Hadfield, Maria Louisa Caterina Cecilia
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- Hadfield, Maria Louisa Caterina Cecilia
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(1760 - 1838), painter, dau. of Charles Hadfield, inn-keeper in Florence; m. 1781 Richard Cosway (d. 1821); exh. RA 1781 - 9, 1796, 1800 - 1; in Paris 1786 - 7 and 1801 - 3, Lyons 1803; cr. Bs. by the Emp. of Austria 1834; d. Lodi.
1760 - 79 Florence (1760 - 77), Rome (Mar.?, Jul. 1777 - ), Florence ( - 13 Dec.), Rome (15 Dec. 1778 - Apr. 1779), Naples (Apr. 1779), Rome ( - 18 May), Florence (Jun.) [Paris Jul.]
1790 - 4 Venice (by Sep. 1790), Rome (1791), Florence (summer 1791), Genoa (1793 - 4) [England by Nov. 1794]
[1804 and 1811 - 38 Milan, Lodi, with visits to England in 1815 and 1817 - 22]
The talented daughter of the hotelier Charles Hadfield, Maria was educated in a convent in Florence; she began to study music at the age of six and drawing at ten.1 She was copying in the Uffizi as the pupil of Viollante Cerroti and Zoffany from 1773, and on 27 September 1778 was elected to the Accademia del Disegno.2 Wright of Derby noticed her work and she met the engraver Charles Townley, Edward Edwards and Henry Tresham, all of whom she mentioned in letters written in Italian to Ozias Humphry in 1775 - 6.3 She was also then already regarded as a reliable judge of current musical performances and in 1777 was arranging for musical scores to be sent to Humphry in London.4 By September 1775 William Parsons, the English musician who had spent some time in Rome, came to Florence and gave her lessons. Early in 1777, sometime after his return to London, he wrote proposing marriage;5 on 8 March Mrs Hadfield wrote to Maria, who was then apparently in Rome, passing on Parsons's offer, but nothing came of it.6
This was probably Maria's first visit to Rome, although late in her life she recalled having been more than once between 1774 and 1778.7 According to Thomas Jones she came with her mother and brother [William] in 'about' July 1777.8 They soon returned to Florence where Joseph Mercer, a young English traveller, took a particular fancy to her in December 1778; he was upset when Maria and William set off for Rome on 13 December.9 On this occasion Maria stayed with Thomas Banks and his wife, and she 'had the opportunity of knowing all the first living Artists intimately; Battoni, Mengs, Maron, and many English Artists. Fusely with his extraordinary visions struck my fancy. I made no regular study, but for one year and a half only [i.e. her separate visits to Rome combined] went to see all that was high in painting and sculpture'.9 Northcote was intrigued by her: 'she plays very finely on the harpsichord, and sings and composes music', he wrote;10 she was 'withal, active, ambitious, proud, and restless', and had been 'the object of adoration of an indulgent father'; in appearance she was 'not unhandsome', with 'a form extremely delicate and a pleasing manner of the utmost simplicity'; she had 'some small knowledge of painting, the same of music, and about the same of five or six languages, but was very imperfect in all these'.(11) She continued to attract a number of young men; the painter Prince Hoare was decidedly fond of her12 and by January 1779, after taking her and Mrs Banks to a concert in the Teatro di Valle, Joseph Mercer had finally decided he was 'certainly in love with her'.(13) In April 1779 Maria visited Naples for a month with Thomas and Mrs Banks, Alexander Day, Henry Tresham, Prince Hoare and Northcote. Her stay in Rome ended when her mother took her to London with her family, less William who continued his studies in Rome. Thomas Jones said that 'Banks the Sculptor & his family with Miss Hatfield set off for England' from Rome on 18 May 177914 and the Hadfield passports were dated 9 June in Florence.15
As Mrs Cosway she returned to Italy with Catherine, Lady Wright, and her brother George in 1790, after the (difficult) birth of her only child in London. 'Surely', commented Horace Walpole, 'it is odd to drop a child and her husband all in a breath',16 but her marriage was proving difficult. She was in Venice copying old masters, and was staying with Mary Berry in Florence during the summer of 1791.16 This was presumably just after she had visited Rome with Lady Cowper, since Hewetson was writing in March how the recent presence in Rome of Madame Vig?e Lebrun, Angelica Kauffman and Maria Cosway had led him to question whether it was possible to match the abilities of these three women 'amongst any three of the other sex ... in Painting & Musick'.17 In March 1793 Maria was unsuccessfully seeking admission to a convent in Genoa.18 She had returned to her husband in London by November 1794.
Maria visited Italy in 1804 with William Hadfield and finally returned in 1811 when her marriage was effectively over (Richard Cosway having become obsessively mystical and mesmerist). She settled in Lodi, where she founded a convent school for girls, which in 1830 was placed under the religious order of the Dame delle Inglesi. A painting by Gabriele Rottini, Maria Cosway surrounded by sisters and pupils listening to an oration is in the Fondazione, Lodi.
1. See S. Lloyd, Jnl.of Anglo-Italian Studies, 2[1992]:108 - 39, and his Richard & Maria Cosway, exh. cat., Edinburgh and London [1995]. Add. notes by Julia King. 2. Borroni 1985,
47n276. Wynne 1990, 537. 3. Humphry corr.MSS, hu/2/33 - 4 and 36 - 42 (Sep. 1775 - Feb. 1776). 4. Bell, Banks, 21, 23. 5. Humphry corr.MSS, hu/2/33 and 37. 6. Ibid., hu/2/51 and 55. 7. Bell, Banks, 24. 8. Jones Memoirs, 62. 9. Mercer jnl.MSS. 10. Autobiog. letter from Maria to Sir Wm.Cosway, Lodi, 24 May 1830; VAM MS (Eng.L.961-1953). 11. Northcote Memorials, 149 - 50. 12. Whitley, 2:312 (Northcote, 26 Dec. 1778). 13. Mercer jnl.MSS (30 Jan. 1779). 14. Jones Memoirs, 89. 15. Wynne 1990, 537. 16. Wal.Corr., 11:285. 17. Add.36496, f.333 (Hewetson, 14 May 1791). 18. Letters from Maria to her husband, 13 Jun. 1791 and 1 Mar. 1793; MSS at Lodi, Fondazio Cosway.