(1754 - 1839), e. s. of 1st B. Clive [I]; educ. Eton and Ch.Ch. Oxf. 1771; suc. fa. 1774 as 2nd B.; MP 1774 - 94; m. 1784 Ldy. Henrietta Antonia Herbert (1758 - 1830), dau. of 1st E. of Powis; cr. B. Clive 1794; gov. of Madras 1798 - 1803; cr. E. of Powis 1804.
1782 - 3 Rome (winter 1782 - 10 May 1783)
1787 Rome (Feb. - Mar.), Florence (Apr.), Rome ( - 22 Apr.) [England, Jul. 1787]
1788 - 90 Rome (by 10 May 1788 - May 1790), Venice (30 Jun. - 3 Jul.)
Clive spent two years studying in Geneva from July 1773,1 but does not appear to have visited Italy until the winter of 1782, when he was among Allan Ramsay's acquaintances in Rome. In March 1783 he made an expedition to Terracina with James Byres, who became his friend.2 He had left Rome for England by the second week of May, Thomas Jenkins writing on 10 May 1783 that Lord Clive 'is gone strait for England, leaving Venice & Naples for a second jaunt'.3
He returned to Italy for a short visit with his sister Charlotte (1762 - 95) in 1787. 'Lord and Lady Clive, his sister' were in Rome in February 17874 and both sat to Angelica Kauffman in April.5 Clive particularly favoured the artist Charles Grignion, whom he frequently took with him in his own carriage;6 on 5 April they were said to have 'gone some time since to Florence'.7 Clive commissioned from him a portrait of his sister Charlotte (Powis Castle; dated Rome 1787) and an ambitious history piece, Prometheus chained to the Rocks which remained unfinished. Two drawings Grignion made for him, the Coltellata and the Salterello were engraved by Soiron. On 28 March Lord and Lady Clive (sic) were said to be returning to England with Byres (who was in England by 4 July); they had left Rome together on 22 April 1787.8
He returned to Italy with his family in 1788. 'Lord Clive's family are still here' in Rome, Byres wrote on 10 May 1788.9 There are pastel portraits by H.D. Hamilton at Powis Court of Lord and Lady Clive and of Charlotte, Margaret (d. 1814) and Robert Clive (1769 - 1833), Clive's sisters and brother; Byres had copies of these portraits in Rome; Lady Clive, Charlotte and Robert appear in Byres's accounts (their debts settled by 1 December 1790).(10) Further portraits by Hamilton at Powis Castle of John Probert, Clive's estate agent, and Sir Henry Strachey, his father's secretary, suggest they may also have been in Clive's party in Italy. It is not clear how the party returned to England, but Robert Clive alone proposed to leave Rome in the first week of May 1790 with Byres and Christopher Norton,11 and the three were in Venice in June 1790.(12)
In the course of his tours, Lord Clive met the Florentine artist Anna Tonelli, who came to England and lived with Clive's family from 1794 to 1802, teaching drawing.(13)
1. M. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 293 - 4. Pembroke Papers, 1:89. 2. Ramsay jnl.MSS (19, 21 Mar. 1783). 3. Eg. 1970, f.124. 4. World Fashionable Advertiser, 5 Feb. 1787. 5. Kauffman 1924, 153. 6. For Clive and Grignion, see G. Cumberland, 'Biography of Charles Grignion', Monthly Mag., 1 Jan. 1809 (RBF notes). 7. Add.36495, f.195 (C. Long, 5 Apr. 1787). 8. Waters letters MSS (28 Mar., 4 Jul. 1787). Add.36495, f.201 (C. Long, 22 Apr. 1787). 9. Add. 36495, f.370. 10. Byres MSS. 11. Waters letters MSS (8 Apr. 1790). 12. ASV IS 761. 13. B. Long, British Miniaturists, 439.