Mrs Anne Seymour Damer. nee Conway
A very Rough Timeline - Post in preparation.
Born 1748. Died 1828.
The main thrust here is to examine the movements of Mrs Damer and how they might have coincided with other sculptors of the period including Giuseppi Ceracchi (1751 - 1802), John Bacon I (1740 - 1799) and in particular Joseph Nollekens.
A real problem here is that Mrs Damer required all her paperwork to be destroyed after her death and so all information except for a couple of exceptions, on her life has to be derived from secondary sources.
1763, 1 May HW wrote to Damers father "Good night to the infanta.. whose progress in waxen statuary is advancing so fast that by next winter she may rival (Benjamin) Rackstrow's old man".
1766. Anne Conway was painted by Angelica Kauffman in 1766, the year in which she made the decision to move from Italy to England. Within a month of having arrived in London Kauffman was hard at work on this portrait. On 2nd August Lady Mary Coke wrote to her sister, the Countess of Stafford:
"I went to Lady Ailesbury’s, and found her and Mr
Conway were going to a painter who had just arrived from Italy, and was brought
over by Lady Wentworth, the same who drew a picture of Mr Garrick, which was
shown, I am told, in the exhibition. I went with them, and saw the picture she
was painting of Miss Conway. It was like, and appeared to be to be well done,
but too large, as you would take for a very big woman".
1767, 15 June, Anne Conway marries John Damer. Eldest son of Lord Milton.
1772. Joseph Nollekens became a Royal Academician in 1772, soon after his
return from Rome, and Council minutes record his conscientious attendance. Giuseppi Angelini (1742 - 1811).arrives shortly afterwards to work as his assistant
1773. Giuseppi Ceracchi (1751 - 1801) arrives in London. He exhibited busts at the R.A. from 1776 - 79. He worked under Agostino Carlini (d.1790 first recorded in England in1760) and lodged at his house near at Kings Square Court, Soho Square.
In October 1773 Richard Hayward recorded in his list of
British visitors to Rome that ‘Giuseppe Carachi Italian sculptor’ had come to
England.
JT Smith in Nollekens and his Times . 1828 records - "when I was taken to see him, ....very extensive premises at No. 76, Margaret-street, Cavendish-square.
JT Smith who noted that Ceracchi ‘was the Honourable Mrs
Damer’s master in Nollekens... Vol II p. 120.
The Monument by Carlini to commemorate his wife Caroline, was commissioned by Joseph Damer (father in law of Mrs Damer) in 1775 which stands in the north transept of Milton Abbey in Dorset. Whilst coincidental it is possible that Ceracchi was working as Carlini's assistant, thus the connection between Mrs Damer and Ceracchi.
See - Championing Liberty: The Roman Sculptor Giuseppe Ceracchi in Britain and in America, by Karin Wolfe pub 2018 Page 195. available on line https://accademiasanluca.it/uploads/American_Latium_df4004c1dc.pdf
On the other hand Walpole may have been responsible for introducing Ceracchi to his protégé, Anne Seymour Damer. Apparently smitten by her ‘graceful nymph-like person’ the Italian ‘begged her to sit to him, and he made a most charming statue of her, whole length as large as life, in terracotta’ (Anecdotes 1937, 142).
This was later translated to marble (by Westmacott?) and is one of Ceracchi’s most inventive compositions. Damer is depicted as a personification of sculpture, standing with her tools at her feet and a statuette of a river god in her hands (2).
Damer, who had previously only sculpted portrait profiles in
wax, subsequently received ‘two or three lessons’ in modelling from Ceracchi,
after which she began to work in terracotta (Anecdotes 1937, 142).
1776. Suicide of husband John Damer (b.1744) who shot himself at the Bedford Arms, Covent Garden.
1778/9. Mrs Damer travels to Florence. Little is known about this trip, 13 September 79 Horace Walpole tells her father "you may imagine how happy I am at Mrs D's return....
1780, February, Giuseppi Ceracchi disposes of his premises in Margaret St and leaves England.
1780. Terracotta Bust of Niobe (or Niobid). Her first attempt (HW) at making a bust, size 47 cms. signed and dated Anna Damer 1780, Fecit.1781/82. She was in Florence on 21 November, in Rome from late Nov 71 - April 72, returning via Venice 5th May, and Paris, back in England 13 June.
Walpole wrote to Horace Mann in Florence that she was so reserved and modest that ‘we have by accident discovered that she writes Latin like Pliny and is learning Greek. In Italy she will be a prodigy; she models like Bernini, has excelled the moderns in the similitudes of her busts and has lately begun one in marble.’ This probably refers to the Niobid.
1781 - Ceracchi returns to Rome.
1781/82. To Italy with Lady William Campbell, (widow of Lord William Campbell). to Naples, arrived in Florence in early November 71 departed for Rome on 21 Nov.
William Hamilton writes to Horace Walpole on 28 May 1782 referring to her bust of Ceres, taken from a "Sicilian" medallion (disappeared). Mentioned in a letter from WH to HW 25 Feb 1783 regarding a cast sent to Princess Dashkova.
1783. Sculpts a profile medallion of the daughter of Princess Dashkova, perhaps from a sitting of 1781 when Dashkova was in London.
1784. The Portland Stone Thames and Isis Keystones for the bridge at Henley.
1785/6. To Italy - Departing England 30 October, Florence early 1786; in Rome by 24 Jan 86; Naples March/April. Rome in May, Florence 1 Jun; back in England July.
Almost certainly Damer presents the marble self portrait busts to the Uffizi and not in 1778/9 as some authorities suggest.
1785 Walpole records she made a ‘Bust of her mother Lady Ailesbury in terra-cotta, veiled.’
1787. George III statue for the Records House, Edinburgh.
1789, Marble bust of her mother Caroline Campbell, Lady Ailsbury
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The Rhode Island Marble Bust on the left and the Uffizi Self Portrait Marble Bust Compared.
The Biographical Dictionary. Yale, 2009 under the entry for Damer records: -
1778 (this is incorrect - it should be 1784) - The Uffizi self portrait - and other versions?
1785, Self portrait - mentioned in Walpole Correspondence Vol 12 page 272.
1786, Self Portrait - Accademia di San Luca - Neoclassicism 1972 page 230.
Unless the 1786 entry refers to the Uffizi bust it would appear that there were two and possibly three variants of the Damer self portrait
The difficulty here is that the features of her female busts are very generalised. The bust of her mother (1789). Elizabeth Farren (Countess of Derby (NPG) c. 1788, and Mrs Freeman as Isis (V and A) all have similar generalised features.
As I have stated in previous posts it is very dangerous to make these sorts of comparisons - all I can do here is present the visual evidence as best as I can -I leave the reader to make up their own minds!
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The Rhode Island Marble Bust on the left and the Portrait Marble Bust of Elizabeth Farren compared.
Whilst the noses are different the rest of the features of these two busts remarkably similar.
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The Statue of Mrs Damer by Ceracchi at the British Museum.
The original terracotta was modelled by Ceracchi but I suggest that the marble was carved in the studio of Westmacott.
Given to the BM by Lord Frederick Campbell.
As the donor died in 1816, the work must have been donated before this date, but no record has so far been found. Lord Frederick Campbell was the sitter's uncle, and may have had the statue carved from the model, according to Smith, 1828 (see Dawson 1999, p. 89).
A terracotta was recorded in
1989, but its present whereabouts is unknown.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_OA-10540
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I intend to put together a brief piece on Italian sculptors working in England in the 18th and early 19th centuries sometime shortly.
Plura, Carlini, Ceracchi, Locatelli, Turnerelli, (Tognarelli) etc.
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