by depicting himself in

the manner of van Dyke; or in a wide-brimmed hat with ostrich feather (a reference to

Marcantonio Raimondi’s portrait of Rapheal), or posed with books resting against busts of

Rubens and Michelangelo, in a room adorned with other objects of art and beauty.

Although there is no documentary information concerning the design of the monument,

because the friendship between sculptor and patron meant that it is likely the commission

was contracted verbally, close study of a number of Cosway’s self-portraits as well as

portraits by other artists reveals that it was probably based on a bronze medallion cast

by an unknown French medallist c1786 (Figure 37). The set of the head and the facial

lines are identical although the portrait on the monument shows the artist without wig. This

however was undoubtedly a decision taken on the part of the sculptor whose style was

mostly formed from a close affinity with classical antiquity. Classical motifs such as these

were seen as invoking the grandeur and correctness of the ancient world, and

suggesting the timeless quality recommended by Reynolds as most appropriate for the

art of sculpture and, although Reynolds did not single out commemorative sculpture, this

timelessness would have been regarded as an even more desirable quality for a funerary

monument. In his ‘Discourse on Sculpture’ delivered at the Academy in 1780, he says:

The desire of transmitting to posterity the shape of modern dress must be

acknowledged to be purchased at a prodigious price, even the price of every thing

that is valuable in art.

Working in stone is a very serious business, and it seems to be scarce worth while

to employ such durable materials in conveying to posterity a fashion of which the

longest existence scarce lasts a year.

Although Westmacott, along with his contemporaries, tended to repeat motifs and use the

same figures for different funerary monuments, sculptors also often used motifs, which

symbolised the life of the deceased, a notion that had assumed greater importance during

the 18th century because it was believed that it was the earthly achievements of the

person that guaranteed immortality. In the Cosway monument Westmacott has managed

to combine these elements along with his own taste for the allegorical. As Busco states,

Westmacott advocated the use of allegory saying, “Allegory…gives life and being to what

would remain otherwise objects of mental conception.” With this in mind, it is most likely

that the three putti which encircle the head of the artist are allegorical figures personifying

Art, Taste, and Genius in mourning as described in the accompanying verse composed

by Maria Cosway’s brother-in-law, William Coombe (creator of Dr Syntax). Each of the

putti carries an attribute, the one over the head of the artist carries palette and brushes

(Art) but the other putti are less easy to identify. That on the left carries a scroll that might

indicate that it personifies the Taste of the connoisseur, and thus Genius is represented

by the putti holding a miniature frame.

The monument can be usefully compared to the act of commemoration carried out by

Maria Cosway in the dining room at Lodi, c 1830. While the original monument

perpetuates the professional and social identity of the artist he had endeavoured to

consolidate during his lifetime; by taking the cast of the portrait medallion with the putti,

and placing it on a painted cenotaph within a painted landscape, the artist becomes

removed from his social persona. There is a sense that Maria chose to endow her

husband with the identity of the romantic poet, because the scene resembles the painting

by Joseph Wright of Derby, Virgil’s Tomb, painted in 1779. Cosway’s illusionistic

cenotaph is set against a weeping willow, symbol of grief and mourning because the

falling branches “were thought to resemble the widow’s ‘weeds’ – [and] …it was also

regarded as a symbol of the Resurrection through its capacity to produce masses of new

growth every year.” As Irwin points out, in the 18th century it was fashionable for country

house garden-designers “to set aside a spot where one could quietly contemplate one’s

mortality, thoughts usually prompted by a carefully sited tomb.” Maria’s design thus

reflects her own poetic sensibilities as well as her devout religious beliefs, and not only

does it evoke the notion of the resurrection of the artist through his earthly fame, but the

willow may be intended to symbolise her own role as grieving widow.

As in the case of the bas-relief on Hogarth’s cenotaph, all the visual elements of this

monument unite to present a very individual act of commemoration, but whereas on the

former the artist is represented by the collection of attributes, in the latter the artist himself

is present. The attributes symbolise the earthly attainments of the deceased which, it was

believed, would ensure that he/she would be granted a form of immortality, but the

addition of the portrait of Cosway as a young man grants the artist perpetual youth. In

Freudian terms the portrait can be seen to assume the role of the double, and the

invention of a double was seen as preservation against extinction. Therefore when used

in this context the portrait assumes even greater significance.

[II] ”Painter Sculptor Seventh President of The Royal Academy of Arts”: Frederic Lord

Leighton (1830-1896)

Of all the Presidents of the Academy who were buried in St Paul’s cathedral, only the first,

Reynolds, and the seventh, Leighton, were further honoured with the erection of

commemorative monuments not far from their burial places in the crypt. While the full

length statue of Reynolds by Flaxman (1813) includes a medallion portrait of

Michelangelo, the 18th-century artist is portrayed as an intellectual and the holder of a

public office, but Thomas Brock’s evocative, Renaissance style tribute to Frederick Lord

Leighton (1902) firmly identifies him as an artist whose dedication to art and to the

Academy is expressed in the form, medium, and scale of the monument.

Despite their great differences both monuments not only share a reference to

Michelangelo, but the chosen form of reference is related to Michelangelo’s funerary

monument designed by Vasari and his colleagues of the Accademia del Disegno for S

Croce in Florence. In the case of the Leighton monument the use of the “Renaissance

sarcophagus form” was noted in The Builder while the two personifications representing

Painting and Sculpture either side of the pedestal are very reminiscent of those on the

monument in Florence. Although the writer in The Builder does not specifically allude to

Vasari’s monument to Michelangelo, just as the earlier personification of Sculpture is

holding a small model statue in her hand so Brock’s figure of Sculpture holds a small

version of Leighton’s The Sluggard (Figures 38 and 39).

In choosing to convey the great affection and regard in which Leighton was held by his

friends, and colleagues by the reference to Michelangelo through various elements of the

monument, Brock demonstrates the continuing influence not only of the Italian

Renaissance, but moreover a recognition of the importance accorded to the funerary

commemoration of the artist by Vasari and his colleagues at the Accademia. As has been

pointed out, the sarcophagus as well as the use, and form of the female personifications

of the arts immediately connote Michelangelo’s monument, and the richness of the

materials used also reflect Leighton’s status (Figure 40).

Despite the similarities between the two monuments there are also great differences, the

most obvious being that the monument to Michelangelo incorporates a painted backdrop

because it is positioned against the wall of the nave, and that while Michelangelo is

identified by a white marble bust, Leighton is depicted by a full size bronze effigy of the

artist draped in his doctoral robes. The use of the different materials reflects the spirit of

the times in which they were erected. During the Renaissance, marble was considered a

superior medium because it carried the connotation of the austerity associated with

antique statues, and it was also the medium used by Michelangelo. In the 19th century

marble and bronze were equally popular and used widely in the trend for erecting statues

of the great and good in London and in other cities of Britain. There was, however, still a

sense that works in marble were more ‘original’ than those in bronze. As Read states,

when Leighton was commissioned to produce a full scale replica of his An athlete

strangling a python by Carl Jacobsen for his museum in Copenhagen, the latter insisted

on a marble version, despite Leighton’s assurances that “a bronze would be just as

‘original’.”

However, whether consciously or unconsciously, even the decision to use an effigy not

only carries the connotation of the past but also manages to create an essence of the

great church within which Michelangelo is buried. For not far from his monument are

those of the great Florentine humanists Leonardo Bruni (d. 1444) and Carlo Marsuppini

(d. 1453) which face each other across the nave.

The inscription on the front of the marble plinth on which Leighton’s sarcophagus rests:

To the Memory of Frederic Lord Leighton

of Stretton Painter and

Sculptor. Seventh President of

The Royal Academy of Arts. This

Monument is erected by his many

Friends and Admirers. Born Dec 3rd

1830 Jan 25th 1896. He lies buried

in the crypt of this Cathedral

There is no documentation which gives any indication as to how much the monument

cost or who, among “his many friends and admirers” paid for the monument, and how

much indeed Brock was paid. John Sankey states that Brock’s fee was “several hundred

pounds less that the final cost of the work”

The notion that there ought to be a monument to Leighton is mentioned by Thornycroft in

December 1896, the year of Leighton’s death. His letter, dated 11 December 1896,

shows Thornycroft reacting angrily to the news, not substantiated, that William Blake

Richmond, the artist responsible for the mosaic decoration of St Paul’s, had already been

selected by the Dean of St Paul’s to execute the monument to Leighton. Thornycroft says

that “Brock’s bust of Leighton is the finest bust of our time, and he should have made the

monument, if not Gilbert.” Although, as Sankey points out, it was the Dean who stipulated

the form the monument should take, and therefore it may have he who suggested Blake-

Richmond would be an appropriate candidate, it was the president of the Academy,

Edward John Poynter, who had the final say as to who should receive the commission,

and as one of Thomas Brock’s strongest supporters it is not surprising that the sculptor

whose bust of Leighton had been so highly praised, was awarded the commission.

It is quite likely that Leighton himself would have chosen Brock. As Benedict Read points

out, it was Brock who had advised Leighton on the production of the latter’s An Athlete

Wrestling with a Python as a full scale bronze, and later assisted Leighton with the

working up of The Sluggard. In return, Leighton had such a great influence on Brock, and

other young sculptors, such as Alfred Gilbert and Hamo Thornycroft, during their time at

the Academy Schools that he was regarded as the saviour of the school of sculpture.

This is why, although he only actually produced three finished works, Brock’s decision to

identify Leighton as a sculptor as well as a painter for posterity, is appropriate. Moreover,

as Read states, in choosing to identify ‘Sculpture’ with the small statue of The Sluggard,

formally entitled An Athlete Awakening from Sleep, the whole becomes an allegory

representing the notion that Leighton’s inspiration had awakened the art of sculpture

which had “for a long time [been] in the shackles of convention.” Another uniquely

personal touch is the fact that the model for Brock’s figure of Sculpture had been Mary

Lloyd, a model who had been used by Leighton for Atalanta (c1893), and Lachrymae

(1895).

Despite the impressive grandeur of the bronze effigy, which was also highly praised as

being a truthful portrait of the artist, it is interesting to note that when in the presence of

the monument it is the personifications of ‘Painting’, holding a brush and leaning against

the pedestal against which rests a bronze palette, and ‘Sculpture’ which are most visible

being at eye level, whereas the figure of the artist, raised up on the sarcophagus and

placed on a high marble pedestal, can only, at best, be glimpsed. This is in marked

contrast with the image of Leighton as an enthusiastic teacher as well as pupil, because it

has the effect of suggesting the President was aloof and unapproachable. On the other

hand it is an inspired portrayal of the man who had chosen to live a very isolated, private

life, dedicating himself to art. A friend once remarked that “Art to Leighton was almost a

religion, and his own particular belief almost a creed.” Therefore, it is wholly appropriate

that it is the figures of ‘Painting’ and ‘Sculpture’ that dominate the viewer’s eyeline, while

Leighton can only be seen with difficulty. This image also fits with a characterisation of

Leighton by the novelist, Henry James, for a short story entitled The Private Life. The

character based on Leighton is Lord Mellifont, an artist with a dazzling personality whose

reputation, as James says, “was a kind of gilded obelisk, as if he had been buried

beneath it; the body of legend and reminiscence of which he was to be the subject had

crystallised in advance.” Bearing in mind that James had harboured a dislike for Leighton,

which might seem to be borne out of envy and malice rather than based on reason,

nevertheless James’s portrayal paints a chillingly well-observed picture of the man

whose whole existence depended on art and the Royal Academy. In addition, this

characterisation also seems to describe the monument to Leighton, in St Paul’s cathedral,

which concentrates on identifying the man through his art, while the effigy is almost

invisible.

Section C

The Real Palette

[I] ”Distinguished himself in Fine Art and Literature”: James Northcote (1746-1831)

Northcote’s experience of membership of the Royal Academy which was, he is quoted as

saying, “like a patent of nobility” and his close relationship with Reynolds, as pupil and

later as one of the artist’s first biographers, undoubtedly encouraged Northcote to

consider himself worthy of a considerable monument. As an unmarried man who devoted

his whole life to his art he was thus unburdened, and financially able to leave £1, 000 for a

monument to himself to be erected by Sir Francis Chantry in Exeter Cathedral. Highly

respected as a portrait artist, history painter and writer in his day, Northcote painted the

portraits of many of the greatest people of the day including Sir Marc Isambard Brunel

(1813), Edmund Kean (1819), and William Godwin (1802). He also painted a series of

pictures for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery including the well-known Murder of the

Princes in the Tower (1791, destroyed during the Second World War).

Northcote’s reputation, both as an artist and as a writer, is celebrated by Sir Francis

Chantry in the intimate yet impressive monument that was erected in the cathedral in

1841. In his memoirs Chantry, who may have been chosen by Northcote because of the

much praised bust of the painter which was exhibited by Chantry in1812, demonstrates

his pleasure at being chosen for the commission which was, he said, “left entirely to me; I

may make a tablet if I choose; the money is too much for a bust, and not enough for a

statue; but I love to be treated with confidence, and I shall make a statue and do my

best.” For this monument Chantry chose to repeat a formula that had already proved

very successful – the seated figure (Figure 41). This form may have been inspired by the

series of statues of French national heroes commissioned by the Comte d’Angiviller on

behalf of the king, Louis XVI, from 1776 until 1792 which came to be known as the

Grands Hommes. Although the first four statues were standing figures, later statues

included the philosophers Montesquieu (exhibited at the Salon of 1779), and Pascal

(Salon of 1781); the writers La Fontaine (Salon of 1783), and Moliere (Salon of 1783); and

the artist Poussin (Salon of 1789). These are all seated figures, which reflect the fact that

these were men of thought rather than of action. This then is also how Chantry chose to

portray Northcote, dressed as if he has been up all night, his brow furrowed with deep

thought. Although he holds his palette in his left hand and the brush in his right, both tools

appear to have been forgotten while the artist stares into the distance, which emphasises

the notion that the works the artist brings into being are products of the mind as well as of

the hand. This depiction is echoed by a self portrait painted by Northcote as early as

1784, in which the artist, in profile appears to be in reflection, the index finger of his right

hand pointing to his head as if drawing attention to his mental powers. Chantry’s image of

Northcote was described by George Jones as being very “characteristic” and he says

that “the work only wanted colour to make the spectator believe that he saw the veteran

artist in his studio.” It also reflects C R Leslie’s impression of the older artist who he

visited as a matter of courtesy when he had been newly elected an associate of the

Academy in 1821. He says of Northcote, “His diminutive figure was enveloped in a chintz

dressing-gown…his projecting brows, his sharp black eyes peered at me with a

whimsical expression of enquiry. There he stood, with his palette and brushes in one

hand, and a mahl-stick…in the other…”

At the artist’s feet lies a manuscript that is inscribed with the title ‘The Life of Sir Joshua

Reynolds by James Northcote’. By the inclusion of this evidence of Northcote’s literary

achievement, Chantry neatly draws together the twin aspects of the artist’s identity.

[II]”Joseph William Mallord Turner R.A.”: Joseph William Mallord Turner (1775-1851)

A good indication of Joseph William Mallord Turner’s preoccupation with his own mortality,

and the fear that the fickle public might one day allow his achievements to pass into

obscurity, has already been glimpsed in his reaction to the death and funeral of Sir

Thomas Lawrence, a year after he had made his own will. At this point he was

concerned with the distribution of his fortune and, apart from a few family bequests, he

had decided that some of his money should be used to create a building for “decayed

English artists (landscape painters only) and single men” and also for the erection of a

gallery for his own paintings. Although Turner continually re-worked his will in response to

the passing of the years and the many changes he saw happening around him, the

desire to ensure that his artistic legacy would be housed together within a “Turner’s

Gallery” remained firm.

In 1840 Turner not only would have seen Chantry’s figure for Northcote’s monument

when it was exhibited at the RA, but his visit to the Walhalla, a pantheon built overlooking

the Rhine by Ludwig I of Bavaria in Germany, and filled with the portrait busts of great

men may have also prompted Turner’s decision to include in his will, the wish to be buried

in St Paul’s cathedral, with a bequest of £1,000 for the creation of his own statue to stand

alongside the British heroes and worthies in the nave of what was becoming Britain’s

pantheon. As Julius Bryant has pointed out in Painting the Nation, Turner was extremely

patriotic and believed that the artist also had a part to play in the shaping of the nation’s

cultural sense of self, “its sense of identity”. The statue was, as Bryant says, the result

of Turner’s wish to “bequeath not just his works but his identity as an artist as a

component of the nation’s heritage.”

The executors of Turner’s will decided that the commission for the monument would be

opened up to competition, but stipulated that the sculptor should be a Royal Academician.

As Selby Whittingham points out this decision limited the competition to 5 sculptors- E.A

Bailly (RA 1821), Richard Westmacott the Younger (RA 1849), William Calder Marshall

(RA 1852), John Gibson (RA 1836, in Rome), and Patrick MacDowell (RA 1846). Of

these only Bailly and MacDowell submitted entries for the competition. MacDowell was

announced as the winner in the Art Journal in 1857, although Bailly exhibited a full size

model of his statue at the RA at the same time. Whittingham suggests that the monument,

which was erected in the south transept of St Paul’s, was unveiled in 1862, although

unusually for the time, there does not appear to be a record of the event.

MacDowell‘s oeuvre consisted mainly of ideal figures, commemorative statues and

portrait busts, and his Early Sorrow, which was shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851,

made a such an impact on Henry Weekes, who was to become Professor of Sculpture at

the RA in 1868, that he was moved to write in his Treatise on the Fine Arts in the Great

Exhibition, “MacDowell is an artist that England may well be proud of. He makes his

appeal to our best and noblest feelings and while he continues to strike the chord of

these, his reputation is safe.”

An engraving of Bailly’s model demonstrates that the sculptors had chosen to present

very similar images of Turner, but Bailly’s Turner is a realistic image of the artist towards

the end of his life, whereas MacDowell decided to present an idealised image of the artist

in his prime (Figure 42). The head, turned to show Turner’s distinctive profile, is

immediately recognisable to the visitor to the cathedral, but the form of the figure is that of

a tall, vigorous man. Those who had seen Turner knew that this was not a true to life

image of the man, as one of the few portraits of Turner, by Charles Turner testifies. A

friend remembered him as having, “a small bent figure, [with] and a jewish cast of

feature…” Although C. R. Leslie agreed that Turner did not present an elegant figure, he

said he was “full of elegance as he was in art.” There is no recorded evidence as to

what form Turner wanted for his monument, but it is likely that, considering where it was

to be erected, that he expected a statue would be considered most appropriate.

Therefore, MacDowell’s decision to invest his statue with the essence of the man’s

artistic genius rather than concentrating on a producing a realistic portrait honoured

Turner’s feelings and obviously appealed to Turner’s executors.

MacDowell not only chose to invest Turner with the attributes of the artist, but also chose

to specifically allude to Turner as a painter of landscapes, a distinction Turner would have

undoubtedly approved of. Bryant points out that although Turner was elected Professor

of Perspective at the Academy, he would have preferred the role of Professor of

Landscape Painting, a notion borne up by the fact that in his first will he intended to leave

the Academy an endowment for that purpose. Unlike the figure of Reynolds, who is

draped in his doctoral robes to convey the authority of the Ancient Greek or Roman

orator, Turner’s draped gown over a short coat suggests that the artist is outside, and

although the size and form of the statue is similar to that of the Reynolds, the figure is

altogether more animated. This dynamism is conveyed through the sculptor’s decision to

depict the artist painting. Holding a wooden palette and brushes in his left hand, and a

single brush in his right, Turner appears to have stopped for a moment to capture the

scene. He has propped himself against a rocky outcrop, a position that can only be

temporary because it would be uncomfortable to hold it for long. The artist has paused in

the act of painting as if he is either awed by the natural scene or perhaps he is registering

the changes of light and shade in his visual memory.

The treatment of the base of the statue is also very different to that of the Reynolds,

because it adds to the meaning of the figure, which was a lesson learnt later by Alfred

Gilbert when he realised what it was that made, in his opinion, his Perseus Arming

(c1881-2) incomplete. Gilbert said that his realisation had come from the study of the

pedestals belonging to works such as Donatello’s David which consists of the head of

Goliath, and the victor’s laurel. An interesting detail on the base of Turner’s statue is a

small starfish. This tiny feature immediately places the artist on a beach, and thus in the

process of creating a seascape, a subject which was to preoccupy the artist for most of

his life. It may also be read as a reference to one of Turner’s most fascinating pictures

entitled War – The Exile and The Rock Limpet (1842), an evocative depiction of the

exiled and brooding Napoleon standing by the edge of a rock pool on the island of St

Helena. Napoleon’s attention is fixed on the tiny and lowly rock limpet which, unlike the

former Emperor, is free to go where it chooses. This work was painted as a companion

to another deeply moving picture entitled Peace – Burial at Sea (1842). Like Turner’s

Funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence, a sketch from memory this painting was Turner’s

response to the death of a fellow artist, and while Turner’s painting of Lawrence’s funeral

draws attention to his belief that the genius of the artist should guarantee that he receives

the respect of his country, and an automatic place in that nation’s pantheon, the painting

in tribute to David Wilkie, a close friend of Turner’s who had died of malaria on his way

back to England from the Middle East, can be read as a burial marker.

In this work, which depicts the highly charged moment of the artist’s coffin being lowered

into the sea framed between two darkened ships and bathed in a blaze of light, Turner

uses all the elements of composition to draw attention to the moment of burial despite the

fact that this detail is so small (Figure 43). At the bottom of the work the dark silhouette of

a solitary seabird flying low across the water might represent the soul of the dead artist

released from its earthbound state. Although painted in response to his own private

thoughts about the loss of a friend and fellow artist, Turner may have also intended it to

fix Wilkie’s resting place, however fictitious the scene actually was. In which case, the

painting might reflect the unease people felt about the loss or mutilation of the physical

body, because many believed that the individual would not be able to experience

resurrection without a physical form. As shown by Richardson, the debate as to the fate

of the soul continued in the 19th century. Some believed that judgement occurred at the

moment of death, and therefore the soul “passed direct to a final home, being re-united

with the body and judged again at the last trump” while others thought that “it slept in the

grave until Judgement Day, when body and would rise together from the tomb.” What is

apparent is that it was generally accepted that the body and soul needed to be together

for resurrection, and thus in this moving gesture of one artist to another, Turner attempts

to unite the soul and the body of his friend in preparation for the Last Judgement.

