MARIA COSWAY.
Maria Hadfield was the daughter of an Englishman who became rich by keeping a hotel in Leghorn. It is said he lost four children in infancy, and detected a maid-servant in the avowal that she sent them to heaven out of love, and meant that the fifth, Maria, should follow the rest. The woman was imprisoned for life, and the child was sent to a convent to be educated. There she received lessons in music and drawing, in common with other branches. Returning home, she devoted herself to painting, and the acquaintance she afterward formed at Rome with Battomi, Mengs, Maron, and Fuseli, with her contemplation of the works of art in churches and palaces, contributed to the farther development of her talents.
At her father’s death she formed the resolution of entering a cloister, but her mother persuaded her to accompany her first to London. There the young girl became acquainted with the interesting and popular Angelica Kauffman, who easily prevailed on her to relinquish all idea of taking the veil.
The change of resolution was followed not long afterward by Maria’s marriage with Richard Cosway, a portrait and miniature painter, who occupied a high position, and whose soft, pliant, and idealized style was well adapted to please rich patrons whose vanity desired the most favorable representation. In his carefully-finished miniatures the most ordinary features were transformed into beauty, and pale, watery eyes were made to sparkle with intellectual expression. This faculty of beautifying rendered him the favorite of the wealthy and aristocratic. He was, moreover, a member of the Academy, and had the honor of being called a friend by the Prince of Wales, circumstances which contributed still more to make him the “fashion.” But, unfortunately, he had not good sense enough to wear these honors meekly. Vanity led him into ridiculous extravagances. He dressed in the extreme of the mode, and kept his servants costumed in the like absurd manner; he gave expensive entertainments, and succeeded in drawing around him a number of frivolous young sprigs of nobility, who would do him the favor of drinking his Champagne and scattering his money at play, and the next morning would amuse their “set” by laughing heartily over the pretensions of the “parvenu.”
Such was the situation of Cosway when he fell in love with Maria Hadfield, wooed, and won her, and took his wife to his magnificently furnished house. Maria was very young, and, having come recently from Italy, was inexpert both in the English language and English customs. Her fashionable husband chose to keep her strictly isolated from all society till she should learn to appear with dignity and grace in the distinguished circles where he meant she should move.
Meanwhile he caused her to complete her artistic education, and to practice on the lessons she received. Her miniatures soon gained such appreciation that the highest praise was awarded to them of all that appeared at the Royal Academy exhibitions. Maria was even pointed out in the street as the successful artist. Then arrived the time when, in Cosway’s opinion, she was fitted to become the central point of attraction in his house for the brilliant society he loved.
Very soon the talk every where was of the young, beautiful, and gifted Italian. Cosway’s receptions were crowded, and half the carriages at his door contained sitters ambitious of the honor of being painted by the hand of his lovely wife. Her portrait of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire in the character of Spenser’s Cynthia raised her to the pinnacle of reputation.
Cosway, however, was too prudent, and, at the same time, too proud to permit his wife to be esteemed a professional painter, for he knew well that her productions would have greater value as the work of an amateur. To be painted by her was thus represented and regarded as a special favor; and costly presents were frequently added to the customary payments for her pictures.
In another matter the husband was more indulgent. Maria was passionately fond of music, and he permitted her to exercise her gift of song at the brilliant companies invited to his magnificent abode. This completed the enchantment. Visitors came in such numbers that the house would scarcely contain them; and all who were fashionable, or had any aristocratic pretensions, were sure to be found in Cosway’s drawing-rooms. There would be the poet whose latest effusion was the rage in high circles; the author of the last sensation-speech in Parliament; any rising star in art, or any hero of a wonderful adventure; in short, all the lions of London were gathered in that place of resort, to see and to be seen, and, above all, to listen to the charming Cosway. The Honorable Mrs. Damer, Lady Lyttleton, the Countess of Aylesbury, Lady Cecilia Johnston, and the Marchioness of Townshend, were Maria’s most intimate friends, and were usually present to add splendor to her receptions; while among the men were General Paoli, Lords Sandys and Erskine, and his royal highness the Prince of Wales, the foreign embassadors being also invited upon special occasions.
The mansion in Pall Mall was soon found too small to accommodate such an influx of visitors, and to display its master’s works and finery. A new one was taken in Oxford Street.
Several of Cosway’s biographers mention the fact that the figure of a lion beside the entrance put it into some wag’s head to stick on the door an epigram that had a severe point, as the foppish little painter was “not much unlike a monkey in the face:”
“When a man to a fair for a show brings a lion,
’Tis usual a monkey the sign-post to tie on;
But here the old custom reversed is seen,
For the lion’s without, and the monkey’s within.”
