Cowper, George Nassau Clavering Cowper, 3rd Earl

(1738 - 89), collector, patron and amateur scientist, o. s. of 2nd E. Cowper; army officer 1757; MP 1759 - 61; sty. Vct. Fordwich - 1764 when suc. fa. as 3rd E.; FRS 1777; cr. P. of the Holy Roman Empire by Joseph II 1777; m. 1775, in Florence, Hannah Anne Gore; d. Florence.

1759 - 89 Verona (4 - 7 Jun. 1759), Vicenza, Padua (21 Jun.), Venice, Bologna (29 Jun. - 6 Jul.), Florence (Jul. - Sep.), Lucca (13 - 18 Sep.), Leghorn ( - 26 Sep.), Rome (30 Sep. - 3 Oct.), Naples (7 Oct. - 12 Nov.), Rome (by 14 Nov. - 29 Dec. 1759), Florence (1 Jan. 1760 - 89) [London 1786]

Lord Cowper resided in Florence for nearly thirty years. He had first gone to Italy 'wanting to ramble' and then, despite being elected an MP at Westminster and succeeding to his father's title and estates as 3rd Earl Cowper, he had stayed on in Florence, seduced by an elegant life style and the exercise of patronage. With extraordinary insouciance he continued to apply to the Crown, unsuccessfully, for honours: the Order of the Bath in 1765, the Garter or the Thistle in 1768 and 1780, and a Dukedom in 1782, but additional awards were appropriately confined to a Princedom of the Holy Roman Empire, granted in 1777.1

As Lord Fordwich, he had left Harwich on 11 January 1757 with Colonel John Chastellain, who recorded their journey in a diary in French.2 They visited Holland before travelling down the Rhine valley to Switzerland where they remained over two years. On 4 June 1759 they arrived at Verona, travelling to Vicenza, Padua and Venice. Returning via Padua on 21 June they met Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who found Fordwich 'a well-dispos'd youth'.3 In late June they were in Bologna and in July they had arrived at Florence. Fordwich became infatuated with both the city and the Marchesa Corsi, while Horace Mann offered 'une infinit? de politesses'. In September he travelled from Leghorn to Rome and by 7 October he was in Naples where he struck up a friendship with Jacob Houblon and his tutor Jonathan Lipyeatt. By 14 November the party had returned to Rome where James Russel may have acted as their cicerone. There Fordwich bought paintings (which he later regretted) from Thomas Jenkins, see Robert Strange. Despite his father's opposition and Chastellain's pleading, Fordwich insisted on returning to Florence and there, on 1 January 1760, Chastellain left him and returned to Switzerland. Thereafter Fordwich seems to have spent most of his life in Florence, though a trip to Pola on the Adriatic coast in the summer of 1760 with Lord Grey (later 5th Earl of Stamford), Sir Henry Mainwaring, Houblon and Lipyeatt is recorded by Patch in a painting dated 1760 (Dunham Massey). He probably travelled to Rome again in 1762 where he met Mengs, whose work he consistently admired and from whom he commissioned paintings during the artist's visits to Florence in 1769 and 1773 - 4.

Aided by a considerable fortune and the Earldom which he inherited in September 1764, Lord Cowper was soon a leading member of Florentine society. He received a number of academic honours; in 1766 he became a member of the Florentine Academy and two years later was elected to the Accademia della Crusca. He was also to be elected to the Accademia Etrusca and the Accademia di Belle Arti at Venice. Cowper maintained an interest in music and was an influential member of the Accademia degli Armonici of which he became a director in 1772. He maintained his own private band of instrumental musicians at the Villa Palmieri, where in 1768 Handel's Alexander's Feast was performed.4 By the mid-1770s he had developed a deep interest in science, especially electricity, and did much to encourage Count Volta in his researches. Cowper was admitted to the Royal Society of London in 1777 and his collection of scientific instruments was sold after his death to the University of Bologna.5

