Enfilade

The Waterloo Chamber, Windsor Castle, Photo by Mark Fiennes for the Royal Collection Trust
© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2014

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Press release (4 November 2014) from the Royal Collection:

Waterloo at Windsor: 1815–2015
Windsor Castle, 31 January 2015 — January 2016

In 2015 a special themed visit at Windsor Castle—incorporating an exhibition, a trail, and a new multimedia tour through the State Apartments—will mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo and the peace that followed nearly 25 years of war between France, under the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and the allied forces including those of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

Throughout the State Apartments visitors will discover unique artefacts associated with Waterloo, including items that belonged to the defeated Emperor, trophies from the battlefield, and documents from the Royal Archives. The centrepiece of the visit is the magnificent Waterloo Chamber, commissioned by George, Prince Regent (the future George IV) as a lasting monument to the battle at the heart of Windsor Castle. Throughout 2015, the route will be extended allowing visitors to walk into and around the room, rather than viewing the room from either end.

For nearly a quarter of a century Napoleon fought his way across Europe. In 1814 he was finally defeated and imprisoned, but in February of the following year he escaped exile from the Italian island of Elba. In the 100 days that followed, Napoleon overthrew the newly-restored French king and gathered his troops, before facing the leader of the allied army, the Duke of Wellington, 13 kilometres south of Brussels at Waterloo.

The Waterloo Chamber

Sir Thomas Lawrence, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, 1814–15, Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

This vast room, measuring nearly 30 by 14.5 metres, was created for the sole purpose of displaying portraits of the statesmen, politicians, diplomats, and military leaders who were responsible for the overthrow of Napoleon. Despite never seeing active service, the Prince Regent regarded himself as a key player in the victory. In celebration of Napoleon’s abdication in April 1814, he invited several of the allied leaders and commanders to London and commissioned Britain’s pre-eminent portraitist, Sir Thomas Lawrence, to paint those attending. After Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo, Lawrence travelled to the Congress of Peace at Aix-la-Chapelle, then to Vienna and finally to Rome to complete the series.

The Waterloo Chamber remained unfinished at George IV’s death and was completed by his successor, William IV, who wanted the room to be more a commemoration of the battle than a celebration of the diplomacy that saw peace brought to Europe. A further nine portraits were added to the Waterloo Chamber’s ‘hall of fame’ by William IV and in Queen Victoria’s reign, bringing the total to 38.

Lawrence’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington dominates the room. The national hero stands beneath a triumphal arch, holding aloft the Sword of State, symbolising the sovereign’s royal authority. Beside him on a ledge rests a baton and letter signed George P.R., signifying his promotion to Field Marshal and the gratitude of the Crown. Wellington is flanked by portraits of Count Platov, commander of the Cossack cavalry, and Field Marshal Blücher, the head of the Prussian forces—the 72-year-old was nicknamed ‘Marshal Forwards’ because of his eagerness in battle. Lawrence’s portrait of Pope Pius VII, who was instrumental in the peace negotiations, is considered to be among the artist’s finest works. Imprisoned by Napoleon for many years, the Pope became a figurehead for the political and cultural regeneration of Europe after his release in 1814.

The Exhibition

Bringing together material from the Royal Collection and Royal Archives, the exhibition covers the days preceding the battle to the aftermath of conflict. Prints and drawings record the military action, devastated buildings and burial of casualties, as well as the celebration of victory. Public curiosity about Napoleon was fed by popular prints, such as those produced by the caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson.

Highlights of the Trail

Sevres porcelain factory, 1806–12, Hard-paste porcelain, gilt bronze mounts, internal wooden frame structure. Tables des Grands Capitaines, gifted to George, Prince Regent by the restored French king, Louis XVIII, courtesy Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

George IV and his successors were avid collectors of works of art and souvenirs relating to the defeated Emperor. Napoleon’s cloak, taken from his fleeing carriage in the aftermath of the battle and later presented to George IV by Field Marshal Blücher, will be on display in the Castle’s Grand Vestibule. Made of red felt and lined with yellow silk brocade, it is appliquéd with Napoleon’s Imperial Eagle in silver thread. The cloak will be shown with other items removed from the Emperor’s baggage train, including Napoleon’s silver-gilt porringer—a small bowl used for food.

The Table des Grands Capitaines (Table of the Great Commanders, 1806–12), which will be on display in the King’s Drawing Room, was commissioned by Napoleon to immortalise his reign. Among the finest works ever produced by the Sèvres factory, it is decorated with the profile of Alexander the Great, the supreme military leader of antiquity, and other great commanders and philosophers. The table never left the factory and, after Napoleon’s final defeat, was presented to George IV by the restored French king, Louis XVIII, in gratitude for the allied victory. It was
one of George IV’s most prized possessions and
appears in his State portrait and in the painting by
Lawrence in the Waterloo Chamber.

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), London: The Thames from Somerset House Terrace towards the City
(Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014)

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Press release (November 2014) from Abbot Hall (with a more complete posting available here) . . .

