(1718 - 70) of Little Ealing, Mx., 5th s. of Sir Thomas Lyttelton of Hagley, Worcs; educ. Besançon; army officer, ensign 3rd Ft. 1737, maj.-gen. 1757, lt.-gen. 1759; gov. of Minorca 1762 - 6; m. 1745 Ldy. Rachel Russell, dau. of 2nd D. of Bedford, wid. of 1st D. of Bridgewater; MP 1747 - 61; KB 1753.
1760 - 2 Genoa (autumn 1760 - ), Leghorn (Apr. - Jun. 1761 - ), S.Casciano, near Pisa (Aug.), Rome (by 7 Oct.), Naples (by 27 Oct. 1761), Rome (19 Mar. - May 1762)
Crippled with gout which had effectively ended his military and parliamentary careers, Lyttelton went abroad for his health with his wife, the Duchess of Bridgewater. Their marriage, fifteen years before, had attracted comment: 'she, forty, plain, very rich, and with five children; he, six and twenty, handsome, poor, and proper to get her five more.'1 From 1760 to 1762 they were in Italy, where Sir Richard's nephew, Thomas Pitt (later Lord Camelford), joined them.
Sir Richard and his Duchess were in Genoa in the autumn of 1760,2 and they may have stayed there until the following spring.3 In the following April Pitt left them in Leghorn where Sir Richard was confined with gout,4 and he was still there in June.5 In August the three were at the baths of S.Casciano,6 and on 7 October George Dance was introduced to them in Rome by James Russel.7 Sir Richard bought some pictures from Thomas Jenkins, 'for no large sums',8 but by the 27 October they had moved on to Naples,9 where Pitt had to leave them early in November following his father's death.(10)
In Naples James Adam considered Sir Richard to be 'a good sensible chatty man' and the Duchess 'very silent and very civil'.(11) By March 1762 they were back in Rome, Sir Richard displaying 'every recommendation of a chearful generous humane heart'.(12) In Rome Sir Richard sat to Batoni for his portrait dated 1762 (Hagley; Clark/Bowron 244) and he acquired many other paintings. He described to Thomas Pitt (who was then supervising alterations to Sir Richard's house in Richmond) pictures by Giordano (Enlevement of Amphitrite and Hercules and Omphale, both very large), Claude, Barrocci, Guido Reni, Salvator Rosa and Gaspard Dughet. 'What a figure will my fine room cut, when it is adorned with all the fine pictures I am collecting - which God send me safe and well from this wicked place of Gaming and Extravagance, for I shall certainly be undone else one way or another'.(13) On 20 March he told Pitt that he intended to stay in Rome seven or eight weeks longer,13 and on 16 May he was given licence to export 26 paintings, three by living artists.14 The Lytteltons were probably back in England in August 1762 when Robert Strange wrote to Sir Richard asking him 'to justify my conduct to the gentlemen who were at Rome last winter', in the business of Jenkins selling pictures at inflated prices to Lord Fordwich (later 3rd Earl Cowper).15
1. Wal.Corr., 19:189. 2. Robinson letters mss, vr12330 (4 Nov. 1760). 3. SP 105/313, f.500 (Mackenzie, 27 May 1761). 4. Wal.Corr., 21:501 (25 Apr. 1761). 5. Clark/ Bowron, p.285 (D. Crespin, 3 Jun. 1761). 6. Wal.Corr., 21:524 (15 Aug. 1761). 7. Dance letters mss (7 Oct. 1761). 8. Clark/ Bowron, p.285 (D. Crespin, 28 Nov. 1761). 9. SP 93/19 (Gray, 27 Oct. 1761). 10. Wal.Corr., 21:545. 11. Fleming, Adam, 291. 12. Hinchliffe letters mss (31 Mar. 1762). 13. McCarthy 1981, 485 (Lyttelton letters mss, 20 Mar. 1762). 14. ASR aba 11, f.281 (15 Jun. 1762). 15. Swinburne mss, 106:554/17 (7 Aug. 1762).