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Lot Essay
Like Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire (see lot 75), Dawkins travelled to Italy as part of a Grand Tour of Europe, and is known to have been in Florence in December 1783 and travelled on to Rome where this pastel may have been executed. The Dawkins family had made its money from sugar plantations in Jamaica and Dawkins' uncle, also James Dawkins, had formed an art collection that included a painting of himself and a fellow traveller, Robert Wood (171-1771) by Gavin Hamilton (1723-1798) entitled Dawkins and Wood discovering Palmyra (1758, National Gallery of Scotland) and a set of the Seasons by Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757).
An oval pastel portrait of Dawkins, executed by Hamilton, also descended in the sitter's family to the Rev. E.H. Dawkins, was included in his sale in these Rooms, 28 February 1913, lot 10, and subsequently sold again in these Rooms, 10 June 1999, lot 12.
In this rare horizontal-format portrait by Hamilton, Dawkins is pictured with two sarcophagi. It is believed that the sarcophagus on which the sitter is leaning is the 'Sarcophagus of the Muses', now at the Louvre, Paris (inventory number MA475, published in F. Barratte and C. Metzger, Catalogue des Sarcophagues en Pierre d'epoques Romaine et Paléochrétienne, 1985, p. 171, no. 84), which was found in the early 18th century, acquired by Cardinal Albani for his villa and sold by him to the Pope in 1733 for the new Capitoline Museum. By 1797 it had been moved to France. The sarcophagus on which Dawkins is seated is also in the Capitoline Museum, and was also sold to the Pope from the Albani Collection in 1733 (see G. Koch, Die mythologischen Sarkophage. Meleager. Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs XIII, VI, 1976, no. 120). It is therefore possible that the pastel was executed in the Capitoline Museum, and not in the Villa Albani as has been traditionally understood.
We are grateful to Jan Stubbe Ostergaard, Curator of Roman Sarcophagi at the Department of Ancient Art, Glypotek, Copenhagen Denmark, for his help in identifying the sarcophagi.
An oval pastel portrait of Dawkins, executed by Hamilton, also descended in the sitter's family to the Rev. E.H. Dawkins, was included in his sale in these Rooms, 28 February 1913, lot 10, and subsequently sold again in these Rooms, 10 June 1999, lot 12.
In this rare horizontal-format portrait by Hamilton, Dawkins is pictured with two sarcophagi. It is believed that the sarcophagus on which the sitter is leaning is the 'Sarcophagus of the Muses', now at the Louvre, Paris (inventory number MA475, published in F. Barratte and C. Metzger, Catalogue des Sarcophagues en Pierre d'epoques Romaine et Paléochrétienne, 1985, p. 171, no. 84), which was found in the early 18th century, acquired by Cardinal Albani for his villa and sold by him to the Pope in 1733 for the new Capitoline Museum. By 1797 it had been moved to France. The sarcophagus on which Dawkins is seated is also in the Capitoline Museum, and was also sold to the Pope from the Albani Collection in 1733 (see G. Koch, Die mythologischen Sarkophage. Meleager. Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs XIII, VI, 1976, no. 120). It is therefore possible that the pastel was executed in the Capitoline Museum, and not in the Villa Albani as has been traditionally understood.
We are grateful to Jan Stubbe Ostergaard, Curator of Roman Sarcophagi at the Department of Ancient Art, Glypotek, Copenhagen Denmark, for his help in identifying the sarcophagi.