Turner’s wish to have a monument erected in St Paul’s was yet another instance of the

artist’s fear that despite his genius, his fame might not stand the test of time, even though

he undoubtedly believed that his great ‘body’ of work, housed in a gallery, hopefully called

‘Turner’s Gallery’, in London, should ensue his immortality. Therefore, despite the fact

that in life he was reluctant to have a portrait made, the dignity with which Chantry had

invested Northcote, and the durability of a marble figure convinced him that this type of

monument could only serve to further his quest for fame for posterity. Maybe towards

end of his life, Turner began to believe that it was important to preserve a likeness. In the

last few months Turner’s doctor, who had just told him that “his days were numbered,

and that he better arrange anything he had to do in this world and prepare for the next”,

was asked by the artist if he stood by his diagnosis. When Dr Price answered in the

affirmation Turner is reported as saying “So I am to become a nonentity, am I?”

Sometime in the 1880s the wooden palette and brushes were stolen, and were replaced

in 1992 with a new set created by the cathedral’s master carver. In 1886 the reviewer of

an exhibition of Turner’s sketches at the Royal Academy decided to visit the cathedral in

order to “worship at the tomb of the great watercolourist.” He describes his shock on

seeing that the figure was no longer the “ideal representation” he remembered, but now

appeared to him as a “feeble figure” because the brush had been broken off and the

palette gone. What is so interesting about this comment is that it was the attributes of

palette and brush that gave the figure its dynamism and thus identity (Figure 44).

[III] “In Memory of Thomas Webster, Royal Academician”: Thomas Webster (1800-1886)

Of all the monuments discussed in this survey only the monument to Thomas Webster,

erected in 1890 in his parish church of St Dunstan’s, Cranbrook, has a reasonably

consistent record of commission leading through to the fixing of the monument. This

progress was recorded in one of the journals kept by the sculptor himself, Sir William

Hamo Thornycroft (1850-1925).

In the Art Journal of 1855 Thomas Webster was commended as an artist whose work

had universal appeal because his “humorous compositions could not fail to amuse.” The

writer goes on to say that “If his art is not one what some call ‘High Art,’ (a term not

satisfactorily defined), it is so agreeable, and contains so much truth, that one is always

inclined to make acquaintance with it: it shows us the sunny side of nature, recalls the

memories of our own boyish days, or of scene we may have chanced to witness during

the pilgrimage of a life.” The subject matter for which Webster was being so affectionately

praised was classed as genre painting. There were many Victorian painters who

practised this genre but Webster made the depictions of schoolboy shenanigans his own

speciality and they were extremely well received by the critics as well as by the public.

When ill health persuaded Webster to leave London for the small Kentish village of

Cranbrook, he and fellow artists John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903); Frederick Daniel

Hardy (1827-1911); George Bernard O’Neill (1828-1917); and the little known A. E.

Mulready (op. 1863-1886) formed the Cranbrook Colony, with Webster as the leader of

the group. These artists all were genre artists, painting both outside and domestic indoor

scenes and using life in Cranbrook as the settings, and inspiration for their work. An

undated photograph of Webster shows him sitting in the doorway of his own home, his

legs crossed and a book on his lap (Figure 45). His most distinctive feature is his

receding hairline with long white hair curling down onto his collar. The long hair may have

been a device to draw attention to the high brow of the artist, a feature generally believed

to indicate genius.

The importance of the portrait head not only as an indicator of character but also as

identifier becomes even more pronounced when part of a funerary monument as the

intention is to remind, at first the family and friends, but perhaps also the casual viewer, of

the identity of the deceased. There are many reasons why this was considered

important. It may be in order to prompt prayers for the soul of the individual, or to ensure

correct identification on the day of Judgement. In the case of Webster, who had adopted

the village of Cranbrook as his own, and who became a familiar and even beloved figure

to the people of the village, the desire to be able to identify him as one of their own, even

beyond death, is reminiscent of the desire of the people of Spoleto to keep the body of

Fra Filippo Lippi rather than return his remains to his hometown of Florence, because

being regarded as the burial place of a famous man lent great prestige to the town.

It is not known who decided how Webster would be depicted for the monument but a

comparison between photographs of Webster taken in Cranbrook and the head carved

by Thornycroft for the monument suggests that the sculptor thought that the artist should

be immediately identifiable to all those who had known or simply seen him in the village.

While the domed forehead of the artist seems to be over accentuated, in general the

details of the effigy are very realistic, the knuckles and fingernails, folds of loose skin, and

wisps of hair combine to lend physicality to the image, and when viewed on a sunny day

the light from the windows high on the south wall heightens the sense of the body beneath

the folds of the painter’s smock (Figure 46).

On 22 November 1886, Hamo Thornycroft records in his journal that he travelled to

Cranbrook to meet Mrs Webster to discuss the monument she wished erected in

memory of her husband in Cranbrook church. He took measurements of the site chosen.

As has been said, although much is still unknown, the amount of detail recorded by the

sculptor in connection with this commission is unusual, and much more can be deduced.

For example, it is apparent that the site dictated the form and shape of the monument,

and the entry in the journal for 24 January 1887, shows that the sculptor believed that the

bas-relievo form would be most appropriate (Figure 47). A month later Thornycroft

obviously gave the widow a choice of designs because he notes that she had decided to

have “a low relief” and was pleased with the design Thornycroft showed her. This

suggests that the sculptor was very much in charge of the design of the monument but

deployed a great deal of diplomacy in his dealings with his patron. Again the site, in

dictating the form of the monument, probably also suggested to the sculptor that an effigy

figure would be the most compositionally pleasing.

Thornycroft began to work on the design in January 1888, and from March 1888, when

Mrs Webster again visited Thornycroft’s studio, until May 1889, the sculptor worked on a

plaster cast version of the monument. In June 1889 Thornycroft began work on the

marble version, and this was finally finished in May 1890 when he records in his journal

that the monument “went down by road to Cranbrook and was erected in the church

there.” Three days later on the 22 May 1890 Thornycroft himself travelled down to

Cranbrook to see the monument fixed. The journal entries further state that Thornycroft

was paid the balance of £500 on 24 May, with a further £80 in October 1890, but as there

is no mention of how much was paid on deposit it is not easy to determine the total figure

but it probably was in the region of £650. One of the final entries which make direct

mention of the monument records that one of Thornycroft’s assistants was sent to

Cranbrook on 2 June to investigate reports that there was “smoke coming out” of the

marble panel.

Apart from consulting the wife of the deceased, the sculptor also records a meeting with

John Callcott Horsley, a close friend of the artist, at the beginning of the project. It is

possible that it was he who may have suggested the orthodox treatment of the monument

which identifies the deceased as an artist, honoured on either side by putti, one holding a

palm of victory and the other a laurel wreath. Horsley was a genre artist who was also

Treasurer of the Royal Academy, and is best known in connection with his views that

works that celebrated the female nude threatened public morality and “violated Christian

principles.” The Academy exhibition of 1885 prompted a letter that was published in The

Times protesting against the great number of nude works on show. It was signed by ‘A

British Matron’ and believed to have been written by Horsley.

Webster holds a set of paintbrushes – representing the manual aspect of his craft, and a

book, which was generally an attribute of the writer or scholar. In this case, as Webster

was not generally regarded as either, it is possible that it is supposed to connote the

creative invention of his paintings. The decision to place paintbrushes in Webster’s hand,

over the heart of the deceased, adds a sense of the importance accorded these

implements. It might also signify the notion that the artist continued to paint right up until

the moment death snatched him away from his work, thus identifying the artist as a man

for whom life meant nothing without art.

Section D

The Female Palette

Although Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser were elected as founder members of the

Royal Academy in 1768, and women artists regularly exhibited at the Academy, women

students were not allowed entry in the Schools until 1860 when Laura Herford placed just

her initials on her candidate drawing and was awarded a place. She claimed it and

thereafter a few women were admitted, although they remained excluded from the life

classes until the 1890s.

Many women painted, it was regarded as an accomplishment, which would impress a

future husband, but once married it was expected that all their efforts were to be put into

running the household and child bearing, leaving little time for art, except as a hobby.

Women who were more ambitious and wanted to pursue art as a career were regarded

as “unsexing themselves” and even “risked being labelled as sexual deviants.”

Despite their mutual affection and admiration, when Maria Hadfield married Richard

Cosway she was not expected to carry on painting professionally. Her brother in law,

William Coombe, told Farington that her husband “did not encourage her in her painting,”

and Farington also records a conversation he held with Maria herself a few days later.

“She said she begins many pictures but soon grows tired-having no obligation to finish

them. She requires a necessary stimulus; had Cosway allowed her to sell her works it

would have been otherways…” Thus even though Cosway’s biographer records that he

fell in love with her because of “her beauty and talent “ his own ego was such that he

either felt threatened by her skill, or that socially his status would suffer if his wife pursued

an independent career.

Despite general discrimination, there were a growing number of women artists in Britain in

the latter half of the 19th century, as there were greater opportunities for women to

receive art education, such as the founding of the Female School of Art and Design in

1846 and the Society of Female Artists in 1856. However, the availability of this type of art

education became an excuse for not allowing women into the Royal Academy Schools to

compete with male students on an equal basis. Many women artists of the period were

able to paint simply because they came from families of painters, and were therefore

given art training within the home. Women such as Lucy and Cathy Madox Brown

benefited in this way, and also from association with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

because these artists not only included a number of women on their list of heroes, but

also rejected the classical academic training unavailable to women artists. As Nunn

points out, Barbara Bodichon, Anna Mary Howitt, and Elizabeth Siddal were treated as

artist members of the circle.

Evelyn Pickering was forbidden to paint by her wealthy parents and only found freedom

to practise her art through marriage in 1887 to the ceramicist William de Morgan whose

artistic sympathies were greater than his Victorian sensibilities. However for many the

pressures of child-bearing, running a home and being always above reproach in the eyes

of society put a strain on many a female artist, and therefore, as Jan Marsh points out, it

comes as no surprise that those women who continued to paint professionally after their

marriages often remained childless.

It is apparent however, that being married was not always an obstacle to having an

artistic career, but it often altered the way in which married women pursued their artistic

dream. Louise Jopling (1843-1933) began her artistic career in earnest after her

separation from her first husband, “on account of his recklessness with financial matters.

“ Then, having studied at Leigh’s Academy in London on the advice of W. F. Frith, she

exhibited a number of paintings in the genres of portraiture and history painting at the

Academy, the Grosvenor Gallery, and at the Salon. In 1872 she married her second

husband, Joseph Jopling, who himself was a watercolourist, and friend of Millais, and with

his encouragement she continued to paint. However, after his death in 1884, she was

able to set up her own school of art, becoming highly respected as a lecturer on art, and

she also wrote several books on the subject. Her status changed again when she

married for the third time, to George W Rowe, a lawyer. Still highly respected, she

nevertheless gave up her school to become President of the Chiltern Club for Arts and

Handicrafts. A position undoubtedly deemed more fitting for the wife of a suburban

lawyer.

Against this background, it follows that in death women were not generally identified as

artists, much less commemorated as artists. When Mary Moser died in 1819, she was

buried in her husband’s vault in Kensington, and no mention was made of her artistic

achievements. Even though Angelica Kauffmann was honoured with a public funeral in

Rome, and her epitaph describes her as having earnt the “highest praise in painting” her

memorial is a simple marble tablet which is added onto that of her much less renowned

husband, Antonio Zucchi, whose monument, given greater distinction by the inclusion of a

medallion portrait, connotes him as being the most important artist. Although Maria

Cosway was commemorated by a marble portrait bust erected in Lodi in 1839, neither it,

nor her epitaph makes mention of her artistic identity. She is depicted and thus

commemorated as the benevolent founder of the college for the education of girls (Figure

48). A painting by Gabriele Rottini entitled Baroness Maria Hadfield Cosway listening to

Vittoria Manzoni (c1835) depicts Maria as a devout and much revered woman

surrounded by girls and supported by the sisters of the Order of English Women. It is this

image of Maria that has been used to commemorate her.

[I] “To Her”: Emma Elizabeth Soyer nee Jones (1813-1842)

Despite the fact that the funerary commemoration of some of the best known female

artists generally does not grant them the status of independent professional artist, one of

the most prominent monuments erected in Kensal Green not long after the cemetery’s

foundation was that to a female artist, Emma Elizabeth Soyer, commissioned by her

husband, Alexis Benoit Soyer (1809-1858) and installed in 1844, two years after her

death in childbirth. Unlike Richard Cosway, Emma’s husband not only supported her in

her work but also used his own influence as chef at the renowned Reform Club in London

to further her reputation and increase patronage. Her sudden and tragic death did not

lessen Soyer’s zeal for the dissemination of Emma’s status as an artist of note, and he

not only hung some of her works in a room at the Reform Club around which he would be

pleased to guide visitors, but travelled to Brussels at the invitation of the Duke of Saxe-

Coburg Gotha to show Emma’s work to his brother, Leopold, King of Belgium.

In 1848 Soyer staged a memorial exhibition of his late wife’s works at the Prince of Wales

Bazaar, under the name of Soyer’s Philanthropic Gallery. His intention was twofold. He

hoped that in attracting the “many aristocratic admirers of Madame Soyer’s talent” he

would not only sell her work to some of the greatest collectors in the country, he would

thereby also raise funds for his own project – a soup kitchen to feed the poor of

Spitalfields. Although the scheme was not successful in that he raised only a small

amount of money, Emma Soyer was praised in an article that appeared in The Times (13

May 1848) as a “remarkable” artist whose “free, vigorous manipulation is most

extraordinary for a female artist”, and Soyer’s secretaries and joint biographers, F Volant

and J R Warren, noted that the attention the exhibition received gave the chef great

satisfaction to see that his wife’s work was still so well regarded. Later, at the same time

of the Great Exhibition (1851), Soyer established “Soyers Universal Symposium” at Gore

House in Kensington. The programme announced that Soyer intended to provide

“Dinners and Refreshments of every description for five or six thousand persons daily,“

and other attractions would include:

The Hall of Architectural Wonders-The Blessington Temple of the Muses…The

Glittering Rocaille of Eternal Snow-The Bower of Ariadne…The Grand Banqueting

Bridge, al Fresco-The Washington Refreshment Room, for the dispensation of every

sort of American Beverage…The Baronial Hall, containing the late Madame Soyer’s

celebrated Pictures…

Soyer’s will, drawn up a few weeks before his own death in 1858, further illustrates

Soyer’s continuing belief in Emma’s genius, and his dedication to ensuring that at least

some of her works would be on public show. This concern is demonstrated in the first

line of the will. Soyer says “I give and bequeath the following pictures to and for the use of

the National Gallery namely The English Ceres, The young Israelites, the Portrait of a

Centenarian, the young Bavarian and the Portrait of Madam Soyer, my late wife.”

Unfortunately, the records of the National Gallery do not contain any reference to the

bequest being accepted and these pictures, as well as most of Emma Soyer’s other

works have yet to be traced.

It was undoubtedly Soyer’s great love for his wife, and his boundless dedication to

perpetuating her identity as an artist for posterity which led to the erection of a monument

which did not only honour her as his wife, but primarily drew attention to her artistic

achievements in the face of what he believed was the jealous hostility of the Royal

Academy. It is a fact that, although the monument was also intended to mark Alexis’s

own burialplace, the design, reportedly by Alexis himself, incorporates elements that

proclaim and celebrate Emma’s identity as an artist and as a Christian woman, in what

might have been regarded as an overly conspicuous manner, while his own identity as a

celebrated chef, a philanthrope, an inventor, an author, and reformer of military catering in

Scutari working alongside Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, is ignored. In his

Memoirs his biographers consider that he was not buried with due honour, and that his

reputation should have ensured a funeral as great as any “other public men.” However,

they do not lament the lack of an individual memorial therefore they may have considered

that the nature of the monument erected by Alexis for his wife was indicative of his own

artistic nature, and elevated character.

The details of the commission and form of the monument are not only recorded in the

Memoirs, but at the time of its erection it generated a great deal of interest and was

depicted in The Illustrated London News (September 1844) along with a full explanation

which begins by describing the monument as “one of the most elegant and conspicuous

additions to the cemetery at Kensal Green.” It was commissioned from the Flemish

sculptor, Pierre Puyenbroeck (1804-1884), and although there is no documented record

as to why this particular sculptor was chosen, it may be that, it was his status as one of

the principal sculptors of funerary monuments and statues to King Leopold of Belgium, as

well as his reputation as a sculptor of busts of historical figures such as Anne Boleyn

(exhibited Brussels Salon, 1839) that had recommended him to Alexis. The monument

which was recorded as costing “five hundred pounds” is sculpted out of Carrara marble

and Portland stone, and includes an eight foot figure of Faith holding a cross and pointing

towards heaven. As it also intended that the figure be lit by a gas-jet which would have

effectively drawn attention to the monument even at night, as Roger Bowdler points out, it

would have been a clear declaration of Christian belief. The inscription picked out in

bronze letters simply read ‘To Her’ (Figure 49).

All the other elements clearly not only advertise Emma’s artistic identity, but convey a

sense of her artistic status by stylistic elements such as the pair of putti, one holding a

crown of laurel, the other a palm, floating high on billowing clouds in the manner of

Bartolome Esteban Murillo, an artist with whom Soyer had been favourably compared,

and the portrait relief, framed with the symbol of eternity –the serpent devouring its own

tail, depicts the artist in posing in a costume which is Van Dyckian (Figure 50). Although it

has been stated by Alexis Soyer’s biographers that this was based on a portrait painted

of the deceased by her step-father and painting teacher, Francois Simoneau, it is not

possible to confirm this as this work remains unlocated. However there is a copy of a

self-portrait in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery which bears a great

resemblance to that on the monument (Figure 51). In the self-portrait Emma is turned

towards her work but gazes directly out at the viewer in a way which is reminiscent of the

self-confident poses of artists such as Rembrandt, Reynolds, and Hogarth when at the

height of their creative careers, and thus it possible that the sculptor had this work in

mind when creating the memorial to Emma.

Another element that identifies the monument as belonging to an artist is the carved

palette and brushes, flanked by laurel branches and incorporating the initials E and S,

which are suspended from the portrait medallion. This emblem was taken from one of the

last sketches Emma had made, apparently to amuse her servant, the morning of the day

she died. However, the decision by Soyer to place the artist’s actual palette and brushes

in an oval recess at the back of the pedestal behind glass creates a sense of the

monument as a shrine, and thus the use of palette and brushes as relics might be said to

categorize Madame Soyer as a saint.

It is apparent that the use of palette and brushes as identifier of the deceased’s earthly

achievements was an important element of the artist’s funerary monument during this

period, because the emblem acted as an immediate visual identifier, especially useful in a

darkened church, overcrowded churchyard, or a modern cemetery such as Kensal

Green which was beginning to fill with monuments competing with each other for

prominence. However, how they were used varied considerably. Used in conjunction with

other attributes as trophies they can be seen to create a sense of the successful artist

conquering the enemy, whether that enemy was failure, anonymity, or death. As

allegorical elements they might connote the artist’s identification with antiquity, which not

only reflects the artist’s desire to be seen as learned thus raising his status to that of

gentleman, or liberal artist, it also suggests a timelessness. In the hand of the artist the

palette is claimed back as a tool of a master craftsman although in the cases of both

Northcote and Webster the tools are combined with books as if the designer is not

entirely sure that the reputation of the artist as artist alone is enough to stand the test of

time.

CHAPTER FIVE

“An artist lives and acquires fame through his works”: The Preservation of the artist’s

identity through the sculptural representation of specific works.

As has been said Vasari wrote that an artist acquired fame through his works, but he also

believed that in a future, less appreciative time, such works, especially painted works,

were liable to destruction and/or loss. He uses the example of the fall of the Roman

Empire under repeated attacks from “all the barbarian nations…” resulting in “destruction

[which] struck equally and decisively at the greatest artists, sculptors and architects:

they and their work were left buried and submerged among sorry ruins and debris…”

However, Vasari also points out that while the arts of painting and sculpture were the first

to suffer because “they existed chiefly to give pleasure…Statues and pictures intended to

immortalise those in whose honour they had been done could still be seen by

succeeding generations.” This is one reason why Vasari may have been so much in

favour of the erection of monuments to artists such as Giotto, not only “so that others

coming after Giotto, who excelled in their various professions, might hope for similar

memorials to the one which Giotto’s abilities so fully earned and deserved”and thus

dedicate themselves to art, but also because the commemorative nature of the

monument might aid the survival of the arts. This particular memorial, in showing the artist

at work on a mosaic depicting the head of Christ, might be an act of piety, while

reinforcing Vasari’s claim that an artist acquires fame through his works, but can also be

read as an attempt to preserve the memory of an actual piece of work associated with

the dead artist. This chapter will seek to examine the large number of monuments

erected to artists during this period that incorporate one or more examples of the

deceased artist’s own work, and will propose that the rise in number of this type of

monument coincided with the development of photography – a medium generally

regarded in the 19th century as a serious threat to the art of painting.

“In these sorry days a new industry has arisen that has done not a little to strengthen the

asinine belief…that art is and can be nothing other than the accurate reflection of

nature…A vengeful god has hearkened to the voice of this multitude. Daguerre is his

Messiah.” Charles Baudelaire’s words were written for the Salon review of 1859, nearly

20 years after Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, in France, and Henry Fox Talbot, in

England, had first introduced photography to the world.

