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)both of whom were believed to have taught her and in particular Joseph Nollekens who copied one of her busts suggested here as a self portrait.
A real problem here is that Mrs Damer requested that 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.
1748. Born
1763, 1 May HW wrote to Damer's 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".
A very Interesting reference to Rackstrow who had a Museum on the Strand and the coloured plaster bust with the removable soft hat, of Colley Cibber (now at the NPG). This bust is so lifelike that it has in the past been attributed to Roubiliac.
1774 Description In the Waiting-Room. Bust
of Colley Cibber, poet-laureat, in a cap, when old, coloured from the life, and
extremely like. He gave it to Mrs. Clive, the celebrated actress, and her
brother Mr. Raftor gave it, after her death, to Mr. Walpole.
Extract from the Extract from the Strawberry Hill Auction Catalogue 13 May 1842. "He gave it to Mrs Clive the celebrated actress and her brother Mr Radnor presented it after her death to Mr Walpole"
Sold to Buckley Bolton Esq. Most likely Dr George Buckley Bolton surgeon of 9 Pall Mall (d. July 1847).3
see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/03/colley-cibber-1671-1757.html
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 Joseph 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.
1772. In France, the Low Countries and Germany with her husband
1772 “ At the Pantheon, concerts, as well as assemblies and masquerades, were given. On the 30th April, 1772, Sir Joshua records an engagement, and his name figures in the list of the company present. He went in domino. Goldsmith was there with his friend, Mr. Cradock, in Old English dresses. The fourteen rooms were blazing with light and decorations. The suppers and wine on these occasions were in keeping with the rank of the best part of the company. To people these rooms we have to call up many of the most beautiful and best known of Sir Joshua’s sitters.
On this particular occasion a great many ladies, we are told, chose to adopt male dominoes, and ‘appeared as masculine as many of the delicate macaroni things we see everywhere in the “Billy Whiffles” of the present age.’ Among the distinguished of these ‘pretty fellows’ were the Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Melbourne, and Mrs. Darner.” — Town and Country Magazine. The first whiff of cross dressing.
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).
1774. She again visits France
1775. Again in France.
1776. Suicide of husband John Damer (b.1744) who shot himself at the Bedford Arms, Covent Garden.
1777/8 again in France.
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. The 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 at this time 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.
1797. When Horace Walpole died in 1797, he left a life interest in
Strawberry Hill to Damer. She had the job of recording the contents of
Strawberry Hill for the Berry family, who had moved into an adjoining property.
Anne used Strawberry Hill as her country house until 1811, which she maintained
alongside her central London home in Upper Brook Street. In 1818, she returned
to Twickenham, buying York House.
My interest in Mrs Damer and her career fades after about 1800.
Lady Elizabeth Christiana Hervey (1759–1824), Lady Elizabeth
Foster, Later Duchess of Devonshire
The entry in Angelica Kauffman’s diary, on the day this
portrait was painted, reads: “Naples Oct 1785 for Lady Foster, her portrait,
half-length figure...sitting in a boscage; in the distance, the Isola d’Ischia
- the head was painted at Naples and the remainder finished after at Rome.”
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Lady Elisabeth Foster.
Jean-Urbain Guérin (1761 - 1836).
Image size:
9.4 x 6.8 cm
Image from the Wallace Collection.
The two sitters, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
(1757-1806) and Lady Elizabeth Christiana Foster née Harvey (1757-1824), Georgiana,
née Spencer, married the Duke of Devonshire in 1774 and immediately became a
fashion icon and celebrity. In 1782 the Devonshires met Lady Elizabeth Foster,
who soon became the Duke’s, and possibly also the Duchess’s, lover. After
Georgiana’s death, Elizabeth became the Duke’s second wife. The love lives of
both women, which included further affairs, their public ménage à trois with
the Duke, and the battles between the three protagonists were eagerly followed
by a wide public.
The Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth stayed together
in Paris twice, between May and August 1790 and again in November and December
of 1791. The second stay correlates with a note in Jean-Urbain Guérin’s journal
that he made a drawing of the Duchess on 12 November 1791. The miniature can
thus be dated to 1791, a time when Georgiana had just been sent into exile by
her husband, after becoming pregnant with her daughter Eliza Courtney by the
Whig politician Charles Grey. Foster accompanied the Duchess into exile.
Guérin’s miniature should be understood as a token of friendship, even love,
between the two women, emphasized by the fact that two versions were painted,
one for each sitter. Both women returned to England in 1793 to continue their
previous living arrangement with the Duke.
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Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth Foster.
C. 1785.
John Downman.
Image courtesy -
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Elizabeth Christiana Hervey was baptised on 13 May 1758 in Horringer, Suffolk, the daughter of Frederick Hervey and Elizabeth Davers.
The family moved to Ireland when Hervey was appointed Bishop of Cloyne (1767) and then Bishop of Derry (1768) through the influence of his brother. Elizabeth, known as Bess, spent her childhood in relative? poverty, in Ireland and on the continent.
The family fortunes changed
drastically when Hervey became 4th Earl of Bristol in December 1779, but by
this time, Bess was already married.
A short-lived marriage - on 16 December 1776, Bess married John Foster, an Irish MP. She had two sons, Frederick (1777) and Augustus (1780), but the marriage was not a success and in 1780, the couple separated.
Mr Foster was unfaithful, but on her side, Bess may have been regretting marriage to someone beneath her newly elevated status as Lady Elizabeth Foster.
Elizabeth gave up custody of her sons to Foster and returned to England, where she was forced to live in reduced circumstances.
In May 1782, Bess met the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire in Bath, and quickly became Georgiana's closest friend.
From this time, she lived
in a triad with Georgiana and her husband, William, the 5th Duke of Devonshire,
for about 25 years. She bore two illegitimate children by the Duke: a daughter,
Caroline St Jules, and a son, Augustus (later Augustus Clifford, 1st Baronet),
who were raised at Devonshire House with the Duke's legitimate children by
Georgiana. Georgiana grew ill and died in 1806; three years later, Bess married
the duke and became the Duchess of Devonshire. He died two years later.
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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 as Thalia compared.
Whilst the noses are different (Mrs Farren's has a flatter appearance) the rest of the features of these two busts are remarkably similar.
My conclusion is that the RISDM is not Mrs Farren
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The Statue of Mrs Damer from an original Terracotta by Ceracchi at the British Museum.
Height: 181 centimetres Length: 59 centimetres (plinth). Depth: 46 centimetres.
The original terracotta of 1778 was modelled by Ceracchi, but I suggest that the marble was carved in the studio of Westmacott.
Note from the BM website "The attribution to Westmacott was no longer
current by 1932 when the disposal of the statue was discussed, and agreed on,
by the Trustees (see above). As the attribution was made in Westmacott's
lifetime (see above), given his close association with the Museum, it is just
possible that the statue may have been carved in his workshop, but convincing
proof of this has yet to be found".
The Westmacott attribution comes from several sources including -
Old and New London, Walter Thornbury, pub 1878 ref BM "Against the wall, near the foot of the stairs, is a statue, executed by Westmacott, of the Hon. Mrs. Damer".
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
see - Portrait Sculpture, a Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, c. 1675-1975, Aileen Dawson pub 1999 / (27).
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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.
