Talbot, Thomas Mansel
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- Talbot, Thomas Mansel
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(c.1747 - 1813) of Margam Park and Penrice Castle, Glam., s. of Rev. Thomas Talbot; Oriel Oxf.1764; suc. uncle 1778 to Margam and Penrice Estates; m. 1794 Ldy. Mary Lucy Fox Strangways, dau. of 2nd E. of Ilchester.
1769 - 70 [dep. England 22 Sep. 1768; Lyons Jul. 1769] Turin (24 Aug. 1769 - 31 Mar. 1770) with visit to Florence by 21 - 29 Oct. 1769; Venice (15 May 1770) [Nice winter 1770 - 71]
1771 - 2 Milan (9 Sep. - Oct. 1771), Rome (30 Nov. 1771 - 30 Jun. 1772), Pisa, Leghorn (9 Jul.) [England 16 Aug.]
1773 Rome (May - Aug.) [Paris Sep., London by Oct.]
Talbot had passed a year in Geneva before coming to stay at Turin from August 1769 to March 1770.1 But he appears to have made an excursion south in October 1769 when, with Peter King, Richard Malone and a Mr Leighton, 'Talbot' was reported in Florence on the 21st; a week later they were all about to be presented to the Grand Duke.2 On 15 May 1770 Peter King, with 'Tomaso Tuiden'[?] and 'William Talbo' (conceivably in error for T.M. Talbot), arrived in Venice.3
Talbot spent the winter of 1770 - 1 in Nice, where his sister died. In September 1771 he returned to Italy accompanied by Colonel de Roquin, a Swiss; they came to Milan on 9 September and Patrick Home noticed them there on 6 October.4 From 30 November to June 1772 they were in Rome. John Cotes saw them in Pisa,5 and in July 1772 they sailed from Leghorn to Marseilles. On 16 August they were back in England.
In the course of his second and third visits to Italy Talbot, encouraged by Charles Townley, was purchasing works of art for Penrice Castle on a fairly grand scale. He had 'money enough to supply a total want of Judgements', thought Mrs Home, while her husband cryptically described him as '£7000 a Year in Wales. Awkward - half bred. Dutchess of Beaufort fond'.6 Twenty-three cases of pictures and marbles were shipped from Leghorn to Wales in June 1775, and Talbot's Italian notebook records £7,397 spent on pictures, copies, sculptures, drawings, plans, models, books and chimneypieces. Talbot used as his agents Thomas Jenkins (to whom there is an undated payment of £4,140) and Gavin Hamilton.7 In 1772 he sat to Marsigli for his portrait in miniature, and he commissioned a subject from Mengs for 260 gns. In 1773 he paid Hewetson £68 'in full for my Bust' and £140 for 'A bust of ye Pope' [Clement XIV] (both VAM). Talbot bought the Abb? Dolci's 'entire collection' of sculptures in 1773, and commissioned copies from Cardelli. He also commissioned a Diomede from J.T. Sergel in 1773.9 Talbot acquired paintings from Philipp Hackert in 1772 and 1773 (a commission probably secured by Father Thorpe10) and drawings by Brenna and Stringini in 1773. In 1774 Jenkins mentioned 'a Tintoret that Mr Talbot at first agreed to take' (and presumably did not).(11) There are payments of £80 to Valadier 'for the gilt bronze about ye tables' and 100 scudi to Albacini for a chimneypiece in 1773. Father Thorpe later wrote that Talbot received more than one chimneypiece from Rome,12 and some (undated) designs for chimneypieces supplied to Talbot are in the Cooper Hewitt Museum.
Piranesi dedicated a plate to Talbot in the Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi [1778], but he would have been surprised to learn that Talbot's marbles were 'left in packing-cases during the greater part of [his] life'.(13) Talbot's collection was finally dispersed at Margam Castle in 1941 (Christie's, 29 Oct.).14 See also John Chetwynd Talbot.
1. His itinerary and purchases from Talbot notebook; Penrice and Margam MSS (NLW; notes by J. Cornforth). 2. SP 105/319, f.695. 3. ASV is 759. 4. Home MSS. (Mrs Jane) jnl.MSS. 5. Cotes jnl.MSS. 6. Home list MSS., no.13. 7. Hamilton 1901, 306. 8. Home jnl.MSS (25 Apr. 1772). 9. Pietrangeli, Scavi e Scoperte..., [1958], 54n4. 10. F. Russell, CL, 30 May 1985, 1536. 11. Townley MSS (Jenkins to Townley, 19 Jan. 1774). 12. Thorpe letters MSS (10 Jan. 1778). 13. Michaelis, 102, 516 - 22. 14. J. Cornforth, CL, 18, 25 Sep. 1975, 694 - 7, 754 - 7.