However, while Baudelaire feared for the future of French art, others believed that the

new medium could also be used as an effective tool in the production of painted works. In

1839 the details of a report on Daguerre’s invention, which had been commissioned from

the artist Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) by the French government, was published. Of

photography Delaroche said, “Daguerre’s process completely satisfies all the demands

of art, carrying out essential principles of art to such perfection that it must become a

subject of observation and study to even the most accomplished painters…” It may be

that Delaroche’s appreciation of photography was stimulated by his interest in close

observation and detail. On the other hand, as Stephen Duffy points out, it may have been

photography that inspired Delaroche’s renewed interest in the expressive properties of

light. Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) became a charter member of the first photographic

society in France (1851), and encouraged the use of photographs, saying: “If a man of

genius uses the Daguerreotype as it should be used, he will elevate [his art] to a height

hitherto unknown.” He may have also considered that the photograph could be used to

record works that might otherwise deteriorate over time. In his ‘Life and Work of Eugene

Delacroix’, Baudelaire reports that one of the “painter’s greatest concerns was the

judgement of posterity and the uncertain durability of his works. One moment his ever-

sensitive imagination would take fire at the idea of an immortal glory, and then he would

speak with bitterness of the fragility of canvases and colours.” Other artists such as

Claude Monet were propelled into reacting against the ‘fixing’ of the image by producing

works whereby objects were represented through colour, and shape and so the artist, in

representing the light and atmosphere of a scene, created his/her impression of it rather

than attempting a literal interpretation.

[I] “a death blow to Art”: The Preservation of the Art of Painting

Despite the support of artists such as Delaroche, many other artists reacted with the

same fearfulness expressed by Baudelaire, believing that the advent of photography, a

new way of copying nature without the intervention of the hand and mind of the artist,

would make the art of painting obsolete. Ingres and other French academic artists

blamed photography for the decline of drawing skills, and Hippolyte Flandrin wrote in

1863, that he feared “that photography has dealt a death blow to Art.” This despair was

echoed in Germany where a newspaper report in the Leipzig City Advertiser declared

that “the wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible…but the mere

desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no

man made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have

abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman…to give the world an

invention of the Devil?”

Ever since Vasari published his Lives of the Artists in which he described the birth of

Michelangelo as the result of a decision by “the benign ruler of heaven” to “send into the

world an artist who would be skilled in each and every craft” artists had believed that their

genius was uniquely inspired by God, the Divine architect, himself. For many of them, the

notion that anyone would be able to produce a likeness at a fraction of the cost of

commissioning a painting, and within a much shorter timescale, threatened not only their

livelihood but also their status. Before the invention of the collodion process in 1851 the

cost of a daguerreotype, at one guinea, was still very expensive for the working classes

but after this it was possible to have a photograph taken for 1 shilling. In 1863 it was

estimated that over 105 million photographs had been produced the previous year in

Great Britain alone. In France Baudelaire feared that the taste of the public, or the “mob”

for the new medium would either “supplant or corrupt it completely…” and his choice of

words in his condemnations of photography betray the fear of a cultured man whose

country had already experienced the damage a mob of revolutionaries could do to works

of art.

The dispute between the relative merits of the two media, and the consequences of the

invention of an art available to all, also took place in Great Britain, since Henry Fox Talbot

had presented a paper, dated 31 January 1831, to the Royal Society of London entitled

‘Some Account of the Art of Photogenic drawing, or the process by which natural objects

may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the artist’s pencil.” In 1835 Fox-

Talbot produced his first successful negative on paper enabling him to be able to produce

any number of prints from a single image. However, in Britain the threat posed to art by

photography was muted by the fact that this new medium tended to support the current

ideals of John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites in their quest for the literal reproduction of

the natural world. Ruskin described the Daguerreotype as “a most blessed invention”;

Millais found photographs a great deal of help in the creation of outdoor scenes, and Ford

Madox Brown used a photograph of Thomas Carlyle for his painting entitled Work

(1852-1865) because the artist was doubtful that he could get the writer to sit for the

length of time needed for his portrait.

It is apparent that the invention of photography had a profound effect on art and artists

whether they welcomed or rejected the new medium. It may be that for many of them the

invention was symptomatic of the age, whereby the rapid growth of an urban, industrial

society, with all its consequent upheavals, caused the disruption and even ultimately the

collapse of traditional cultural, religious, and social patterns. The claims made by the early

enthusiasts for the new medium undermined the status and the skills of the artist. Fox

Talbot said that his intention had been to invent a machine which would record an image

“by the agency of Light alone, without any aid whatever from the artist’s pencil.” Daguerre

advertised his Daguerreotype as “not merely an instrument which serves to draw

nature…[it] gives her the power to reproduce herself.” In 1843, Elizabeth Barrett wrote to

Mary Russell Mitford that she preferred to have a photograph of a loved one, “It is the

very sanctification of portraits I think - and it is not at all monstrous in me to say, what my

brothers cry out against so vehemently would rather have such a memorial of one I have

dearly loved, than the noblest artist’s work ever produced.” Even later, in 1926, the artist

and critic, Roger Fry wrote about the photo-portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron that they,

“already bid fair to outlive most of the works of the artists who were her contemporaries”.

He goes on to say:

One day we may hope that the National Gallery will be deprived of so large a part of

its grant that it will turn to fostering the art of photography and will rely on its results

for its records instead of buying acres of canvas covered at great expense by

fashionable practitioners in paint. The overwhelming interest in photography across

all classes was undeniable. In France even the deathbed scene, and the art of the

death mask seemed to be under threat as photographers advertised their services:

“ainsi que les Portraits après Deces. Le tout de jour et meme de nuit, a l’aide de la

lumiere electrique.”

It would not be unreasonable to assume that in the face of such great interest in

photography as well as the technological progress which even began to see the use of

colour in 1863 that many British artists may have imagined that the art of painting, which

had flourished since the 18th century in their country, might be about to enter a state of

unavoidable decline which might eventually lead to the neglect or loss, or even

destruction of their works.

Not all forms of art suffered the threat of obsolescence through the emergence of the art

of photography. Naturally enough while the two dimensional painted portrait could be

replicated by the two dimensional photograph, the nature of sculpture ensured that

photography could only produce an image of a piece for the purposes of illustration or

record, but could not produce an image which would be an acceptable replacement for

the figure in the round. And equally, while it was seen that the photograph of a loved one

preserved identity even after death, and despite the fragility of the medium, could be

stored and revisited for many years afterwards, in the 19th century only the durability of a

stone memorial incorporating a sculptural identifier was still believed to last for posterity.

[II] “Et in Arcadia Ego”: The Sculptural Representation of a Painted Work

For the purposes of this chapter it is necessary to begin with a look at a selection of 19th-

century monuments erected to French artists, because it was with the erection of the

Monument to Nicolas Poussin in S Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome, that a new genre of artist

monument began to become popular in this period.

Although Poussin’s own wish to be to be buried without any pomp and ceremony was

adhered to when he died in 1665, two monuments were later erected in Rome, the city in

which the French artist had lived and died. As Scott points out, the first monument was

placed in one of the oval niches in the Pantheon in 1782, and as such, “the substance of

the frame trespassed on the identity of that which it enclosed.” The second monument

was later commissioned by François-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), a

French writer and statesman who had been appointed secretary of the legation to Rome,

in 1803, by Napoleon I. At this time Chateaubriand became aware of the lack of

monument claiming Poussin as a French artist who was greatly venerated by the French

Neoclassical painters of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, it was not until

much later, whilst in retirement from politics, that Chateaubriand undertook the erection of

a new monument in tribute to the artist (Figure 53).

The marble floor standing monument was erected c1830 and was designed by Leon

Vaudoyer, with a bust by Paul Lemoyne and bas-relief depicting one of Poussin’s most

renowned works, The Arcadian Shepherds (1638-40), by Jean-Louis Desprez, intended

as a tribute not only to the artist but also to France. It identifies the artist as the creator of

this work, one of the most renowned and admired of his paintings. Just as many of

Poussin’s paintings dealt with the benefits of virtue and were set in the classical past,

appealing to the mind rather than just the eye, the Neoclassical style of the monument

reflects the themes of noble self-sacrifice, and virtue. The design is influenced by Ancient

Greek pedimented stelai which were often decorated with bas-reliefs representing the

deceased. The bust of the artist is set within a deep arched niche and is in the style of a

classical herm. Originally the herm was a rectangular pillar terminating in a head or bust

(usually of Hermes) used to mark boundaries in Ancient Greece, hence they were often

found outside the gates of cities such as Athens where many graves were also sited.

This type of pillar was also called a terminal figure, and therefore the bust of the artist

could be read as a motif which represents the belief in a limit to life whilst art achieves for

the deceased a form of immortality. The portrait, though recognisable as Poussin and

was probably inspired by one of his late self-portraits painted c1649, is also an idealised

image of the artist as a younger man.

The subject matter of the work chosen to pay tribute to Poussin makes the use of it in

this context doubly fitting because it shows the figures meditating on the inscription found

on an ancient tomb within a pastoral setting. The inscription: Et in Arcadia ego is

translated as ‘Even in Arcadia [there] am I’ and may be read as a type of memento mori.

The inclusion of the bas-relief of this particular painting was perhaps intended to call the

viewer to a solemn contemplation of his/her mortality, while the natural setting, also

reminds the viewer of the beginning of creation, and the garden of Eden.

It may be that it was the form of this monument which inspired the sculptor Antoine Etex

in his design for the monument to the artist Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) which was

erected in the cemetery of Pere LaChaise in 1841. The story of the sculptor’s

determination to see a monument erected which would pay tribute to the artist whose

huge painting The Raft of the Medusa had caused such a sensation at the Salon of 1819,

and also in London where the ‘Raft’ had been exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in 1820,

echoes the romance and pathos of Gericault’s own life and death.

The story of Etex’s involvement was told by Etex himself in a publication entitled Les trois

tombeaux de Gericault 1837-1884, and began with his decision to visit Gericault’s grave

in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise in 1837, only to discover that, despite the fact that

Gericault had died a wealthy man with many admirers and friends, there was not even a

burial marker. Etex declares that “full of indignation at the shame of the artist’s

abandonment…I went straight to the rue de la Tour-des-Dames, to Horace Vernet”

Within a few months Etex, Vernet, Ary Scheffer, and other artists who had known and

admired Gericault opened a public subscription to pay for a monument, and formed a

committee to judge design entries. Later Etex claimed he had no intention of submitting an

entry to the competition, but at the last moment he showed two designs because there

had been such little interest from other sculptors. Of the two the judges chose the one

that depicted “Gericault, lying on his sickbed, palette in hand, painting up until his final

hour.”

Although Etex had misjudged the public’s interest in the raising of a monument to a long

dead artist, and the subscriptions amounted to only 2,000 francs of the total needed,

which was 10,000 francs, the design was extremely well received at the Salon of 1841,

and Etex went ahead with the project, sacrificing his own fees. The monument, which

consisted of a marble statue and bas-relief of the Raft of the Medusa sculpted in the face

of the pedestal, was installed in June 1841. Unfortunately, the marble weathered badly

because it was of such poor quality, and it was decided to donate the monument to the

city of Rouen, Gericault’s birthplace where it was installed in the town hall. Etex placed a

simple stele type monument decorated with a palette and laurel over the burial place in

Pere LaChaise. However, in 1882, 45 years after Etex first went to pay his respects to

the remains of the artist, Gericault’s illegitimate son, Georges-Hippolyte, died leaving a

substantial sum of money, 50,000 francs, to reinstate the original design.

The third and final version of the monument was erected in 1883 (Figure 54). The design

was the same as the original version, except that the figure and bas-relief of the Medusa

was cast in the more durable bronze (Figure 55). Etex also decided to include two extra

bas-reliefs on the sides of the pedestal. These depicted two of Gericault’s other best

known works, The Charging Light Cavalryman (1812); and The Wounded Heavy

Cavalryman (1814); and thus was Gericault’s reputation as an artist ensured despite

having been neglected even by his colleagues for many years and his identity, as the

author of one of the most admired and influential works of the 19th century, was at last

firmly established. All three bronzes were prominently signed by Etex thus not only

identifying the sculptor as the author of this much admired monument, but also linking

Etex with one of France’s most renowned artists.

In c1848-9 the sculptor Antoine Laurent Dantan (1794-1878) erected a monument to the

much honoured history painter, Baron Francois-Pascal-Simon Gerard (1770-1837) who

had been interred in the cemetery of Montparnasse, Paris. As in the case of the

Monument to Gericault, the sculptors chose to pay tribute to the artist through his own

works (Figure 56). The monument, which is in the form of a reduced obelisk, is adorned

with a bronze medallion portrait of Gerard at the peak, and two small bas–reliefs;

representing Gerard’s highly acclaimed Belisarius (exhibited at the Salon of 1795), and a

Christ. Between the two is engraved a list of Gerard’s works (Figure 57).

The medallion portrait is signed and dated by Dantan the elder, while the two bronzes that

represent Gerard’s work are signed “ After Gerard, Dantan the elder 1849”. By

presenting the bronzes as sculptural reproductions of painted works it could be said that

the sculptor was not only endeavouring to preserve Gerard’s identity as an artist through

the deceased artist’s work in the face of potential loss or neglect, but there is also a

sense that Dantan was proclaiming his belief that while photography had indeed sounded

the death knell for the art of painting, there was no such risk for the art of sculpture. In

fact, Dantan seems to emphasise the fragility of the painting which could not only be

reproduced or even replaced by the photograph, it could also be reproduced by the

sculptor in durable bronze.

In the cemetery of Montmartre there is a monument to an artist which is an unique

example of the use of the deceased artist’s own work as both identifier and tribute. This is

the Chapelle Scheffer (1795-1858), a Dutch painter who made his name in Paris during

the reign of Louis-Phillipe as one of the leading exponents of the Romantic school. The

chapel was erected in 1869 by Cornelia Marjolin (1830-1899), the daughter of the artist,

and it also commemorates Cornelia Lamme, the mother of the artist (Figure 58). Her

death in 1839 had such a profound effect on Scheffer that he could not bear to be parted

from the marble memorial, depicting his mother on her deathbed, that he had produced

for the family vault in Montmartre. The monument was therefore installed in his studio in

the Parisien villa he had lived in since 1830.

The unique nature of Scheffer’s monument is due to the fact that it not only contains a

stone version of Scheffer’s memorial to Cornelia Lamme, but the simple design of the

pedimented chapel belies the fact that, behind the prohibitive metal doors, it contains

colourful reproductions of some of Scheffer’s religious compositions, painted by

Scheffer’s daughter, Cornelia. Included is a reproduction of a work by Scheffer which

received a great deal of acclaim at the Salon of 1837, and was bought by the Duc

d’Orleans as a wedding present for his bride to be. Christus Consolator depicts Christ

with a kneeling, repentant Mary Magdalene, and surrounded by those who have suffered

torment, whether through disease, slavery, torture, or exile. Christ is shown providing

consolation to the suicide, and a promise of salvation to the dying man in shackles

(Figure 59).

Despite the fact that the chapel is exposed to weathering, the wall paintings within the

dark interior, glimpsed by peering through the bars at the top of the doors, are almost

shocking in their brilliance, and although there is a deal of difference between these and

the originals, as a comparison of the two demonstrates, there is a sense that the choice

of works were not only ideal in their role as identifiers of the pious nature of the deceased,

and represent familial pride in his achievements, but hidden within the tomb, they provide

a tantalising glimpse of the creative genius of the deceased (Figure 60).

[III] “a picture of grand humility”: William Mulready (1786-1863)

The romantic history of monuments such as that erected to Gericault undoubtedly

reached and caught the imagination of other artists in London, where Etex had held an

exhibition in 1849 which was covered in The Times wherein Etex was described as

enjoying “considerable celebrity as a sculptor of Paris”. During the 19th century the

cemetery of Pere Lachaise became world famous, visited not only by mourners but also

those who were interested in cemetery design. Books depicting the most renowned and

interesting monuments in Pere Lachaise and the other Parisian cemeteries became

widely available on both sides of the channel.

William Mulready’s canopied Elizabethan style tomb in Kensal Green includes an effigy of

the dead artist, wrapped in his professional robes, lying on a draped bed. The bed is

placed on a high pedestal on the base of which is sculpted a frieze incorporating the tools

of the artist as craftsman and also as a scholar: palette, brushes, and pencils as well as

pens, scroll, and measuring tools are modelled in bas-relief, in contrast to the simple,

incised depictions of ten of the artist’s most renowned works, and two of his life drawings.

Unlike the examples of Gericault and Gerard, these depictions are not signed, and their

reductive quality means that they could never qualify as works of art in themselves. This

instance of the artist being identified through examples of his own works is unusual in the

form and number of works included, and it is interesting to consider how these particular

works came to be regarded as ideal identifiers of this particular artist’s skill and status.

As Marcia Pointon points out Mulready’s background, as an Irish Roman Catholic

immigrant whose father, as a leather breeches maker, was regarded as an artisan, was

undoubtedly one from which the artist tried to distance himself. Despite the fact that

Mulready gained professional status first as an associate of the Academy in 1815, and

then as a full academician a year later, hostility towards the Irish and Roman Catholics

during his lifetime meant that he was often better known through his Irishness rather than

as a result of his artistic achievements. When he was commissioned, in 1839, to design

the first pre-paid postage envelope celebrating the benefits of postal reform, the design,

which featured Britannia sending out postal angels to all corners of the British Empire,

immediately became the focus for anti-establishment protest in the form of letters to the

press, as well as a great variety of caricatures, which focussed on the artist’s ethnic

background and religious leanings.

Membership of the Royal Academy became the mainstay of the artist’s life, and he was

undoubtedly fully aware that it was membership of this body that helped confer social

status. When he was up for election to full academician in 1816, he told Farington that he

feared the rumours regarding his private life would prejudice his election. The breakdown

of his marriage in 1810 which led to rumours regarding his sex life, as well as the fact that

his second son, William Jnr. was often in trouble financially, caused Mulready a great deal

of anxiety, but he struggled to keep control of his private life, and to maintain the

semblance of a normal existence.

When Mulready died in 1863, he was buried quietly according to his own wishes. It may

be that Mulready’s concern for quiet professionalism in his life was also his wish in death,

and he may have communicated this desire to his third son Michael who, as executor of

his father’s will, informed Mulready’s friend, Henry Cole, that “for family reasons the

Funeral will be as quiet as proper respect for his memory will permit”

A mourner noted the difference between Mulready’s funeral which he described as “a

picture of grand humility” and the “Pomposa Funetra of Reynolds, West, Lawrence, and

Turner – to say nothing of Old Nollekens”..

Mulready’s decision to be buried in the Protestant section of Kensal Green cemetery,

following an Anglican service surprised his close friends who knew him to have been a

devout Roman Catholic. However, in the face of the anti-papist feelings aroused by

Mulready’s envelope, it may be that the artist was anxious to avoid reminding his family

and friends of that distressing period of his life, especially as St Mary’s Roman Catholic

Cemetery adjoining Kensal which had been founded only 5 years before Mulready’s

death, was well known as the burial place of London’s Irish immigrants who were buried

in common graves. On the other hand it may be that in choosing to be buried in Kensal

Mulready was making a bid for religious tolerance, or simply claiming his place alongside

notable, wealthy Protestants.

The substantial monument, erected shortly after the burial of the painter, was paid for by

Mulready’s colleagues at the Academy, with donations from friends and patrons and is an

acknowledgment of the artistic achievement, and the social position of the artist (Figure

61). Despite the humility expressed by the simple funeral ceremony, the Renaissance

style of the monument in artificial stone, compares with the Royal Tombs in Westminster

Abbey. Designed by Godfrey Sykes (c1825-1866) who was supervisor of the

decorations of the South Kensington Museum from 1859 until his death, the monument

not only identifies the deceased with the period regarded as the rebirth of the arts, but the

inclusion of Mulready’s best known works echoes Vasari’s description of the funeral of

Raphael, but whereas the arrangement of Raphael’s body in front of his Transfiguration

lasted for a few days, the opportunity to pay homage to Mulready on his deathbed,

surrounded by his works, has lasted nearly 140 years (Figure 62).

It is not known who decided which works should be chosen as identifiers of Mulready’s

art, but the decision was probably taken by the committee of men, headed by Thomas

Creswick, who commissioned the monument. Of the works depicted there is no surprise

that they should include some of Mulready’s critically acclaimed works such as: The Wolf

and the Lamb (1821); The Sonnet (1839); Choosing the Wedding Gown (1844); and

Haymaking (1846-7). The frieze also contains examples of the works which became so

popular with the exhibition-going public who enjoyed unravelling the enigmas posed by the

artist through his choice of subject matter and title: Giving a Bite (1834); The Careless

Messenger Detected (1821); A Dog of Two Minds (1829-30); and The Last In (1835).

One of the reasons why Brother and Sister (1835-6) was chosen may be that it provided

the opportunity to use a well known work in which Mulready combined landscape, which

had been his preferred genre at the beginning of his artistic career, and the female back

which was a favourite motif in later life. On the rear of the tomb there are also two studies

of the female back which represent the artist’s concern with the nude and the role of the

life class in art, a subject which had greatly concerned him. In 1853 an exhibition of his

Life Studies was held at Gore House, Kensington. Her Majesty Queen Victoria attended

the exhibition, and despite the fear of the curator that she would be shocked by the

studies, she was so impressed she acquired one. Between the two studies there is a

large panel which is almost incoherent due to the fact it involves a large number of

figures. This represents The Seven Ages of Man (1835-8) and was undoubtedly chosen

because as a large-scale allegory it attracted a great deal of favourable attention when

exhibited in 1838. It is also appropriate as a memorial to Mulready because the work itself

encompassed many of the themes the artist had already explored: schoolboy antics, the

theme of motherhood, lovers, and also incorporating the oft-used distant, framed

landscape, and as ever the dogs whose empathetic actions mirror those of their human

masters.

Despite the inclusion of such a wide range of Mulready’s works which cover a period of

nearly forty years, there are no representations of Mulready’s work in the genre of

portraiture and only, as has been said, suggestions of his work as a landscape artist.

However, it may have been decided that the artist had achieved his status through his

genre subjects, and therefore these were the more significant in this context. It may also

have been that it was not considered appropriate to include the artist’s last work, The Toy

Seller, because it had remained unfinished at the time of his death. There is, however, a

highly important and critically acclaimed piece of work which is conspicuous by its

absence. This is the enigmatically named Train up a Child in the Way he should go and

when he is old he will not depart from it (1841). Redgrave said that Mulready himself

regarded this as his best work, and when it was exhibited in Paris in 1855 it won for him

the Legion d’Honneur at the Exposition Universelle (Figure 63). This work was painted on

commission from Thomas Baring, MP, one of Mulready’s most loyal patrons. It depicts a

rural lane, and an encounter between three swarthy beggars and two well dressed young

women with a small child who is being encouraged to give a coin to the beggars. The title

of the painting was reasonably unambiguous in its suggestion that a child’s education

forms the basic moral purpose around which he/she will order the rest of his/her life.

