Of Romney’s classical or historical pictures the world knows almost as little as it cares about them. “I have made many grand designs,” he himself wrote in 1794, “I have formed a system of original subjects, moral and my own, and I think one of the grandest that has been thought of—but nobody knows it.” Cunningham, after disposing shortly of his portraits, proceeds to state that the historical and domestic pictures, finished and unfinished, deserve a more minute examination; that they embrace a wide range of reading and observation and are numerous beyond all modern example. But with the exception of Titania and her Indian Votaries and Milton Dictating to his Daughters, which were mentioned by Flaxman, and various fancy portraits of Lady Hamilton, he does not specify a single finished example. His explanation is that “for one finely finished there are five half done, and for five half done there are at least a dozen merely commenced on the canvas.”
So far as these canvases are concerned, there is no doubt that the majority of them have been destroyed; but there are still in existence a large quantity of drawings and sketches on paper, both in pencil and in India ink, for classical compositions. As many of these are probably rough ideas for his lost pictures, it is perhaps worth mentioning a few of the subjects enumerated by Cunningham among the unfinished productions, which may help to identify the sketches, besides, as Cunningham says, “showing the range of his mind, and also his want of patience to render his works worthy of admission to public galleries.” The principal are as follows: King Lear Asleep, King Lear Awake, Ceyx and Alcyone, The Death of Niobe’s Children, The Cumean Sibyl Foretelling the Destiny of Aeneas, Electra and Orestes at the Tomb of Agammemnon, Thetis Supplicating Jupiter, Thetis Comforting Achilles, Damon and Musidora, Homer Reciting his Verses, David and Saul, Macbeth and Banquo, The Descent of Odin, The Ghost of Clytemnestra, Eurydice vanishing from Orpheus, Harpalice, A Thracian Princess defending her wounded Father, Antigone with the Corpse of Polynices, A Witch displaying her Magical Powers, Resuscitation by Force of Magic, Doll Tearsheet, Cupid and Psyche.
Besides these there are a number of portrait sketches, which though not so numerous, are much more charming, in spite of their being exceedingly rough and slight. They must have been simply notes, and can seldom have been intended for more than fixing an idea in the painter’s mind. I have as many as a dozen in my own possession which I have picked up here and there in the dealers’ portfolios, and there are probably a good number of them in existence. Rough as they are, they are certainly deserving of more attention than is usually accorded to them; for though Romney never seems to have enjoyed the process of committing a portrait to paper as Gainsborough did, these business-like notes of pose and chiaroscuro give us a good insight into his methods of setting to work. Perhaps the taste of a future generation will prefer the rough-hewn idea of a great portrait painter to the finished achievement of Benwell or Buck in little.
INDEX
[B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [K], [M], [N], [P], [R], [S], [T], [V], [W]
Boydell, Alderman, [26]
Cathcart, Lord, [35]
Chamberlin, Mason, [2]
Cimabue, [5], [30], [34]
Copley, John Singleton, [8]
Copley’s Death of Chatham, [9]
Correggio, [34]
Cumberland, [23], [46]
Cunningham, Allan, [13], [19], [41]
Currie, Mrs. Mark, [3], [31], [35], [36]
Dalton, [46]
Exhibition of National Portraits, [40]
Flaxman, John, R.A., [15], [30], [31], [32], [34]
Fuseli, Henry, R.A., [9]
Gainsborough, Thomas, [11], [16], [17], [28], [40]
Garrick, David, [23], [24]
Giotto, [30], [34]
Hamilton, Lady, [13], [41-43]
influence on Romney’s painting, [51]
Romney’s portraits of, [45]
Hayley, William, [13], [25], [47]
influence over Romney, [14], [20]
Highmore, [23]
Hogarth, William, [23]
Holbein, Hans, [5]
Kauffmann, Angelica, [9]
Michelangelo, [30], [34]
Northcote, James, R.A., [7]
Pictures by George Romney
Bacchante, [44]
Constance, [45]
Joan of Arc, [44]
John Wesley, [40]
Lady Gower and her Children, [20]
Lady Hamilton, [3], [35]
Louisa, Countess of Mansfield, [35], [36]
Magdalen, [44]
Milton dictating to his Daughters, [52]
Miss Hannah Milnes, [35]
Mr. and Mrs. Lindow, [29]
Mr. Leigh and his Family, [23]
Mrs. Jordan, [35]
Mrs. Yates as The Tragic Muse, [25]
The Dream of Atossa, [31]
The Parson’s Daughter, [3], [31]
“The Triumphs of Temper,” [13]
The Warren Family, [21]
Titania and her Indian Votaries, [52]
“Tragic Muse,” [26]
Raphael, [34]
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, [4], [5], [7], [11], [16], [28], [34], [40]
Roberts, Mr., Catalogue Raisonné, [36], [45]
Romney, George, birth of, [46]
apprenticed to joinery, [46]
apprenticeship to Count Steele, [47]
classicism, [30]
conscientiousness, [28]
distaste for portrait painting, [4]
first full-length portrait of a lady, [26]
influence of Hayley upon, [14]
in London, [49]
letters to Hayley, [44]
life of, by William Hayley, [13]
marriage to Mary Abbot at Gretna Green, [47]
place among portrait painters, [38]
portraits compared with those of Reynolds and Gainsborough, [18]
prices obtained for pictures, [39]
principal pictures, list of, [53], [54]
return to Kendal, [50]
separation from his wife, [48]
simplicity of treatment, [27]
Romney, Rev. John, [13], [21], [29], [47]
Shakespeare Gallery, [45]
Shakespeare, William, [46]
Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, [38]
Vandyck, [5]
Velasquez, [5]
Vernon, Lord, [22]
Walpole, Horace, [12]
Ward, Mr. Humphry, [23], [42]
West, Benjamin, [7]
West’s “Pylades and Orestes,” [7]
Wilson, Richard, Founder of the English School of Landscape, [6]
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