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Lot Essay
‘Sir, a man who has not been to Italy is always conscious of an inferiority,
from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see’
Samuel Johnson, 1776
Sebastiano Conca’s portrait of George Parker, the future 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, is an exceptional record of one of the most fruitful Grand Tours by an English aristocrat and in itself an outstanding and early example of Grand Tour portraiture that became de rigour for travellers as a memento of their coming-of-age journey. One of the most successful painters working in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century and celebrated throughout Europe, Conca specialised primarily in religious subjects and this is believed to be the only Grand Tour portrait that he undertook. It was commissioned to occupy a central spot in the Earls of Macclesfield ancestral home of Shirburn Castle and this is seemingly the first time it has been offered for sale since its conception.
The Macclesfield sculptures and paintings are among the most important survivals of the collections formed on the Grand Tour. George Parker's journey to Italy from 1719 to 1722 was similar to the tours of many other eighteenth century gentlemen. He was young, his father was rich, and much of his time was spent, to the consternation of those around him, in an unsuitable liaison. Were that all, his tour would be of little interest. As it is his tour is more remarkable for its patronage than for his philandering and deserves to be better known. George Parker travelled at least in part to purchase works of art for the castle at Shirburn, Oxfordshire, which his father Thomas, Lord Macclesfield had just bought and which he was at the moment modernising, probably with the help of his close friend, Sir Thomas Hewitt. Macclesfield became the Lord Chancellor in 1718 and was created Earl of Macclesfield while his son was abroad. The enormous silver wine cooler of 1719-20 by Anthony Nelme, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, suggests the magnificent scale of his ambitions, boosted no doubt by a recent royal gift of £14,000.
His young son’s judgement in Italian art was greatly strengthened by meeting up in Bologna with his kinsman Edward Wright who had already travelled in Italy and had a reputation among English travellers as an artist. Wright used the tour with Lord Parker to build up his own collection and turned the accounts of their journeys, written home to the anxious father, into a book. This appeared in 1730 as Some observations made in Travelling through France, Italy &c. and became accepted for a generation as 'the best' to have 'traversed Italian ground'.
George Parker's letters home provide dutiful accounts of what he had seen, though on occasion knowing 'Mr Wright ... will do it in so perfect a manner, that it will be needless for me to say anything', he omitted some descriptions. Nevertheless, he conscientiously recorded his opinions based on earlier writers, on the 'stiff and dry' manner of Perugino, or the confusing nature of Michelangelo's Last Judgement, and came to share some of Wright's enthusiasms for both paintings and particularly the antique.
George Parker and Wright’s tour followed the customary course: the winter of 1719-20 and much of the following year in Venice, the summer of 1721 in Rome with a brief visit to Naples, moving on to Florence for the autumn before returning home via Turin, Verona and Frankfurt. During their time in Italy they met up with other English travellers, scholars and collectors like Richard Rawlinson, or other gentlemen in Florence. They were much assisted by the British envoy in Turin, John Molesworth, who was instrumental in separating the infatuated Lord Parker from his Venetian girlfriend. Acquisition of artworks for Shirburn began early on. From Padua he reported back to his father the purchase of a 'very fine deluge of Giulio Romano' 'which everybody here thinks cheap', and this was followed from Venice by several more, including the 'Sketch of the Supper of Baltazar by Rubens' and 'some large Pictures of Views'. However, the most important and interesting part of their purchases were of sculpture, and the collection they formed was undisturbed at Shirburn Castle for nearly three hundred years, until their sale at Christie’s, London, July 2005.
On his return to London, Lord Parker made the Royal Society and scientific enquiry the major focus of his life. Growing up at Shirburn Castle, Lord Parker had been surrounded by some of the finest scientific minds of the age – in addition to Newton and Halley, visitors to Shirburn probably also included Zachary Pearce, Jean Gagnier, Thomas Hutchinson, who all received financial support from the 1st Earl. Stimulated by this upbringing, as the 2nd Earl he developed a manifest passion for scientific study and endeavour. He was to be an important astronomer in his own right, patron of mathematicians, champion of reform of the calendar, and President of the Society. He constructed an observatory in the grounds at Shirburn, one of the most advanced in the world at the time.
