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Thomas Jenkins in Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Thomas Ashby
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Extract

In the latter half of the eighteenth century the trade in antiques in Rome was largely in British hands. Matthew Brettingham the younger was only employed as the agent of Lord Orford, Lord Leicester, and Lord Egremont (Michaelis, Ancient Marbles, 71 sqq.); but another artist resident in Rome, Gavin Hamilton, served his patrons not merely by purchasing, but by excavating antiques for them in the neighbourhood of Rome; and his enterprise was rewarded by discoveries of great artistic importance, though later archaeologists would have been far more grateful to him had he registered more accurately the sites and circumstances of his researches, still more had he made anything like a plan of the buildings he examined. It has not, it is true, been as yet possible to control his results; for I do not believe that any site which he searched has ever been re-excavated subsequently.

Type
Research Article
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 6 , 1913 , pp. 487 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1913

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References

page 487 note 1 For accounts of his activities see Michaelis, op. cit. 73 sqq.; A. H. Smith, Lansdowne Marbles, and ‘Gavin Hamilton's Letters to Charles Townley’ in J.H.S. xxi. (1901), 306 sqq.Google Scholar

page 488 note 1 Plimer was the father of the miniature painters Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer. Among the records of exportations of works of art to England, published by Bertolotti in Archivio Storico di Roma, iv. (1878), 75 sqq.Google Scholar we find that in March, 1761, Jenkins exported 200 pictures of various sizes partly painted by the late Monsù Plimer (Monsù is the Italian phonetic equivalent o Monsieur; and an inn at Sulmona still rejoices in the name of Albergo del Monsu).

page 489 note 1 An account of this volume is given by Engelmann, R. in Antike Bilder aus Römischen Handschriften, xviiiGoogle Scholar. Cf. Egger, Codex Escririalensis, Text, 7, n. 3; 65.

page 489 note 2 Ne' libri della Biblioteca di Monsig. Patriarca Massimi, …. trouansi li disegni di pitture eccellentissimamente imitati, con li colori da quelli si conservano nella regia, e famosa libreria dell‘ Escuriale in Ispagna (he then mentions the drawing of the Volta d'Oro, which is copied from Francesco d'Olanda cod. 28–I–20 f. 48 bis).

page 491 note 1 Cf. Gavin Hamilton's letter to Lord Shelburne of May 1st, 1774 (Smith, Lansdowne Marbles, p. 71). ‘I shall take that opportunity of sending likewise what has been lately published of the Loggie of Raffael (Volpato, Loggie, 1772–9) and perhaps may add the ceiling of the baths of Livia on the Palatine mount [really an earlier house under the peristyle of the palace of Domitian]. Panini is now doing one for Mr. Peachey, which is the most elegant thing I ever saw.’

page 491 note 2 I cite the letters to Muzel-Stosch and others from which Dr. Noack draws his evidence. They will be found in Winckelmann's Werke (Donau-Öschingen, 1825), vol. xi.Google Scholar; Muzel-Stosch, 7 Dec., 1763, 7 Dec., 1764; Riedesel, 18 Feb., 1764.

page 492 note 1 Riedesel, 18 Feb., 1764. See Visconti, , Mus. Pioclem. iii. p. 29Google Scholar (8vo. edn.), n. 2. He does not refer to the inscription—the name of Dioscorides—which in his Nachrichten von den neucsten herculanischen Entdeckungen, § 56 (Werke, ii. 268), is stigmatized as a forgery. The cameo is cited by Bernoulli, , Röm. Ikon. ii. 1Google Scholar. 311 n., but seems to have disappeared.

page 492 note 2 It is now at Newby Hall (No. 20, p. 527 sqq. of Michaelis' description in his Ancient Marbles, q.v. for the history of its purchase, restoration, and exportation). It is not altogether clear to me, however, from Winckelmann's letters of June, 1765 to Fuessly and Schlabbrendorf, that he was misled by Jenkins as to the artistic value of the statue (his admiration, if misdirected, seems to have been spontaneous: cf. Werke, ii. 282), though he was undoubtedly deceived as to the purchaser (it was said, the King of England). In both of these he tells his correspondents that it became clear on further investigation that one leg and both arms were restored; that the head did not belong to the body and was inferior to it, and adds, in his letter to Schlabbrendorf, ‘for this reason I did not make it difficult to obtain the permission for exportation.’

page 492 note 3 Mon. Ined. 191.

