She was known as the Baroness in Italy, the Emperor Francis of Austria having granted her a title. There is no doubt that Maria Cosway was a versatile and amiable woman and an artist of considerable ability. Although at one time separated from her husband, she nursed him in his declining years.
As to his character, Andrew Robertson, the miniature painter, although he terms him "the vainest creature in the world," says, "To me he behaved in the most liberal way"; and we have the valuable testimony of Ozias Humphrey, who was a rival miniature painter, that he was "the kindliest of friends." Another contemporary, William Hazlitt, says he was "bright and joyous." His pupil Andrew Plimer speaks of him as "my beloved master"; and, finally, we have the testimony of his wife, that he was "toujours gai."
Before leaving Cosway a few remarks may be offered upon his technique.
One of the first characteristics of his style is what has been termed a certain hothouse lusciousness. Although the bulk of his work consisted of portraits from life, whether it was that he did not attempt to make likeness a strong feature, or whether he could not help exaggerating the delicacy of his sitters' complexions, the size of their eyes, and giving them an air of artificiality, or whether it was the extreme rapidity of his method (he used, as we saw, to boast of having painted several portraits in a day)—whether it be to one or all of these reasons that we must attribute the style of Cosway, there it is, and so marked is it that, generally speaking and in the case of fine examples, at any rate, one cannot mistake it. The treatment of the hair is marked by breadth and peculiar freedom of handling, the backgrounds are commonly, but not always, an ultramarine blue (especially his early ones). The foregoing remarks apply to Cosway's miniatures upon ivory, but, as is well known, he by no means confined himself to those. Some of his most pleasing work took the form of full-length figures drawn in pencil with a very slight background, the draperies lightly drawn, but the face carefully finished, of which the George IV., given on p. 203, is a fine example. He also painted in oils.
SIR W. C. ROSS, R.A.
THE BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.
The Plimers.
Amongst the many surprising vicissitudes of the auction-room, the enhancement in value of the works of two of Cosway's pupils may here be mentioned. I refer to the prices that have been paid within the past few years for works by the brothers Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer (or Plymer, as the name is sometimes spelled). That the miniatures of these men, of whom Andrew was much the better artist, are pleasing—indeed, have something of the charm of Cosway—cannot be denied, but they are less well-drawn than his, the eyes, particularly, being exaggerated in size; the execution of the hair is certainly inferior to Cosway's, being stiff and wiry. In spite of this inferiority—which, I think, is apparent upon a careful comparison—miniatures which, a few years ago, could be bought for a few pounds now fetch as many hundreds. Despite some early struggles, I do not know that there is very much that need be said about these painters, beyond this posthumous rise in the value of their works. Redgrave, in his "Century of Painters," does not even mention them. In his "Dictionary of Artists" less than twenty lines are devoted to them.
The Plimers were born at Wellington, in Shropshire, where their father was a clockmaker, Nathaniel in 1757, Andrew, the younger, six years later. The elder brother exhibited at the Academy from 1787 to 1815, and died in 1822. Andrew contributed from 1786 to 1810 and again in 1819.