Thus it is understood that encouraging charitable works at an early age will ensure a child

will grow up to be a benevolent adult. However, as Pointon points out, privately Mulready

titled it ‘Lascars’. This has the effect of placing a different emphasis on the meaning of the

work for Lascars were the native seamen who were hired by the East India Company in

India to replace the British sailors who had not survived the journey out. Once in London,

however, the Lascars were abandoned by the company, and forced to beg in order to

pay for the journey home. A series of reports in the national press around the time that

Mulready was at work on this painting demonstrates that there was public awareness of

the plight of these men, who were often totally unprepared for the harshness of the

English winter.

While Pointon supposes that the title the painting was exhibited under was Baring’s

choice, the fact that Mulready chose to identify the three beggars as Lascars, suggests

the work was also addressing the problems faced by all those who were not of the

dominant classes, the marginalized through race, religion, colour, or class. As a matter of

interest the title was taken from Proverbs, 22: 6, but the chapter begins with the words,

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than

silver and gold. The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.”

The painting was exhibited under its less controversial title, and there is no reason to

suppose that Baring was aware during the artist’s lifetime that it may have had any other

connotation, and that was undoubtedly Mulready’s intention as he would have been well

aware that Baring ‘s grandfather was Francis Baring, founder of the Baring Brothers

Finance house, and chairman of the East India Company whose policies caused so

much distress to the Lascars. However, it is quite possible that after the artist’s death

Mulready’s private title recorded in his account book was discovered by his sons as

executors of his will, and as Baring was one of those who had contributed to the

monument, it may have been decided that it was politic not to choose Train up a child…

as one of the works for the frieze.

After the postal envelope disaster, Mulready was acutely aware that, despite his status

as Royal Academician; as an artist of wealth and of note both at home and on the

continent, in the eyes of the general public he continued to be identified as a Roman

Catholic Irishman, with all the dubious connotations that this identification bestowed.

Therefore his decision to be buried in the protestant section of one of the most notable,

and public of burial places alongside members of the royal family such as Augustus

Frederick, the Duke of Sussex who was buried in Kensal in 1843, and Princess Sophia

who was buried in 1848, was most likely a calculated attempt to shrug off this

distinctiveness. And although there is no record that the artist had a say in the form a

monument should take, the fact that his admirers chose to present him in the dignified

and solemn pose of a medieval knight, under a canopy decorated with motifs used by the

architects of the Italian Renaissance, and elevated by a pedestal decorated with the

evidence of his artistic skill, vindicates Mulready’s decision.

[IV] “chief historical painter of the country”: William Hilton (1786-1839)

As a painter of genre subjects during this period, William Mulready catered to a large

market, and had a number of wealthy patrons both from the traditional upper classes, and

from the upwardly mobile middle class whose new found wealth in industry corresponded

with an interest in the arts, and an understanding that their new homes needed to be

furnished with the evidence of their wealth and taste, with art works that might help

consolidate their status and position in society. In the case of Mulready, patrons such as

Thomas Baring, and John Sheepshanks were actively involved in the commissioning of

paintings, and were prepared to pay considerable amounts of money for them, and

Mulready, though his financial situation was not always secure, was able to leave a

sizeable amount of money when he died. However, in common with many young artists

who came to study at the Academy Schools during the 19th century, Mulready attempted

works in the grand style, as directed by Reynolds in his Discourses, because students

were encouraged to believe that history painting was an intellectual and ennobling activity,

and therefore it was only through the practice of this genre that the artist could hope to

emulate the greatest masters of the Renaissance. Among Mulready’s first offerings to the

Academy were Ulysses and Polyphemus, and The Disobedient Prophet both of which

were rejected when sent to the Academy for exhibition.

William Hilton dedicated his life to being a history painter, but although he also had to

endure poverty and disappointment because of the lack of adequate patronage, he

benefited from the support of his family, especially his sister, Harriet and his brother-in-

law, fellow artist, Peter DeWint (1784-1849). Hilton had met DeWint; whose preference

was for the more profitable landscape genre, while both were apprenticed to the

engraver, John Raphael Smith, and it was thus that the artists “formed the strongest

attachment which only terminated with their lives”. Hilton’s appointment as Keeper to the

Academy in 1827 also helped Hilton financially. Despite these advantages his obituarist

wrote in the Art Union that, “his later years were passed, not only in physical sickness,

but the sickness which arises from hope deferred, and it is not too much to say, that had

he been cheered and not neglected, had his course been prosperous and his labours

appreciated, he would have largely added to the works which give immortality to his

name…”

Hilton and his sister, Harriet, had been born and brought up in Lincoln, and although as a

student at the Royal Academy Schools Hilton made his home in London, he and DeWint

spent their summers visiting Hilton’s family. Thus it was that DeWint met Harriet Hilton

and they were married in 1810, an event that drew the two artists even closer together,

and in 1814 Hilton and DeWint bought a house that adjoined the castle walls where they

would be able to live as a family with Hilton’s parents when they visited. DeWint found the

area around Lincoln, and most especially the cathedral a great source of inspiration, and

according to his wife, finished many of his most favourite works whilst living in the house.

Hilton did not marry until 1828, but it was his wife’s death in 1835, only a few months after

that of Hilton’s widowed mother who had come to live with her children in London, which, it

was believed, caused his own death.

When Hilton died his body was taken the evening before the funeral to the Academy’s

apartments in the National Gallery, where it remained so that the students were able to

pay their respects. The President of the Academy, Sir Martin Archer Shee, and the

council attended the funeral which took place at the Savoy Chapel, off the Strand. Hilton

chose to be buried in this place, despite his deep love of, and close affiliations with

Lincoln, because it was where his mother had wanted to be buried because of its quiet

seclusion, and it was where his wife had also been buried.

Ten years later, on 30 June 1849 Peter DeWint died of heart disease brought on by

bronchitis, and was buried alongside the remains of Hilton in the grounds of the Royal

Chapel. Harriet erected a wall tablet, but this was destroyed by a fire in 1864. Rather than

erecting another monument in that place she decided to present a font in memory of the

two artists. It was designed by Edward Blore (1787-1879), an architect who was also a

close friend, and executed by James Forsyth, a sculptor from Leeds. A brass wall plaque

close to the font is engraved with an inscription which explains how the font came to be

presented. It was at this time that Harriet decided to erect a monument in honour of the

two artists in the cathedral at Lincoln. The commission again went to Blore and Forsythe,

and in 1865 the unveiling of the monument took place accompanied by a descriptive

article with engraving in The Builder (Figure 64).

The monument, a magnificent altar-tomb, was carefully designed to reflect its placement

as well as those to whom it was to pay tribute. In the use of warm golden Caen stone,

framing cool alabaster bas-reliefs of three of Hilton’s great religious works, and one of

DeWint’s views of the cathedral, the monument blends in with the English Gothic style of

the cathedral, and appears as deep-rooted as some of the cathedral’s earliest tombs.

The decorative roses on the base of the tomb, and on the four angle buttresses are

copied from the Choir screen. Although there is no record of the expenses incurred in the

design and execution of the monument, the article records that the Dean and Chapter

allowed the erection of the monument without the payment of a fee.

The present position of the tomb was not its original placement which was in the chancel.

However, it was moved in 1899 to its present position against the south wall when the

authorities decided to accept the offer of a wealthy local industrialist to pay for the

restoration of the tomb which been erected to mark the burialplace of the viscera of

Queen Eleanor who had died near Lincoln on 24th November 1290.

It is likely that it was Harriet who decided on the works which would best represent the

paintings of both Hilton, and her husband, DeWint. The west end panel is appropriately

adorned with a depiction of Peter DeWint’s West Front of Lincoln Cathedral from the

Castle Hill (1841). The sculptural version is a finely carved bas-relief of the scene

emptied of the foreground characters. This is the part of the monument that is seen first

by the visitor, and immediately announces the tie between the deceased and the locale

(Figure 65).

The reason why Harriet chose to decorate the monument with three works by Hilton and

only one by her husband has not been documented, but one simple explanation may be

that the religious works painted by Hilton were seen to be the more appropriate images

for a monument within a sacred place, but it is also likely that Harriet chose these works

because, in different ways, they represent Hilton’s greatest achievements, and thus

identify him as the artist who was described in his obituary as the “distinguished artist and

chief historical painter of the country…”

The works chosen were (from left to right): Mary Anointing the Feet of Our Lord (1811),

an altarpiece which was bought by the directors of the British Institution for 500 guineas,

and presented to the church of St Michael, College Hill, in London; Crucifixion (1827), the

centre panel of a triptych which was painted as a design for a window in St George’s

Church, Liverpool. The canvas, for which Hilton was paid £1000, was displayed on the

staircase of the Town Hall, before being transferred to Liverpool Museum. It was then

taken to the Public Library, and finally entered the Walker Art Gallery in 1874. The Raising

of Lazarus was exhibited in 1818, and later given to the church of St Mary Magdalene in

Newark, where it was placed over the high altar in 1836 as a mark of respect and

devotion to Hilton’s father who was buried there in 1822 (Figure 66).

Of these three major works, The Raising of Lazarus is the only painting which is still on

public show, but even this act of filial piety has been moved from its original position, and

it is now placed so high on the north wall, and is so darkened, that it is not easy to view it.

The Crucifixion is in very poor condition and therefore in storage at the Walker Gallery. It

is not possible to see it. The Mary Anointing the Feet of Our Lord is believed to have

disappeared when the church was extensively bombed during the Second World War.

Despite the fact that the works which are represented on the monument are no longer

available for close study, it is apparent that the sculptor had access to good quality

designs, which in turn may have been based on first hand knowledge of the works

themselves. It is not possible to compare Mary Anointing the Feet of Our Lord, (Figure

67) but a good quality engraving of the Crucifixion was included in the article in The Art

Journal of 1855 and a comparison between this and the sculptural depictions of the work

proves that the work was very closely observed and the sculptor employed different

degrees of bas-relief to reproduce the depth of the painting (Figure 68). The tortured

bodies of the three figures on the crosses are acutely detailed, as are the expressions on

the faces of the grieving women at the foot of the central cross (Figure 69). However, the

tracery of the frame partially obscures the top of the central cross, and the square nature

of the format detracts from the original frame, which was shaped like an altarpiece.

Unfortunately the only image of the Raising of Lazarus available is a poor quality

photograph but again it shows that the sculptor took great care to include all the most

vivid qualities of the story as told by Hilton (Figure 70), although he was limited by his

medium, which could not reproduce the evocative, chiaroscuro effect in the painted

version. Another difference is in the format, the painting is landscape which allows for a

greater range of reactions of the crowd arranged in two waves around the central figures

of the standing Christ and almost horizontal Lazarus. The sculpted image is in portrait

format, a constraint of the overall design of the monument, and this compresses the

action, which, as a result, becomes more static.

These three works help create a monument which is not only representative of the genre

of art Hilton dedicated his life to, and it was this dedication in the face of the lack of

patronage which may have hastened his death, but they also tell the fundamental

Christian story of repentance and forgiveness; sacrifice and redemption; faith and

Resurrection. Although Hilton’s religious beliefs are not positively stated, DeWint is

described as a very devout Christian, and it is likely that Harriet shared his faith. Each of

the delicately sculpted stone angels on the four corners of the monument is in a pose of

prayer and mourning. As a matter of interest, Jesus Christ features in each of the

depictions on the monument, which is to be expected, but equally so does the figure of

Mary Magdalene. Although the woman who anoints the feet of Christ is unnamed by the

gospel writers, western tradition has identified her as the Magdalene, who is also

identified by John (11:2) as the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and she is also one of the

holy women found at the foot of the cross. It is apparent that Hilton identified Mary

Magdalene as the woman in all three stories, with her loose hair, and prominent position

on the right of Christ in each scene. She also provides a connection with death, because

the ointment used to bath the feet of Christ is myrrh, used for the embalming of bodies,

and thus a foreshadowing of the death of Christ, while the Raising of Lazarus pre-figures

the Resurrection. In this way each scene has a connection with death, but the final scene

delivers the message of hope for eternal life. It may be that for Harriet, 26 years after the

death of her brother, the erection of the monument had the effect of resurrecting his

identity as the foremost history painter of the time.

Although with hindsight the belief in the cyclical nature of the arts seems foolish, it was a

belief that had great substance at this time. The writer of the article about Hilton in the Art

Journal quoted a critic of Hilton who wrote, “When England shall be numbered among the

nations passed away in the dark efflux of time, how degrading and humiliating will her

refinement and civilisation appear to future ages, when they find that, while the

enthusiastic votary of historic art languished unheeded in his deserted studio, and the

many noble creations of his soaring mind hung mouldering on his wall, the painting-room

of the fashionable portrait-painter was greeted with an assemblage of the wealth, rank,

and beauty of the land.”

[V] ”Mourn all dumb things…”: Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873)

There is no doubt that Sir Edwin Landseer was not only a household name during his

lifetime, but he continues to epitomise the period of British history described as Victorian

after the monarch who ruled from 1837 –1902, and whose love of animals caused her, in

the Jubilee year of 1887, to refuse to include in a general pardon those prisoners whose

sentences had been for cruelty to animals. This was the same year that the hymn All

Things Bright and Beautiful was published, a hymn that has come to reflect the Victorian

sense of social order, because of the lines:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them, high or lowly

And order’d their estate.

However it should also be noticed that the hymn begins with the praising of God for:

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures, great and small…

Landseer came from a large, and united family. His father, John (1769-1852), was an

engraver who spent his adult life battling to win recognition for the art of engraving within

the art establishment. Edwin’s eldest brother, Thomas (1795-1880), was also an

engraver, and his other brother, Charles (1799-1879), was a painter. The four Landseer

girls adored Edwin, the youngest of the brothers, whose precocious talent for drawing

was soon recognised, and he was already exhibiting at the Academy before he was

admitted at the age of 14 into the Academy Schools.

Although Landseer also painted a large number of landscapes, from a very early age he

and his brother, Thomas, were encouraged to sketch animals, both domestic as well as

the wild animals such as lions, and leopards kept in the Royal menagerie at the Tower,

and also at Edward Cross’s menagerie in the Exeter Change. Charles and Thomas were

pupils of Benjamin Robert Haydon, but Redgrave claims that Edwin received little in the

way of instruction from Haydon, despite the latter claiming the credit for having trained the

youngest Landseer. However, it was Haydon who encouraged Landseer to dissect

animals in order to study anatomy. Later, when one of the lions in the menagerie in Exeter

Change died, Landseer and a fellow artist, Edwin Frederick Lewis (1805-1876), took it

home to dissect and draw.

Landseer’s ability to instil his animal subjects with human qualities delighted the Queen,

whose fulsome patronage of the artist earned him a reputation which was unequalled in

the eyes of the public, and the publication of so many of his paintings through engravings

made his work the most popular in the country. He was also successful in France where,

at the Exposition Universelle of 1855, he showed 9 paintings and 29 prints, and was

among the ten artists awarded the Grande Medaille d’Honneur. In France, the subject

matter of his works caused a great deal of discussion, because they were a revelation to

the French who did not understand the English taste, even of “the most uneducated” for

pictures in which animals are the main subject. The critic Theophile Gautier said that it

was difficult to comprehend, “the huge popularity paid to such a painter as Sir Edwin

Landseer, who… would not have obtained an equal success among us, since our

admiration is reserved for large machines, historical subjects, and classical scenes in

which only man is important.”

Unfortunately it was probably Landseer’s privileged status that contributed to his

increasing erratic behaviour in the late 1830s. The stress of being society’s favourite

painter caused him to become unreliable, and more irritable with the strain of keeping up

with commissions, and maintaining his social position, and in 1840 he had a severe

nervous breakdown. For the rest of his life, Landseer remained plagued by depression,

and phobias, and he took offence easily. In the late 1860s he became a great deal worse,

and for a while had to be confined under the care of his doctor. In 1871 his mental state

caused his family to have him certified. Despite this, Landseer continued to inspire love,

and loyalty amongst his relatives, his friends, and a large majority of his colleagues at the

Academy who, in 1866, had voted to elect him as President on the death of Eastlake.

However, he refused to serve, probably because his mental health was so precarious at

the time, and proposed Grant instead.

The great regard felt by the British for Landseer whose work, whether in the original or as

a print, was to be found in nearly every household in the land, was reflected by the fact

that at his death he was mourned throughout the nation. Long, fulsome obituaries paid

tribute to his work which was “unique of its kind” because “his dogs are not mere

portraits only, they are thinking, almost rational, creatures” while the “manner in which

every object is delineated approaches as near perfection as possible.” The Illustrated

London News stated “no painter of animal life can be for a moment be compared to him

for intelligent invention, for humour and its congenial pathos, for breadth, variety, and

subtlety of observation.” A verse appeared in Punch in the month of his death:

Mourn, all dumb things, for whom his skill found voice,

Knitting ‘twixt them and us undreamt-of ties,

Til men could in their voiceless joy rejoice,

And read the sorrow in their silent eyes.

His funeral was held at St Paul’s Cathedral, and was attended by many of his friends,

patrons, and senior members of the Academy who were also his pallbearers. The Queen

sent a wreath bearing the message “A Tribute of Friendship and Admiration for Great

Talents. From Queen Victoria.” Outside the cathedral crowds of people had lined the

streets to watch the funeral cortege pass, shops closed their blinds, and flags were flown

at half-mast. Landseer was laid to rest alongside George Dawe.

The year after Landseer’s death, his brothers and sisters commissioned a mural

monument to be placed as close as possible to the artist’s burialplace in the crypt from

the sculptor, Thomas Woolner (1825-1892). Woolner’s journal for that year does not

specifically allude to the commission, but he mentions that he visited the retrospective

exhibition organised by the Academy, which included more than five hundred of

Landseer’s works, and later that same year there are several references to meetings

with Thomas Landseer. It may be that Woolner was already researching his subject and

discussing design and form with Landseer’s eldest brother.

Woolner proved to be an excellent choice as designer of this very public monument,

which was to be erected in honour of a man whose achievements as an artist, as

indicated by the memorial exhibition, were considerable; and whose appeal was to many

people of all backgrounds, but in whose private life had suffered mental instability, and

emotional trauma. Therefore the monument was not to be an ostentatious celebration of

Landseer’s life, but a calm and dignified tribute identifying the deceased as a much loved

artist whose health, and peace of mind had been sacrificed to his art. Woolner, a founding

member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, made his reputation with his finely observed

portrait medallions of thinking men such as Thomas Carlyle (1855), and Alfred Lord

Tennyson (1856). He also sculpted the monument to William Wordsworth in Grasmere

Church, although it was his failure to win the competition to execute the statue of the poet

for Poet’s Corner which led to his emigration to Australia in 1851. Although he was quite

successful in obtaining commissions to sculpt portraits of highly placed members of

Australian society such as the governor, Charles Joseph Latrobe (c1853) he returned to

Britain in 1854 where he resumed his career as a highly regarded portraitist of highly

regarded poets and scholars.

The monument to Landseer, which was erected in 1882, is finely sculpted in a pure white

marble, and it includes a portrait medallion of the artist (Figure 71). Although Woolner’s

reputation was for producing portraits of thinking men, “without any smoothing or

idealising” in the case of the portrait of Landseer, it is apparent that a decision was made,

either by Woolner, or by the family, to depict the artist in the prime of his life. It is likely the

reason for this is that Landseer’s mental and physical illnesses, in the last few years of

his life, had taken their toll on his appearance. An albumen carte-de-visite of the artist

published by an unknown photographer in c1860s, shows that Woolner’s Landseer is an

accurate portrait of the artist at this time of his life, be-whiskered and curly-haired, with a

serious gaze, and, apart from the whiskers, comparison between Woolner’s depiction

and a self-portrait drawn by Landseer as a young man in 1818, demonstrates the

truthfulness of Woolner’s sculpted profile. Woolner chose to give his subject a slight

frown, perhaps as an indication of his intellect, or as a small indication of the burdens

shouldered by Landseer because of his deep dedication to his art.

Apart from the portrait which, as a likeness, identifies the deceased as Landseer the

man, the monument also incorporates a number of elements which immediately identifies

Landseer not only as an artist, but also as an artist of a particular, and highly emotive

piece of work (Figure 72). Under the portrait of the artist, Woolner sculpted a bas-relief of

one of Landseer’s most famous paintings, a work which took for its subject matter, the

grief of the mourner. Entitled The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner the painting was first

exhibited in 1837 (Figure 73). It depicts a small room in which a rough wooden coffin lies.

A dog sits close to the coffin; his head resting on the draped blanket, ears lay flat, eyes

fixed and yearning. The dog mourns his master, whose life had been notable only in its

dignity and pious simplicity. It attracted a great deal of admiration because it caused the

viewer to contemplate the meanings inherent in the careful placing of elements such as

the spectacles, lying on top of the bible on a simple, but highly polished three-legged

stool; the sprigs of rosemary, an aromatic evergreen plant associated with death and

remembrance, and the empty armchair. The painting was also singled out for

commendation in the artist’s obituary in the Art Journal, where it was said “that never did

artist place on canvas a subject more poetic and more deeply pathetic”.

In choosing to place a depiction of this work below the portrait medallion of Landseer, the

dog mourns his new master, the master who was praised as giving dumb animals voice

through his skill, just as devotedly as he mourns the Old Shepherd, and It may be that for

many there was also a connection with the story of Greyfriars Bobby, the faithful terrier

who, in 1858, followed the remains of his master, John Gray, to the cemetery at

Greyfriars in Edinburgh and refused to leave the grave. He stayed there until his own

death fourteen years later, and became such an example of fidelity and devotion that a

monument was erected to the dog in 1873, the same year of Landseer’s death. Although

the sculpted scene on Landseer’s monument has been paired down, Woolner’s skilful

rendering carries all of the expressive elements of the original, and it is still possible to

recognise the patient devotion of the dog.