page 492 note 4 Riedesel and Volkmann, 16 July, Franke, 18 Aug., 1764; Riedesel, 22 Feb., 1765. Cavaceppi, we are told, had acquired it secretly, and Jenkins bought it of him. It is, no doubt, the head (though Michaelis does not say so) which Locke refused to accept, and returned to Jenkins. It was then adapted by Nollekens to a torso; the restored figure was then sold by him and Jenkins for a thousand guineas (or, according to another account, £700), and is now at Newby Hall (ibid. No. 23). For Locke, cf. Michaelis, p. 92.

page 492 note 5 Muzel-Stosch, 4 Oct., 1766.

page 492 note 6 Cf. Justi, , Winckelmann, ii 2. 303Google Scholar.

page 493 note 1 I do not know what was the fate of the torso of Meleager to which Jenkins added a head of Hercules (having bought both from Hamilton. Cf. his letter to Lord Shelburne of Aug. 6, 1772, published by Smith, Lansdowne Marbles, p. 58).

page 493 note 2 Nos. 8352–8364 give further particulars of the Duke's stay of nearly two months in Rome. He was well received there, and spent much time in sightseeing, attending church ceremonies, and hearing music. Cardinal Alessandro Albani presented him with an ancient and finely worked porphyry vase: he bought a copy in mosaic of the Nozze Aldobrandine; and Prince Aldobrandini and Prince Odescalchi, who had been in attendance on him during his stay, gave him a copy in tapestry of Guercino's picture of Lucretia, a mosaic copy of Guido Reni's symbol of wisdom (simbolo della sapienza) and four cases of finely bound books, including Piranesi's Vedute di Roma, and other important productions of the Calcografia Camerale.

page 495 note 1 I think that the charge brought against Jenkins in this article by M. Hautecceur, of having forged sepulchral inscriptions on some of these monuments, rests on a misunderstanding of Visconti's words (cf. infra, 497); for practically all of the inscriptions existed already, and had been published by Muratori and others.

page 495 note 2 An exception should be made in favour of those sold to Townley and now in the British Museum, inasmuch as the Museum Catalogue has no index of provenances nor of collectors. The only sculptures that we positively know to have been in Jenkins's hands are the following Nos. (all from the Villa Negroni except 2299) 1746, 1769, 1827, 1897, 2190, 2209, 2298, 2299, 2305, 2358, 2360, 2379; but it is probably the case with many others, as Townley was a good customer of Jenkins. Thus, 1658 was no doubt bought from Jenkins (cf. Papers, iii. p. 191, n. 2), inasmuch as we have the evidence of the legend under a drawing of the herm of Antisthenes in the Vatican, preserved in the second portfolio of Townley drawings (infra, 502), that it came from the villa of Cassius. ‘This head was found 1772 by Domenico de Angelis within a few yards of my group of a faun and nymph.’ Dallaway (Anecdotes, p. 312) makes the same statement.

Another group representing the same subject as 1658 was bought from Jenkins in 1770–4, for the Vatican (Visconti, Mus. Pio-Clem. i. 49; it is not on exhibition); Benndorf and Schoene (Lateran, p. 184, No. 138) are wrong in believing it to have been found in the villa of Cassius.

page 495 note 3 I may add that the Diario of Chracas mentions (No. 8420, Nov. 7, 1772, p. 18) that Jenkins obtained permission to excavate in the farm of Frassineto, near Prima Porta, on the Via Flaminia. It is obviously the same excavation of which Hamilton speaks in his letter of Sept. 30, 1772, to Lord Shelburne (Smith, Lansdowne Marbles, p. 61, cf. Michaelis, Anc. Marbles, p. 81); but we have no record of what was found.

page 496 note 1 Orlandi, Le Nozze di Paridi e d'Elena rappresentate in un vaso antico del museo del Sig. Tommaso Jenkins gentiluomo inglese in Efemeridi letterarie, No. 51 (23 December, 1775). The same journal mentions that he possessed two reliefs with Fauns and Satyrs playing—figured by Guattani, (Mon. Ined. 1786, xxxiiGoogle Scholar and tav. ii. iii) who praises Jenkins's generosity—and another with a fine Bacchic procession (No. 16, 2 April, 1787), and that he had found the sitting statue of Zeus in the Villa Barberini at Castel Gandolfo (No. 46, 15 Nov., 1806).

page 496 note 2 He speaks of Jenkins in the text as ‘a dealer of reasonable pretensions who does honour to his country.’

