Nicola Maria Rossi

Commissioned by the sitter 1730–31 ;

Thence by descent from the sitter through the Jones family to Robert Oliver Jones (1811–1885);

Thence by descent to his daughter, Edith Alicia Jones, who married Robert Arthur Valpy (1844–1894);

Thence by descent to their daughter, Clara Valpy (1877–1869), who married Sir Seymour Boothby (1866–1951);

Thence by descent in the Boothby family at Fonmon Castle, Vale of Glamorgan, to the present owner.  

A.D. Fraser Jenkins, 'The Paintings at Fonmon Castle', in S. Williams, Stewart Williams’ Glamorgan Historian, vol. 7, Glamorgan 1971, p. 64, reproduced (as follower of Solimena).

Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, Welsh National Portraits, 16 March – 14 April 1957, no. 20 (as Italian School, c. 1725).

Robert Jones can be counted as one of the most important patrons of the Jones family during the eighteenth century. Orphaned at a young age, Jones was educated at Christchurch, Oxford, and was duly appointed minor roles in the local politics of Wales, including his appointment asSheriff for Glamorgan in 1729. His earliest most significant example of patronage was the commissioning of William Hogarth (1697–1764) to produce a conversation piece depicting him amongst his younger siblings in an Arcadian landscape, which is said to have cost 23 guineas.¹ In 1730 Jones embarked on an extensive Italian tour, which included visits to Rome, Venice and Naples. This trip resulted in the purchasing of a considerable collection of Italian paintings, including a Roman classical capriccio by Giovanni Paolo Panini, which is being offered as lot 17 on 6 December 2023. On his death, a mere twelve years later, it was commented that his acquisitions during this period had totaled a staggering 700 pounds.² After his return to England he married Mary Forrest of Minehead, Somerset, a union which produced a son and heir. Robert also later became a firm supporter of the Methodist Church, with Charles Wesley (1707–1788) contributing an elegy on Jones' premature death at the age of thirty-six in 1742.

This portrait by the Neapolitan artist Nicola Maria Rossi is very likely to have been produced during his visit to Naples or Rome during the years 1730–31. Rossi was one of a vast group of painters trained in the studio of Francesco Solimena (1657–1747), the artist to whom this portrait has been connected stylistically since the 1970s (see Literature). The most significant surviving portrait by Rossi is a Group Portrait of the Children of the Duke of Bovino, dated to the late 1730s, which is in the collection of the Museo Filangieri in Naples.³

We are grateful to Prof. Nicola Spinosa for suggesting the attribution to Rossi on the basis of digital images.

¹ E. Einberg, William Hogarth, A complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London 2016, pp. 77–78, reproduced in colour.

² Letter from Thos. Richard to Mrs Mary Jones, 1 November 1743, quoted in J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800, New Haven and London 1997, p. 561.

³ N. Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del Settecento dal Barocco al Rococò, Naples 1986, vol. 1, p. 129, no. 106, reproduced fig. 125.