Although less apparent, Woolner included another reference to one of Landseer’s most

renowned commissions, the huge Lions that adorn the base of Nelson’s Column in

Trafalgar Square. Although the commission caused some controversy because

Landseer was not a sculptor his fame as a painter of animals, especially his experience

with the drawing of lions, made him a popular choice. The time the work took, and the

changes from stone to bronze, from standing to couchant created a great deal of interest,

some approving, others openly hostile in the newspapers, and when the lions were

unveiled on 31 January 1867, there was little ceremony. Despite this, the lions were

generally admired, and on the day of Landseer’s funeral huge mourning wreaths were

placed in their mouths.

Woolner chose to use the lions as decorative supports either side of the tablet on which

the portrait medallion is carved. Although, at this time, they do not immediately connote

Landseer, the viewer of the time, especially if a student or connoisseur of the arts, would

have made the identification without hesitation, because the first portrait to enter the

National Portrait Gallery in 1890 was a work by John Ballantyne entitled Sir Edwin

Landseer Sculpting his Lions (c1865). Woolner’s positioning of the lion’s heads either side

of Landseer, also reflects the role of the lions in Trafalgar Square, as a symbol of the

pride felt by many in the achievements of a great leader in his field (Figure 74).

[VI] “Be my voice neither feared nor forgotten”: George Frederick Watts (1817-1904)

From a very early stage of his career Watts believed in himself and had a strong sense

of his own genius. He wanted to be the Michelangelo of his age, and he thought that his

spiritual vision expressed through his art, which was conceived within the security of the

studio, and supported by a number of wealthy, mostly female, patrons, would elevate and

ennoble the viewer, and be an influence for good. However, at the end of his life Watts,

although greatly venerated for his art, was reported as feeling a great deal of despair at

what he saw happening in the art world around him. Charles Halle, the proprietor of the

New Gallery, in London visited Watts the week before the artist’s death, and said, in his

Notes from a Painter’s Life, that Watts was depressed about the “headlong pace at which

it [art] was hastening to become a corrupting influence in the world, instead of what men

had always striven to make it, an influence for good. Throughout Europe there was no

ray of light on the horizon, nothing but a sea of mud…a method of work out of which no

good could possibly come; as, for the first time in the history or Art, it struck at the roots

of just those qualities which make fine Art possible…” This feeling that art was in a state

of degradation, was also expressed to Halle by Burne-Jones in 1898, just before that

artist’s death, and it is symptomatic of the age in which the values of the Renaissance,

that art should ennoble and elevate the mind, were being ignored.

It is apparent, through an examination of a selection of his paintings, that Watts had

developed a deep concern about the social and spiritual corruption of the world in which

he lived, and he tended to attribute this decline to the materialism of the rich. Works such

as Mammon: Dedicated to his Worshippers (1884-5); For He had Great Possessions

(c1896); and Industry and Greed (c1897-8) clearly demonstrate Watts’s anxiety,

regarding the unequal balance that existed between those who were wealthy, but had not

earned their wealth, and those who were poor, yet worked tirelessly just to survive. His

second wife, Mary Seton Watts, observed his thoughts on social and political matters in

her diary and in the entry for 1 August 1895 she noted her husband’s unease regarding

“the wave of conservatism sweeping the country” and she quotes him as saying that he

believed the inequality ”cannot be permanent. A change must come…“ Another work

from this period is After the Deluge: The Forty-First Day (c1885-91), a painting which,

although seeming to represent the hope of rebirth and God’s covenant to the world that

he would never destroy all of his creation again, also reflects the state of the human race

which prompted God’s wholesale and vengeful destruction. It appears that Watts had

been greatly attracted to the story of the deluge during the 1870s and 1880s, painting

several works relating to the story- The Dove that Returned not Again; Return of the

Dove to the Ark; and Mount Ararat.

It is possible that Watts believed that the coming changes he predicted might ultimately

lead to the sweeping away of the old order, and this may explain his studied determination

to produce mammoth works of allegorical complexity which might resist any attempt to

identify them too firmly as representative of the old corrupt world. Blunt quotes

Chesterton who wrote, “if some savage in a dim futurity dug up one of these dark designs

on a lonely mountain, though he worshipped strange gods, and served laws yet

unwritten, it might strike the same message to his soul that it strikes upon clerks and

navvies from the walls of the Tate Gallery.”

This hope was also reflected in his desire, as a young man, to create a ‘House of Life’,

which might be regarded by his contemporaries, and the critics of the new era too, as a

modern day Sistine Chapel. This plan was never realised except on paper, written down,

and revised by Watts himself, and then later edited by Mary Watts. His idea was to create

a huge mural work, depicting the heavens with the Sun, Earth, and Moon, which would

illustrate the magnitude of Time, in comparison with the insignificance of man. Watts also

intended that the project would include “a history of the progress of man’s spirit”, from

hunter and shepherd-poet, through to “man the tyrant, the insidious oppressor, & the

slave, the dweller in cities”

When this scheme proved too ambitious in a world where an artist still had to paint

portraits in order to live, Watts was encouraged by friends to see that the creation of a

‘Hall of Fame’, filled with the portraits of the great men and women of his age, which were

not merely likenesses but represented the soul of the sitter, was a public service.

Although Watts was still anxious to deliver to the world his high-minded allegories, in a

century of hero-worship it was his portraits of great worthies that won for him the greatest

critical acclaim during his lifetime.

Both of these projects, and the fact that in 1897 he donated a number of his allegories to

the Tate Gallery to be preserved by the nation, reflect Watts’s belief that he might achieve

immortality through his work. Therefore it is appropriate that his monument, which was

erected by his widow in 1907, is adorned with two of Watt’s allegories, undoubtedly

chosen because their subject matter was deemed appropriate for a funerary monument.

However, prior to this, and indeed prior to Watt’s death, Mary Watts devoted herself to an

endeavour which was not only motivated by her devotion to her husband and his work,

but also reflected his long abandoned scheme for a modern day Sistine chapel which

might be seen as the inspiration for her project. Having moved to the small village of

Compton, near Guildford in Surrey in 1891 Mary, whose own artistic ambitions had first

led her to Watts when she was only 19 years old and he 53, saw a way of not only

reviving her artistic aspirations, but also providing the local people with the chance to

create something beautiful in their midst. Because there was no more burial space in the

local churchyard, Compton Parish Council had acquired a new plot of land not far from

the Watts’s house. Mary offered to design a mortuary chapel that would be built by

villagers, trained by her in the craft of pottery, using the fine bed of clay that had been

discovered in the grounds of their house, Limnerslease. For the exterior of the chapel

which was modelled in a rich red terracotta Mary Watts looked to early British art for her

patterning, and the chapel is a testament to her creativity, and her knowledge of elaborate

Celtic symbols and designs (Figure 75). However, it was her admiration and devotion to

Watts that inspired her work and the bell, which was hung in the gabled campanile above

the south transept, is inscribed with the words chosen by Watts, “Be my voice neither

feared nor forgotten.” The intention is twofold, a spiritual message from God, as well as a

more personal desire for immortality.

The interior of the chapel is richly decorated with a variety of sinuous, organic forms, in

deep reds, and blues, greens and gold, and presided over by winged cherubim and

seraphim, reflecting Watts’s concept that “All creation is the garment of God.” Over the

altar is a small version of Watts’s The All-Pervading, a work which, according to the artist,

symbolised the “Spirit of the Universe…holding in her lap the ‘Globe of Systems” This

version was contributed by the artist only a few months before his death (Figure 76).

The chapel was consecrated in 1898, and when Watts died on 1 July 1904, his ashes

were placed in a casket in the chapel before being transferred to a plot high on the hill

outside. Watts’s ground-level terracotta grave marker outlines a small piece of the natural

land, and into which was placed a low terracotta bowl, filled with water for the birds.

It was behind the grave that, in 1907, Mary had an Italianate cloister built to her design,

which shelters the mural memorial designed by Mary, and modelled by Tom Wren, one of

the pottery’s chief craftsmen (Figure 77). This monument, in white terracotta which was

more costly than the traditional red, portrays the recumbent figure of Watts, with a cherub

at his feet holding a banner engraved with the words “Finis et initium”, within a niche

flanked between two images derived from Watts’s own paintings – The Messenger

(c1884-5); and Destiny (1904). The figure, on draped bier, not only calls to mind the

great Renaissance monuments in Santa Croce, where Michelangelo was buried and

commemorated, but it also has a similarity with the shrouded figure of Watt’s painting,

entitled ‘Sic Transit’ (1890-2) which Watts intended as a commentary on the “end of all

human existence” (Figure 78). In the painting the figure is surrounded by attributes that

represent people of different types, such as ermine fur representing royalty; the laurel

crown for the poet, and the armour of the soldier. In this manner the painting prefigures

the monument which depicts the dead artist surrounded by examples of his earthly

achievements. The works chosen for the monument represent both the beginning of life,

Destiny, and the end of life, The Messenger. Destiny was a late painting which is still in

the collection of the Watts Gallery, in Compton. It is a work which is easier to discern

from examining the modelled version on the memorial than in its original state. It depicts

an angel who is draped in voluminous robes being buffeted by violent winds, while

balancing a great open book into which the names of the newborn souls will be recorded.

At the feet of the angel, protected from the wind, sits a small child representing the fragility

of humanity (Figure 79).

In the original version of The Messenger, Watts depicted the actual moment of death as a

quiet, calm moment of moving away from earthly cares towards a better life in heaven.

The messenger is the angel of death, a beautiful slender woman who carefully cradles a

sleeping child, representing the soul, within the folds of her cloak. With a gentle

movement she reaches down to touch the hand of the man slumped in an armchair

(Figure 80). On the floor beside him are books, a violin, and an artist’s palette. The

version on the monument does not reproduce the whole image, but features the figure of

death with the child. The body of the man is missing from this version, leaving the touch

of death that emphasises the calm nature of the moment of death (Figure 81).

[VII] “as a mark of the honour and esteem”: The Single Transposed Figure

The use of a single figure taken from one of the deceased artist’s painted works and

translated into sculpture as a single funerary figure, was an effective, emotive device,

used in several instances in France, but only in one case in England. It may be that it was

a question of cost, as the modelling of a figure in the round was considerably more

expensive than a bas-relief.

The Monument to Sir William Quiller Orchardson, which is in the crypt of St Paul’s

cathedral, was erected by his “friends and fellow artists as a mark of the honour and

esteem” in 1913 (Figure 82). It incorporates a figure, transposed from one of

Orchardson’s most renowned works, and in this case the figure is approximately the

same size as the original painted figure. The monument was designed by the sculptor,

William Reynolds-Stephens (1862-1943) in the polychromatic style for which he had

become renowned. It is a striking wall hung memorial in black and white marble heavily

veined in some areas with red, and with gold decorative elements. The epitaph is picked

out in red letters, a note that is reflected in the twin spheres and ornamental corbels at the

top of the memorial. Above the epitaph is a palette in gold, draped with a swag of golden

flowers and fruit which falls either side of the inscription and links the two standing figures.

The figure on the left of the tablet is of a female figure wearing an evening dress. As such

she is generic of the women in Quiller Orchardson’s society paintings depicting the

tensions of upper class life. The figure on the right however is an individual whose

presence on the memorial represents both the artist’s moment of greatest glory and also

the continuing fascination felt by many for Napoleon Bonaparte.

When Quiller-Orchardson’s Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, was exhibited at the

Academy in 1881, it was immediately bought for the nation by the Council of the Academy

as part of the Chantry Bequest. In depicting a moment which saw the military hero

imprisoned on a British ship, the artist not only gave his patriotic viewers a reminder of

the sweet victory over France at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Battle of Waterloo, but

the painting also reflected Napoleon’s status as the tragic, romantic hero (Figure 83). It is

interesting that in the painting Napoleon is depicted in the foreground, musing on his fate,

while his British guard remain in the background. This gives the impression that

Napoleon, though in reality not a tall man, is a great deal more imposing than his captors.

Their expressions of awe and distance from their prisoner suggests that they consider

him dangerous and compelling even though they are apparently in control of his destiny.

The fact that they cluster behind his back seems to convey the idea that they feel unable

to look directly at him, and it is this Napoleon, in his familiar three-cornered hat and army

greatcoat, that Reynolds-Stephens has chosen to place on the artist’s monument.

Although erected nearly one hundred years after the Battle of Waterloo, the mythic

qualities surrounding the life of the deposed emperor continued to inspire feelings of awe

even in those who regarded him as the enemy. However, although the decision to use

this figure to signify the deceased’s moment of greatest glory as an artist might also be

read as paying homage to the dazzling personality of the Corsican peasant who became

an Emperor, there is also a sense that Napoleon has finally been cut down to size,

relegated to the position of mourning figure. The sculptor also chose to gild the figure, and

by doing so he suggests that it can be read as representing the glittering image of

Napoleon which blinded many to his actual appearance and true nature. It is at the base

of this figure that the sculpture chose to place his name, which reiterates the significance

of the figure both as an identifier of the deceased through his most renowned work but

also of the sculptor’s skill.

It is apparent that during the 19th century, the rise in number of monuments incorporating

sculpted or, in the case of Mulready, incised, representations of the deceased artists’

works reflected the mood of painters who feared that their art, and therefore their own

fame, would suffer because of the interest in photography. However, the use of the

deceased’s own work as identifier not only established the artist as the author of a

painting or paintings which had achieved a certain iconic in status in their own lifetime, but

the figures found within the works, such as Landseer’s sheepdog, and Hilton’s Mary

Magdalene, could also be read as performing the function of mourning figure.

CHAPTER SIX

“It might make one in love with death, to think one should be buried in so sweet a place”:

DEATH AND THE PAINTER

In previous chapters the role of the monument as signifier of identity has been discussed

with reference to placement, location, attributes and works. Thus, painters of the latter

half of the18th century and throughout the19th century in Britain have been identified

either as leaders or members of a prestigious institution, as practitioners of art as a

profession, or as creators of specific works. This chapter however will examine three

monuments erected towards the end of the 19th century that have no overt signifiers of

professional or artistic identity beyond the textual. These monuments are not found within

an associative, prestigious location such as St Paul’s cathedral, nor do they carry the

identifying attribute of the palette and brush. Neither can these monuments be grouped

according to the ideas, beliefs, or practices of the deceased, beyond the fact that they

were all erected to commemorate painters. However, another connection between all

three monuments is that they were all designed by painters rather than sculptors, who

were either, as in the case of the Rossetti, a family member, or, as in the case of the

Blake-Richmond and the de Morgan monuments, were designed by the persons they

were intended to commemorate. Therefore, these monuments will be discussed within

the context of the attitudes to religion, death, and commemoration of either the deceased

or the designer.

In 1920, Sigmund Freud introduced to the world his death-drive. This was the notion that

the aim of all life is death, and that even in the midst of man’s struggle for self-

preservation, and therefore the preservation of his identity, there is also the

uncontrollable urge to return to an original, inanimate state. The idea that man’s goal was

not life but death, because while life is a mass of uncertainties and change, death

remained the one constant, was not a new philosophy. In the century before Christ was

born, Ovid wrote, “We hasten towards one end. Death summons us all under its laws”,

and the 1st century writer and philosopher, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, wrote in his

Epistulae ad Lucilium “It is uncertain where Death will await you: therefore expect it

everywhere”. In the 3rd century Augustine said that “every man is in death as soon as

he is conceived,” and the 17th century poet and divine, John Donne, said that from the

moment of birth we are bound “to seek a grave”. In the 19th century, one of the great

Romantic poets, Shelley, wrote a poem about the death of Keats, who was buried in the

Protestant cemetery in Rome. He said, “It might make one in love with death, to think one

should be buried in so sweet a place.”

As a significant element of human experience, the portrayal of death has been a subject

that has long fascinated both artist and viewer alike. Despite the fact that the one sure

thing in life is the fact that death comes to all, the moment of death, and what lies beyond

has remained mysterious and compelling, and therefore there has been a long

relationship between art, death, and commemoration. The Ancient Egyptians decorated

the burial chambers of the dead with images of the deceased as he/she was in life, as

well as performing ritual acts in preparation for the afterlife, while the tombs lining roads

such as the Via Appia Antica, which led out of Rome, or the Via dei Sepolchri, in Pompeii

were often studied and admired by the passer by for their artistic content rather than for

any pious reasons. The Celts, Saxons, and other cultures used decorative patterns such

as the labyrinth to symbolise a belief in eternity, and the Etruscans painted tombs with

scenes from Greek mythology as well as depictions of ordinary human life.

During the Renaissance and beyond, it was common practice to decorate the walls of

funerary chapels with frescos depicting scenes from the lives of the saints to show the

piety of the deceased, but patrons often chose the most renowned artists of the time to

demonstrate the wealth, and thus the power of the family. Many artists included self-

portraits in these works, drawing attention to themselves by making eye contact with the

viewer. In this way they claimed ownership of the work, which was a form of

commemoration, but this also perhaps indicates their hope that prayers said for the souls

of the dead members of the family, might somehow encompass the soul of the artist.

From the middle of the 14th century the ever present threat of sudden death prompted a

form of morality play called the Dance of Death (in England); Danse Macabre (in France);

and Todtentanz (in Germany). In the 15th century the dance of death was painted on the

walls of cemeteries such as in Pisa, and churchyards such as old St Paul’s in London.

With the development of engraving the dance of death also became a popular subject for

wood cut prints. The most famous of these was that of Hans Holbein which was first

published by the booksellers, Jean and Francois Frellon, under the title of Simulachres &

historiees faces de la mort (1538, Zentralbibliothek, Zurich). Holbein’s friendship with

humanist leaders of the Reformation such as Erasmus is reflected in this work as Death

is particularly keen to denounce religious greed and abuse of power, beginning with the

Pope who is shown about to be seized by Death at the moment he crowns an emperor.

Death also calls for the cardinal while he is selling indulgences; the nun at her prayers

while her lover waits for her in bed; and Death strangles the monk with his own money

bag as he attempts to run away. In the prints, as in life, Death came to all whether

wealthy or poor; pure or sinful, and therefore man’s only choice lay in preparing for the

afterlife. Holbein’s own preoccupation with the theme of Death is also introduced into his

most famous painting, The Ambassadors (1533, National Gallery, London). This full

length, life sized portrait records the visit to London of two courtiers from France to try

and prevent England from making a break from the Church of Rome. Close inspection

reveals that many of the objects arranged to commemorate this important occasion and

to illustrate the character, status, and interests, of the sitters can also be read as

symbols of the transience of human life. The most intriguing element of the painting is the

seemingly meaningless yellow slash across the bottom of the painting that, at a certain

angle, anamorphosises into a skull and casts its shadow across the floor.

However, it was the sentimental, heroic, or dramatic death which inspired artists of all

periods from the Renaissance, since the depiction of the dead Christ, whether on the

cross, or in the form of the pieta, had proved so emotive. While the heroic, fictional death

inspired by the tales of Ancient Rome described by writers such as Homer, and Virgil,

provided a great many opportunities for artists who wanted to paint historical works which

stimulated the emotions of the viewer, artists were also commissioned to paint the deaths

of real people. In 1633, Anthony Van Dyke was called to the deathbed of Lady Venetia

Digby who had died suddenly in her sleep. Her distraught husband desired a memorial

that he would be able to keep with him always. A few years later, c1639, an unknown

artist was called to paint the botanist, John Tradescant the Elder on his deathbed, thus

commemorating his death even as his monument, erected in St Mary’s, Lambeth,

London, paid tribute to the achievements of the deceased. In the 18th century in Britain,

as has been pointed out in chapter 3, Benjamin West made a name for himself with what

was a new genre –the ‘death scene of the modern day hero’. He first painted the Death of

General Wolfe (1770) and then followed up this success with the Death of Lord Nelson

(1805), thus endowing the real hero with some of the qualities of the fictive hero.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries the death of the artist himself became a popular

subject in France, although it did not catch the imagination of most British artists.

However, Richard Cosway, whose emotive drawing depicting The Death of Leonardo da

Vinci (c1815) can be seen, as Lloyd suggests, as a poignant comment on the ideal

relationship of an artist and monarch, but it might also reflect Cosway’s desire to have his

artistic skill acknowledged after his death. While it was the deaths of great artists of the

Renaissance such as Raphael, Titian, and Leonardo da Vinci which were most often

depicted, the deaths of Poussin and Mengs, who both died in Rome, the former in 1665,

the latter in 1779, were also the subjects of deathbed pictures.

Artists in 19th century Britain explored the theme of death within their work, and while

none of them overtly visualised their own deaths, Turner’s paintings recording the funeral

of Thomas Lawrence and visualising the burial at sea of David Wilkie, can be read as

meditations on the death and memorialisation of the artist. Other artists chose to interpret

themes which dealt with love, death and art in depicting the experiences of mythic figures

such Orpheus whose artistic skill enabled him to return from the Underworld; or of Paolo

and Francesca whose deaths and eternal punishment were brought about by a piece of

literature. While artists such as Arthur Hughes and Albert Chevallier Taylor chose the

graveyard as the setting for Home from the Sea (1863), and Not Lost but Gone Before

(1886) to evoke an empathetic response from his audience, Henry Wallis’s painting The

Death of Chatterton (1856), which depicted the suicide of a young poet who had been

revealed as a forger, was an instant, popular success when exhibited.

The preoccupation with death was even more apparent in the work of artists for whom

the poetic visualisation of death was of paramount importance in contrast to the more

prosaic aspects of death in a world that was haunted by the spectre of disease, poverty,

and war. It was through the medium of photography that the literal reality of the misery of

death in battle was made public, as photographers such as Roger Fenton (1819-1869)

travelled alongside the artists, Edward Angelo Goodall (1819-1908), and William Simpson

(1823-1899), to the Crimea to cover the Anglo-French war against Russia in 1854.

Simpson’s chromo-lithographic scenes of the war, though popular, were a far less

convincing record of the war than even the most posed of photographs by Fenton, which

had the advantage of being regarded as factual documents rather than artistic

interpretation that was soon regarded as being loaded with bias whether consciously or

unconsciously. Although the Crimean War was over the following year with the fall of

Sebastopol, images whether verbal or pictorial of the gallant but doomed Light Brigade

kept the phantom of sacrificial death alive until the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899,

which lasted until 1902 and was the first war to be covered by cinematographers, whose

news reels were shown in London music halls.