The present portrait of Lord Parker was painted in Rome in 1721, when he and Wright were living under the hospitality of Cardinal Ottoboni. In his account of their journey, Wright mentions that they visited Conca in his house in Piazza Navona where the artist showed them his altarpiece of Saint Michael driving down the devil (Wright, p. 248). It was almost certainly the visit to Conca's studio that initiated the present portrait of Lord Parker, who would have had time to sit as his departure from Rome was delayed by problems concerning export licenses for his various purchases.
Conca’s exceptionally elegant and grand portrait of Lord Parker portrays the young man in an imaginary setting in front of the Colosseum. His right hand rests on a map of Italy, his finger perhaps purposefully resting on Naples, the city that he and his mentor Wright enjoyed the most. The map sits on a contemporary giltwood and marble table which also holds a reduction of the Apollo Belvedere, an obvious reference to Parker’s interest in ancient sculpture which was so clearly realised in his purchases of bronze reductions after the antique in Florence.
Conca was one of the most successful painters working in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century and was celebrated throughout Europe. He painted altarpieces and frescoes, creating an accomplished style that mediates between the grandeur of the late Baroque and the academic manner of Carlo Maratti, but he rarely painted portraits.
Conca’s great patron was Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who surely led Parker to Conca and perhaps persuaded the artist to pause from undertaking his exhaustive ecclesiastical commissions to paint Lord Parker’s portrait. Ottoboni was also a patron of Francesco Trevisani and Conca’s portrait of Lord Parker resembles that of Trevisani’s 1717 celebrated portrait of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (fig. 1), the builder of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Conca and Trevisani’s portraits were the prototypes and inspiration for a host of later grand tour portraitists, most notably Pompeo Batoni.
from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see’
Samuel Johnson, 1776
Sebastiano Conca’s portrait of George Parker, the future 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, is an exceptional record of one of the most fruitful Grand Tours by an English aristocrat and in itself an outstanding and early example of Grand Tour portraiture that became de rigour for travellers as a memento of their coming-of-age journey. One of the most successful painters working in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century and celebrated throughout Europe, Conca specialised primarily in religious subjects and this is believed to be the only Grand Tour portrait that he undertook. It was commissioned to occupy a central spot in the Earls of Macclesfield ancestral home of Shirburn Castle and this is seemingly the first time it has been offered for sale since its conception.
The Macclesfield sculptures and paintings are among the most important survivals of the collections formed on the Grand Tour. George Parker's journey to Italy from 1719 to 1722 was similar to the tours of many other eighteenth century gentlemen. He was young, his father was rich, and much of his time was spent, to the consternation of those around him, in an unsuitable liaison. Were that all, his tour would be of little interest. As it is his tour is more remarkable for its patronage than for his philandering and deserves to be better known. George Parker travelled at least in part to purchase works of art for the castle at Shirburn, Oxfordshire, which his father Thomas, Lord Macclesfield had just bought and which he was at the moment modernising, probably with the help of his close friend, Sir Thomas Hewitt. Macclesfield became the Lord Chancellor in 1718 and was created Earl of Macclesfield while his son was abroad. The enormous silver wine cooler of 1719-20 by Anthony Nelme, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, suggests the magnificent scale of his ambitions, boosted no doubt by a recent royal gift of £14,000.
His young son’s judgement in Italian art was greatly strengthened by meeting up in Bologna with his kinsman Edward Wright who had already travelled in Italy and had a reputation among English travellers as an artist. Wright used the tour with Lord Parker to build up his own collection and turned the accounts of their journeys, written home to the anxious father, into a book. This appeared in 1730 as Some observations made in Travelling through France, Italy &c. and became accepted for a generation as 'the best' to have 'traversed Italian ground'.
