Attributed to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829)

PICTURES, DRAWINGS AND PRINTS The picture collection at Mere is of interest not least because it shows how the acquisitions made in Italy by Jonas Langford Brooke in 1783-4 and by Peter Langford Brooke in 1828-31 transformed the character of the house. Jonas Langford Brooke, who was born about 1758 and eductated at Magdalen College, Oxford, was sent on the Grand Tour with his tutor, the Rev. John Parkinson. Equipped with letters from the banker Robert Herries, who had correspondents in numerous cities, they left London on 16 August 1783, travelling by way of Brussels, where Brooke evidently failed to deliver a letter of introduction to Lord Torrington from Lord Stamford, the acquisitions of whose own Grand Tour survive at Dunham Massey. The cold winter months, January and February, were spent in Naples: in March and April Brooke and Parkinson were in Rome, making the expedition to Tivoli on 24 April. The journey north took them to Florence in May, to Venice for nearly a fortnight at the end of that month and finally to Milan, where Brooke died on 19 July. His friend Sir James Graham, 1st Bt. of Netherby, had already gone on to Geneva, but a letter of introduction to Sir Robert Murray Keith shows that Brooke and Parkinson had intended to return not through Switzerland but by way of Vienna. When in Naples, Brooke is known to have bought two views by Pietro Fabris, who enjoyed the patronage of Sir William Hamilton. These do not survive, but there can be little doubt that Brooke also secured the series of gouaches by Fabris' rival Zaverio della Gatta (lots to ). While in Rome Brooke evidently availed himself of the services of the cicerone Thomas Jenkins, as R(oger?) Metcalfe addressed a letter to him at the latter's establishment on the Corso. Metcalfe had clearly used his time in Rome efficiently. He recommended Brooke to buy prints from Mirri - 'a very obliging fair dealing man' - and had a high opinion of the work of his countrymen: 'I think our English artists take the lead of Rome': You will of course go to examine their several performances -- You will see the Elements (or at least two of them) done in a very high stile by More. Mr Derner (Durno) has painted an historical piece from Quintus Curtis, Alexander saving his father Philip in a Battle ... I have heard it has been proposed by some Gentm. to raffle for it - if so you would do well to take a ticket or two.... Brooke was encouraged to offer #50 for a picture of a lion by Henry Tresham and also told about the merits of Marchant's intaglios, of Hewetson the sculptor, and of Gavin Hamilton. In a postscript Brooke was told that Tresham, More and Durno 'do any subject one bespeaks'. The upshot was that Brooke purchased a distinguished pair of pictures from Jacob More (lots ) the Scottich painter, whose reputation as a landscapist was then at its height. By the mid-nineteenth century More was forgotten and the pictures passed as by his German contemporary Hackert. Metcalfe recommended that Brooke acquire a copy of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael. Other suggestions no doubt were made by the Scottish cicerone, James Byres of Tonley, under whom Brooke took a course of antiquities with his friend Sir James Graham, and with Thomas Peter Gifford, who was then sitting to Batoni for one of the last and most dramatic of the series of his whole length portraits. While Dance's ambitious Appearance of Venus to Aeneas and Achates (lot ) must have entered the collection at another stage, it is certainly possible that the finest old master is this, Reni's Roman Charity (lot ) was acquired by Brooke in Italy at this time. Reni was held in immense esteem and the picture would have been considerably more expensive than Brooke's purchases from contemporary artists. It is surprising that so characteristic a work should until now have been overlooked. Parkinson's journal establishes that on 28 May 1784, during their visit to Venice, Brooke 'sat to Mr Hamilton for his picture'. The portraits had been very fashionable both in Dublin and London in the previous decade, executed a distinguished series of whole length pastels of men on the Grand Tour. The pastel was probably intended for Brooke's friend Graham, whose own portrait, with a memorial inscription to him, evidently a reciprocal gift to the family, has remained at Mere (lot ). Hamilton's pastels of the kind mark a high point in the development of the medium at British hands. Jonas Langford Brooke's nephew Peter, who had inherited Mere in 1815, was already in middle age when he and his wife made a prolonged visit to Italy. They settled at Naples in the winter of 1828-9 and Brooke's account book records numerous purchases from both artists and agents. He patronised such draftsmen as Vincenzo Abbati (#17, January/February 1829 and 36 scudi, 1829 undated) (lot ), Bartolommeo Pinelli (#7, 17 August 1830 for Mrs Langford Brooke), Zanella (#24, 21 August 1830 for views of Ischia, 36 scudi, 10 November and #9 6s., 5 January 1831) (lot ). On April 1830 Gigante received a further ?7 2s. 'for lessons in drawing'. On 10 March 1829 Brooke paid the equivalent of #60 for '10 large' 'paintings of vases at studio' and a further #16 for '20 small' (lots ). One of the Langford Brookes' motives for being abroad was to economise: over a three year period they spent a total of #7,042 7s. which represented a saving of #2,042 over anticipated expenditure in England, even when allowing for the purchase of a number of Old Masters. These included the Bonavia (lot ) which formerly had a pendant, works given to Coccorante and Micco Spadaro, a so-called Velasquez from the Miranda collection - which Coesvelt the dealer valued at #500 and was eventually sold and Christie's on 17 July 1908, lot 16 - and the large copy of Reni's Magdalen then in the Sciarra collection and now in the Galleria Nazionale Rome (lot ): Amorosi, evidently a dealer, had 'no doubt' that it was by Reni himself. The Langford Brookes returned to England on 23 September 1831; despite the family's subsequent migration between houses at Mere the character of the picture collection has changed little since his day: five works were sent to Christie's in 1908, but of these the Snyders (lot ) returned.

Details

Attributed to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829)

Women at their Toilet, with figures of Erotes and a torchbearer

both with decorative borders below showing a youthful head wearing a Phrygian cap emerging from the petals of a flower

both inscribed with the plate number on the reverse 'II no.25', both with seals on the reverse

the centres black, ochre and white paint on a partly etched base varnished over, the geometric borders varnished over engravings, with painted square inserts at the corners, the decorative borders varnished over an engraved base

40½ x 30½in. (102.8 x 77.5cm.) and
41 x 30½in. (104.2 x 77.5cm.)

a pair (2)

Lot Essay

The central panels are from Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton, his Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipolentiary of the Court of Naples, 1767, II, plate 25.

The collection of antique red and black painted vases was assembled by Sir William Hamilton (d. 1802) during his years as King George III's Envoy Extraordinary to the kingdon of the Two Sicilies (1764-1801). The illustrations and explanatory text were published with an introduction by the French scholar Pierre Francois Hughes, Baron d'Hancarville. Hamilton's collection of vases is now in the British Museum.

Tischbein was the Director of the Royal Academy of Paintings in Naples. His invention of prints and borders executed in the Etruscan style, copied from Sir William Hamilton's vases and adapted to small rooms and cabinets was noted by the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham (d.1842). In a letter written from Rome in April 1796, he continued 'You can scarce imagine how successful and new such ornaments appear' (Tatham archine, Victoria and Albert Museum, no. D1479-1551, 1898). The precise technical aspects of the 'Tischbein' process are unkown, but presumably allowed for the production of larger scene representations of subjects included in d'Hancerville's publication.

The head wearing a Phrygian cap, the emblem of Liberty, derives from a vase ornament such as that of Krates form, illustrated by d'Hancerville, op cit; I. 1766, plates 52-6

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