No. 10311 of 10318
Sender Date Recipient
Charles Bowyer Adderley [+]

Sender’s Location

Antagelig Hams Hall, Warwickshire, England.

Tidligst 1878, senest 1905 (1835-1836) [+]

Dating based on

Dateringen følger som det tidligste det tidspunkt, hvor den omtalte William Sydney Clements (1806–1878) blev myrdet, og som det seneste Adderleys eget dødsår. Uddraget er hentet for biografien over Lord Norton, jf. den generelle kommentar. Biografien bygger på en ufuldstændig selvbiografi samt, dagbøger og breve. Hvornår nedenstående først er nedskrevet, vides p.t. ikke. Adderley ankom, som det fremgår af boguddraget, antageligt til Rom i december 1835, og tilbragte herefter tre måneder i byen. Sommeren tilbragte han i Syditalien og på Malta, hvorefter han på tilbagevejen boede kortvarigt hos Thorvaldsen. Adderley var tilbage i England i september 1836, og havde forinden rejst gennem Sydfrankrig og over Paris, så det sidste ophold hos Thorvaldsen har formentlig fundet sted i slutningen af juli eller starten af august.

Omnes
Abstract

Adderley describes his stay in Rome in 1835-36, when he stayed with Thorvaldsen for a time. He was given two marble reliefs (The Genii of Music Singing, cf. A586 and The Genii of Music Playing, cf. A588) by the sculptor and commissioned another three marble reliefs (Cupid Awakening Psyche, cf. A866, Cupid and Bacchus, cf. A408, and _Cupid and Anacreon, Winter, cf. A416) and a terracotta frieze, cf. _Alexander the Great’s Entry into Babylon, cf. A508.

We reached Rome on a lovely evening, my sister, Anna Maria, and McGeachy meeting us a little outside and lodging me in thier house in Via Felice, Monte Mario, Acland joining his father, who had come by yacht, St. Kilda, and taken the Villa Aldobrandini. Three months in Rome, with the Vatican, Sixtine Chapel, Forum, the Offices of Christina, Carnival, Campagna rides, Laurentine Wood and Ostia, opened the mind to new sensations, thoughts, tastes, and ideas.

This summer passed in an excursion with Lord Clements round Sicily — full, to my mind, of Virgil, and realising my little store of classical recollections. We went on to Malta, living there a week with the 60th Rifles, and, coming back to Naples, found a vendetta prepared which might have anticipated my friend’s murder.

I stayed a little at Rome, en retour, as the guest of Thorwaldsen, whose bas-reliefs now adorn the hall at Hams.

I posted alone through the South of France and, by Paris, back to England about September 1836, after an absence of over nine months.

[Nedenstående er en note i bogen, der refererer til omtalen af reliefferne på Hams Hall omtalt ovenfor]

The following is a list of Thorwaldsen’s works at Hams — the two first were gifts from the sculptor, the rest were done to order :

(1) Singing Genii ; (2) Playing Genii ; (3) Cupid awaking the fainted Psyche ; (4) Bacchus giving Cupid his first cup ; (5) Cupid’s reception by Anacreon, wounded by dart of poetry in gratitude. These are all in marble. The terra-cotta frieze (6), round the cornice of the hall, represents the Triumphal Procession of Alexander the Great into Babylon — the same as in marble at the Villa Sommariva Como and the Quirinal, Rome. After seeing the latter, Mendelssohn, in his ” Letters from Italy and Switzerland, ” wrote (March 1831) : ” Never did any piece of sculpture make such an impression on me. I go there every week and stand gazing on that alone, and enter Babylon along with the Conqueror.”

General Comment

Uddraget er en gengivelse af Childe-Pemberton, op. cit., p. 21-22, og dokumenterer eksistensen af en tidligere udsmykning med Thorvaldsens værker på Hams Hall, Warwickshire, England. Adderleys oprindelige dagbogsnotater og udkast til selvbiografi, der danner baggrund for biografien er p.t. ikke konsulteret.

Thiele
Ikke omtalt hos Thiele.
Other references

  • William S. Childe-Pemberton: Life of Lord Norton. (Right Hon. Sir Charles Adderley, K.C.M.G., M.P.) 1814 — 1905. Statesman & Philanthropist, London 1909.
  • Kira Kofoed: Thorvaldsens værker på Hams Hall, arkivet.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk, 2015.
Subjects
Alexander Frieze, Hams Hall, Birmingham · Hams Hall Commission · Lost Works by Thorvaldsen · Gifts from Thorvaldsen, Artworks · Accounts of Journeys · Reliefs, Allegories · Reliefs, Classical Mythology · Thorvaldsen's Works, not at Thorvaldsens Museum · Thorvaldsen's Works, Executed in Terracotta
Persons
Thomas Dyke Acland · F. Alleyne McGeachy · Bertel Thorvaldsen
Works
Last updated 02.02.2017 Print