Harwood, Francis
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- Harwood, Francis
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(c.1727 - 83), sculptor; d. Florence.
1752 - 83 Rome (1752), Florence (1753 - d. Dec. 1783)
Harwood spent over thirty years in Italy, where he was regularly patronised by British visitors. Most of the time he was in Florence, where he died and where Thomas Patch caricatured him as a portly 'drunken Englishman'.1 Shortly before his death in December 1783 he converted to Catholicism.2
These are the only private glimpses of the sculptor, but his work is better documented. Harwood ('Franco Arvol Irghe Sculte 25') was living in the Palazzo Zuccari with Joshua Reynolds and Simon Vierpyl at Easter 1752,3 but he had settled in Florence by the following year when he was working with Joseph Wilton. He was admitted to the Florentine Academy on 12 January 1755 (as 'pittore Inglese', although he was described as 'scultore' in the matriculation account).4 After Wilton returned to England in 1755 Harwood appears to have worked in a studio near SS.Annunziata with Giovanni Battista Piamontini who had made life-size copies of The Wrestlers and The Listening Slave (Dublin, NGI) for Joseph Leeson in 1754.5 In 1758 both sculptors were contracted to make a statue and a trophy to complete the decoration of the Porta San Gallo, Harwood contributing a statue of Equity, installed the following year.6 This prestigious commission encouraged Lord Northampton to order seven busts and two full-sized figures (one in plaster).7 Other commissions followed and Harwood made copies of the Venus de Medici (undated; Spencer House), the Uffizi Apollo (1762; Syon Park) and the Apollo Belvedere (1765; Angelsey Abbey). At the same time he sculpted busts after the antique,8 and one of Cromwell (1759; London art market), but his skill is best attested by the bust of a negro signed and dated 1758 (Getty Mus., Malibu). Piamontini died in 1761 and Harwood acquired his studio, where in time he was to be assisted by Pietro Pisani (who had been his pupil), Pietro Bastianelli and Niccolo Kindermann.9
When the young Canova visited his studio in 1779 he remarked on the large number of assistants, the extensive stock of plaster models, and the prominent use of coloured marbles for many of the vases and chimneypieces in stock.(10) Three vases were purchased by Charles Townley in the spring of 176811 and Sir Watkin Williams Wynn bought more (with twelve pieces of marble shaped like books and a chequer table of all sorts of marble) in October 1768.(12) A garniture of vases was made for Lord Shelburne (later Marquess of Lansdowne) in 177213 and correspondence between Harwood and Sir John Griffin Griffin in December 1772 (Audley End) includes designs for vases, one of which remains at Audley End. One of Harwood's chimneypieces was made for Catherine the Great's palace at Tsarskoe Selo and others were made after designs by George Dance for Sir Henry Mainwaring14 and, after a design by William Chambers, for Lord Charlemont.15 Sir Lawrence Dundas commissioned both chimneypieces and other objects in 1768 - 9.16 Payments from the 3rd Earl of Bute in 1770 and 177117 may have been for chimneypieces for Luton Hoo (then being reconstructed by Robert Adam). Chimneypieces for Patrick Home, commissioned in 1774 - 5 were only completed after much delay, see Home.
In 1767 Harwood was commissioned to carve an elaborate monument with a portrait medallion and a life-size figure of virtue for the 3rd Earl Cowper, to commemorate his father (Hertingfordbury Church).(13) In 1781 he was commissioned by Horace Mann to design a memorial for Linton in Kent which was never completed18 and in the same year he may also have carved the tomb to Lady Orford for the Protestant cemetery at Leghorn.19
1. Wal.Corr., 25:93. 2. Borroni 1979, 1230n225. 3. AVR sa, S.Andrea delle Fratte. 4. Wynne 1990, 537. Salmon 1990, 210n15. 5. D. Garstang, Apollo, 127[1988]:179-81. 6. R.R. Villani, Paragone, 37[1986]:53. 7. P. McKay, Northamptonshire Past and Present, 8[1992/3]:267 - 9. 8. Cf. R.R. Villani, Paragone, 42[1991]:73n23. R. Cremoncini, Gazz. Antiquaria, 22 - 3[1994]:69 - 70. 9. Borromini 1985, 40, 50. 10. E. Bossi, Canova, I quaderni di viaggio 1779 - 80, 18. 11. Cremoncini (at n8), 73n10. 12. Wynn disbursements MSS (26 Oct. 1768). 13. H. Belsey, Burl.Mag., 122[1980]: 65 - 6. 14. Rylands Lib., Manchester, Peover Letter Album (receipts of 13 Dec. 1759, 2 Sep. 1760). Dance letters MSS (G. Dance, 2 Nov. 1760). 15. C. O'Connor, Burl. Mag., 128[1986]:670 - 2. 16. G. Worsley, CL, 8 Mar. 1990, 102, 103. 17. Coutts ledgers, Bute acct. (7 Apr. 1770; 19 Feb., 10 Sep., 20 Nov. 1771). 18. Wal.Corr., 25:227n19. 19. Borroni 1983, 109. Wal.Corr., 25:227n19, 504n2.
H.G. B.