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Lot Essay
This charming portrait of Olive Craster, in which the costume is particularly beautifully depicted, was painted by Dance in Rome in 1762, as a pendant to Batoni’s portrait of her husband (for which see the previous lot). Dance, who was working in Batoni’s studio at the time, expressed his initial apprehension and subsequent delight at taking on the commission in a letter to his father: ‘Mr Crastow [sic] and his lady have had their portraits painted, the Gentleman by Pompeo Batoni, who is esteemed the best Italian Painter living, and the Lady by me. When it was proposed to me, I was not very desirous of undertaking a thing in competition with a Man of his Merit…However, I had the courage to undertake it, and have had the good fortune to succeed better than my best friends expected’ (Dance letters MSS, 7 July 1762, Library of the Royal Institute of British Architects).
The Crasters arrived in Rome in June 1762, a key stop on their Grand Tour through Italy and France (see note to the previous lot for details of the tour). Olive kept notebooks and (mostly undated) accounts, in which an entry under ‘at Rome, Antiques & Curiosities’ records: ‘two portraits of C - & self by Sig.ie Batoni & Mr. Dance - 61 scudi 5 pol [paoli]’ (fig. 1), with copies in miniature by a Sig.ra Tibaldi [presumably Maria Felice Tibaldi or one of her two sisters] at 32 scudi and 8 paoli (a scudo, it is noted, being worth 5 English shillings). Dance had been working in Rome since 1754, and this portrait is the first life-size painting he executed after he began working with Batoni, and one of his first portraits of a female sitter. His debt to Batoni is clear in the rendering of the dress, replete with ribbons, bows and lace (which Olive records purchasing in Naples), and the vibrancy of the palette. A portrait of the artist Angelica Kauffman which Dance executed two years later, shortly before his return to London in 1765, exhibits a similar mastery of the intricate details of the costume (Lincolnshire, Burghley House). The skills and connections he gained in Batoni’s studio enabled Dance to set up a successful portrait practice on his return to London and he was one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy in 1768.
The Crasters arrived in Rome in June 1762, a key stop on their Grand Tour through Italy and France (see note to the previous lot for details of the tour). Olive kept notebooks and (mostly undated) accounts, in which an entry under ‘at Rome, Antiques & Curiosities’ records: ‘two portraits of C - & self by Sig.ie Batoni & Mr. Dance - 61 scudi 5 pol [paoli]’ (fig. 1), with copies in miniature by a Sig.ra Tibaldi [presumably Maria Felice Tibaldi or one of her two sisters] at 32 scudi and 8 paoli (a scudo, it is noted, being worth 5 English shillings). Dance had been working in Rome since 1754, and this portrait is the first life-size painting he executed after he began working with Batoni, and one of his first portraits of a female sitter. His debt to Batoni is clear in the rendering of the dress, replete with ribbons, bows and lace (which Olive records purchasing in Naples), and the vibrancy of the palette. A portrait of the artist Angelica Kauffman which Dance executed two years later, shortly before his return to London in 1765, exhibits a similar mastery of the intricate details of the costume (Lincolnshire, Burghley House). The skills and connections he gained in Batoni’s studio enabled Dance to set up a successful portrait practice on his return to London and he was one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy in 1768.