Pompeo Girolamo Batoni

Schloss Braunschweig, by 1911, inv. no. 121;
Offered for sale, Christie's, London, 21st July 1944 or 1946, lot 161, where it was likely bought in and returned to the collection of the House of Hanover;
Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born 1954), Schloss Marienburg, Pattensen bei Hannover (fig. 1);
His sale, ("Property from the Royal House of Hanover"), Schloss Marienburg, Sotheby's, 6 October 2005, lot 589;
With Galleria Cesare Lampronti, Rome;
From whom acquired in 2010.

E. Emmerling, Pompeo Batoni, sein Leben und Werken, Cologne 1932, p. 108, cat. no. 60 (as dated 1759);
A. Clark, E.P. Bowron (ed.), Pompeo Batoni, A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, London 1985, pp. 294-5, under cat. no. 273;
O. Millar, "Pompeo Batoni, A Complete Catalogue", (book review), in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 129, 1987, pp. 604-605;
M. Levey, The later Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London 1991, p. 10;
E.P. Bowron, P. Bjorn Kerber, Pompeo Batoni, Prince of Painters in Eighteen Century Rome, exhibition catalogue, New Haven and London 2007, pp. 42, 97, 113, 174, reproduced p. 43, fig. 39;
C.D. Dickerson III, in R.R. Brettell and C.D. Dickerson (eds.), From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern, exhibition catalogue, Fortworth 2010, p. 190, under cat. no. 32 and note 4;
F. Petrucci, Pittura di ritratto a Roma: Il Settecento, Rome 2010, vol. I, pp. 164-165, cat. no. 4, reproduced vol. II, p. 398, fig. 80;
E.P. Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, New Haven and London 2016, vol. I, pp. 343–344, cat. no. 284.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been recently restored. Although the retouches are slightly discolored in a few spots, it can certainly be hung in its current condition. The canvas does not appear to be lined, and the stretcher is possibly original. The paint layer is clean and clearly un-abraded. Even the fine details in the darker colors in the lower part of the picture are very clearly undamaged. The retouches that are visible under ultraviolet light are very few and far between. There are a few in the lower left, a spot or two in the white cuff on the left side, a few beneath the armpit in the red curtain on the left side, and a spot or two in the lower right. The pale blue of the coat on the left of the brocade and of the sash has received a few retouches. There are a handful of tiny dots in the face, none of which are significant. There are two restorations in the black satin collar. Other small retouches can be seen under ultraviolet light in the red curtain around the top of the head presumably addressing some pentimenti and in a few spots in the sky and landscape on the right. The condition is particularly good, and the work should be hung in its current state.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Edward August, Duke of York, was the first member of the English royal family to travel to Italy as a Grand Tourist.  While in Rome between 15 and 28 April 1764, the Duke sat for Pompeo Batoni, Italy’s finest portrait painter, who enjoyed the patronage of Rome’s most distinguished foreign visitors.  This portrait is one of several signed versions, each of magnificent quality, including three in the Royal Collection and another formerly in the collection of Earl Howe at Penn House, Buckinghamshire, now in an American private collection.¹ The number of autograph versions is testament to the portrait’s contemporary popularity and many of the autograph replicas were commissioned by the sitter himself to be sent to friends.  The Englishman James Martin (1738-1810), who kept a diary during the course of his own Grand Tour, visited Batoni’s studio on various occasions.  In an entry to dated 20 July 1764 he mentions "Went to Pompeia Batoni’s saw there several portraits. He has made a copy from that of the Duke of Yorke & rec’d orders for One or Two more.”²  The painting now at Windsor Castle, for example, was given by the Duke to James Duff, 2^nd Earl of Fife and the Penn House version was given directly to Richard, Earl Howe.  The canvas generally considered to be the prime, now at Buckingham Palace, was given to Sir Horace Mann, who later presented it to the Duke’s brother, King George III.³    

