Howard, Ralph
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- Howard, Ralph
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(1726 - 89) of Shelton, Wick., e. s. of Robert Howard, Bp. of Elphin; Trin. Dublin 1743; m. 1755 Alice Forward; MP [I] 1761 - 76; cr. B. Clonmore [I] 1776, Vct. Wicklow [I] 1785.
1751 - 2 [Paris] Turin, Florence (by 12 Aug. 1751), Rome (by Jan. - Feb. 1752), Venice (Mar.), Milan (May), [Dublin (by 7 Dec.]
Hoping he would get 'an effectual recommendation to ye Ambassador at Turin', Ralph Howard's brother (writing to him in Paris on 23 February 1751 from Dublin) also fussily advised 'to take care to cross the Alps in a proper season for the snow is as dangerous when it thaws as it is before ye frosts come on'.1 By 12 August 1751 Howard, on his grand tour with Mr Benson, had safely reached Florence, and on that date he commissioned from Charles Martin a copy in crayon of Raphael's Madonna della sedia. Other commissions left in Florence with the Irish Physician, Dr James Tyrrell acting as agent, were for copies of Van Dyck's Cardinal Bentivoglio and Charles V; for a pair of scagliola tables from Don Pietro Belloni and (intended as a present to Howard's uncle, Lord Chief Justice Henry Singleton), marble busts of Cicero and Seneca from Giovanni Piamontini.
His agent in Rome was James Russel. Here Howard sat to Batoni for his portrait (Clark/ Bowron 165; Speed Museum, Kentucky). From Joseph Vernet he commissioned five marine subjects to be delivered to Russel, one by May 1752 and the others by March 1753, and from Thomas Patch four paintings after Vernet (one sold Sotheby's, 17 Nov. 1976). From Simon Vierpyl there were two marble tables, six gesso busts and copies of the Medici Apollo and Clapping Faun, using the best Carrara marble, the work to be done in Rome (see Vierpyl), whereas Joseph Wilton's copy of the Medici Venus was to be sculpted in Florence (but not, it would seem, with Dr Tyrrell's entire approval). Copies of two paintings, a Herodias and a St Cecilia were commissioned from George Chalmers. But it was in his whole-hearted patronage of Richard Wilson that he excelled. There were to be four landscapes, two with banditti, two with historical compositions, a head of a Capuchin, a Venus, and a Narcissus which, with an unspecified subject for Mr Benson, made eight pictures in all.2
Howard's diminutive figure appears between Lord Charlemont and Sir William Lowther in the anonymous painting of a group of grand tourists with Roman monuments in the backround (YCBA). Reynolds had painted his Parody of the School of Athens (NGI) the previous year, and having arrived too late to be included, Howard commissioned from Reynolds a consolatory caricature of an incident of his travels which he described to him.3
Before Howard left Rome Vernet had begun work on the first of his pictures and Reynolds on the caricature. Both disappointed him. But after his departure for Venice, Russel wrote on 18 March 1752, 'Upon some discourse I had with Mr Reynolds, he seemed very sorry he had lost your good graces, he has worked on your picture since and altered it much for the better'. On 6 June Russel reported to Howard at Milan that Vernet had delivered the picture and he could hardly believe it was the same as they had seen begun and now in the opinion of some 'as fine a piece as ever came from his hands'. Patch had finished his quota and Wilson was close to finishing his. On 28 August Wilson himself wrote to Howard in Paris that the pictures were finished. He begged to keep them until October for submission to the Academy of St Luke; he had not confided his aspirations to Russel, who was disconcerted by the unexplained delay. On 14 November Wilson, having delivered the pictures, wrote to Howard enclosing his bill; he had taken the liberty of throwing in a head to match the Capuchin, which he hoped Howard would forgive as it was done out of a motive of gratitude; he would write to Mr Benson, whose picture went with the others and he hoped for a good account from the Academy.
On 25 November Tyrrell, supposing his letter might find Howard in Dublin, reported the scagliola tables were ready for the voyage, 'our Tuscan Nile is navigable now'. Mulberry seeds and the gesso of Swift and another of Brutus had already been dispatched; 'the disgrazia that happen'd to the two marble busts, which you intended to make a present of to your uncle, was undoubtedly occasioned by the negligence of the Carpenter in fixing the board that shou'd have kept them assunder; but you'll justly say that Piamontini shou'd not have committed the care of them to such a Bungler'.
On 16 January 1753 Russel sent the marchese Belloni's account of monies paid to Vernet, Wilson, Chalmers and Vierpyl, and reported two cases had been sent to Jackson, Hart & Rutherfurd, merchants at Leghorn, the first containing Wilson's pictures, four copies after Vernet by Patch and the portrait by Batoni; the second 'a landskip by Vernet, S.Cecilia and Herodias by Chambers [Chalmers], the caricatura by Reynolds' with Frey's prints for Mr Benson and some music ordered from Charles Wiseman. There was news from Vernet at Marseilles; the four pictures were not forgotten: Rome had been full of English gentlemen and ladies, but when his hurry was over he would have time to set down to the Aldobrandini marriage, which he owned to having not yet begun.
There were delays in Florence also. Tyrrell wrote on 26 January, 'The Scagliolo business is a damn'd tedious piece of work in it's own nature; so that I can't blame the Monk; the tables are finished, and are fine with a witness; please God I shall despatch them away while down the Nile to our Tuscan Alexandria', where it was to be hoped they would overtake the montrous Large Parmesan cheese and two chests of Chianti waiting to sail. The Venus was in a tolerable state of forwardness, but would not be ready before May. Evidently Howard had expressed an interest in having more pictures copied because Tyrrell enclosed a list for selection, resolved to employ the same man who had copied the Van Dycks and insisting on handsome gilt frames being made for them like those he had sent away that week for Howard's compatriot, Joseph Leeson. In answer to another letter, Tyrrell wrote Howard on 12 April, 'As to what you say about the holes in the Statues and Bustoes I can't make Trabellesi believe a tittle of it; he says non e possibile; you'll be pleased to write more at large that I may be able to make him find a remedy for that disgrazia'. The final letter is dated 20 July 1753. For the first time he mentions Wilton by name: 'Wilton promises to finish the Venus next Autumn; there is a spot on her nose, for which I can find no remedy but that of the good old gentleman Job ... Vierpyl is now here for a few days; he tells me that your Apollo is quite finished; he says also your Faun will be ready about the middle of September; perhaps you may receive your three statues by the same conveyance.'
Russel's final letter from Rome, 25 December 1753, confirms that the Faun had been finished and sent off with the Apollo about two months before to Leghorn, 'your statues have been extremely admired and prais'd by Gentlemen & Connoisseurs, from whence no small advantage had accru'd to Mr. Vierpyl ... As to the Nuptiae Aldobrandinae, it is but a few days that I have got leave to do it after the greatest difficulty and interest, & which I shall endeavour to finish as soon as possible'.
In 1755 Matthew Brettingham mentioned in a letter to Howard a plan and elevations for the rebuilding of Shelton. Extensive alterations were made to the house in 1770 to the designs of an unidentified architect. In 1785 Vierpyl (who had been brought to Ireland by Lord Charlemont) was employed once again by Howard. He designed and built the pyramidical Wicklow family mausoleum in Kilbride churchyard, not far from Shelton.
1. Letters from Tyrrell and Jas.Russel to Howard in the Wicklow MSS. 2. R.B. Ford, Burl.Mag., 93[1951]:157 - 66. 3. O'Connor 1983, 7 - 8.
C. O'C.