Mrs. Jameson, in her “Memoirs and Essays, illustrative of Art,” says: “At Rome Allston first became distinguished as a mellow and harmonious colourist, and acquired among the native German painters the name of “the American Titian.”
When in London, Allston paid a professional visit to Fuseli, who asked him what branch of art he intended to pursue. He replied, “History.” “Then, sir,” answered the shrewd and intelligent professor of painting, “you have come a long way to starve.”
Allston was the author of several poems, which, with his lectures on art, are edited by R. H. Dana, jun., and published in New York. He died on the 9th of July, 1843.
HIS OPINION OF HIS OWN PAINTING.
Some years after Allston had acquired a considerable reputation as a painter, a friend showed him a miniature, and begged he would give his sincere opinion upon its merits, as the young man who drew it had some thoughts of becoming a painter by profession. After much pressing, Allston candidly told the gentleman he feared the lad would never do anything as a painter, and advised his following some more congenial pursuit. The friend thereupon convinced him that the miniature had been done by Allston himself, for this very gentleman, when the painter was very young.
BARTOLOZZI (FRANCESCO), R.A.
FRANCESCO BARTOLOZZI was born in Florence, in the year 1728, where his father kept a shop, and followed the business of a goldsmith, on the Ponto Vecchio. Young Bartolozzi was taught drawing by Feretti, a drawing-master in Florence, and instructed in engraving by one Corsi, a very indifferent artist. His earliest attempts in engraving were copying prints from Frey and Wagner, and engraving shop-cards, and saints for friars. His first work, considered of any consequence, was from a picture in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. When he was about eighteen, by the advice of Feretti, he sent a specimen of his abilities to Wagner, at Venice, which was satisfactorily received; and from that time he became his pupil and assistant, and remained with him ten years. While he was with Wagner, Bartolozzi married and went to Rome, where he remained a year and a half. Among other works, he engraved, while at Rome, several heads of painters for Bottari’s edition of Vasari.
In the year 1762, Mr. Dalton, the King’s agent for works of art, being at Venice, introduced himself to the artist, and took him to Bologna to make two drawings,—a Cupid, from Guido, and the Circumcision, from Guercino, which he afterwards engraved for him.
At Mr. Dalton’s invitation, Bartolozzi started for London in the year 1764, and, on arriving in the metropolis, he found his fame had, through the joint influence of his friend Cipriani and Mr. Dalton, brought many noted personages to his lodgings, desirous to make the artist’s personal acquaintance. For three years and a half he was wholly employed by Mr. Dalton, at a guinea a day. He was one of the twenty-seven artists who memorialized the King to establish a Royal Academy, and was nominated a Royal Academician on its establishment in 1768. After quitting Cipriani’s house, he lived in Broad Street, and in Bentinck Street, Soho; and at last settled in a house at North End, Fulham, where he took great delight in gardening, and where he remained to live till November, 1802, when he went to Portugal; after a residence in England of more than thirty-eight years.