The long drawn out nature of this war, with the reported deaths of 20,000 Boer women

and children in concentration camps helped to further dispel the notion that war was not

only glorious but also justifiable, despite the fact that public opinion had started out with

patriotic fervour and a belief in the cause, which was in fact simply the desire of the

British government to win political right in South Africa. Adverse reactions were recorded

by poets, such as Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy, and also in the work of Evelyn de

Morgan (1855-1919) whose belief in war as the barbaric whim of the powers of moral

darkness was expressed in many of her paintings of this period. It was no longer a heroic

endeavour in which death was a signifier of virtue and nobility, but a symbol of darkness

in which the identity of the individual as hero becomes subsumed by the deaths of so

many.

Another change in the attitudes to death and commemoration that occurred during the

latter half of the 19th century, relates to the gradual decline in church attendance as

many had come to question their Christian faith in the face of the growing interest in new

scientific discoveries, biblical criticism, and theoretical discourse. As Christian belief

faltered there was a corresponding rise in support for cremation which was promoted as

a hygienic and less costly alternative to burial. Lack of a body also meant there was not

as much need for a burial marker, and therefore even less likelihood of the heirs erecting

a substantial monument. Edward Burne-Jones was the first artist to choose cremation

when he died in 1898, and his monument consists of a simple stone plaque inserted into

the wall of his parish church in Rottingdean, Sussex.

The war also affected De Morgan’s friend and neighbour, William Blake Richmond

(1842-1921) with some of the same intense repulsion, but it did not inspire him to respond

with works intended as a public warning against the evil nature and harsh brutality of war.

Death for Blake-Richmond, as in the case of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), was a

more personal and spiritual inspiration for his art. While Rossetti chose to symbolise the

most profound secrets of the human soul whether at the point of death or in the presence

of death and in doing so promoted a powerful and positive spirituality equating sublime

love with the physical death of the individual, Blake Richmond’s vision of death led the

artist to explore his own mortality as well as the potential for an artist to achieve

immortality.

[I] “emphatically not in the shape of a cross”: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

As in the case of the other monuments discussed in this chapter, the Monument to Dante

Gabriel Rossetti does not overtly identify the deceased as an artist. It’s placement in a

quiet Kent village churchyard far from the crypt of St Paul’s or the necropolises of Kensal

Green, Brompton or even Highgate which is where Rossetti’s tortured wife, Lizzie Siddal,

was buried alongside Rossetti’s father, carries no allusion to genius and fame. However,

the decision to use a variety of symbolic images with which to identify this as the burial

place of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, rather than adopt traditional motifs, was the result of a

great deal of consultation between the designer of the monument, friend and fellow artist,

Ford Madox Brown; and Rossetti’s remaining family members, including his mother and

sister, Christina, both very devout Christians, and Rossetti’s brother, William, whose

beliefs, like Dante’s, tended towards the agnostic, and who therefore believed he was

better placed to choose the design for his brother’s monument. The fact that Rossetti

chose to leave the Academy Schools identifies him as one of the new breed of artists

who rejected the opportunity to align themselves with the Royal Academy, thereby

pursuing an independent career on the outside of the traditional art establishment.

As has been said before, in general there is severe lack of documentation surrounding

the commissioning and erection of artists’ monuments, suggesting that many were

carried out without the usual need for contract because of the relationship, professional

or more personal, between the deceased and the creator. In this particular case there is

both a close family as well as a professional relationship between the creator and the

deceased, as well as letters between the family members concerning the commission.

Although not known as a sculptor Madox Brown was a good choice because he had

already designed a simple yet effective headstone to mark the burial vault of his own

family members in the cemetery of St Pancras and Islington, East Finchley (Figure 84).

The grave register of the cemetery shows that Madox Brown bought the plot on 10 May

1867, and the stone was placed shortly afterwards. The stone, which makes no mention

of Madox Brown’s fame as an artist, is now very badly weathered, covered in lichen, and

tilting heavily. It is however, still possible to see that it is decorated with carved scrollwork

at the top from which delicate swags of ivy and laurel loop and fall from stylised flowers

either side of the stone. Apart from the flower motif which links the two stones together,

the markings on the footstone are not easy to decipher. There are two strange markings,

which have the appearance of being monograms (Figure 85). However, close

comparison between these and two of the monograms with which Madox Brown regularly

signed his work reveal a similarity but are not a match, although Madox Brown did

incorporate Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s distinctive monogram on the latter’s monument in

Birchington, Kent.

When Rossetti died on Easter Day, 1882 it was decided that he would be buried in the

local churchyard. This later caused some debate in the newspapers because it was

assumed that he would be laid to rest alongside his wife, Lizzie and his father in the

Rossetti family plot in Highgate. Jan Marsh mentions that it was Rossetti himself who

refused to be buried in Highgate, choosing the coastal Kentish village as the place where

he wished to be buried. Extracts from the diary Christina wrote on behalf of her mother

do not mention the decision, but it was surely made either before or on the day Rossetti

died, as the entry for the following day includes mention that she, William, and his wife,

Lucy were going to call on the vicar, Mr Alcock, in order to visit the graveyard to choose

a spot for the grave. It is therefore likely that Rossetti himself made this request on his

deathbed. Christina says that he was able to discuss his will with her on the Good Friday,

and in a letter written to Frederic Shields the following day, William mentions that Rossetti

was “calm, patient, conscious, rational...”

It was most definitely William’s decision to ask Ford Madox Brown to design Rossetti’s

monument (Figure 86). Marsh says that he intended to ask “Madox Brown to produce a

suitable design, similar to that he erected for Nolly, and emphatically not in the shape of a

cross.” However, in a letter to Christina dated 18 July 1883, William says that if “B.

should not fall in with my views, I shall ask Seddon to see about making and carrying out

a design-which would probably be of a simple but solid and very decorous kind.” These

statements not only betray the fact that the family members were already in

disagreement over the form the memorial to Rossetti should take, but also suggest an

exasperation on the part of William regarding the religiosity of his sister and mother.

Madox Brown’s suggestion of an Irish cross in granite, apparently met with approval from

Christina and her mother, but caused William to say “my mother wants a cross and I

don’t …I am strongly minded to say that she might have the cross if she liked, but then

she herself must order it.” As his mother did not want to take this project away from her

son she gave way to his wishes, and Christina wrote to William saying that neither of

them had any wish to interfere in his plans, and offered “£10 or £15 as my contribution

towards honouring our dear brother’s memory.”

However, it is apparent that in the face of relentless opposition, and perhaps a degree of

martyrdom on the part of the more pious members of his family, William succumbed to

Madox Brown’s suggestion, but in petulance he then distanced himself from the design.

He later said that the inscription, which states that the monument was “bespoken by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s mother…and erected by his brother William and sister Christina

Rossetti”, was placed to show “to the discerning agnostic that I myself would not have

had a cross, but that I conceded the point to my mother’s wishes…” A letter written to

Frederic Shields from Christina during the same period, in which she asks him to design

a memorial window for the church, also reflects the tension between the members of the

family who each appear to want to claim the honour of commemorating Rossetti with their

own beliefs apparent. She writes “Concerning our dear Gabriel’s grave 3 things are now

in question: a stone on the grave itself, and 2 windows which more or less look upon the

grave. The stone William in the main appropriates.” She goes on to talk about the window,

the design, of one of the lights, her mother wishes to make “her personal preference. She

wishes-if it may be- to secure this window (choosing the one nearest the grave) as

exclusively her own gift, and she devotes £100 to this purpose.” Christina goes on to

say that her mother chose Shields for this commission not so much because of his

personal love of Rossetti, but for Shields’s “personal love of Christ.”

Christina, acting as her mother’s agent discussed the designs for the two lights with

Shields and the vicar, who himself expressed firm ideas about what subject matter would

be most appropriate for that part of the church. Shields originally proposed a design

based on Rossetti’s own The Magdalene at the door of Simon the Pharisee (1858), but

this subject was vetoed by the vicar, and then replaced with another of Rossetti’s

designs: The Passover in the Holy Family. This was finally installed in October 1884

alongside the other light, which was a depiction of Christ healing the Blind Man, a

suggestion made by Shields himself, and described in an undated letter written to

Christina asking her to mediate between him and the vicar who wanted the descriptions

of both windows “immediately”. Shields’s knowledge of the Bible is apparent in his detailed

description of the incident he proposed to depict and the symbols he intended to

incorporate within it. He says, “By the side of the gate, growling at the passing saviour a

dog-emblem of unholy men-false teachers and persecutors-suckling her litter of blind

cubs-an echo of the Spiritual Blindness in which the children of this world are born – The

Thistle –grows beside them.“ At the top of the window Shields incorporated Rossetti’s

monogram as well as coat-of-arms, which was a tree with the Latin motto Frangas non

Flectas, meaning, ‘to bend but not break’. Both these symbols were also used by Madox

Brown in the design of the cross which was erected in August 1884, a short while before

the window was installed (Figure 87).

One can only imagine Madox Brown’s discomfort at being in the middle of the family

dispute over the design of the monument. It would seem, on the evidence of the tomb

stone he erected over his own family vault, and which was held up as the ideal by William,

that his own taste corresponded with that of Rossetti’s brother, but he was also anxious

not to upset the religious sensibilities of Christina and her mother, who one suspects was

every bit as stubborn as her eldest son especially when it came to matters of her faith.

However, despite William’s rather pointed and public disowning of the design of the

monument, Madox Brown’s use of symbolic motifs, which were both secular as well as

Christian effectively identify Rossetti’s work on a variety of levels including as a poet, as

an artist, and also as a symbolist.

The decision to use the form of a Celtic cross, a symbol of early Christianity in Britain,

was evidently taken in the hope that it would not only please the deeply devout Christina

and her mother, but would also appease the vehemently agnostic William because it was

carved with symbols that represent some of the most important aspects of Rossetti’s life

(Figure 88). The cruciform shape at the top is set within a circle, which symbolises

eternal life, as well as the natural cycle whereby the death of plants and animals provide

food for the birth and growth for the next generation. The spaces between the cross and

the circle are entwined with pomegranates which were the pagan symbol of rebirth taken

from the story of Proserpine, the daughter of the earth Goddess, Ceres, who was taken

into the Underworld to be the bride of Pluto, but when her mother pleaded for her return,

she was told Proserpine could only do so if she had not eaten the fruit of the Underworld.

Unfortunately she had eaten just one grain of the pomegranate that meant she could only

return to the earth for six months of the year. Rossetti made a total of eight oil versions

depicting Proserpine, one of which he was attempting to finish in the last days of his life.

The pomegranate also came to be adopted as a Christian symbol of resurrection.

Within the cruciform is a scene that represents the mystical marriage between Dante and

Beatrice, taking place in front of a haloed figure and a tree with branches that are twisting

and sinuous. These tendrils spread out into the shape of the cross. This tree, which is

maybe the Celtic Tree of Life, or the Biblical Tree of Knowledge, represents the

fruitfulness of the pure love experienced by Dante for Beatrice, which produced such

canonical works as the Divine Comedy and Vita Nuova. However, the figures may also

symbolise the meeting of Rossetti with Lizzie in heaven. Their earthly union was not

always uncomplicated whilst Lizzie was alive, but like the imaginary union of Dante and

Beatrice, it produced great works of art. In this way this scene may have also been

intended to represent the fruitfulness of the union of poetry and painting within one man.

There is also a sense that the imagery echoes that in an early pen drawing by Rossetti,

How They Met Themselves (c1850-60), in which a pair of lovers meet themselves in a

dark wood (Figure 89). This nightmarish encounter is instantly understood as heralding

the death of the lovers. This is echoed in the idea that the union of the ‘lovers’ Dante and

Beatrice, subsumed the union of the lovers, Rossetti and Lizzie, and thereby presaged

the early deaths of the later couple.

There are two separate images further down the crosses that are overtly Christian. The

first of these depicts the winged ox, the attribute of St Luke, the patron saint of painters,

and this is followed by the image of St Luke himself, shown kneeling in front of an easel,

with his palette in his left hand. It is just possible to discern that he is holding a brush in his

right hand. His head is oddly tilted to one side, which may be because the space he is in

is so small, but it is more likely that the designer wished to suggest the divine presence of

the Virgin Mary even though there was no actual room to include her. In his catalogue of

his brother’s works, William mentions a drawing made by Rossetti, which was later

illustrated by his sonnet, St Luke the Painter, written in 1849. It is not known what

happened to the drawing, but it probably depicted St Luke in the act of preaching,

surrounded by his own works.

At the base of the monument is a Celtic maze in the centre of which is found Rossetti’s

familiar monogram. This ancient symbol was used to symbolise the maze of life through

which it is possible to become lost and bewildered, yet achieve immortality. In this act of

commemoration the deceased, symbolised by his monogram, has become an integral

part of the eternal maze by way of his art.

Madox Brown’s concern with the monument did not end with its erection in Birchington

churchyard in August 1884. Only a short time before his own death in 1893, there had

been a complaint made in the Morning Post by a visitor to the churchyard, Algernon

Ashton, that the monument had been damaged by over enthusiastic admirers, and that

the grave mound itself had been neglected. This prompted a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette

on 12 September in which Madox Brown blamed the damage on “the chisels of over-

enthusiastic Americans.” However, having visited the churchyard himself, Madox Brown

reassured himself, and also William Rossetti, that though “a piece was gone from the

stone of the monument, not high above the ground, this did not in any way affect the

designs on the monument.” Although there was some discussion between Christina,

William, Madox Brown and the vicar, it was eventually decided that as “any attempt at

ornament would be fatal, a simple iron railing would be sufficient to keep people away

from the grave, and monument.

[II] “Sorrow is only of Earth; the life of the Spirit is joy”: Evelyn de Morgan (1855-1919)

Evelyn de Morgan’s use of symbolism throughout her work was largely informed by her

strongly held spiritual belief in a divine presence that was opposed to the evil in the world,

and that it is the duty of men to strive towards the light that is God, away from earthly and

materialistic desire. Her marriage to fellow artist William de Morgan in 1887 led to a lifetime

of devotion to each other as well as to their respective artistic practices and the

exploration of the spirit world.

Shortly after the marriage their mutual faith in an afterlife, and the notion that spiritual

evolution is a process of moral growth, prompted them to experiment with automatic

writing, a process whereby the subject allows a spirit to guide the pen in his/her hand

whilst in a trancelike state. These writings were published anonymously in 1909 as The

Result of an Experiment, and many of them form the basis or inspiration for much of

Evelyn’s work. The De Morgans believed that man could only attain spiritual growth by

making moral judgments during his/her earthly existence, but through death he/she

enters a new spiritual state in which it is possible to work towards one’s own salvation, or

damnation. This evolution from a physical to a spiritual, and finally a celestial plane is

symbolised in many of De Morgan’s paintings which depict the earthly physicality which

distracts and binds, as well as the individual’s striving up towards the light that is divine.

Much of De Morgan’s greatest works were a reaction to what she saw as the evil futility

of the two wars she lived through. The Boer War (1899-1902) was deeply controversial

because it was begun as the result of British desire to claim political rights in South Africa.

The use of photography brought the war much closer to civilians in Britain, and this had

the effect of taking away much of the glory of war as well as creating a greater

awareness of the idea that war was morally corrupting.

The conflict of the Great War (1914-1918) was to again affect De Morgan. She felt

compelled to use her art not just to show the horror of war, which she believed was the

work of the devil, but as an artist, she considered it her moral duty to promote peace, and

harmony and the love of God. In 1916 she held an exhibition of works for the benefit of

the British Red Cross, and the Italian Croce Rossa, in Edith Grove, Chelsea. Ironically it

is believed that William caught influenza, or trench fever from a soldier friend, who had

visited them on Christmas Day, 1916, after his return from the Front, and William died in

the January of the following year. He was buried in the cemetery of Brookwood, in

Surrey, which had been founded in 1854.

The monument was designed and modelled by De Morgan herself, under the supervision

of Sir George Frampton. Unfortunately, the original, full size drawing that she produced

was destroyed by fire in 1991. The form of the monument is a rectangular standing stone,

with the top pedimented in the style of the Greek stele. On the face of the monument is a

bas-relief that has been described by Mrs Stirling, Evelyn’s sister, as a mourning figure

with “the face of Evelyn De Morgan”, and also a winged figure described as “Psyche, with

airy pose and happy gesture, [who] is striving to wean her from her grief.” However, It is

apparent on close examination of the monument as well as a study of some of her most

important works, that the symbolism of this very personal memorial was a great deal

more involved than this, and identifies the artist, her work and her beliefs in a number of

different ways (Figure 90).

Although very beautifully designed and delicately carved, the figures do not appear to sit

comfortably together. The gesture and direction of the gaze of the haloed figure on the

right suggests that the mourning figure should be placed at a lower level than she actually

is. This is maybe because they are sourced from two different paintings. To be aware of

this would thus mean that the viewer of the monument had to be very familiar with De

Morgan’s oeuvre. The mourning figure is taken from The Field of the Slain (1916) painted

as a result of De Morgan’s feelings about war, and included in the Red Cross benefit

exhibition (Figure 91). The figure in the painting is depicted hovering over a battlefield

littered with the casualties of war. If this figure is identified as the Angel of Death, in terms

of De Morgan’s spiritual beliefs it can be said to represent the release of the soul from its

earthly prison, and the beginning of man’s spiritual development. By including this figure,

De Morgan identifies both herself and her deceased husband through reference to her

works, which in turn reminds the viewer of her pacifist and charitable concerns. The

second figure is taken from a painting that is undated. Entitled The Passing of the Soul at

Death, it is an appropriate choice as the figure in the painting represents the ethereal

being who beckons the soul of the dead towards the intermediate plane where true

spiritual identity is revealed (Figure 92). In this way the figure both symbolises the De

Morgans’ spiritual beliefs, and could also be said to represent the spirits involved with

their automatic writing experiments.

If the two figures are taken together they may be identified as responding to the death of

William De Morgan in different ways. The mourning figure, with down turned torch and

refusal to look towards the spiritual being, who may represent the new life into which

William has passed, can thus be identified as Evelyn who, in her personal grief, finds it

difficult to reconcile her long held spiritual belief that death is not the end, but the

continuation of life.

It may be that the two figures represent the same person both before and after death has

occurred. This reading of the monument is aided by the placement of the right foot of the

spiritual figure over the left of the mourning figure. There is also an impression that there

has been an attempt to use the placing of the figures within the frame of the monument to

symbolise the ideas and imagery found in the automatic scripts. The mourning figure is

heavier than the spiritual one, her head bowed and one hand placed against her heart,

she appears to be confined by the frame against which she leans, only the hand holding

the down turned torch lies just beyond the boundary of the frame. This suggests that the

flame of genius, though extinguished through the physical death of the body, reaches out

and beyond death. This interpretation is suggested by the writings, which include several

descriptions of the transition, which takes place at death:

The flesh is a burden-the dreariness and heaviness of earth life a trial! But it is

very short. I got here and am free…I came to in a bright clear atmosphere, and

felt light, young and strong. My head very clear, and my eyes intensely clear. I did

not realise it was my spirit body.

Thus the second figure is that freed element of the dead person, no longer bound by the

confines of her earthly physicality. The sculpted figure is depicted as if in movement

away from the other, and the frame of the monument on the left hand side is placed

behind her shoulder and hip as if to emphasise her release from the burden of the flesh.

The movement of the figure is also accentuated by her flowing hair and the greater fluidity

of her drapery.

Beneath the image there is a sentence taken from one of the spirit letters transcribed by

the De Morgans, which reiterates their beliefs. It also reinforces the impression that the

image was intended to be read as a whole. “Sorrow is only of Earth; the life of the Spirit is

joy.”

Finally it is important to remember that that this monument, unlike those which have

already been looked at, but in common with the one that follows, may have been

designed by an artist to pay tribute to another person, but it was intended that the

monument should also be the artist’s own. In this way the monument becomes the

greatest signifier of how the artist wished to be identified for posterity, because the

monument, created out of a durable material, was not only representative of the artist’s

work, but was a work of art in itself.

[III] “Let us go forward”: William Blake-Richmond (1842-1921)

William Blake Richmond is best known for his controversial decoration of Wren’s great

late classical Renaissance cathedral church of St Paul’s with richly coloured pieces of

mosaic, in a Byzantine style, which took place during the period 1891-1899. However he

was also a highly regarded portraitist, whose sitters included many important men of the

age such as Gladstone, and William Holman Hunt.

He also produced several works of sculpture including a monument commissioned by

Mrs Gladstone when her husband died in 1898, as a memorial to both herself and

Gladstone for their local church. This includes two full-length effigies lying on an altar type

pedestal. An angel crouches over their heads with great curled wings, which create the

form of a prow of a ship. Stories from classical literature in bas-relief symbolise

Gladstone, while Mrs Gladstone, whose work with children and the poor was well known,

is presented as Charity. The rich symbolism inherent in Blake-Richmond’s design was

explained by the sculptor himself in a letter to a relative of the statesman dated 1905.

The figures of Mr and Mrs Gladstone lie in the Boat of Life. There are two prows,

the boat proceeds ploughing its way through the Sea of Life. The prows are winged,

the winged ships alluded to by Homer. The owl is typical of Wisdom, and also bears

relation to the owl of Athena, and the wisdom of the great statesman. The cross lies

on the head of wisdom-Sacrifice leaning on wisdom-the hands rest calmly on the

cross, symbolising their united Faith – the figure of the Saviour is typical of Peace,

sleep more than death –at the four ends of the cross are the emblems of the four

evangelists. The Angel is Victory over Death – not death but sleeping. The whole

group is intended to suggest eternal peaceful movement on through eternal ages.

Although this description tends to suggest that Blake Richmond shared much of the same

spirituality of his great friend, William de Morgan, his religious beliefs veered during his life

towards pantheism. His belief was that spirituality was related to emotion rather than

reason, and experienced through contemplation of nature. He understood that belief in an

afterlife was a great comfort for many, but for himself he believed that death was the end,

not a beginning.

At his death on 11 February 1921, Blake Richmond’s body was laid out in accordance

with his wishes, on the table in his studio, beneath his painting The Expulsion of Adam

and Eve from the Garden of Eden. This was a work began in 1876 as Adam and Eve, but

became known by its other title when he added the figure of St Michael Archangel

carrying a sword. It remained unfinished at his death 45 years after it was begun. It likely

that his decision was influenced by the descriptions of the funerals of artists such as

Raphael and Annibale Carracci, as well as his first hand experience of the funeral of

Leighton. However it is also possible that, either consciously or unconsciously he meant

to recreate a work that he once described as his “pet picture” and was entitled Angels

watching over a Dead Painter (1873-1876). This work became known by its more familiar

name, The Watchers, but as a depiction of a dead painter it conveys something of the

artist’s thoughts on death and fame (Figure 93).

