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Description: | A H "Andromache occisum Hectora luget Andromache bewailing the death of Hector" "Gavinus Hamilton pinxit Domenicus Cunego sculpsit Roma 1764" "from the Original painting in the collection of the Right Hon.ble Lord Grovesnor London" CRE CUNEGO, Domenico; (Italian; 1727-1794) AFTER HAMILTON, Gavin; (Scottish; 1723-1798) This loose print from William Hunter's collection was probably originally bound into a volume of reproductive prints. Gavin Hamilton's painting (now lost) was one of the first of his series of six subjects from Homer's Iliad painted in Rome in the period 1760-1776. The Earl of Northampton commissioned the painting in 1758, and it was transported to London for exhibition at the Society of Artists exhibition at Spring Gardens in May 1762. A critic writing in the St James's Chronicle, 22-5 May, noted 'Andromache weeping over the dead Body of Hector. - A very large Picture, that takes up almost a whole Side of the Room. The figures are mostly borrowed from capital Pictures, and moderately executed.' Like Hamilton, Hunter had in his collection Pesne's engraving of the 'capital picture' from which Hamilton had borrowed the composition, Poussin's Sacrament of Extreme Unction (cat. 71).
Hamilton's large and learned paintings were influential in the development of Neo-Classicism. Although critics such as Winckelmann (in a letter to Stosch of 1763) found his colours 'hard, unattractive, coarse and somehow lacking in power?', they were the grandest expressions of the emerging style. The money invested by Hamilton in having them engraved by Cunego bought him influence on artists who owned the engravings, but did not have the opportunity available to Winckelmann of seeing the originals.
It is not known how Hunter acquired this engraving, but he must have attended the Society of Artists exhibition, at which Hamilton's painting was shown (he had the catalogue). Hunter would also have been aware of a later painting from Hamilton's Homeric series, Hector's Farewell to Andromache (Hunterian Art Gallery), which was commissioned in Rome in 1776 by Douglas, 8th Duke of Hamilton (1756-1799), who was son of Hunter's colleague in the Royal Household, Elizabeth Gunning. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | ANDROMACHE : HECTOR : TROJAN WAR : CRYING : MOURNS : LAMENTING : DEATH : GREEK MYTHOLOGY : ILIAD : ASTYANAX : NEO CLASSICAL : HUNTER 2007 : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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