Volume 1

The Farington diary / edited by James Greig.

  • Joseph Farington
Date:
[1922?-1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Farington diary / edited by James Greig. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    When Architects fall out December 7.—Dumergue the Dentist, made out a Bill for attending the Royal Family at Windsor & in town, A year & a half .£3,000,—He was paid .£1,500. December 10.—At the annual election of a President at the Royal Academy, Burch, Catton (the coach painter), Copley, and Mrs. Lloyd (Mary Moser)* received one vote each, the rest, of course, were given for West. Mrs. Lloyd’s name after discussion was omitted from the Academy books [? minutes], it being “ evidently intended as a joke, and if seriously she was not eligible.” December 11.—The last Lord Pomfret [2nd Earl] employed him [Fuseli] to paint three pictures. One of them, a scene in the Rape of the Lock, the figures representing Lord Lempster, Mr. Fermor, and Lady C. Fermor his children. [Lord Pomfret’s extravagance forced him to sell the furniture of his seat at Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. The statues collected by his grandfather were bought by Lord Pomfret’s mother for presentation to Oxford University.] Peter Denyss, a young man, who had been recommended by Mr. Moser, of the Royal Academy, to Ld. Pomfret was there at Easton, employed in teaching the young people to draw.—Peter was the son of a Swiss settled in England, as a language master.—Peters younger brother was bred a musician, and his sister kept a boarding school situated on the other side of Blackfryars Bridge.—After the death of Lord Pomfret Peter married Lady C, his daughter with the consent of her mother, & two young Brothers. She has £4000, a year in her own right.—The widow, Lady Pomfret, has something of melancholy insanity about her. Peter is very plain in person and near sighted. December 13.—Flaxman has got the monument for the three Captains. Lady Spencer has contributed to procure it for him. * This proves the truth of a tale that Messrs. Hodgson and Eaton in their “ Royal Academy and Its Members ” declare to be “ ben trovato but non vero, as there is no record in the Academy minutes of any vote having ever been recorded for that lady at the annual Presidential election.” Farington explains the reason for the omission, and gives the actual date of the election in question. The story, say these writers, goes : “ According to some at the election of 1803, and according to others at that of 1806, viz., that Fuseli voted for Mary Moser [instead of West], on the ground that ‘ one old woman was as good as another.’ ”