(c.1740 - 1799), engraver and antiquarian; studied at St Martin's Lane Acad.; m. 1792 Janet Moir, niece of James Byres.
1760 - 90 Rome [England 1776, May - Nov. 1788]
Having been apprenticed in London to P.C. Canot, the landscape engraver, Norton won a premium from the Society of Arts in 1760, in which year he went to Rome.1 In 1762 'Monsiur Norton' was living with James Byres and Colin Morison by the Strada Paolina.2 In 1764 James Martin saw in his Rome studio 'Sevl. Copys by Him of Pictures belonging to Mr Jenkins & some of his own Engraving'.3 In 1766 Norton was engraving plates for James Byres's Etruria, and he etched several plates for the Views of Italy by Peter Stephens published in 1767.
Norton's association with Byres became close; in 1776 he was again living in the same street as Byres; and between 1778 - 81, 1786 - 8 and 1790 (the records are incomplete) he was listed at the same address as Byres on the Strada Paolina.2 In 1780 Thomas Jones described him as Byres's partner.4 Between 1768 and 1790 Norton exported works of art from Rome on eleven occasions, principally paintings, both old masters and modern works.5 In 1776 he was returning from England to Italy with Thomas Jones (he was doubtless the 'Nortoan' in Florence on 23 November6), and on their arrival in Rome on 27 November Norton led Jones through 'backlanes and dirty passages' to James Byres; in 1782 Jones corresponded with both Norton and Byres concerning the disposal of his own pictures in Italy.7
There were two portraits of Norton in Byres's house, one by H.D. Hamilton, which had been admired by John Ramsay in 17838 (Christie's, 22 Nov. 1977), and the other by Nathaniel Dance, showing him as a painter (Aberdeen). Norton also appears with the Byres family in the two portrait groups attributed to Smuglewicz (see Byres), and Pichler made a drawing (priv. coll., Rome, 1973)9 of a 'Mr Norton', doubtless intended for a cameo. On 25 March 1788 Norton was said to be going 'in 5 or 6 weeks to London',10 and in November James Irvine said he was setting out from London for Rome in a few days with Norton.(11) He was also presumably the Mr Norton who returned from Italy with Byres in July 1790.(12) By his marriage in Scotland in 1792 to Janet Moir (sister of Patrick Moir) he became James Byres's nephew.(13) In 1797 he wrote to Moir in Rome 'I cannot help feeling very much for a country where I have spent so many happy years and which I look'd upon in some measure as my own'.14
1. Redgrave. Notes by D. Alexander. 2. AVR sa, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 3. Martin jnl.MSS (12 Sep. 1764). 4. Byres MSS (Byres inv.1790). Jones Memoirs, 94. 5. Bertolotti, 2:267,
269, 295. ASR aba 12, f.294; 13, f.296. 6. Gazz.Tosc. 7. See Jones Memoirs, 38, 53, 116. 8. Ramsay jnl.MSS (3, 10 Mar., 7 Jul. 1783). 9. Note by A.M. Clark. 10. Add.36495, f.303 (Eliz.Cooper, 25 Mar. 1788). 11. Add.36496, f.50 (J. Irvine, 3 Nov. 1788). 12. ASV is 761. 13. Note by S.B. Chrystall. 14. Byres MSS (22 Apr. 1797).