Malton, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Earl of
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- Malton, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Earl of
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(1730 - 82), statesman, 1st surv. s. of 1st M. of Rockingham; educ. Westminster; sty. Vct. Higham 1739 - 46, E. of Malton 1746 - Sep. 1750 when cr. E. Malton [I]; suc. fa. Dec. 1750 as 2nd M.; FRS 1751; FSA 1752; Dilettanti 1755; KG 1760; m. 1752 Mary Bright.
1748 - 50 [dep. England c.Oct. 1748] Turin, Milan, Bologna, Siena (by 16 Jun. - 21 Aug. 1749), Florence (1 Sep. - Oct.), Lucca, Leghorn, Siena, Rome (Oct.), Naples (by 9 Dec. 1749 - Feb. 1750), Rome (14 Mar. - Apr.), Venice (May)
The young Lord Malton, later leader of the Rockingham Whigs, spent nearly two years in Italy with Major James Forrester. His tour was remarkable for the sculpture he acquired for Wentworth Woodhouse, the Yorkshire house which his father was then enlarging. Malton's letters to his father show that his first year's allowance (£1500) covered the period up to October 1749, and his list of people met in Italy, which is arranged by place, indicates that he had travelled through Turin, Milan and Bologna before reaching Siena in the summer of 1749.1
From Siena on 16 June he wrote to his father outlining his expenses. Lord Rockingham replied on 6 July agreeing the costs and also proposing expenditure of up to £500 on marble tables and statues 'about 6 foot high' for the eight niches in the Hall. Malton wrote again from Siena on 19 August that he would 'order here two tables of the famous yellow Sienna Marble, wch is by many preferred to the Giallo antique, I can have them here all of one piece and solid for the same money as I can have them at Room fineered'; he also intended to order in Rome 'some Tables, of the Green, and some of the yellow antique Marble.' He went on to say that 'As I hear it will be impossible to have antique Statues, and as the Models made from them in plaister of paris are so easily broke and at best but have a mean look, and will never be proper for so fine a Room as the Great Hall, I intend trying to get Copies done in Marble of the best antique statues'; he reminded his father that Lord Strafford (his distant cousin) had had four such figures which had cost him £500. Lord Rockingham was quick to reply (18 Sep.) that Strafford's figures were larger 'but of very course & spotted marble', while those for Wentworth Woodhouse should only have 'specks on the back parts', the rivalry between Wentworth Castle and Wentworth Woodhouse being a totally serious affair (see Raby and Strafford). He also passed on from his architect (Henry Flitcroft) the sizes of two large pictures required for the dining room.
On 1 September Malton wrote that he had seen two large hunting pictures which might do, but their price, £100 each, was great and 'such things as these are above my venturing at'. This letter was written from Florence, where Malton had come to 'hear Opera' and he intended going on to Lucca, 'where I shall make some stay' and hear more opera; he was also going to Leghorn and returning to Siena on his way to Rome 'as soon as the Great Heats will admit me'. He had already commissioned copies of 'the Venus, Faun, Mercury, and Idol, at Rome I shall take four more of the Copies of the finest statues there'. He had bought 'a fine picture by Andrea del Sarto' for which Brand [presumably Thomas Brand, 1719 - 1804] had offered 40 gns., but 'it cost me much less'; 'I have an horse and another figure in Brass by the famous John de Bologna' and a painting by Vasari of the Heads of 'all the famous Italian poets'. These purchases were to be sent home from Leghorn where I 'shall go myself to see them put up'. At Siena he had left a commission for two six-foot tables, but it 'will be sometime before they are done'. 'I am in great hopes to be able to make very good bargains,' he wrote, 'for money is here very much wanted, and there are many that will sell underhand to a Stranger for less money than they would to a Fellow Citizen as then it would be known'.
Lord Malton did not mention the names of the sculptors he had commissioned, but they included three of the foremost Italians in Rome. G.B. Maini carved the [Callipygian] Venus; Filippo della Valle the Capitoline Flora and the Louvre Germanicus (presumably copied from a cast), and Bartolomeo Cavaceppi the Capitoline Antinous; each closely followed the classical prototype. The remaining four statues he commissioned from British sculptors working in Italy: the Apollo and Clapping Faun in the Uffizi from Simon Vierpyl and the Venus de Medici and another faun from Joseph Wilton. Malton also acquired Vincenzo Foggini's great marble group of Samson and the Philistines (which is signed and dated Florence 1749; now VAM).2
In October 1749 Horace Mann introduced Lord Malton and Forrester to Cardinal Albani in Rome,3 but they passed quickly on to Naples where they arrived early in December, accompanied by Malton's cousin Lewis Monson Watson.4 Malton incurred some extra expenses in Naples for, he wrote on 28 January 1750, 'It was necessary to make more Figure here than in any Other Town in Italy'; but within a month he intended to be back in Rome. On 14 March he announced from Rome his intention of spending another month or eight weeks there; meanwhile the first cases of his purchases had reached London from Leghorn, including a 'marble groupe', doubtless the Samson and the Philistines. In Rome the carving of the eight statues was progressing, but Malton had to point out (15 Apr.) that as money was scarce and people so poor, he was having to pay the sculptors in advance. Eleven days later he revealed he had bought a novel harpsichord devised by an ingenious English Abb? in Rome (who had also built a new large telescope) and he had collected 'Medals or Antique Stones' for himself. Donatello's Chellini Madonna (now VAM) was doubtless part of this new collection.5 On a different subject he was pleased to tell his father that in Rome 'We expected that this Winter between the Tories & Jacobites we poor Whigs should have been quite overpowerd, I am extreamly glad to tell you that we was at least four to one, so that I hope the Vile Spirit of Jacobitism begins to cease, here is now No person of any Rank about the Pretender'. Lord Malton left Rome at the end of April, intending to 'pass the Ascension at Venice' and being in France in June; he would then, on his Father's advice, attend the King's [George II] birthday in Hanover in September.
In July 1751, shortly after his return to England, Mann bought for Lord Rockingham (as Lord Malton became in December 1750) the Guercino Hagar, Ishmael and the Angel (Mahon coll.) which he had admired in Siena; 'there are few so good', wrote Mann, 'and none so well preserved'.6 Then in September 1751 Mann was called in by Albani on behalf of Cavaceppi, whose Antinous was no longer required by Lord Malton who alleged poor workmanship and defective marble.3 But the Antinous ultimately came to Wentworth Woodhouse as one of the eight fine statues for the Great Hall.
1. Malton letters mss. 2. See H. Honour, Connoisseur, 141[1958]:224 - 6. 3. Lewis 1961, 174. 4. SP 93/12 (W. Allen, 9 Dec. 1749). 5. See A. Radcliffe and C. Avery, Burl.Mag., 118[1976]:377. 6. Wal.Corr., 20:263, 313.