(1728 - 70), painter, b. Dublin; trained Dublin Soc. School of Drawing under Robert West; awarded premiums 1747, 1748 and 1750; master of the School 1763; exh. SA Dublin 1765 - 70.
1754 - 6 [Dublin] Rome (by 26 Jan. 1754 - Jul. 1756), Florence [Dublin]
Ennis was sent to Italy by Arthur Jones Nevill, Surveyor General of Ireland. He was in Rome by 26 January 1754, when he was mentioned by Cardinal Albani as being in alliance with the Abb? Grant over an altercation with his rival, Thomas Jenkins.1 In 1755 he was living in the same house as Robert Crone and James Forrester in the Strada della Croce, and in 1756 with Forrester alone.2
In November 1754 Ennis came seventh in the first class of painting at the triennial competition of the Accademia di S.Luca.3 He attended the Accademia del Nudo during its first summer session and again in the following winter, when he would have been instructed in drawing from the live model by Mengs and Batoni4 Ennis won third prize both in the Concorso Nudo of June 1755 and January 1756. Both prizewinning drawings remain in the collection of the Archive of the Accademia Nazionale di S.Luca, Rome.
Ennis also copied after antique statuary both in Rome and Florence. He sold his drawings, including those of the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, the Dancing Faun and the Venus de Medici in Florence, to Stephen Beckingham.5 Ennis left Rome in July 17566 and in 1757 he spent 'some weeks to paint portraits' in Gibraltar.7
On his return from Italy, Ennis painted the cove of Arthur Jones Nevill's drawing room in 14 Rutland Square with lunettes after Pietro da Cortona's decorations in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence; three of Ennis's panels are now in the NGI.
1. SP 105/310, f.227. 2. AVR SA, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 3. ANSL 51, f.57. 4. MacDonald 1989, 81 - 2, 84. 5. Beckingham list MSS. 6. Hayward List, 23. 7. Mylne letters MSS (11 Feb. 1758).
N. F.