A nun at Narni had lately gained great popularity by selling a decoction of holy jessamines, by which she worked miraculous cures. To a strong dose of this medicine the quack doctor added a still more efficacious dose of antimony, and thus indeed relieved the poor painter from all further suffering, physical or mental. He worked to the last, and died in June 1779, being buried at San Michele, on the Janiculan Hill, followed by the Professors of the Academy of St. Luke. Don Joseph de Azara, knowing his friend’s tastes, erected a cenotaph to his memory, adorned with a bronze portrait, close to the monument of his illustrious namesake and idol, the divine Raphael. By nature Mengs was choleric and melancholy, more prone to be ruffled by the petty ills of life than satisfied by his success, which is generally allowed to have been far above his deserts. He was self-willed even to arrogance in his opinions. Finding fault with some Venetian pictures Pope Clement had bought, his Holiness remarked they had been much admired by other artists. ‘Ah,’ replied Mengs, ‘they praise what is above their powers; I despise what is below mine.’
He was severe on other Art writers, and especially on the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds; Azara said he was very truthful, and tells how on one occasion Mengs declared he had never taken a pinch of snuff, though in so doing he would have redeemed a collection of valuable snuff-boxes, the presents of many grandees, from the clutches of the Custom-House officers, who seized them as merchandise. Yet he practised a hoax on his friend Winckelman, and allowed him to publish in his book the description of a ‘Ganymede’ by Mengs, which the painter had passed off on the Professor as an antique. He was a faithful and affectionate husband, a tender and loving father, and gave his children a good education,—but little beside, for, with all the riches he had acquired, he was both extravagant and improvident, and at his death he only left his collections of coins and casts, bequeathed to the King of Spain, and a number of engravings, which were bought by the Empress of Russia. Mengs’s eldest daughter, Anna Maria, was a successful portrait-painter; married to Manuel Salvador Camoni, a member of the Academy of San Fernando, she died at Madrid in 1798. He would not allow his sons to become painters, ‘for,’ said he, ‘if they were inferior to me, I should despise them; if superior, I should be jealous of them.’ One of his sons became a soldier in the service of Spain. Mengs wrote much on the subject of Art, had great command of language, and was a good linguist.
This picture was painted expressly for the third Earl Cowper.
No. 6.
CHARLES JAMES FOX.
Dark coat. White cravat.
By Hoppner.
No. 7.