Jervas, Charles
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- Jervas, Charles
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(c.1675 - 1739), painter and collector; b. Shinrone, Co.Offaly, s. of John Jervas; pupil of Kneller c.1694 - 5; Dublin 1697 - 8; Principal Painter to the King 1723 - d.
1700 - 9 [London 1699] Rome (by Dec. 1699 - 1709)
1738 - 9 [London] Rome (Oct. 1738 - May 1739)
Charles Jervas was in Rome by the end of 1700 but there are no details of his voyage out. In 1698 he had been in London copying the Raphael cartoons at Hampton Court for Dr George Clark of All Souls, Oxford, who lent him £;50 to travel to Italy in 1699.1 On Christmas Day 1700 Jervas wrote from Rome to Matthew Prior describing the seriousness of his studies: he had been buying prints but he had not yet 'touched a pencil in Rome, and intend this year too for drawings and then something of Guido, Titian and Correggio for the colouring etc.'2 He later told George Vertue that although he was then thirty years old, he had 'begun at the wrong end, and had only studied colouring'.3 In 1701 Addison in Rome observed that 'Mr Gervaise makes very great Improvements, and tis thought will be an extraordinary Artist. He begins already to pity Titian and is so well vers'd among the ancient statues that he talks as familiarly of Phidias's and Praxiteles's Manner as he wd. do in England of Knellars & Cloistermans'.4 Jervas, who was called 'Carlo Jervasi' in Italy, was seen several times in Rome between 1702 and 1705 by the Duke of Shrewsbury.5 On 7 February 1702 he went with Jervas and John Dryden 'to see pictures of an Oratorian at Chiesa Nuova'. On 9 July, he referred to 'Mr Jervaise Carton' - possibly the cartoon by Raphael for the Transfiguration, which Jervas had bought in Rome, but was not permitted to export. Jervas threatened that the British Navy would blow up Civitavecchia and refused the money given to him in compensation, which was left waiting for him in a bank account in Rome until his second visit.6 (Later at Rome in January 1721 Rawlinson saw 'a piece of M... bought by Mr Jarvis an English painter for a trifle, but by his prating lost it, the Pope obliging him to accept of 400 Crownes for it').7 In 1703 Jervas painted Shrewsbury's portrait: there were sittings on 1 and 25 February and 18 March. On 10 June Jervas and Edward Wortley Montagu (1678 - 1760) called on Shrewsbury 'to look upon the draft for Whitehall. On 24 and 28 July 1704, and again on 14 August, Shrewsbury referred to a quarrel between Jervas and a Mr Gordon in the English Coffee House. On 21 September 1704 Jervas signed his will with Shrewsbury, Goodere [Goodiere], Venables, and Tom Burford as witnesses: 'he gave it into my custody', wrote Shrewsbury, 'in case of my death, to be delivered to Mr Baldwyn, his uncle, at Shrewsbury'. On his return to London in 1709, Jervas was regarded with great respect. Steele described him as 'the last great painter Italy has sent us', but Vertue declared that his work 'answered not expectation'.8
Jervas returned to Italy in 1738, not only to buy pictures for the royal collection and to withdraw from his bank account the money for the Raphael drawing,9 but principally for reasons of health. According to Vertue, 'Mr Jervis painter being long in a Lingring ill state of health - last October went abroad to try if the air of Italy or travelling would be beneficial to his health - returned back in May 1739 not much better'.(10) He died in London on 2 November 1739, after which most of his collection of paintings and drawings were sold at a sale lasting thirty-four days.(11)
The contents of the sale showed that Jervas acquired a considerable number of paintings and drawings in Italy. Vertue said he used 'at Rome to [buy] whole cargoes at once by this means he got some good - amongst an infinite number of trash'.(12) The sale contained many paintings by Jervas after Van Dyck, Reni, Sacchi, Giordano and Titian, and many drawings, as well as paintings, after Maratti. Vertue mentioned 'works by Giuseppe Chiari, 'Petro de Petri and other painters'12 and particularly mentioned Jervas's elaborate copies of heads after Guido Reni which, he considered, had rather led him astray as a portrait painter, for he neglected 'true drawing from Nature' in pursuing an ideal.(13)
1. Vertue, 3:42. 2. HMC Bath, 3:432. 3. Walpole, Anecdotes, 2:271. 4. Addison Letters, 29. 5. Shrewsbury Jnl. 6. Bodl. Ms.Eng.Lett., c 275, 18-9 (Jervas to Bp.of Lichfield, 24 Feb. 1703). Vertue, 4:163 - 4; 3:93. 7. Rawlinson jnl.MSS (10 Jan. 1721). 8. Tatler, 15 Apr. 1709. Vertue, 3:17. 9. Vertue, 4:163 - 4. 10. Ibid., 3:93. 11. M. Kirby Talley, Burl.Mag., 120[1978]:6 - 11. 12. Vertue, 3:103. 13. Ibid., 99.
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