(c.1725 - 60), Irish landscape painter, pupil of Richard Wilson.
1755 - 60 Rome (1755 - ), Naples (1757), Rome (1758 - d. by Nov. 1760)
Plimmer was described as 'Painter & Sculptor' when he arrived in Rome in 1755, but it was as a landscape painter that he practised for five years in Italy.1 He studied under Richard Wilson and later told Henry Hoare 'I have endeavoured to imitate Claude and Nature with as much care as I possibly could ever since Mr Wilson left Rome'.2 He was in Naples in 1757,3 and he thanked Hoare for his advice to take classical views about Naples,2 but from 1758 (when his age was given as 33) to 1760 he was living in Rome in a house in the upper part of the Corso with Thomas Jenkins.4
In June 1758 Jonathan Skelton alleged that Jenkins, Plimmer, Robert Crone and Richard Wilson 'were like one Person' and that, after Wilson's departure, Crone and Plimmer were responsible for having him branded a Jacobite.5 In June 1759 Jenkins described Plimmer as 'without comparison the best Landskip painter we have at this time in Italy and is allowed as such by all the Dilletanti here'.6 There are drawings by Plimmer of views in and about Rome from 1756 (BM and two albums: coll. Brinsley Ford, and Christie's, 8 Jul. 1986). He had copied a Claude for Hoare by June 1759,2 and by July 1760 he had painted views of Rome and Naples for Lord Grey (later 5th Earl of Stamford) and Mr Southwell (see Southwell 1759 - 60).7 He was also working on two historical scenes commissioned by James Grant of Castle Grant, Dido fleeing Aeneas (or Dido and Aeneas in the Storm) and a Landing of Aeneas in Africa.8 A classical landscape by him dated 1758 belongs to Brinsley Ford. On 15 September 1760 Plimmer exported 'quattro Quadri moderni, tre di figure, ed. un che rappresenta un Paese'.9 Plimmer also told Grant he had bought a St Catherine and a Magdalen by Guercino,7 but within four months, on 19 November 1760, Jenkins was telling Grant of Plimmer's death.(10) In March 1761 amongst 200 pictures exported from Rome by Jenkins were 'parte dipinti dal defunto Monsu Plimmer pittore Inglese'.(11) Grant's histories were completed by Crone and were 'near finished' in February 1764.(12)
1. Hayward List, 10, 31. 2. K. Woodbridge, Landscape and Antiquity, 46 (9 Jun. 1759). 3. Hayward List, 11. 4. AVR sa, S.Maria del Popolo. Jenkins 1913, 488. 5. Skelton 1960,
47. 6. Woodbridge (at n2), 46. 7. Seafield MSS, GD 248/49/2 (25 Jul. 1760). 8. B. Skinner, Burl. Mag., 99[1957]:237 - 8. 9. ASR aba 11, f.281. 10. Seafield MSS, GD 248/177/1/83. 11. Bertolotti, 4:85. 12. Seafield MSS, GD 248/3/609, GD 248/363/1/3 (Abb? Grant, 12 Sep. 1763, 4 Feb. 1764).