Pompeo Girolamo Batoni

By descent in the family of the sitter to Sir Richard Udny;
Juliana Hamilton (neé Juliana Fullarton Udny);
Thence by descent to Frederick Hamilton, Master of Belhaven (born 1953);
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 6 July 2006, lot 39, where acquired.

A.M. Clark, E.P. Bowron (ed.), Pompeo Batoni, A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, Oxford 1985, p. 319, cat. no. 338, reproduced plate 309;
J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, New Haven and London 1997, p. 964;
F. Petrucci, Pittura di ritratto a Roma: Il Settecento, Rome 2010, vol. I, pp. 164-165, cat. no. 4, reproduced vol. II, p. 407, reproduced fig. 101;
F. O'Gorman and L. Guerra, The centre and the margins in eighteenth-century British and Italian cultures, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2013, p. 186, note 43;
E.P. Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, London and New Haven 2016, vol. II, pp. 431, cat. no. 343.

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. The work has a glue lining which presents the surface well. There is still a good deal of texture in the brocade of the figure's clothing and hat. The work is clean and varnished. Under ultraviolet light, one can see a spot or two of retouching in the light colored coat in the chest on the right, and a few spots of restoration in the upper left and on the upper right edge. There are a few restorations in the lower right beneath the elbow. There are also a few other small spots to the right of the cuff and in the lower left in the darkest colors of the hat and beneath the hat. There is restoration in the red waistcoat on the left side of his lower waist. There are no retouches in the face. The work is in superb condition.
"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."

Like many self-made men of this period, Robert Udny seized upon trade opportunities in the West Indies, seeking to rebuild the wealth of his once prominent family.  Taking advantage of the then booming sugar trade, Udny became a successful West India merchant, securing a considerable fortune.  He took on the additional name of Fullarton in 1786, when he inherited Dudwick, the estate of his cousin Lieutenant General Robert Fullarton.  In 1789 he inherited the impressive tower house of Udny, which had been the family seat since the late fourteenth century, but did not take it on until 1792, having instead made a home of Udny House, his villa at Teddington in Middlesex.  

Udny was a man of erudition and scholarly interests: he was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and was elected to the Royal Society in 1785.  In the wake of  his death, Gentleman’s Magazine described him as “one of the old breed of true English gentlemen, which seem to be nearly exhausted and lost amidst the frivolous vanity and impertinence of the present race of our countrymen”.¹ He amassed an impressive collection of paintings and drawings which were housed in a purpose built picture gallery, erected in 1790, at the Teddington villa.  Udny was particularly known for his Italian paintings, many of which he had acquired through the agency of his younger brother, John (1757-1800) who was consul to Venice from 1761 and to Leghorn from 1776.² John had lost considerable sums of money in the collapse of the merchant banks due to the Seven Years War but succeeded in recovering much of his fortune through the sale of paintings.  Udny acted as go between and exported many pictures from Italy, including Mantegna's Samson and Delilah, now in the National Gallery, London (inv. no. NG1145).

Udny twice visited Italy, once between 1769 and 1770 and again in 1775, accompanied on both occasions by his wife, Maria.³  It was on his first trip to Rome that he sat to Batoni; while many of the artist's Grand Tourist patrons were young bachelors, Udny was already 48.  Batoni's portrayal of his sitter is sympathetic, the pose is erect, the expression faintly self-conscious and the costume represented with typical virtuosity.  The artist placed Udny before a parapet with a column at left and view of the Temple of the Sybil in the distance at right, a composition employed in his earlier portrait of the Irish nobleman, Otway Cuffe, 3^rd Lord Desart, now in a New York private collection.⁴  The choice of background would have been down to Udny himself and his maturity and scholarly tastes would have been defining factors in his selection.  By choosing the Temple of the Sybil in Tivoli, Udny no doubt hoped to promote an image as a discerning collector and cognoscento.  He procured a number of pictures during his Italian sojourn and on 21 April 1770 received a license for the exportation of ten paintings, among them “uno di Batoni che il ritratto del’sudetto Sig.r Udney” (“one by Batoni which is  a portrait of the aforementioned Mr. Udney”).⁵  Following his death in 1802, Udny’s library and extensive collection of paintings and drawings was dispersed, the majority of it sold in a series of sales at Christie’s in 1804.  Perhaps due to the personal nature of its commission, the present painting was not among those offered at auction and instead descended within the family of Robert Fullarton Udny until its sale a decade ago (see Provenance).

1.  Gentleman’s Magazine, LXXII, part I, 1802, p. 182.
2. J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, New Haven and London 1997, p. 961-963.
3.  J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, New Haven and London 1997, p. 964.
4.  E.P. Bowron, under Literature.
5.  Archivio di Stato, Camerale II, Antichità e Belle Arti, II, no. 286, in E.P. Bowron, op. cit.