While the Duke’s visit to Italy was not politically motivated, it came shortly after the end of the Seven Years War and elicited great interest.  Many prominent members of Roman society were keen to ingratiate themselves with the new Hanoverian ruling family.  In a vain attempt to elude attention, the Duke of York traveled to Italy in cognito as the "Earl of Ulster", but from the time of his arrival in Genoa on 28 November 1763 to his departure on 17 August 1764, his trip was documented in regular newspaper accounts, both in Italy and at home.  His sitting with Batoni may have been organized by Richard Dalton who was librarian to the Duke’s brother, King George III.  Dalton travelled regularly to Italy to purchase works of art on behalf of the King and, given his knowledge of the country, would have played a key role in the coordination of the Duke’s tour.⁴  Edward Augustus sat for Batoni wearing the sash of the Order of the Garter and the undress uniform of a flag officer.  Batoni would have had a variety of backdrops for his sitters to choose from; the Duke opted to be depicted before one of Rome’s most recognizable monuments, the Colosseum.  

Cardinal Albani implored the Duke to visit Rome during his Italian sojourn and entertained him at the Villa Albani outside Porta Salaria.  The Cardinal also arranged for the British painter and antiquary Thomas Jenkins to act as the Duke’s guide, or cicerone, for the duration of his trip while the art historian and archeologist Johann Joachim Winkelmann was tasked with advising him on the purchase of art.⁵ The Duke’s attention, however, appears to have been focused less on Italy’s rich historical and artistic offerings and more on its promise of diversion.  The Duke’s reputation as a philanderer and libertine became fodder for the newspapers who relished in reporting each alleged conquest.  Less than impressed by the Duke’s exploits, Winkelmann described him as “the greatest princely beast that I know, [who] does no honour to his rank and nation.”⁶  Winkelmann was not alone in his contempt for the Duke, as Ilaria Bignamini writes, “no eighteenth-century Grand Tourist had a worst reputation than the Duke of York both at home and abroad.”⁷  Horace Walpole’s account of him in a letter to Horace Mann was scathing to say the least: “a milk-white angel, white even to his eyes and eyelashes, very purblind and whose tongue runs like a fiddlestick. (…) York seems a title fated to sit on silly heads – or don’t let us talk of him; he is not worth it.”⁸  It is worth noting, however, that Walpole’s view of the Duke was likely tainted, as the royal is said to have “stolen a lady” from him.⁹  Whether or not personal retribution was a factor, Walpole certainly did everything in his power to discredit the Duke of York, propagating the opinion that his tour of Italy reflected the king’s desire to distance his free-thinking brother from the British political arena.¹⁰ 

Despite his reputation, the Duke of York was well received in Rome and was showered with gifts from the Pope.  The Duke resolved to return to Italy three years later, according to Walpole, “intending to visit a lady at Genoa, with whom he was in love.”¹¹  He stopped in the South of France where he was taken ill and died shortly after in Monaco, on 17 September 1767.

1.  E.P. Bowron, under Literature, vol. I, pp. 340-344, cat. nos. 281-284.
2.  J. Martin, “Grand Tour Journal, 1763-5. MS,” extracts published in E.P. Bowron, op. cit., vol. I, p. 341.
3.  A.M. Clark, op. cit.
4.  D.Goodreau, in Nathaniel Dance, 1735-1811, (exhibition catalogue), London 1977 (no page numbers).
5.  E.P. Bowron, op. cit., vol. I, p. 340.
6.  J.J. Winkelmann, Briefe, W. Rehm and H. Diepolder (ed.), Berlin 1952, vol. III, pp. 39-40.
7.  I. Bignamini, in Grand tour: The lure of Italy in the eighteenth century, London 1996, p. 34.
8.  H. Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl Orford, P. Cunningham (ed.), Edinburgh 1906, vol. IV, p. 480.
9.  I. Bignamini, op. cit., pp. 34-35.
10.  Ibid., p. 34.
11.  H. Walpole, op. cit., vol. V, p. 65.