George Parker's letters home provide dutiful accounts of what he had seen, though on occasion knowing 'Mr Wright ... will do it in so perfect a manner, that it will be needless for me to say anything', he omitted some descriptions. Nevertheless, he conscientiously recorded his opinions based on earlier writers, on the 'stiff and dry' manner of Perugino, or the confusing nature of Michelangelo's Last Judgement, and came to share some of Wright's enthusiasms for both paintings and particularly the antique.
George Parker and Wright’s tour followed the customary course: the winter of 1719-20 and much of the following year in Venice, the summer of 1721 in Rome with a brief visit to Naples, moving on to Florence for the autumn before returning home via Turin, Verona and Frankfurt. During their time in Italy they met up with other English travellers, scholars and collectors like Richard Rawlinson, or other gentlemen in Florence. They were much assisted by the British envoy in Turin, John Molesworth, who was instrumental in separating the infatuated Lord Parker from his Venetian girlfriend. Acquisition of artworks for Shirburn began early on. From Padua he reported back to his father the purchase of a 'very fine deluge of Giulio Romano' 'which everybody here thinks cheap', and this was followed from Venice by several more, including the 'Sketch of the Supper of Baltazar by Rubens' and 'some large Pictures of Views'. However, the most important and interesting part of their purchases were of sculpture, and the collection they formed was undisturbed at Shirburn Castle for nearly three hundred years, until their sale at Christie’s, London, July 2005.
On his return to London, Lord Parker made the Royal Society and scientific enquiry the major focus of his life. Growing up at Shirburn Castle, Lord Parker had been surrounded by some of the finest scientific minds of the age – in addition to Newton and Halley, visitors to Shirburn probably also included Zachary Pearce, Jean Gagnier, Thomas Hutchinson, who all received financial support from the 1st Earl. Stimulated by this upbringing, as the 2nd Earl he developed a manifest passion for scientific study and endeavour. He was to be an important astronomer in his own right, patron of mathematicians, champion of reform of the calendar, and President of the Society. He constructed an observatory in the grounds at Shirburn, one of the most advanced in the world at the time.
The present portrait of Lord Parker was painted in Rome in 1721, when he and Wright were living under the hospitality of Cardinal Ottoboni. In his account of their journey, Wright mentions that they visited Conca in his house in Piazza Navona where the artist showed them his altarpiece of Saint Michael driving down the devil (Wright, p. 248). It was almost certainly the visit to Conca's studio that initiated the present portrait of Lord Parker, who would have had time to sit as his departure from Rome was delayed by problems concerning export licenses for his various purchases.
Conca’s exceptionally elegant and grand portrait of Lord Parker portrays the young man in an imaginary setting in front of the Colosseum. His right hand rests on a map of Italy, his finger perhaps purposefully resting on Naples, the city that he and his mentor Wright enjoyed the most. The map sits on a contemporary giltwood and marble table which also holds a reduction of the Apollo Belvedere, an obvious reference to Parker’s interest in ancient sculpture which was so clearly realised in his purchases of bronze reductions after the antique in Florence.
Conca was one of the most successful painters working in Rome in the first half of the eighteenth century and was celebrated throughout Europe. He painted altarpieces and frescoes, creating an accomplished style that mediates between the grandeur of the late Baroque and the academic manner of Carlo Maratti, but he rarely painted portraits.
Conca’s great patron was Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who surely led Parker to Conca and perhaps persuaded the artist to pause from undertaking his exhaustive ecclesiastical commissions to paint Lord Parker’s portrait. Ottoboni was also a patron of Francesco Trevisani and Conca’s portrait of Lord Parker resembles that of Trevisani’s 1717 celebrated portrait of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (fig. 1), the builder of Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Conca and Trevisani’s portraits were the prototypes and inspiration for a host of later grand tour portraitists, most notably Pompeo Batoni.