16/2/23 - Acquisition - London, Victoria and Albert Museum - This painting, by three different artists, celebrates the memory of John Somers, statesman and prominent member of the Whig party (ill. 1). He supported William of Orange and the Protestant cause, and helped bring down James II, who had converted to Catholicism. He distinguished himself by defending seven bishops imprisoned by the King for refusing to approve his Declaration of Indulgence, which repealed laws discriminating against Catholics and Protestant dissidents.
Acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2022 as a result of an Acceptance in Lieu from Lord Plymouth’s descendants, the work was commissioned by Owen McSwiny for Charles Lennox, second Duke of Richmond. It is part of an unfinished series of twenty-four paintings, produced between 1723 and 1730, entitled Monuments to the Remembrance of a Set of British Worthies, depicting the imaginary graves of men of merit - military, political and intellectual - who distinguished themselves during the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89. This led to the overthrow of James II and the subsequent accession of his daughter Mary II and William III, Prince of Orange, to the throne by the English Parliament.
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- 1. Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto (1697-1768)
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682-1754) and Giovanni Battista Cimaroli (1687-1771)
Allegorical Tomb of John Somers, Lord Chancellor of England, 1726
Oil on canvas - 218.5 x 142.2 cm
London, Victoria and Albert Museum
Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum - See the image in its page
Owen McSwiny (or Swiny, or Swiney) was both a theatre impresario and art dealer, active in London and Venice. He commissioned artists from Venice and Bologna to paint this series. The tomb of Isaac Newton was painted by Giovanni Battista Pittoni, who commissioned the brothers Giuseppe and Domenico Valeriani for the architecture (Fitzwilliam Museum); the allegorical tomb of the admiral Cloudesley Shovell was painted by Sebastiano and Marco Ricci (Washington, National Gallery of Art), that of Charles Boyle, John Locke and Thomas Sydenham by Donato Creti (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale).
The tomb of John Somers is the work of a trio of painters: Piazzetta was responsible for the figures, including the Anglican clergy who came to pay their respects. Canaletto designed the architecture and Cimaroli, his collaborator, did the landscape.
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- 2. Anonymous
after Canaletto, Piazzetta and Cimaroli
Allegorical Tomb of John Somers, Lord Chancellor of England, c. 1726
Oil on canvas - 84 x 53.5 cm
National Trust, Hinton Ampner
Photo: National trust - See the image in its page
The paintings were sold to the English nobility. The second Duke of Richmond acquired ten to adorn his dining room at Goodwood House, Sussex.
Swiny later wanted to have them engraved and published. Some of them were thus collected in a volume published in 1741 under the title Monuments to the Remembrance of a Set of British Worthies [1]. Several grisaille replicas of the series are known. The one of the tomb of John Somers is attributed according to opinion to Piazzetta or to an anonymous member of the Bolognese school (ill. 2).
This painting is one of Canaletto’s earliest capricci and complements the museum’s collection, which includes another capriccio and several vedute by the Venetian master. The latter had been the subject of several exhibitions in the 2010s, two in Paris (see article), another in London and Washington (see article).