Cumberland, George
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- Cumberland, George
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(1754 - 1848?), amateur painter, art critic, print collector; b. London, cos. of Richard Cumberland, the dramatist; RA schools 1772; hon. exh. RA 1782 - 3; as Candid wrote in the Morning Chronicle 1780 - 4; author of Thoughts on Outline Sculpture [1796].
1785 - 6 [dep. England after Jul. 1785] Florence (by 5 Dec.), Rome (by 28 Dec. 1785 - 23 Jan. 1786) [Switzerland Aug. 1786]
1787 - 9 [Frankfurt, Jun. 1787] Verona (Sep.), Milan (10 Oct.), Rome (Nov. 1787 - Jan. 1788) [Paris Feb. - May 1788] Parma, Lerici (Jul. - Sep. 1788), Rome (Oct. 1788 - Mar. 1789 - ) [London by Aug. 1790]
George Cumberland first went to Italy in 1785 after he had obtained his financial independence. He was already well aware of the activities of British artists in Rome at that time through his correspondence with James Irvine in Rome which had begun in 1780, and in 1784 he had helped Robert Fagan in Rome with his finances.1
On 5 December 1785 in Florence Henry Quin noted that 'the young Englishman I took for a Painter is Mr Cumberland'; on 28 December Cumberland had 'just arrived' in Rome from Florence, and on 5 January 1786 Cumberland with Quin met Irvine and H.D. Hamilton.2 Cumberland also met the artists Grignion and Tresham and the collector Colonel John Campbell in Rome, who were all subsequently referred to as his acquaintances.3 He later asserted that he would have bought Raphael's Villa if Cardinal Doria had not already bought it when it was for sale in 1786.4 In August 1786 he was in Switzerland with Charles Long.5
In 1787 Cumberland eloped with Mrs Elizabeth Cooper, the wife of his London landlord. They were in Frankfurt in June, Verona in September and Milan in October. The following month they reached Rome and it must have been on this second visit that Cumberland spent 'several' winters in Rome enjoying the company of the young English artists Deare, Robinson and Grignion.4 In December 1787 he was corresponding with Sir William Hamilton concerning the creation of a museum of casts from the best bas-relievos in order to 'enlarge the confined ideas of our artists',6 a project which became his Thoughts on Outline Sculpture [1796]. He was also concerned with the exemption from duty of British artists' works coming from Italy to England.7 In February he went to Paris to reach a settlement with Mr Cooper, whose wife meanwhile stayed with James Byres in Rome writing regularly to Cumberland in a semi-literate but lively style. On 10 May 1788 Byres wrote to Cumberland congratulating him on a satisfactory settlement.
In July 1788 the Cumberlands were staying at Lerici for three months in the summer, and Cumberland told his brother (12 July 1788) that 'his wife' was expecting his child in October when they proposed to be in Rome. On 12 October he was advising his brother to come to Italy, where in Naples or Rome one could live like a Gentleman for £;100 a year. While he remained on good terms with British artists (on 11 March 1789 he dined with Hewetson in Rome), and commissioned at least a Perseus and Andromeda from Irvine,8 Cumberland apparently preferred to buy old master paintings and prints; there was a well preserved Leonardo of four figures which he later thought he could sell for £;2000, perhaps to the Empress of Russia,9 and the antiquary James Clark in Naples obtained prints for him.(10)
On his return to England, sometime in 1790, he continued to correspond with British artists in Rome, including Deare, Grignion, Skirving, Fagan and Irvine. He wrote a biography of the engraver Bonasoni [1793] and An Essay on Collecting Works of the Engravers of the Italian School [1827]. He sold his choice collection of Bonasoni prints to the British Museum in 1827, and his other Italian engravings to the Royal Academy.
1. His corr. is Add.36493 - 6. 2. Quin jnl.MSS. 3. Add. 36495, f.164 (C. Long, 23 Dec. 1786). 4. G. Cumberland, 'Biography of Charles Grignion' Monthly Mag., 1 Jan. 1809 (RBF notes). 5. G. de Beer, Notes and Records of the R. Soc. of London, IIii[1955]:236 - 7. 6. Add.36495, f.267 (Hamilton, 27 Dec. 1787). 7. Ibid., f.278 (C. Long, 2 Feb. 1788). 8. Add.36496, f.189 (Irwin, 7 Aug. 1790). 9. Ibid., f.110 (C. Long, 13 May 1789). Cumberland, n.d.[1791], ibid., f.266. 10. Add.36496, f.150 (Clark, 7 Nov. 1789).