Strange, John
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- Strange, John
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(1732 - 99), diplomat, geologist and collector, o. surv. s. of Sir John Strange, Kt.; Clare Hall Camb. 1753; m. c.1760 Sarah Gould (d. 1783); FRS 1766; FSA 1766; res. Venice 1774 - 89; DCL Oxf. 1793.
c.1755
1771 - 3 Padua and Venice (Mar. - May - 1771) [Switzerland by Aug. 1772] Italy (Jan. 1773) [Geneva Apr.]
1774 - 86 Venice (28 Aug. 1774 - 20 Oct. 1786)
Strange was an eminent geologist, antiquarian and connoisseur, and in the fifteen years he spent in Italy, principally in Venice, he continued to develop these interests, besides acting as the British resident from 1774 to 1786 (and officially until 1789). His addiction to painting, and particularly the Venetian school, also led him into dealing and at his death he owned a large collection, not only of pictures, but also of antiquities and books. He was respected for his knowledge - 'Oh mon ami, que M.Strange est un pr?cieuse trouvaille pour un vrai naturaliste!',1 - and valued for his connections with Venetian artists.
On his father's death in 1754 Strange was left in very comfortable circumstances, and he is said to have travelled in France and Italy after leaving Cambridge (DNB).
He was next in Italy with his wife, exploring the Alps, his route occasionally crossing that of the Bishop of Derry. In April 1771 they were rambling together 'in the mountains contiguous to Vicenza' with the Abb? Fortis, the Paduan naturalist and polymath, and it appears that Strange was then living in Padua. In May the Bishop left his young son (John Hervey) with Mr and Mrs Strange in Venice, explaining that he was 'so accustomed to these tokens of friendship from you both'. and he was characteristically gracious to 'Madame Montaigne [Mrs Strange], who deserves to be preferred to all the Basaltes in the world'.2 Strange was in Switzerland by August 1772, returning to Italy in January 1773; he was then at Geneva from April to June 1773 and in Lyons in July.3
He was appointed British resident at Venice in 1773, but he did not arrive there until 28 August 1774 and he was then absent for some months in 1775.4 In March 1775 George Romney in Venice said Strange had 'the character of being a very recluse man, so much so, that he has not yet received any of the foreign ministers, nor been out of his house since he came to Venice'.5 In August 1778 Dr John Warner described 'Notre petit Resident' at an offical ceremony sweating 'under an immense, heavy, thick, black cloth gown, and a furious full-bottomed periwig, which covered the upper part of his body as well as his head'.6 In April 1777 Horace Mann referred to Strange's 'long and tedious' diplomatic correspondence in connection with the visit to Venice of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in September - October 1775,7 but when the Royal visitors returned to Venice in May - June 1777 they stayed for two days with the Stranges at their country villa near Treviso, consequently, and by special dispensation, renamed 'Gloucester Lodge'.8 This was possibly the Villa Loredan where Strange was living in 1785 - 6 after his wife's death and which was painted and drawn by Guardi.9 Strange was not, perhaps, the most sophisticated diplomat, but he was certainly dutiful; as he once told Sir Roger Newdigate, 'we poor ramblers have no settlement; for such is surely the Lot of our itinerant Profession ... I am too much totus in illis in whatever engages me, particularly where Duty is concerned, to think of a journey to England merely for spasso'.8
Intellectual life was less inhibited10 and continued to range over several disciplines. Strange planned to bring out a new edition of Zompini's Le Arti che vanno per le vie nella citta din Venezia, he submitted papers on natural history for the Transactions of the Philosophical Society in London (some of which were translated into Italian) and in 1776 he was discussing with Newdigate the publication of Roman monuments in France.(11) He helped finance the Abb? Fortis's archaeological tour of the Adriatic coast and Dalmatia, and became friendly with the Abb? Ignazio Vio of Murano, a distinguished natural historian. But his closest associate seems to have been the collector and dealer Giuseppe Maria Sasso, who was largely responsible for building up Strange's picture collection; their correspondence, preserved in the Museo Correr in Venice, reflects their shared tastes and temperaments.(12) Strange was much taken with Venetian painting, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, though he found affection for older pictures was waning as people now wanted only 'modern trash'. Sasso acquired for him works by Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, but Strange also enthused over Rosalba Carriera and Tiepolo, admired the earlier and accurate works of Canaletto, and particularly patronised Guardi, though wishing he could restrain his 'spirit' and admit more 'truth'. Strange was himself active as a dealer, for example selling a set of six Guardis to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and obtaining for the same college a major Pittoni altarpiece (see Thomas Martyn).
In June 1783, at the time of Mrs Strange's death, there was some correspondence concerning a more urgent sale of some of his pictures to ease his finances, but John Dick, the former British consul at Leghorn then back in England, told him that there was now no market - 'the Truth is that almost all our Nobility and Gentry have for Years past lived beyond their Incomes, and even those who have long been in possession of good Pictures are daily selling them'.(13) But the crisis, if such it was, appears to have passed. In 1784 William Lock asked him whether he would like to buy a house near Dorking on Lock's estate,14 but Strange did not leave Venice until 20 October 1786 and then took a house at Ridge near Barnet. He only resigned his appointment as British resident in August 1789.4
Strange is said to have paid several further visits to Italy to organise the return of his collections (DNB), which were dispersed in London between 1789 and 1801; the pictures by private contract (many were first exhibited as the European Museum); the prints, drawings and antiquities by Christie's, the natural history items by King, and the library by Leigh and Sotheby (a sale lasting 29 days in March and April 1801).
1. G. de Beer, Notes and Records of the Royal Soc.of London, 9[1951]:97 (Ch. Bonnet, 7 Apr. 1773). 2. Childe-Pemberton, 1:107, 111, 120. 3. de Beer (at n1), 97 - 8. 4. Horn, 1:86. 5. Romney 1830, 121 - 2. 6. Jesse, Selwyn, 3:314. 7. Wal. Corr., 24:298. 8. Newdigate MSS, B 2291 (Strange, 29 Jul. 1777). 9. See Christie's, 8 Dec. 1989, lot 114. 10. See A. Dorigato, Quaderni di Venezia Arti, 1[1992]:126 - 30. 11. Newdigate MSS, B 2290 (Strange, 22 Mar. 1776). 12. See Dorigato (at n10). F. Haskell, JWCI, 23[1960]:268 - 70, and Patrons and Painters, 373 - 4. 13. Eg. 1970, f.146 (29 Jul. 1783). 14. Eg.1970, f.168 (Lock, 24 Jan. 1784).