The setting is undoubtedly Italy, and the dead painter, who lies wrapped in his shroud, is

laid out in a room that has been decorated or frescoed with at least two discernable

depictions of events from the Life of Christ. The Entombment of Christ on one wall and

the Resurrection on the other. The colours chosen by Blake Richmond for these works

are strongly reminiscent of those used by Giotto for the Arena Chapel, in Padua. The

suggestion is that although the creator of these works is now dead, just as Christ was

when he was laid in the tomb, even if there was no afterlife, there is a resurrection for the

artist in the form of his/her works, which live on and are admired in ages yet to come. As

it is possible to see more of the entombment scene than there is of the resurrection,

which is guessed at rather than seen, this may be Blake Richmond’s way of suggesting

that while the death of the artist is inevitable, he might be able to achieve immortality.

Some years later, in 1896, Blake Richmond described a dream he had whilst in Italy that

he was in St Paul’s Cathedral at the funeral of Millais. Instead of one coffin there were

two, and just as they were about to be lowered into the vault, Millais leapt out of one of the

coffins. This was not the old, sick Millais that Blake Richmond had visited before he left

for Italy, but a young, energetic version who shouted: “I’ll be damned if you bury me! Bury

the other – the old chap! I am immortal: I am not dead at all. I live, and shall live forever!”

It is not known when Blake Richmond first considered designing a tombstone which

would commemorate both his wife and himself, but it is likely that the decision to do so

was taken about the time of the death of his second wife, Clara, which took place in 1915

as a result of a tragic accident when she fell getting out of a tram. Clara was buried in the

churchyard of St Nicholas, Chiswick, not far from the monument that was erected to

James McNeill Whistler in 1912. Unfortunately the records of the church do not have any

information concerning the date of the erection of the tomb, but it surely was placed after

the death of Blake Richmond in 1921, because the stone, which was sculpted by his

friend and pupil Margaret Wrightson, is worked on both sides.

As in the case of the monument designed by Evelyn de Morgan, this is in the form of an

Ancient Greek stele. It bears a resemblance to the tomb in Blake Richmond’s painting

Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, painted c1876-7 (Figure 94). Clara is appropriately

commemorated on the side of the monument that faces the church. Despite her

husband’s lack of patience with the church, Clara maintained her faith in God, and was a

regular and devout churchgoer. It identifies Clara in an inscription that describes her as

“Mother and Friend”. Above this is a bas–relief image of two female figures, a standing

figure holds in her left hand a heart shaped emblem on a stick, and a kneeling mourning

figure. Inscribed to the right is the word “Caritas” which can mean both charity as well as

deep affection, but as the standing figure carries a heart this identifies her as a

personification of Charity, one of the three theological virtues (Figure 95). It may be that

Blake Richmond was inspired by the representation of Charity in Giotto’s Arena Chapel,

where the personifications of the seven virtues are painted in such a way that they

appear to be pieces of sculpture. Here Charity receives the heart from heaven (Figure

96).

During the Renaissance the three virtues were also often to be found on funerary

monuments such as those created to honour Pope John XXIII (1427) by Donatello and

Michelozzo, and to Pope Sixtus IV (1484) by Antonio Pollaiuolo. Apart from the attribute of

the heart, later representations of the virtue came to be shown giving comfort and

consolation to children. However, Blake Richmond’s Charity is remote figure, stoic and

aloof rather than actively giving consolation to the mourning figure. This is in accordance

with his view of his wife, expressed in his diary just after her death, in which he says,

“And so ended a beautiful life, one that was not easy to her for her sense of Duty was

almost painful, and by following it the dear Clara lost much happiness, which with a little

less of the puritan might have been hers.” He went on to add, “For goodness, purity and

uprightness an ideal woman- if she was sometimes hard and a little relentless her

principles made her so.” Although he does not say it directly it is understood that he was

disappointed in his second marriage, while his marriage to his first wife he viewed as

ideal. He may have blamed this on Clara, but he had not treated her well, becoming

passionately involved with a number of his acolytes, including Margaret Wrightson. He

blamed Clara’s puritan nature on the fact that she was a “Northern woman, she did not

understand natures south of the Channel. She had no great affinity with Southern

Peoples.”

While Clara’s bas-relief is in the style of Evelyn de Morgan, the bas-relief Blake Richmond

designed to commemorate himself is very different in content and style. In choosing to be

identified with the theological virtue of Hope rather than Faith, the artist made it clear that

though he had no great faith in an afterlife, he had hope of reaching a place of perfection.

His last words to his son were, “I believe I shall see the Perfect Beauty I have been

looking for all my life.” He chose to depict Hope as a young and beautiful woman with long

hair flowing in the wind (Figure 97). The stylised strands of her hair, and the folds of her

dress are matched by the lines of the boat in which she stands, and also the waves of

the sea. This identification of Hope in a boat in the rough sea was quite common during

the Renaissance, as it was a reminder that early sea journeys were undertaken in a spirit

of hopefulness rather than expectation. This type of personification was also to be found

in the decoration of Sigismondo Malatesta’s funerary church of San Francesco in Rimini,

which was remodelled by Alberti in c1446. Much of the decoration, using a combination of

Christian and Classical imagery, was carried out by the 15th century Florentine sculptor,

Augostino di Duccio, and the fact that Blake Richmond chose this style for his bas relief

indicates his great admiration for the artists of the early Italian Renaissance.

The inscription below the image is from Homer’s Iliad:

And now for ten thousand shades

of death Encompass man about which

is not for mortal to escape or

avoid. Let us go forward.

This quotation is not only appropriate as a funerary inscription; it also recalls one of Blake

Richmond’s most interesting symbolist works, Death and Sleep Carrying the Body of

Sarpedon to Lycia (c1875-6). The story is taken from an episode in Homer’s Iliad, which

describes what happened when Zeus decided to intervene, and save Sarpedon from the

death he has foretold will be his destiny. Hera, his wife, warned him that this intervention

would permit the other Gods to protect those they loved, thus making a mockery of the

bravery of such warriors. She says, “when the breath has left his lips send Death and the

sweet god of Sleep to take him up and bring him to the broad realm of Lycia, where his

kinsman and retainers will give him burial, with the barrow and monument that are a dead

man’s rights.”

During the 19th century, attitudes to death and commemoration gradually began to

change as people began to look for alternatives to traditional patterns of burial, and after

cremation was legalised in 1902, many chose this as the more sanitary and less

expensive option. However, as has been mentioned, it was not until 1898 that an artist

chose this as an alternative to burial. In the case of the three monuments discussed in

this chapter their erection over the burial places of the three artists took on a function

other than commemorative or marker, and it appears that the painter attempted to gain

control of the sculptural monument by identifying him/herself as the designer of the

monument whether his/her own, as has been seen in the cases of Blake-Richmond and

De Morgan, or, in the case of Rossetti, by a close family member, Ford Madox Brown.

Conclusion

It is evident that for more than a century after the foundation of the Royal Academy of

Arts, attitudes to death, and commemoration were informed by the profound desire of

British artists of the 18th and 19th centuries to preserve their own unique identities as

professional artists. This desire was undoubtedly inspired partly by the awareness of the

role of the funerary monument as identifier of individuality and status during the

Renaissance. Giorgio Vasari was one of the first artists to realise the importance of

funerary commemoration in his quest to see the status of the visual arts raised to that of

a liberal art. He not only researched the lives and works of artists for his Lives, he also

made a point of describing the placements and form of their burial places, often including

eulogies and epitaphs. This awareness coincided with the foundation of the Accademia

del Disegno in Florence that conferred even greater professional status on its members,

who regarded themselves as intellectuals, capable of creating works of poetic invention

rather than simply working to rules and specifications laid down by guilds and patrons.

That the funeral of the greatly respected artist, Michelangelo, was arranged by the

members of the newly founded Accademia, and the occasion described in Vasari’s Life of

Michelangelo, undoubtedly influenced the way in which the first President of the Royal

Academy of Arts, Sir Joshua Reynolds, was buried in 1792.

It is also apparent that the burial of Reynolds in the crypt of St Paul’s prompted a number

of similarly ceremonial burials of other members of the Academy, despite the fact that it

was decided by Council that the Academy would not take charge of these as it was

believed that doing so would lessen the impact of the funerals of both Reynolds and

future presidents. The desire to be identified as worthy of being buried alongside the late

President inspired artists and/or their families to seek similar treatment, causing this area

of the crypt to be nicknamed ‘Painter’s Corner’ in emulation of that pantheon of British

dramatists, poets, and scholars whose nationally acclaimed work in the field of literature

had earned for them a place in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

The decision made by the family of the 4th President of the Academy, Sir Martin Archer

Shee, to have the artist buried without ceremony in a small churchyard near to his home

in Brighton, which prompted the Council Members to pass a resolution that the Academy

would cover all the expenses of Charles Lock Eastlake’s ceremonial burial in Kensal

Green in 1866. This also confirms that the members believed that the public burial and

prestigious placement of their Presidents was too beneficial to the Academy to be denied

simply on account of the family not being able to afford the costs.

The use of palette and brushes as identifier of the deceased’s earthly achievements was

an important element of the artist’s funerary monument during this period, because the

emblem acted as an immediate visual identifier. Used in conjunction with other attributes

as trophies they can be seen to create a sense of the triumphant artist whose skill and

fame will conquer even death. As allegorical elements they might connote the artist’s

identification with antiquity, which not only reflects the artist’s desire to be seen as learned

thus raising his status to that of gentleman, or liberal artist, it also suggests a

timelessness appropriate for the role of the monument. In the hands of the dead artist, the

motif would appear to return to being a symbol of a mechanical craft suggesting that

artists no longer thought they needed to be seen as gentlemen associated with an

institution, but had a new self-confidence in their status as individuals.

That the arrival of photography, with its potential to endow anyone who could afford to

buy a camera with the power to produce pictorial images, coincided with a period in which

there was a number of monuments erected to artists both in Britain and in France which

were adorned with depictions of works of art, suggests there was a feeling that the

painter was in danger of losing his/her identity of divinely inspired genius and therefore

there was a need to preserve the artistic identity of the artist for posterity through his

most emotive works. However, this meant that the monument no longer just functioned to

perpetuate the social and professional body of the deceased artist, but was seen as a

vehicle to commemorate him as an individual.

At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, attitudes to death and

commemoration began to be complicated by the growing numbers of casualties through

war, as well as the legalisation of cremation in 1902. Thus, monuments to artists, as in

other cases, reverted to the simple burial marker, or unostentatious wall plaque.

However, it has been shown that there were cases in which the monument was not just

an act of commemoration but also a work of art as the deceased took on board the

business of designing the monument themselves as in the cases of Blake-Richmond and

De Morgan. In the case of Rossetti the monument was designed by a close family

member, Ford Madox Brown. In effect the monument became a work of art, denying not

only the death of the commemorated but also that of the commemoratee.

.

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HUTCHINGS 2000Elizabeth Hutchings, Discovering the Sculptures of George Frederick Watts, Isle of Wight: Hunnyhill Publications, 2000

HUTCHINSON 1986Sidney C. Hutchinson, The History of the Royal Academy 1768-1986, London: Robert Royce Ltd, 1986

INGAMELLS AND EDGCUMBE 2000John Ingamells and John Edgcumbe, eds. The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2000

IRWIN 1979David Irwin, John Flaxman 1755-1826, London: Cassell, 1979

IRWIN 1997David Irwin, Neoclassicism, London: Phaidon, 1997

JANSON 1985H.W.Janson, Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, London: Thames and Hudson, 1985

JUPP AND GITTINGS 1999Peter Jupp and Claire Gittings eds, Death in England: An Illustrated History, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999

KNIGHT 1999Vivien Knight, Victorian Pictures: Guildhall Art Gallery, London: Guildhall Art Gallery, 1999

KNOWLES 1831John Knowles F.R.S, The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Esq. M.A.R.A., London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831

KRISTEVA 1982Kristeva, Julia, Powers of Horror, trans. Leon S. Roudiez, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982

LEVEY 1979Michael Levey, Sir Thomas Lawrence, London: National Portrait Gallery, 1979

LEVEY 1981Michael Levey, The Painter Depicted: Painters as a Subject in Painting, London: Thames and Hudson, 1981

LIGHTBOWN 1986Ronald Lightbown, Mantegna, Oxford: Phaidon, 1986

LITTEN 2002Julian Litten, The English Way of Death: the Common Funeral Since 1450 (1991) London: Robert Hale, 2002

LLEWELLYN 1997Nigel Llewellyn, The Art of Death, (1991) London: Reaktion Books, 1997

LLOYD 1991Christopher LLoyd, Andrea Mantegna: The Triumphs of Caesar, London: HMSO, 1991

MAAS 1978Jeremy Maas, Victorian Painters, New York: Harrison House, 1978

MANETTI 1986Antonio Manetti, Vita di Brunelleschi in A353: Open University Supplementary Texts, Milton Keynes: OUP, 1986

MANNING, 1932Manning, Elfrida, Bronze and Steel, Long Compton: King’s Stone Press, 1932

MANNING 1982Manning, Elfrida, Marble and Bronze, London: Trefoil Books, 1982

MARSH 1994Jan Marsh, Christina Rossetti a Literary Biography, London: Jonathan Cape, 1994

MAYHEW 1967Mayhew, Edgar de N., Sketches by Thornhill, London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office,

1967

MELLER 1985Hugh Meller, London Cemeteries An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer, Godstone:Gregg International 1985

MILLAIS 1905John Guille Millais, The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais, London: Methuen, 1905

MURRAY 1984Murray, Linda, Michelangelo His Life Work and Times, London: Guild Publishing, 1984

NORMAND –ROMAIN 1995Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, Memoire de Marbre: La sculpture funeraire en France 1804-1914, Paris: Bibliotheque historique de la Ville de Paris, 1995

ORMOND 1981Richard Ormond, Sir Edwin Landseer, London: Thames and Hudson, 1981

The Oxford Companion to Art, ed. Harold Osborne, Oxford: OUP, 1993PARNELL 1999Geoffrey Parnell, The Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London, Leeds: The Trustees of the Armouries, 1999

PASTORE 1986Pastore, Guise, La Capella del Mantegna in Sant’ Andrea, Mantua: 1986PAULSON 1975Ronald Paulson, The Art of Hogarth, London: Phaidon, 1975

PEDROCCO 1993Filippo Pedrocco, Titian, trans Susan Madocks, , Florence: Scala, 1993

PERRY 1999Gill Perry, ‘Mere Face Painters’? Hogarth, Reynolds and ideas of academic art in eighteenth-century Britain’ in Academies, Museums and Canons of Art, ed. Gill Perry and Colin Cunningham, London and New Haven: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 1999

PEVSNER 1940Nikolaus Pevsner, Academies of Art Past and Present, London: Cambridge University Press, 1940

PHYSICK 1969John Physick, Designs for English Sculpture 1680-1860, London: HMSO, 1969

PLATO 1993Plato, Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993

POPE-HENNESSY 1970Pope-Hennessy, John Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, London: Phaidon, 1970

POPE-HENNESSY 1974Pope-Hennessy, John, Fra Angelico, London: Phaidon, 1974

The Portable Enlightenment Reader, ed,. Isaac Kramnick, London: Penguin Books, 1995

PRESSLY 1981William L. Pressly, The Life and Art of James Barry, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981

READ 1983Benedict Read, Victorian Sculpture, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1983

REDGRAVE 1947Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of British Painters, London: Phaidon Press Ltd, 1947.

REILLY 1989Robin Reilly, Wedgwood: vol II, London: Macmillan, 1989

REYNOLDS 1988Graham Reynolds, English Portrait Miniatures, (revised edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

REYNOLDS 1992Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses, ed. Pat Rogers, London: Penguin, 1992

REYNOLDS 1952Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portraits, London: Heinemann, 1952

REYNOLDS 1995Reynolds, Simon, William Blake Richmond An Artist’s Life 1842-1921, Norwich: Michael Russell, 1995

RICHARDSON 1987Ruth Richardson, Death Dissection and the Destitute, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987

ROBERTSON 1978David Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1978

ROSSETTI 1968Rossetti, William Michael (editor), The Family Letters of Christina Georgina Rossetti, New York: Haskell House, 1968

ROSSETTI 1995Rossetti, William Michael, The Pre-Raphaelites and their World, London: The Folio Society, 1995

The Royal Academy: From Reynolds to Millais, edited by Charles Holmes, London, Paris, and New York: The Studio, 1904

SATKOWSKI 1993Leon Satkowski, Giorgio Vasari Architect and Courtier, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993

SCOTT 1999‘Introduction –‘pour la gloire des arts et l’honneur de France: commemorating Poussin 1784 –1995’ in Commemorating Poussin: Reception and Interpretation of the Artist, ed. Katie Scott and Genevieve Warwick, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999

SHANES 1981Eric Shanes, The Genius of the Royal Academy, London: John Murray, 1981

SHEE 1860Martin Archer Shee, The Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee, President of the Royal Academy, F.R.S., D.C.L. Vols. I & II, London: Longman, Green, Lonfgman, and Roberts, 1860

SMITH 1988Bernard Smith, ‘The Death of the Artist as Hero’ in The Death of the Artist as Hero, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1988

SMITH 1982Hammond Smith, Peter de Wint, London: F Lewis,1982

SMITH 1949J T Smith, Nollekens and his Times, (1828) London: Turnstile, 1949

SONTAG 1979Susan Sontag, On Photography, London: Penguin Books, 1979

STACK 2000Joan Stack, ‘Artists into Heroes: The Commemoration of Artists in the Art of Giorgio Vasari’ in Fashioning Identities in Renaissance Art, ed. Mary Rogers, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000

STANLEY 1890Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Historical Monuments of Westminster Abbey, London: John Murray, 1890

STIRLING 1922AMW Stirling, William de Morgan and His Wife, London: Thornton Butterworth, 1922

SURTEES 1971Virginia Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971

The Changing Status of the Artist, ed. Emma Barker, Nick Webb, and Kim Woods, New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Open University, 1999

TRAPP 1980J,. B. Trapp, The Poet and the Monumental Impulse, occasional papers no. 6, London: The Society for Renaissance Studies, 1980

VAUGHAN 1999William Vaughan, British Painting: The Golden Age from Hogarth to Turner, London: Thames and Hudson, 1999

VANDERVELDE 1997Cecilia Vandervelde, Les Champs de Repos de La Region Bruxelloise, Bruxelles: Imprimerie Poot, 1997

VASARI 1987Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists Volumes I and II, trans. George Bull, (1965) London: Penguin Books, 1987

VAUGHAN 1999William Vaughan, British Painting: The Golden Age, London: Thames and Hudson, 1999

VERDI 1995Richard Verdi, Poussin, London: Phaidon, 1995

VOLANT and WARREN 1985F. Volant & J.R. Warrren, Memoirs of Soyer, Rottingdean: Cooks Books, 1985

WALKER 1999Alfred T. Walker, The Ville of Birchington Its History and Bygones, Ramsgate: Martell Press Ltd. 1999

WATERHOUSE 1994Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530-1790, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994

WATTS 1912Mary Seton Watts, George Frederick Watts vols. I II III., London: Macmillan, 1912

WEBB 1954M.I.Webb, Michael Rysbrack Sculptor, London: Country Life, 1954

WEINTRAUB 1974Stanley Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, London: William Colloins and Sons, 1974

WHEELER 1994Micheal Wheeler, Heaven, Hell, & the Victorians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994

WHINNEY 1988Margaret Whinney, Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830, London: Penguin Books Ltd, (1964) 1988

WHITLEY

William T.Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England 1700-1799, (1928) New York and London: Benjamin Blom, 1968

WILLIAMSON 1905George C Williamson, Richard Cosway R.A., London: George Bell & Sons, 1905

WITTKOWER 1964Rudolf and Margot Wittkower, The Divine Michelangelo: The Florentine Academy’s Homage on his Death in 1564, London: Phaidon, 1964

WOODS-MARSDEN 1998Joanna Woods-Marsden, Renaissance Self-Portraits, New Haven and London: Yale University Pres, 1998

YOUNG 1954Elizabeth and Wayland Young, Old London Churches, London: Faber & Faber, 1954

CATALOGUES

BINDMAN 1979David Bindman, John Flaxman R.A., London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1979

British Sculpture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Merseyside: National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, 1999

BROWN AND VLIEGHE 1999Christopher Brown and Hans Vlieghe, Van Dyke 1599 – 1641, London and Antwerp: Royal Academy of Arts and Antwerpen Open, 1999

BRYANTBarbara Bryant, ‘G.F.Watts and the Symbolist Vision’ in The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910, eds. Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone, London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997

CHRISTIAN 1989John Christian, ed., The Last Romantics: The Romantic Tradition in British Art: Burne-Jones to Stanley Spencer, London: Barbican Art Gallery, 1989

DUFFY 1997Stephen Duffy, Paul Delaroche 1797-1856: Paintings in the Wallace Collection, London: The Trustees of the Wallace Collection, 1997

EUSTACE 1982Kathleen Eustace, Michael Rysbrack, Bristol: City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, 1982

Evelyn de Morgan Oil Paintings, ed. Catherine Gordon, (London: De Morgan Foundation, 1996)

GOMBRICH 1975E.H. Gombrich, Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art, London: National Gallery Publications, 1995

LLOYD 1995Stephen Lloyd, Richard and Maria Cosway Regency Artists of Fashion, Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1995

MARSH & GERRISH NUNN 1997Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn, Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists, Manchester: Manchester City Art Galleries, 1997 Le Dernier Portrait, Paris: Reunion des Musees Nationaux, 2002

National Portrait Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, compiled by K.K. Yung, London: National Portrait Gallery, 1981

PENNY 1986Nicholas Penny, Reynolds, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1986

Peter DeWint: 1784-1849, Lincoln: Usher Gallery, 1998

POINTON 1986Pointon, Marcia, Mulready, London: Victoria and Albert, 1986

PRESSLY 1983Pressly, William L., James Barry The Artist as Hero, London:Tate Gallery Pub.,1983