The artist left the house in consequence of this foolish joke, and fitted up another in the same street, with the magnificence of a fairy palace. The author of “Nollekens and his Times” says:
“His new house he fitted up in so picturesque, and, indeed, so princely a style, that I regret drawings were not made of the general appearance of each apartment; for many of the rooms were more like scenes of enchantment, penciled by a poet’s fancy, than any thing perhaps before displayed in a domestic habitation. His furniture consisted of ancient chairs, couches, and conversation-stools, elaborately carved and gilt, and covered with the most costly Genoa velvets; escritoirs of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enameled, and adorned with onyxes, opals, rubies, and emeralds. There were also cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic tables set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis lazuli, having their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised Oriental Japan; massive musical clocks, richly chased with ormolu and tortoise-shell; ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets, with corresponding hearth-rugs, bordered with ancient family crests, and armorial ensigns in the centre; and rich hangings of English tapestry. The carved chimney-pieces were adorned with the choicest bronzes, models in wax, and terra-cotta; the tables were covered with old Sèvre, blue Mandarin, Nankin, and Dresden China; and the cabinets were surmounted with crystal cups, adorned with the York and Lancaster roses, which might probably have graced the splendid banquets of the proud Wolsey.”
But splendor, fashionable position, success as an artist, and the friendship of princes and nobles could not make Richard Cosway happy. He saw the sneers lurking beneath the smiles of his aristocratic guests, and he heard the rumor that he was accused by other artists of using his talents to flatter the great, whose fleeting favor could not, after all, confer upon him lasting reputation. Maria’s health, too, began to fail; and, as the London climate was no longer endurable for her, her husband took her to travel on the Continent. They went to Paris and Flanders. One day, as they walked in the Gallery of the Louvre, Cosway pointed to the naked wall, and said his cartoons would look well in that place. He presented them to the French king, who accepted and hung them up, giving the painter in return four splendid pieces of Gobelin tapestry, which Cosway presented to the Prince of Wales.
With improved health, Mrs. Cosway returned to England and resumed her brilliant parties. But her spirits again failing, she accompanied her brother to Italy, expecting her husband to join her.
Three years’ residence in that soft clime quite restored her health, and she set out on her return to London. A new and terrible trial awaited her there: she was called to mourn the death of her only daughter.
Again she departed for France, and, after the breaking out of the war between that country and England, pursued her journey to Italy. She established at Lodi a college for the education of young ladies on a plan she had arranged for a similar institution at Lyons.
On the establishment of peace she returned to England, and became the tender nurse of her invalid husband, trying to solace the weary hours which were passed in weakness and pain.
Upon Mrs. Cosway’s return, Smith informs us, “she had caused the body of their departed child, which her husband had preserved in an embalmed state within a marble sarcophagus that stood in the drawing-room of his house in Stratford Place, to be conveyed to Bunhill row, where it was interred, sending the sarcophagus to Mr. Nollekens, the sculptor, to take care of for a time. It is a curious coincidence that the same hour this sarcophagus was removed from Mr. Nolleken’s residence, Mr. Cosway died in the carriage of his old friend, Miss Udney, who had been accustomed, during his infirm state, occasionally to give him an airing,” and had taken him out that morning, as the weather was fine.
Maria heard the sound of the returning wheels, and, hastening down to receive her husband, found only his lifeless corpse. He had died suddenly, upon a third and last attack of paralysis, July 4, 1821, at the advanced age of eighty.
The widow returned to Lodi, where her ladies’ college was still flourishing. The place was endeared to her by many happy memories, and there she was loved and respected by a large circle of friends. She died in 1821.
In her style Mrs. Cosway appears to have taken much from Flaxman and Fuseli. In many of her works something fantastic is embodied, which is associated with more of the wild and terrible than we usually find in the creations of a mind at ease. No doubt her inconsolable grief for the loss of her child was the cause of this unfeminine peculiarity. She originated compositions from Virgil and Homer, as well as from Spenser and Shakspeare.
The engraving from a portrait of Maria Cosway represents her in the bloom of youth, with a profusion of light hair dressed after the then prevailing mode. The fresh and delicate loveliness of the face is most attractive, and there is a wonderful beauty in the large, soft eyes, and the artless innocence that beams in their expression. The celebrated Mrs. Cowley, in a letter to her, thus speaks of her portrait: “If you can draw every body as justly as the fair Maria Cosway, you will be the first portrait-painter in the kingdom.”
She painted a portrait of Madame Le Brun. One of her latest works was a picture representing Madame Recamier as a guardian angel watching a slumbering child. “The Winter’s Day,” in twelve pieces, was a series by her, and she also published a book of drawings jointly with Hopner. Her “Lama,” exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1788, showed a female figure reclining by a stream; and the striking likeness to Mrs. Fitzherbert caused no little sensation.