page 496 note 3 Cf. Appendix I. p. 500, Nos. 3, 5, 7, 8 (?).

page 497 note 1 Published by Guattani, , Mon. Ined. 1784, lxviiiGoogle Scholar.

page 498 note 1 Cf. also Noack, Deutsches Leben in Rom. p. 96 and Tomassetti, , Campagna Rotnana ii. (Rome 1910) 189Google Scholar.

page 498 note 2 Chracas, No. 1900, 16 Mar. 1793; 1936, 20 Aug. 1793; 2004, 15 Mar. 1794.

page 498 note 3 See Mélanges de l'École Française, xxiii. (1903), 389Google Scholar for excavations made by him in 1793 in a vineyard near S. Sebastiano on the Via Appia.

page 499 note 1 To the objects mentioned by Michaelis I may add a mosaic pavement from Gabii, (Papers, i. 187Google Scholar, cf. iii. 205). In the exportation records for 1802, published by Bertolotti (supra, 488) we find that on November the 10th the Bishop sent the following pictures to England:—The Flood, by Berzié; a Sibyl, by Benvenuti; Cain, by Friedrich Rehberg; a Venus copied from Paolo Veronese, by Camuccini; a landscape copied from Claude, by Partini; the Death of Hector, by Umel (sic); the whole valued at 2000 piastres: so that he apparently acquired other objects of art. He died in 1803 at Albano. For further details as to his life cf. infra, 505.

page 503 note 1 See Papers, iv. 90 sqq.—this statue must be added to the list there given.

page 505 note 1 There follow various drawings of antiques (with the modern busts of Ajax and Lucius Verus), including the tazza from Laurentum, dated Nov., 1794. The tazza is round, supported by 3 female winged griffins. ‘The tazza is hollow and appears to have been formerly used for a fountain having a tube thro' the ornamental neck.’

page 506 note 1 According lo the usual account, the Niobid was brought to the Museum from the Papal gardens on the Quirinal, which had belonged to Ippolito d'Este in the 16th century (Archaeologia, lxi. 223; Hübner, , Statue di Roma, i. 90Google Scholar). It was therefore supposed that it had been found in the Villa of Hadrian, like several other statues of the same collection. This account is, however, due to Nibby, , Museo Chiaramonti, iiGoogle Scholar. Pl. XVII. and p. 40. The statue is not mentioned by any author or in any account or inventory of the Quirinal gardens, so far as I know. Penna, , Viaggio Pirtorico della Villa Adriana, iiiGoogle Scholar. Pl. XXXV. merely repeats it from him, and though Amelung accepts it without further question (Die Sculpturen des Vatikanischen Museums, i. p. 426), the evidence is very slender. Fea (Nuova Descrizione, p. 82) does not mention this provenance; and Tatham's account seems to make it quite impossible. This would of course entirely upset Brizio's conjecture (Ansonia i. (1907) 28 sqq.Google Scholar) that the Niobid was found in Nero's villa at Subiaco, and is identical with a statue of Diana, draped and moving, without a head, seen by Antonio da Sangallo the younger in Tivoli in 1539. (Lanciani, , Storia degli Scavi, ii. 108.Google Scholar)

page 507 note 1 He was a pupil of Thomas Carter. For Deare, , cf. D.N.B. xiv. 261Google Scholar; Smith, , Nollekens and his Times, ii. 303Google Scholar. Deare's letter of July 11th, 1795 mentions three chimney pieces—see below for the other two.

page 507 note 2 Neither the Bacchus nor the second Faun occurs in Fea's list as having been found at Campo Iemini.

page 508 note 1 The reference is to Hadfield's drawings of the temple of Fortune at Palestrina (now in the lil rary of the Royal Institute of British Architects).

page 509 note 1 It does not figure anywhere in the Raccolta (1768–72).

page 509 note 2 Cadis, i.e. Giuseppe Cadés (Hautecœur, 177), an eclectic painter of the period, without originality, who imitated right and left, but was, according to Hautecoeur, at least a painter, which was something in those days.

page 510 note 1 Drawings of them and other details follow the letter of July 7th, 1796. They were Corinthian capitals two feet high.

page 510 note 2 Simon Alexandre Clément Denis (1755–1813).

page 511 note 1 I cannot find this mentioned elsewhere: see Papers, iv. 90 sqq.; Ausonia, iv. (1910), 48 sqq.Google Scholar

page 511 note 2 Supra, n. 2.