Clark, James
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- Clark, James
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(c.1745 - 1800), painter and antiquary, from Inverness; worked in Edinburgh before 1768; d. Naples.
1768 - 1800 Rome (1768 - 71), Naples (1771 - 1800) with visit to Malta, Constantinople (1 Jun. 1773 - )
Clark spent thirty years in Naples, where he practised modestly as a painter and became a much-respected cicerone and dealer. Well-read in the classics and unassuming, he lacked the cynical commercial flair of James Byres and Thomas Jenkins in Rome but, like them, he had first come to Italy to train as a painter before discovering the career of antiquarian. He wrote from London on 2 February 1768 that he was to study portrait painting in Italy for which he had been given an annual allowance of £;50 by Mr Grant (James Grant of Castle Grant) and he was to leave on 'the very first ship for Leghorn'.1 Sir Ludovick Grant [James's father], Sir Hew Dalrymple and Lord Deskford [6th Earl of Findlater] were also said to have been his sponsors.2
'Mr Clerk Painter' arrived in Rome in 1768.3 In 1770 he was living in the parish of S.Nicola dei Prefetti, his age given as twenty-five.4 Soon after, probably in 1771, he moved to Naples. In August 1773 the Abb? Grant wrote that Clark, 'has been these two years past at Naples, where he [has] mett with much employment and great encouragement in his profession of painting'.5 He was presumably 'that poor Devil Clark' whom the merchant George Tierney mentioned in Naples in March 1772 as having been 'sick all the year & I could hardly get him to do anything'.6 But later that year he was well employed. On 9 June 1772 he wrote from Naples that he had sent James Grant a box with six of his paintings, copies made in Naples from Subleyras, Guercino, Titian, Cagnacci and Annibale Carracci (five of these were sold from Cullen, Christie's, 22 Sep. 1975).7 In December 1772 it was remarked in Naples that Clark 'has much credit here and paints many portraits'.8 More copies of pictures in the Royal collection in Naples were to be commissioned by William Danby in 1789 - 90, see William Danby. In 1773 Clark was engaged by Lord Winchilsea to accompany a party on a Mediterranean tour as far as Constantinople,5 and they set out from Naples on 1 June, see Winchilsea.
By September 1778 Thomas Jones was describing him as 'Mr Clarke who served as Cicerone here [in Naples] under the Patronage of his Countryman Mr Byers the Antiquarian at Rome'9 (a subsequent coolness between Jones and Clark in 1780 probably resulted from Byres having meantime fallen out with Jones in Rome).(10) In August 1779 Hippisley was recommending Clark to Lord Herbert as 'very well qualified' to be his cicerone in Naples; Clark had 'attended Mr Grant [James Grant of Sheuglie] 3 or 4 days, who presented him with 5 Guineas, which is the first money the poor man ever recieved in the capacity of a Ciceroni. His only fault is too much modesty. Mr Clarke put me in way of purchasing some select prints from Sir Wm Hamilton's book [the Campi Phlegraei].'11 Lord Herbert (later 11th Earl of Pembroke) accepted Hippisley's advice and found Clark to be 'a very modest, good kind of man'.(12) Despite his modesty, Clark made material progress and gained increasing notice. In 1778 Thomas Hardwick mentioned the fine view of Vesuvius from Clark's lodgings,13 and when Alexander Drummond, Lady Hamilton's physician, died in Naples in August 1782 he owed 'some hundred Ducats' to Clark.14 In May 1782 Sir William Hamilton described him as 'a very modest good creature & a good portrait painter'.15 In May and June 1783 he was accompanying Allan and John Ramsay,16 and in February 1788 Lord Gardenstone regretted having only just met 'Mr Clerk from our country. He has been long resident here in the profession and character of a reputable painter. He has lately taken up the business of antiquarian, is much esteemed, and appears to be a very modest, judicious and intelligent man'.17 In 1790 James Clitherow considered him to be 'a very clever, sober, quiet Man, perfectly master of his Business', whose health, however, did not then allow him to go to Vesuvius.18
In the winter of 1788 he had attended Thomas Chinnal Porter in Naples;19 three years later Clark wrote to him of his new business.20 'Since you were here I have dealt pretty considerably in Etruscan [i.e. Greek] Vases ... acknowledged by Antiquarians to be the most ancient Monuments of the Fine Arts that now exist. The Subjects represented upon some of them exhibit certain religious Rites of the ancient Greek & Egyptian Mythology, and more particularly of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which neither the Paintings of Herculaneum nor even Antique Sculpture have hitherto handed down to us'; Hamilton had spent 'upwards of £;3000' on them; Clark was selling less finished examples 'as suitable decorations for Libraries, placed over the Book-Cases, or upon Brackets against the Wall'; elaborate pieces 'as elegant Ornaments for Chimney-Pieces, or upon Tables in Drawing-Rooms, Dining Rooms &c', and the smallest for 'Ladies Toilets, small Museums, &c. &c.'; he then listed some of his sales, and emphasised that his supplies were finite, since 'it is only in the ancient Sepulcral Monuments of this Kingdom that they are chiefly found'.
Such interests inevitably brought him into closer contact with William Hamilton, and when the French invasion forced the envoy to leave Naples in 1798 it was Clark who saw to the packing and dispatch of his collection, and the inventory he then made ends 'Mr Clark having been confined to his house very ill for the fifteen days of this year [1800] he therefore could not supervise the packing of this [the last] case'.21 Clark is said to have died that year, and his own collection of bronzes and vases, 'formed during thirty years abroad', was dispersed in 1802 (Christie's, 9 Jun.). In his will he left a Holy Family called Sassoferrato to his native Inverness.22
1. Seafield MSS, GD 248/838. 2. B. Skinner, Scots in Italy, 21, 25. 3. Hayward List, 13, 20. 4. Note by O. Michel. 5. Seafield MSS, GD 248/50/5 (4 Aug. 1773). 6. Byres letters
MSS c (17 Mar. 1772). 7. Seafield MSS, GD 248/201/2. 8. Thorpe letters MSS (T. Mason to Jas. Forrester, 14 Dec. 1772). 9. Jones Memoirs, 77 - 8 (15 Sep. 1778). 10. Ibid., 97. 11. Pembroke Papers, 1:223. 12. Ibid, 226. 13. Hardwick jnl.MSS (5 Apr. 1778). 14. Jones Memoirs, 114. 15. Morison, 1:81 (no.118). 16. Ramsay jnl.MSS (1 May - 22 Jun. 1783, passim). 17. Gardenstone, 3:117. 18. Clitherow jnl.MSS (Jan. - Feb. 1790). 19. Porter MSS, 705/262/66. 20. Porter MSS, 705/262/49 (24 Sep. 1791). 21. See Fothergill 1969, 427 - 42 (original list in the Perceval MSS, Fitzwilliam Museum). 22. B. Skinner, Scots in Italy, 21. Waterhouse 1981.