(c.1755 - 1820), architect, s. of Michael Savary Furs and Mary Brettingham (b. c.1732, dau. of the architect Matthew Brettingham the elder); founding member of the Architects' Club 1791.
1778 - 82 [Paris, 29 Mar. 1778)] Rome (2 May - Sep.), Naples (by 27 Sep. - early Oct.), Rome (10 Oct. 1778 - Nov. 1781), Naples (Mar. 1782), Rome (Mar. - Jun.)
Robert Furze had already added his mother's distinguished maiden name to his own patronymic when he entered the RA Schools in 1775, 'supposing that professionally it might be of service to him' (DBA). When John Soane, a fellow student, set off for Italy on 18 March 1778 as Royal Scholar, he agreed to take Brettingham with him to Rome. The industrious attitude of Soane was to contrast sharply with Brettingham's flightiness. During their first autumn abroad, as Soane toiled away on a British Senate House scheme, Brettingham joined the architects Thomas Hardwick and John Henderson for an expedition to Naples to see Mount Vesuvius in eruption.1 No doubt Brettingham's impulsive behaviour prompted his Roman mentor, referred to in a letter to Soane (22 December 1778) as 'Mr [Gavin] Hamilton', to forbid a second trip to Naples around Christmas the same year; in the same letter Brettingham assured Soane that, 'As You desired, I have measured the great granite Basons in the Medici Gardens these are the sketches'2 (these sketches were shown at the RA in 1783). It apears that in December Brettingham, with Hardwick, was called to adjudicate between designs prepared by Soane and Henderson for the Bishop of Derry.3
Brettingham remained based in Rome for four years, although accounts are sparse. In September 1779 he was occupying rooms in the barracks of the Papal Avignon Guards.4 In January 1780, with Nathaniel Marchant and Henry Tresham, he was sending his regards to Lord Herbert5 and an inscription at Hadrian's Villa shows he was in Tivoli sometime that year.6 In November 1781 'Mr Berthingham' had 'just recovered from a serious illness' and in March 1782 Brettingham 'had just ventured from Naples' to Rome.7 On 15 May 1782 James Irvine in Rome described Brettingham as 'a clever young fellow & very well acquainted with the antiquities of Rome' where he had spent 'about four years studying Architecture'; he was then about to send home 'some casts of the most famous ornaments'.8
Brettingham made little use of the potential patrons he met abroad, with the exception of young Henry Bankes of Kingston Lacy, who arrived in Rome during the summer of 1779.9 Soane made drawings for Kingston Lacy at Rome in 1779 which Brettingham may have seen, but other drawings at Kingston Lacy link Brettingham with Bankes's later visit to Rome in June 1782. Whatever the exact circumstances, in 1783 Brettingham received the commission to redesign the interior of Kingston Lacy (though almost all of Brettingham's major changes of 1784 - 9 disappeared during Charles Barry's even more radical restyling of 1835).
1. Jones Memoirs, 79 - 80. Cf. Hardwick jnl.MSS, f.27r. 2. Bolton, Soane, 19. P. du Prey, Architectural History, 15[1972]:52 - 3. 4. Pembroke Papers, 1:261 - 2. 5. Pembroke Papers, 1:389. 6. Note by H. Lavagne (19 Mar. 1973). 7. Bolton, Soane, 42, 44. 8. Add.36493, f.323. 9. See A. Cleminson, Architectural History, 31[1988]: 120 - 35, and Apollo, 135[1991]:407 - 9.
P.dlR. dP.