Bartolozzi

IT is a little singular that a man so celebrated in his time as Bartolozzi should have left so meagre material for biography. We know that his work was highly prized during his life, and that it fell into comparative neglect shortly after his death. Of the artist personally, his surroundings, his vie intime, we know next to nothing. He has formed the subject of innumerable studies, but they have necessarily been inadequate, since those of his contemporaries who might have furnished us with authentic data failed to do so. Perhaps the most satisfactory account of him is that of Mr. Tuer, who has managed to make two large volumes ¹ out of Bartolozzi, — with very little of Bartolozzi, and a great deal of everything else. Mr. Tuer has conscientiously collected and sifted such sparse biographical facts as were attainable, and we are not disposed, under the circumstances, to quarrel with him because he has eked out his memoir with much merely collateral matter. The author’s wise hints to print-buyers, his dissertations on line and stipple engraving, and his remarks on Cipriani, the Boydells, Angelica Kaufmann, and the pupils of Bartolozzi are very interesting reading, though they cannot be said to constitute very good biography. Indeed, Bartolozzi’s biography is a thing that may be served up in a nut-shell.

On the founding of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, in 1769, there was, among the eminent artists crowding to the leadership of Sir Joshua Reynolds, an Italian painter, designer, and engraver, Francisco Bartolozzi, whose invitation to original membership of that important body brought upon him the abuse which a few evidently thought he deserved for the double offense of being a foreigner and a masterly engraver. He had come to London from Venice four years previously, at the solicitation of the king’s librarian, Dalton, who engaged Bartolozzi for three years on his own personal account, and had him appointed engraver to George III. Bartolozzi, confident of his position and reputation, and being, besides, a person of great gentleness, made no other reply to his assailants than is to be found in his engraving of the Royal Academy Diploma, which is still in use, and is considered one of the best of his exquisite line engravings. Strangely enough, this diploma was also designed by an Italian, Gio. Battista Cipriani, a fellow student and life-long friend of Bartolozzi. The two had met first at Florence, when Bartolozzi, at the age of fifteen, entered the Academy to study under Hugford. Cipriani became one of the most popular designers of the day, while Bartolozzi was, by every inclination, painter as well as designer, and engraver by force of circumstances. At Florence they pursued similar studies. Bartolozzi could even then speak of work that he had done, for at the age of ten years he had engraved two heads, much to the delight of the good goldsmith, his father. The latter, by watching the boy’s attempts to copy prints that came in his way, was led to abandon the hope of making a goldsmith of Francisco, and was wise enough to encourage the child’s artistic impulses. Therefore, after a brief preparatory course, young Bartolozzi went to the Academy at Florence, where he studied anatomy with perseverance, learned to paint well, and acquired a freedom and an accuracy in drawing that never deserted him. He left the Academy when eighteen years old, and was articled for six years to Joseph Wagner, an historical engraver and print-seller, in Venice. At the end of that apprenticeship, which had been of the greatest importance to his development as an artist, Bartolozzi married a Venetian lady of good birth, and, upon the invitation of Cardinal Bottari, they went to live in Rome for a time. While there he studied the Italian masters, more particularly Domenichino, and it was upon his return to Venice, in 1764, that he met Dalton, and agreed to go to London. At this time his reputation had extended over Europe, and had brought favors from Francis I. of Austria, Ferdinand IV. of Naples, and the Medici. Cipriani had gone to London four years earlier, and was well established there, so that upon Bartolozzi’s arrival the two renewed their comradeship. Bartolozzi’s first important work for Dalton was a series of plates from Guercino’s drawings, the famous line engraving Silence, after Annibal Caracci, and The Sleeping Boy, after Sirani.