At the same time Cowper developed his interests in the fine arts. In 1767 he commissioned a monument to his father from Francis Harwood, the English sculptor residing in Florence, which was eventually installed in Hertingfordbury Church in 1770.6 He supported Giuseppe Macpherson, whom he commissioned to make miniature copies of the Grand Ducal self-portrait collection which he was to give to George III (Windsor Castle).7 He had a particular respect for Zoffany who had arrived in Florence in 1772. In 1774 Cowper commissioned from him portraits of himself and his fianc?e, Hannah Gore (Firle Place). In June that year Zoffany sold Cowper four or five old master paintings, one of which was Raphael's Niccolini Madonna (Washington, NG), with which both Zoffany and Cowper are shown in Zoffany's Tribuna (Windsor), and Zoffany probably bought other paintings for him later. Cowper commissioned landscapes from Zuccarelli (Firle Place), Philipp Hackert (Frankfurt, Goethemuseum), and H.P. Dean. He helped other artists who passed through the city including Romney, Ozias Humphry and John Brown, and he assisted the architect Ebdon. With Zoffany's departure from Florence in April 1778 Cowper lost his advisor, though later that year he acquired the Holy Family by Fra Bartolommeo (Firle Place).

In 1774 Cowper had met Hannah Gore, a lively, pretty young Englishwoman, whom he followed to Rome and eventually married in Florence on 2 June 1775. She bore him three sons and exercised a considerable fascination on male visitors, see Hannah Gore. When Cowper was made a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1777, it was considered in some quarters as a compensation for his wife's liaison with the Grand Duke (Leopold I, the brother of the Emperor Joseph II), although Cowper had previously been on close terms with him. Through his good relations with the Hapsburgs, Cowper was able to support British interests in both Tuscany and Austria, which gave him a political power denied to the British resident,8 but his temperament was not naturally disposed to diplomacy and he was unable to exploit his position.

Cowper continued to collect pictures, commissioning work from the undistinguished Florentine painter G.A. Fabrini, who painted Cowper in the robes of the Bavarian order of S.Hubert (Accademia Etrusca, Cortona). Cowper's collection is listed in an inventory dated 1779, most of the items remaining identifiable.9 During the 1780s there was less artistic activity, though Plura made a bust of him which was shown at the RA in 1782 and H.D. Hamilton's double portrait of Lady Cowper and her sister (now lost) was shown at the RA in 1787. Cowper commissioned landscapes from Jacob More in 1784 and helped him to submit his Self-Portrait (Florence, Uffizi) to the Grand Ducal collections.

Plans to return to England were made in 1781, when his children went to England with a Mrs Carder, but Cowper did not return until 1786. Despite giving George III a Raphael Self-Portrait (Royal Collection), he was unsuccessful in obtaining Horace Mann's post and he returned to Florence disillusioned. His visit to London renewed family contacts and he may have helped his step-nephew, Lord Spencer, and the Duke of Dorset to acquire paintings from Florentine collections. His last recorded purchases are a Nativity by Carlo Dolci (Cleveland) from the Gerini collection and a Helmbreker from the Marucelli sale in 1787. He died in Florence on 23 December 1789.

1. Commons 2, 2:265 - 6. 2. Hertford CRO, d/ep f308. 3. Montagu Letters, 3:214. 4. Gibson 1987, 235 - 52. Rice, Early Music, 18[1990]:62 - 71. 5. B. Maloney, Florence and England, [1969], 47 - 64 (and see, 169 - 90). Dragoni, Il Carrobbio, 11[1985]:68 - 85. 6. H.G. Belsey, Burl.Mag., 122[1980]:65 - 6. 7. J. Fleming, Connoisseur, 144[1959]: 166 - 7. 8. Blanning, Historical Jnl., 20[1977]:311 - 44. 9. D. Sutton, Connoisseur, 137[1956]:83.

H.G. B