AN Address from Britannia to the celebrated Angelica, printed in the Public Advertiser on January 20, 1767, acclaimed a 20something Swiss-born painter, who would shortly sign the petition to George III that precipitated the foundation of the Royal Academy (RA). 'What wonderful effects from light and shade!' rhapsodised the poetaster: 'Such colouring was ne'er since Rubens shown.'
The artist in question, known to her British admirers as 'Miss Angel' and to art scholars as Angelica Kauffman, was a young woman acknowledged in her lifetime as a leading portraitist and history painter. In Britain, her champions included Joshua Reynolds and Robert Adam, for whom she contributed to decorative schemes at Harewood House, West Yorkshire, Osterley Park in Middlesex and the Adelphi in London. Within months of her arrival in the capital, she received a prestigious commission from Augusta, Princess of Wales, to paint the King's sister, Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick, and her newborn son, a conventional subject she invested with the 'noble simplicity and quiet grandeur' that, in 1755, archaeologist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (whom she also painted) had argued were key to ancient Greek art and belonged at the heart of the emerging neo-Classical movement.
Over time, Kauffmann's eminence was unrivalled. She painted many of Europe's crowned heads, declining Ferdinand IV of Naples's offer of a post as court painter; her friends included Goethe and her French counterpart Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun; she died celebrated and wealthy.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin February 28, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin February 28, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.