Bartolozzi reached London just in time to witness a most remarkable change in the art of engraving (and one in which he was to figure as the master) ; for it was at this period that Ryland and Picot introduced into London the “ red chalk ” style, which they had learned of Demarteau in Paris. Almost immediately it became the fashion. Every one talked of the beauty of these stipple engravings printed in reddishbrown ink. Angelica Kaufmann enlisted the enthusiasm of her wealthy friends, and many of her own drawings were reproduced by the new method. Bartolozzi had made his reputation by line engraving, and naturally was little inclined to abandon it, even temporarily, for a different school ; but the pressure of demands from the print-sellers and the public finally compelled him to adopt the stipple style, which had turned the heads of all engravers, to the almost entire neglect of line work. It is not uncommon to hear Bartolozzi mentioned as the inventor of the stipple style, although it was practiced in Paris when he was in Venice; and he is frequently spoken of as “ the engraver in stipple ” by those who forget that his lasting fame was earned by the line. Finding a fascination in its unexpected and wonderful capabilities, he bent his genius to the effort, and made the new method an art. He became the master in stipple, and produced prints that were rarely equaled. At the conclusion of his engagement with Dalton, he began to engrave for himself. Commissions came to him freely, especially from Alderman Boydell, the renowned print publisher, whose services for art at this time were an incentive to all other laymen. Bartolozzi’s income was large, but his prices were very moderate, and, by his consent, were often determined by the publisher. Bartolozzi was astonishingly prolific. For thirty years after the founding of the Academy he sent drawings and prints to its exhibitions, and to that of the year 1792 he contributed a proof of The Death of Chatham, engraved after the painting by John Singleton Copley, who finished it in 1779, just before he was made a full member of the Academy. This plate was one of the most important, although not the most popular, of all of Bartolozzi’s. It contained upwards of sixty portraits. Copley refused fifteen hundred guineas for the picture, and employed Bartolozzi to engrave it for two thousand pounds, which, as it was a work of four years, was not profitable to the engraver. Between 1780 and 1791 he engraved in stipple one hundred examples from the Marlborough Gems, in intaglio and cameo, after Cipriani’s drawings. This work was for the Duke of Marlborough, who privately issued the prints in two volumes. At various times Bartolozzi engraved portraits, fanciful subjects, musical and benefit tickets, — which were the fashionable extravagance, — several of Hogarth’s drawings, and innumerable designs by Cipriani. His fellow engravers frankly gave him the first place in their estimation, and were content to learn from his work.

He was the most untiring of diligent workers, and no less remarkable for the rapidity with which he handled the point than for the delicate effects which appeared on the plate. At that time, when with the introduction of stipple nearly every one fell to copying by that method, the influence of this man, who worked conscientiously to elevate the method, was of inestimable value. Considering the fact that he had the best of friends among the nobility as well as in his profession ; that he enjoyed the friendship and esteem of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who painted three portraits of him; that he was unable to keep up with the demands for his work, we find it difficult satisfactorily to account for his leaving England at the age of seventy-five, to accept the invitation (the third) of the Prince Regent of Portugal, who offered him a pension and knighthood. It is said that through his unreflecting generosity to needy Italian artists in London he became financially involved ; but, judging from the contented life which he led in Portugal, he went there because he preferred to rest and to live at ease after years of toil. He left England November 2, 1802, and on reaching Lisbon wrote, “ I am most perfectly contented, and hope to God I shall be able to show by my exertions, old as I am, my gratitude for the celebrity with which all my friends are pleased to distinguish me.” He continued to work, in spite of his age, with a celerity and a delicate firmness that showed how completely he was master of the graver. When eighty-seven years old he was engaged upon a large plate portrait of Wellington. He was then so infirm that he could not move about without difficulty, and his memory had begun to fail him, while his hand was yet steady. He died March 7, 1815, in comfortable circumstances, in Lisbon, and was buried there.

To analyze his style it would be necessary fully to understand the constantly changing caprices of the day, which sometimes compelled him to produce work that did no credit to his best powers. The fact is, he worked in all styles. In his reproductions he interpreted freely, often correcting bad drawing, and with such success that Sir Joshua Reynolds once said, when showing a proof of Bartolozzi’s engravings of one of his portraits, “ The hands in my picture are very slight., but here they are beautifully drawn and finished ; Mr. Bartolozzi having made them what they really should be. We are all much indebted to him.”

It is only within a few years that print-collectors have awakened to the rare and incontestable merits of Bartolozzi’s prints. To such persons Mr. Tuer’s work will be of deep interest; it is essentially addressed to them, though its rose-tinted plates, vellum binding, and luxurious margins will not fail to capture the fancy of the mere bibliomaniac.