Canaletto’s Architecture: Celebrating Georgian Britain
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, 22 October 2015 — 14 February 2016

Abbot Hall was built in the Palladian style just three years after Canaletto left England for the last time. In 1746, by then in his late 40s, he first arrived for a prolonged stay in London. He was to remain for most of the following 10 years.

Already a well established artist, his work had proved very popular with aristocratic Englishmen doing their Grand Tour of Europe. In the 1720s, having started his career as a theatrical scene painter, Canaletto started painting his distinctive views of Venice, frequently featuring the many major churches designed for it by Palladio. One of his clients was Joseph Smith, an English merchant banker who lived in Venice for 70 years, for 16 of which he was the British consul there. Smith bought many Canaletto works for himself, and also helped arrange commissions from wealthy English collectors—by the late 1720s his works were already in the collections of Goodwood, Chatsworth, Woburn and of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Smith himself owned by far the largest collection of works, including 52 oil paintings and over 140 drawings, which he eventually sold to George III in 1762 for £10,000—half the sum the latter paid the previous year for Buckingham Palace.

Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), Portrait of Canaletto with St Paul’s in the Background at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust Images/Hamilton Kerr Inst/Chris Titmus)

Canaletto came to London as an indirect result of the War of the Austrian Succession, which started in 1741. This had made continental travelling difficult for his wealthy English patrons, severely reducing his income. He therefore decided to move himself to London, setting up his studio near Golden Square. He arrived a month after Culloden, the last pitched battle fought on British soil, and at the beginning of a period of unprecedented domestic peace and prosperity, which saw London turning into the world’s richest and largest city.

Although the bulk of the works with English subjects were of London scenes, with the Thames a frequent presence, he was also a regular visitor to the countryside, often at the invitation of his rich patrons, and painted several views of Warwick Castle, as well as of Alnwick, Badminton, Eton and Walton.

The rapid change of London’s architecture during his time here is also documented. In The Old Horse Guards from St James’ Park of 1749, he caught the Horse Guards Parade ground, complete with parading soldiers, as well as men peeing against the wall of Downing Street, and dozens of people promenading, showing the artist’s interest in depicting scenes of daily life. Within a couple of years, from almost exactly the same spot, he was back painting the new Horse Guards parade, the one that is still there today—it can be dated very precisely to 1752–53, as the clock tower still has scaffolding on it, while the south wing had yet to be constructed.

Canaletto is often accused of depicting London whilst using bright Venetian lighting. However, in both his pictures of the Horse Guards, the light is soft and diffused. In A View of Walton Bridge the sky is even more typically ‘English’—and un-Venetian—with the sun competing with storm clouds brewing overhead. The picture also includes a portrait of Thomas Hollis, who commissioned 5 works from Canaletto, as well as a rare self-portrait of the artist, shown painting the scene. The bridge was regarded at the time as an advanced feat of engineering. The contrasting stately bulk of Westminster Bridge and the views from it was evidently something that fascinated Canaletto, who clearly would have agreed with Wordsworth’s later opinion that “earth hath not anything to show more fair.” The bridge was under construction during his time here, and he painted and sketched it repeatedly. In one of the pictures from the Royal Collection, he frames a view of the Thames, St Paul’s and the City as if he had drawn the scene from under one of the new arches of the bridge, while others show it still under construction.

It is easy to forget that Canaletto continued to paint Venetian scenes throughout his time in London. Worked up from his sketches, or done from memory, these provided him with a significant proportion of his income whilst in London, as his more conservative patrons demanded work that they were familiar with, rather than venturing into the new views that the artist was confronting. For example, his Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day, showing the state barge after the annual ‘marriage’ of Venice with the sea—which, when it sold for $20,000,000 in 2005, was briefly his most expensive painting sold at auction—was painted in London in 1754.

Ruskin had a particular down on Canaletto. It is, however, unclear quite how familiar the ascerbic critic was with genuine works by the Venetian. As a hugely popular artist, his work was widely forged and copied both during his lifetime and afterwards. It is possible that Ruskin was sometimes writing about Canaletto pupils and assistants, when he thought he was writing about Canaletto himself. In “Notes on the Louvre”, writing about a picture of the Salute and the entrance to the Grand Canal, he said that it is “cold and utterly lifeless—truth is made contemptible” and that “boats and water he could not paint at all.” The picture has since been re-attributed to Canaletto’s pupil Michele Marieschi. Similarly the “bad landscape” he saw in Turin is almost certainly a work by Bernardo Bellotto, Canaletto’s nephew. Writing about Canaletto’s “vacancy and falsehood” in Modern Painters, he refers to a painting in the Palazzo Manfrin—Augustus Hare, who visited it at about the same time, noted that the palazzo “has a picture gallery which is open daily, but contains nothing worth seeing, all the good pictures having been sold.” It is unclear which work Ruskin was referring to when he said that Canaletto’s depiction of architecture was “less to be trusted in its renderings of details than the rudest and most ignorant painter of the 13th century.” Certainly that is not the view of most modern critics of most properly authenticated works by Canaletto, but Ruskin was never one to allow the facts to affect his pet prejudices.