ROGERS 1999Malcolm Rogers, ‘Van Dyke in England’ in Van Dyke 1599-1641, eds. Christopher Brown and Hans Vlieghe, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1999

SHANES 2000Eric Shanes, Turner: The Great Watercolours, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2000

SMITH 2001Alison Smith, Exposed: The Victorian Nude, London: Tate Publishing, 2001

SOLKIN 2001David H. Solkin ed. Art on the Line: The Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House 1780-1836, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001

The Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion to the National Collections of British and Modern Foreign Art, London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1988

VALENTINE 1991Helen Valentine, From Reynolds to Lawrence: The First Sixty Years of the Royal Academy of Arts and its Collections, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1991

WALKER and BIERBRIER 1997Susan Walker and Morris Bierbrier, Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, London: British Museum, 1997

The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Pictures I, London: The Trustees of the Wallace Collection, 1985

WEDD 2001Lucy Wedd, with Lucy Peltz and Cathy Ross, Creative Quarters: The Art World in London 1700-2000, London: Merrill Publishing, 2001

Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, George Lance and the Liverpool School: An Exhibition of Paintings, introduction Christopher Wood, Birkenhead: Williamson Art Gallery, 1979

WILTON AND UPSTONE 1997The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910, ed. Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone, London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997

ARTICLES

‘British Artists: Their Style and Character. William Hilton’ in The Art Journal, 1855, pp. 253-5

BRYANT 1985Julius Bryant, ‘The Church Monuments of Thomas Banks’, Church Monuments, volume 1, part 1, 1985, pp49-64

NORMAND –ROMAIN 1986Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, ‘Tombeaux d’artistes’ in Revue de L’Art, Paris:Editions du C.N.R.S., 1986

PHYSICK 1989John Physick, ‘Westminster Abbey: Designs for Poet’s Corner and a New Roubiliac in the Cloister’, Church Monuments, volume IV, 1989, pp 54-63

ROSCOE 1994Ingrid Roscoe, ‘The Monument to the Memory of Shakespeare’ Church Monuments, volume XI, 1994, pp 72-83

SANDOVER 2000Cherry Sandover, ‘The Dome of his Mausoleum: Commemorating the 18th century Artist’ in Transactions of The Romney Society vol. 5, ed. David Cross, Kendal:The Romney Society, 2000

TYLER 1992/1993David Tyler, ‘The Gainsborough family: births, marriages, and deaths re-examined’ in Gainsborough House Reveiw, Sudbury: Gainsborough House, 1992/1993

WHITE 1989Adam White, Westminster Abbey in the Early Seventeenth Century: A Powerhouse of Ideas, Church Monuments, volume IV, 1989, pp 16-45

GUIDES

BAROZZI 1990Jacques Barozzi, Guide des Cimetieres Parisiens, Paris: Editions Herva, 1990

Brompton Cemetery, London: The Royal Parks, 1993

Cimetiere de Montmartre, Paris: Mairie de Paris, n.d

Cimetiere de Montparnasse, Paris: Mairie de Paris, n.d

Cimetiere de Passy, Paris: Mairie de Paris, n.d

Cimetiere de Pere Lachaise, Paris: Mairie de Paris, n.d

Kensal Green Cemetery, London: Friends of Kensal Green, 1994

Musee de la Vie Romantique, Paris: Paris Musees, 1992

Naples with Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast, London: Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guides, 1998

St Nicholas Parish Church Chiswick, Some of the notable tombs in the Churchyard, Archives Group of St Nicholas Parish Church, 1998

St Paul’s Cathedral: A Guide to the Cathedral, London: St Paul’s, 1997

Westminster Abbey: Official Guide, London: Dean And Chapter, 1997

ARCHIVES

East Sussex Archives, Lewes, E Sussex

Heinz Archive and Library, NPG, London

Grant Family Papers, Loughborough, Leicestershire

Guildhall Library, London

Melton Carnegie Museum, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire

St Marylebone Church Archive, London

The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester, and Rutland, Leicester, Leicestershire

Rossetti Letters, Birchington Church Archive, Birchington, Kent

Rossetti Letters, Special Collections, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, Leeds.

Thornycroft, Hamo, A Collection of letters, diaries, journals and other papers, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Westminster Abbey Library, LondonWalker Gallery Archives, Walker Gallery, Liverpool

Watts Archives, Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey

Westmacott, Richard Sir, Autograph Letters, n.d., Thomas J Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Westmacott Family papers, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Woolner, Thomas, Diaries, 1864 and 1874, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS

A102 Summer School Texts: Religion: Conformity and Controversy, Milton Keynes: Open University, 1998

Essex University Text: William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty London: Reeves, (1753) The Great Artists: Millais, London: Marshall Cavendish, 1993

UNPUBLISHED WORK

DUBE 1978Elizabeth Dube, ‘Michelangelo’s Tomb: Portraiture and the Renaissance Commemoration of the Artist’, MA diss., Brown University, 1978

SANDOVER 1998Cherry Sandover, Mourning Lost Eloquence: Commemorating the 19th Artist as a Romantic Hero, BA diss., University of Essex, 1998

SANDOVER 1999Cherry Sandover, “Being Awarded the Most Privileged of Funerals and Tombs”: A Study of the Importance of Commemorating the Intellectual in Eighteenth-Century England, MA diss, University of Essex, 1999

STACK 2000Joan Elaine Stack, Artists into Heroes: The Commemoration of Artists in the Art of Giorgio Vasari, PhD diss., Washington University in St Louis, 2000

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

‘The Late Madame Soyer’, The Times 16 November 1842, p. 9‘M Soyer’s Exhibition’, The Times 13 May 1848: p. 3

WEBSITES

The Complete Works of William Shakespearehttp://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/richardiii/index.html

History of Photography, 15 August 2002http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/beginnin.html>

Hilton, William, Sir Calepine Rescuing Serena, exhibited 1831, Tate Gallery, London,http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/Awork?id=6466&Sid=1100958537&group=general&name=8Start=18end=98mda=Hilton%2C+William%2C+the+younger

Shee, Sir Martin Archer, Self Portrait, 1794, National Portrait Gallery, London,http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?search=ss&sText=shee&LINKID=mp040798rNo=0&rde=sit

Scheffer, Ary, Christus Consolator, 1837, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.http:/www.vangoghmuseum.nl/collection/catalog/vgmpainting.asp?ArtID=88&LangID=0&SEL=undefined&Period=undefined&S0RT=undefined>

The Victorian Web, 20 September 2002http://65.107.211.206/sculpture/woolner/works.html

LETTERS

Atkinson, Anne, Re: William Hilton, Letter to the author, 18 May 2000

Bouvier, Thierry, Re: Cemeteries of Paris, Letter to author, 16 June 2000

Brunskill, Caroline, Re: Elizabeth Soyer, Letter to the author, 1 November 2000

Bowdler, Roger, Re: Elizabeth Soyer, Letter and copy of a report written for English Heritage to the author, 29 February 2000

Crayford, Bob, Re: Lawrence’s Epitaph in St Paul’s, Letter to Doreta Lovering, 23 February 2001

Gale, Lizbeth, Re: National Monuments Record, Letter to the author, 28 June 2000

Jenkins, Robin P., Re: Sir Francis Grant, Letter to the author, 18 December 2000

Le Forestier, Ghislaine, Re: Cemetery of Montmartre, Letter to the author, 8 June 2000

Lloyd, Stephen, Re: Cosway, Letter to the author, 21 February 2000

Lovering, Doreta, Re: Fuseli, Letter to the author, 26 January 2001

McLean, Janet, Letter to the author, 17 June 1998

Stoll, I. A., Re: Elizabeth Soyer, Letter to the author, 23 August 2000

Walker, Wendy, Re: Sir Martin Archer Shee, Letter to the author, 26 February 2001

Wisdom, Joseph, Re: Turner and Orchardson Monuments, Letter to the author, 27 February 2001

ElECTRONIC Communications

Bye, Philip, “Re: Sir Martin Archer Shee.” Email to the author, 15 November 2000

Busco, Marie, “Re: Westmacott’s memorial to Cosway.” Email to the author, 3 March 2000

Busco, Marie, “Re: Westmacott’s memorial to Cosway.” Email to the author, 5 March 2000

Davies, Tim, “Re: Elizabeth Soyer Enquiry.” Email to the author, 5 May 2000

Lloyd, Stephen, “Re: Cosway’s Monument.” Email to the author, 8 March 2000

Reynolds, Christine, “RE: Statesmen primarily.” Email to the author, 11 August 2003

Robertson, Amanda, Issue Desk, London Library, “Re: catalogue published by George Stanley (1821).” Email to the author, 23 February 2000

Vivian-Neal, Henry, “Re:Kensal Green/Elizabeth Soyer”. Email to the author, 16 February 2000

Walker, Wendy, “Re: Sir Martin Archer Shee.” Email to the author, 19 February 2001

Wilson, Andrew, “Re: Reynolds’s Epitaph”. Email to the author, 22 March 2000

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

NB: Where there is a designer and sculptor involved only the designer is named in this

list. Where the illustration was available from source, no publications detailed are

included.

Michael Rysbrack, Monument to Sir Godfrey Kneller, marble, 1730, Westminster Abbey, London. Engraved by Gravelot [Morris R Brownell, Alexander Pope and the Arts of Georgian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978]

Sir James Thornhill, Design for Spandrels of a ceiling, perhaps Thornhill Park (detail), ink, n.d, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. [Edgar de N. Mayhew, Sketches by Thornhill, (London: HMSO, 1967)]

Sir James Thornhill, Design for Spandrels of a ceiling, perhaps Thornhill Park (detail), ink, n.d, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. [Edgar de N. Mayhew, Sketches by Thornhill, (London: HMSO, 1967)]

Monument to Chaucer, purbeck marble, 1556, Westminster Abbey, London. [London: Westminster Abbey Official Guide, (London: Dean and Chapter of Westminster, 1997)]

James Gibbs, Monument to Dryden, Engraving after J. Dowling, 1724. Westminster Abbey, London. [Westminster Abbey Library, London]

Gerard Johnson, Monument to Shakespeare, 1616, The Church of the Holy Trinity,

Stratford –upon-Avon. [Levi Fox, Shakespeare’s England, (London: Wayland Publishers, 1972)]

Peter Scheemakers, Monument to Shakespeare, marble, 1741, Westminster Abbey, London. [Photograph author]

Tomb of Richard Wilson, stone, c1782, St Mary the Virgin, Mold, Wales [Photograph author]

Benedetto da Maiano, Memorial to Giotto, marble, 1490, Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence. [C. Acidini Lughinat, Santa Maria del Fiore, II (Firenze: Giunti, 1997)]

Giorgio Vasari and assistants, Monument to Vasari and Family, marble, 1560-3, SS Lucia e Flore, Arezzo.

Joseph Nollekens, Monument to Oliver Goldsmith, marble, 1776. Westminster Abbey, London [Photograph author]

John Bacon, Monument to Dr Samuel Johnson, marble, 1796, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

John Flaxman, Monument to Sir Joshua Reynolds, marble, 1813, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

Donatello, St George, Bargello, marble, 1415, Florence. [Charles Avery, Florentine Renaissance Sculpture, (London: John Murray, 199)]

John Flaxman, Monument to Reynolds (detail), marble, 1813, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Self-Portrait Shading the Eyes, oil on canvas, c1748, National Portrait Gallery, London. [Nicholas Penny, Reynolds, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1986)]

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds DCL, oil on canvas, c1779, The Royal Academy of Arts, London. [Nicholas Penny, Reynolds, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1986)]

Coade Factory, Monument to James Barry, coade stone,1819, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret, Honneurs rendus a Raphael apres sa mort, oil on canvas,1806, Oberlin College, Allen Memorial Art Museum. [Francis Haskell, ‘The Old Masters in Nineteenth-Century French Painting’ in Past and Present in Art and Taste: Selected Essays (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987)]

JWM Turner, Funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence: A Sketch from Memory, watercolour and gouache, 1830, Royal Academy of Arts, London. [Eric Shanes, Turner: The Great Watercolours (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2000)]

Sir Martin Archer Shee, Sir Martin Archer Shee, oil on canvas,1794, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Monument to Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, stone, 1856, Kensal Green Cemetery, London. [Photograph author]

Thomas Woolner, Monument to Sir Francis Grant, stone, 1880, St Mary’s Church, Melton Mowbury. [Photograph author]

Sir Francis Grant Memorial Window, St Mary’s Church, Melton Mowbury.Sir Francis Grant, photograph, undated, Grant Family papers. [Supplied by Penny

Pinty]

Lord Leighton Lying in state in the Central Hall of the Royal Academy, photograph,1896, Royal Academy of Arts, London. [Sidney C. Hutchinson, The History of the Royal Academy 1768-1986 (London: Robert Royce, 1986)]

Tomb of Frederic Lord Leighton, bronze, 1896, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

Funeral of Millais, drawing, 1896, Illustrated London News Picture Library [The Great Artists: Millias (London: Marshall Cavendish, 1993)]

Set of Paint Saucers, c1st century A.D., Petrie Museum, London [Susan Walker and Morris Bierbrier, Ancient Faces: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt (London: British Museum, 1997)]

Filippino Lippi, Monument to Fra Filippo Lippi, marble, 1490, Duomo, Spoleto. [photograph published in Dube]

Monument to Hogarth, stone, 1777, St Nicholas, Chiswick [Photograph author]Monument to Hogarth (detail), stone, 1777, St Nicholas, Chiswick [Photograph author]Richard Westmacott Jnr, Monument to Franz Bauer, marble, c1840, St Annes, Kew

Green, London. [Photograph author]Tomb of George Lance, stone, 1864, Flaybrick Cemetery, Birkenhead [Photograph

author]George Lance, Still Life, oil on canvas, 1857, Williamson Art Gallery and Museum,

Birkenhead. [Photograph author]Sir Richard Westmacott, Monument to Richard Cosway, marble, 1821, St

Marylebone, London. [Photograph author]Unknown French medallist, Richard Cosway, bronze medallion, c1786, National

Portrait Gallery, London [Heinz Library, London]Vincenzo Cioli, Monument to Michelangelo (detail), marble, 1564-75, Santa Croce,

Florence. [Joan Stack, Artists into Heroes: The Commemoration of Artists in the Art of Giorgio Vasari (Washington University in St Louis, 2000)]

Thomas Brock, Monument to Leighton (detail), bronze, 1902, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

Thomas Brock, Monument to Leighton, bronze and marble, 1902, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [NMR)

Sir Francis Chantry, Monument to James Northcote, marble, 1841, Exeter Cathedral, Devon.

Patrick MacDowell, Monument to JWM Turner, marble, 1862, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Photograph author]

JWM Turner, Peace-Burial at Sea, oil on canvas, 1842, Tate Britain, London.Patrick MacDowell, Monument to JWM Turner, marble,1862, St Paul’s Cathedral,

London. [Warburg Institute]Thomas Webster at his home in Cranbrook, photograph, undated, Cranbrook

Museum, Kent. [Cranbrook Museum, Kent]Hamo Thornycroft, Monument to Thomas Webster, marble,1889, St Dunstan’s

church, Cranbrook, Kent. [Photograph author] Hamo Thornycroft, Monument to Thomas Webster, marble1889, St Dunstan’s

church, Cranbrook, Kent. [Photograph author] Monument to Maria Cosway, marble, 1839, Fondazione Cosway, Lodi. [Stephen

Lloyd, Richard and Maria Cosway Regency Artists of Fashion, Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1995]

Pierre Puyenbroeck, Monument to Emma Soyer, portland stone and marble, 1844, Kensal Green Cemetery, London. [Photograph author]

Pierre Puyenbroeck, Monument to Emma Soyer (detail), portland stone and marble,1844, Kensal Green Cemetery, London. [Photograph author]

Emma Soyer, Self Portrait, pen, undated, National Portrait Gallery Archives, London. [NPG]

Emile Bastien-Lepage, Monument to Marie Bashskirtseff, 1884, Passy Cemetery, Paris. [Photograph author]

Vaudoyer, Lemoyne, and Deprez, Monument to Nicholas Poussin, marble, 1828-32, S Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome.

Antoine Etex, Monument to Gericault (detail), bronze, 1883, Pere LaChaise, Paris. [Photograph author]

Antoine Etex, Monument to Gericault, bronze and stone, 1883, Pere LaChaise, Paris. [Photograph author]

Antoine Laurent Dantan, Monument to Baron Francois-Pascal-Simon Gerard detail,bronze and stone, c1848-9, Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris. [Photograph author]

Antoine Laurent Dantan, Monument to Baron Francois-Pascal-Simon Gerard, bronze and stone, c1848-9, Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris. [Photograph author]

Cornelia Marjolin, Chapelle Scheffer, stone and fresco, 1869, Montmartre Cemetery, Paris. [Photograph author]

Ary Scheffer, Christus Consolator, oil on canvas, 1837, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Cornelia Marjolin, Christus Consolator, detail, fresco, 1869, Montmartre Cemetery, Paris. [Photograph author]

Godfrey Sykes, Monument to William Mulready, dalton stone, c1863, Kensal Green Cemetery, London. [Photograph author]

Godfrey Sykes, Monument to William Mulready detail, dalton stone, c1863, Kensal Green Cemetery, London. [Photograph author]

William Mulready, Train up a Child…, oil on canvas, 1841, The Forbes Magazine, New York. [Marica Pointon, Mulready, (London: Victoria and Albert, 1986)]

Edward Blore, Monument to Hilton and De Wint, marble, stone, and alabaster, 1865, Lincoln Cathedral. [The Builder 1 April 1865]

Edward Blore, Monument to Hilton and De Wint, detail, marble, stone, and alabaster, 1865, Lincoln Cathedral. [Photograph author]

William Hilton, The Raising of Lazarus, oil on canvas, 1818, St Mary Magdalene,

Newark. [Photograph Anne Atkinson]Edward Blore, Mary Anointing the Feet of Our Lord, alabaster, 1865, Lincoln

Cathedral.William Hilton, Crucifixion, detail, oil on canvas, 1827, Walker Gallery, Liverpool.

[Engraving in The Art Journal 1855]Edward Blore, Crucifixion, detail, alabaster, 1865, Lincoln Cathedral. Edward Blore, The Raising of Lazarus, detail, alabaster, 1865, Lincoln Cathedral. Thomas Woolner, Monument to Sir Edwin Landseer, detail, , marble, 1882, St Paul’s

Cathedral, London. [Warburg Institute]

Thomas Woolner, Monument to Sir Edwin Landseer, marble, 1882, St Paul’s Cathedral, London. [Author photograph]

Sir Edwin Landseer, The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner, oil on canvas, 1837, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

John Ballantyne Sir Edwin Landseer Sculpting his Lions , oil on canvas, c1865, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Mary Watts, Watts Memorial Chapel, detail, terracotta etc, c 1895-1898, Compton, Surrey. [Photograph author]

Mary Watts, Watts Memorial Chapel, detail of interior showing G F Watts’s The All-Pervading on the Altar, 1904, Compton, Surrey. [Photograph author]

Tom Wren, Monument to Watts, white terracotta, 1907, Compton, Surrey. [Photograph author]

G F Watts, ‘Sic Transit’ , oil on canvas, 1890-2, Tate Britain, London. [The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910, ed. Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone (London: Tate Gallery, 1997)]

Tom Wren, Monument to Watts, detail of Destiny, white terracotta, 1907, Compton, Surrey. [Photograph author]

G F Watts, The Messenger , oil on canvas, c1884-5, Tate Britain, London. [The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910, ed. Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone (London: Tate Gallery, 1997)]

Tom Wren, Monument to Watts, detail of The Messenger, white terracotta, 1907, Compton, Surrey. [Photograph author]

William Reynolds-Stephens, Monument to Sir William Quiller Orchardson, mixed media, 1913, St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Sir William Quiller Orchardson, Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, oil on canvas, 1881, Tate Britain, London.

Ford Madox Brown, Brown Family Tombstone, detail, stone, 1867, St Pancras and Islington cemetery, East Finchley. [Photograph author]

Ford Madox Brown, Brown Family Tombstone, detail, stone, 1867, St Pancras and Islington cemetery, East Finchley. [Photograph author]

Ford Madox Brown, Monument to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, stone, 1883-4, Birchington Churchyard, Birchington, Kent. [Photograph author]

Frederic Shields, Memorial Window to Rossetti, stained glass, 1884, Birchington Church, Birchington, Kent. [Photograph author]

Ford Madox Brown, Monument to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, detail, stone, 1883-4, Birchington Churchyard, Birchington, Kent. [Photograph author]

Dante Gabriel Rossetti How They Met Themselves, pen and ink, c1850-60, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. [Timothy Hilton, The Pre-Raphaelites, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991)]

Evelyn de Morgan, De Morgan Monument, stone, c1917, Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, Surrey.

Evelyn de Morgan, The Field of the Slain, oil on canvas, 1916, Alan Gallery, New York. [Evelyn de Morgan Oil Paintings, ed. Catherine Gordon, (London: De Morgan Foundation, 1996)]

Evelyn de Morgan, The Passing of the Soul at Death, oil on canvas, undated, De Morgan Foundation, London. [Evelyn de Morgan Oil Paintings, ed. Catherine Gordon, (London: De Morgan Foundation, 1996)]

William Blake Richmond, Angels watching over a Dead Painter, oil on canvas, 1873-6, private collection, Somerset, [Simon Reynolds, William Blake Richmond: An Artist’s Life 1842-1921 (Norwich: Micheal Russell Publishing, 1995)]

William Blake Richmond, Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, oil on canvas, c1876-7, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada. [Simon Reynolds, William Blake Richmond: An Artist’s Life 1842-1921 (Norwich: Micheal Russell Publishing, 1995)]

William Blake Richmond, Blake Richmond Monument, detail, stone, 1915, St Nicholas Churchyard, Chiswick.

Giotto di Bondone, The Arena Chapel, detail, fresco, 1302-5, Padua, Italy. [Anne Mueller von der Haegen, Giotto (Koln: Konnemann, 1998)]

William Blake Richmond, Blake Richmond Monument, detail, stone, 1915, St Nicholas Churchyard, Chiswick