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.

    52/464 (page 16)
    November 15.—Lysons called this morning at breakfast and showed me some of the drawings he had made of the Roman floor, com¬ posed of figures in mosaic, found at Woodchester, near Redborough, in Gloucestershire. In Count Caylus’s work, published at Paris, this Floor is noticed, but a few partial pieces only had been discovered, when Lysons, with the aid of some neighbours, had the earth removed so as to show a considerable part of the floor of a principal room. Further examination will be made in the spring. That part which Lysons has explored is in a Churchyard, and the earth which covers it is about five feet deep. Many coffins and quantities of bones were removed to clear the way to the surface of the floor. Information came from Paris last night of the death of the Duke of Orleans, who was executed at Paris on the 6th of this month. He dined at the Royal Academy, with the Prince of Wales, a few years since, at one of the great Annual Exhibition Dinners, and it happened a whole-length portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was placed above the seat on which he sat on the Prince’s right hand. The picture is a very fine one, a whole length in an Hussar dress, and a remarkable likeness, which everybody acknowledged who then had an opportunity of comparing it with the original. The Picture was painted for the Prince of Wales, and was placed in Carlton House, till the detestable conduct of the Duke in what related to the late King of France, caused the Prince to have it taken down, and it is now in some private apart¬ ment in Carlton House. The Prince moved about the same time to have him expelled from the Je ne sais quoi Club held at the Star and Garter [in Pall-mall], which was immediately done and his name scratched out by one of the waiters. He was 50 years of age—born in 1743. November 16.—The events which are succeeding each other in France, and which posterity will consider with horror and almost doubt of from their atrocity, are received here as the news of the day ; so habituated are we by repetition, to the shocking accounts received, that the natural effect of a first emotion is weakened. The situation of the people at large seems every day to become more desperate. The complaints of want sent from the cities of Rouen and Nantes show the distress for provisions and the sufferings of the multitude. November 20.—Mr. Wm. Hardman, of Manchester, called on me. The picture of Ruth which Opie has painted for him he much admires, but having given a commission to Opie under an idea that the picture to be painted was not to exceed 40 guineas, he was surprised at Mr. Opie’s charge of 100 guineas. As I was acquainted with the extent of the commission at the time he desired me to speak to Opie on the subject, and Opie reduced his fee to 90 guineas.