In another letter, to Hayley in June 1791, he writes, “At present, and
the greatest part of the summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures
from the divine lady. I cannot give her any other epithet, for I think
her superior to all womankind. I have two pictures to paint of her for
the Prince of Wales. She says she must see you.... She asked me if you
would not write my life. I told her you had begun it. Then she said she
hoped you would have much to say of her in the life, as she prided
herself in being my model.” And again in the following month “I dedicate
my time to this charming lady; there is a prospect of her leaving town
with Sir William for two or three weeks. They are very much hurried at
present, as everything is going on for their speedy marriage, and all
the world following and talking of her, so that if she had not more good
sense than vanity her brain must be turned.
“The pictures I have begun are Joan of Arc, a Magdalen, and a Bacchante,
for the Prince of Wales,
[Illustration: LADY HAMILTON AS A BACCHANTE
(1786) National Gallery]
and another I am to begin as a companion to the Bacchante. I am also to
paint a picture of Constance for the Shakespeare Gallery.”
The extent of Romney’s obligations to her, simply as a model, may be
gathered from a glance at Mr. Roberts’s Catalogue Raisonné of his work.
Here we find forty-five different pictures of the fair Emma, a figure
which is about doubled if we count the various versions painted of one
and another--as a Bacchante, for example, no less than twelve separate
canvases are enumerated. Nor does this catalogue probably include a good
many sketches and studies which were left unfinished. Of the various
characters in which he painted her, apart from pictures which were
simply portraits, the list includes those of Alope, Ariadne, a
Bacchante, Cassandra, Circe, Comedy, the Comic Muse, Contemplation,
Euphrosyne, a Gipsy, Iphigenia, Joan of Arc, a Magdalen, Meditation,
Miranda, Nature, a Nun, a Pythian Priestess, S. Cecilia, Sensibility, a
Shepherdess, Sigismunda, the Spinstress. The Sempstress, it may be
mentioned, was not painted from her, but from Miss Vernon.
Such a catalogue as this is, I suppose, unique in the annals of
painting. Oddly enough it is paralleled in those of literature--if it be
not thought too fanciful to quote the example of William Shakespeare.
For fanciful as at first thought it may seem, it is, nevertheless,
helpful to an understanding of the relations of the private life of each
to his particular art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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