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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    on that occasion exceeded in eloquence, and effect, any He ever heard made, and when Fox Whig rose to reply the Doctor was uneasy for him. April 16. —Called on Lady Inchiquin in consequence of a message from her. She and Lord Inchiquin requested me to speak to Lawrence abt. coming to a settlement for three pair of pictures, viz., Kings & Queens which have been delivered to him since the death of Sir Joshua. The price they ask is 200 guineas for the 3 pair. April 17. —Breakfasted with Lawrence and informed him of the commission I had from Lord & Lady Inchiquin relative to the Pictures. He represented to me that he had been obliged to paint near a fortnight on one pair of the pictures, and some days on another pair. On the third pair He must do the same. That Sir Joshua had paid to Roth [an assis¬ tant] only 20 guineas a picture and He had supposed He might have the pictures on those terms as Sir Joshua had not touched on any of them. I went to Lord and Lady Inchiquin and repeated the conversation I had had with Lawrence, after which they desired to have my opinion. I proposed to split the difference between 120 and 200 gs., which they agreed to. Lady Inchiquin told me they still have great difficulties abt. the delivery of the portraits. Lord Fife has returned that of his wife, and the Duchess of Gordon having called to see him, refuses it, saying Her eyes were not green, as those in the picture were.* April 18 .—Breakfasted with Lawrence and communicated to him what had passed at Lord Inchiquins. He declared himself well satisfied with the terms settled & that I had saved him 40 Gs. I went to the Shakespeare Gallery, and had a conversation with Boydell and Combe [Dr. Syntax] on the subject of the great expence of the first volume of the Thames above the calculation : Combes estimate of his claim was 100 gs. whereas He has reed. 324 gs.—I pointed out to him that the work at the price it had been put at, could hardly be ex¬ pected to pay the expences. We desired him to consider for what sum He could undertake the 2d. volume. After some consideration He pro¬ posed 6 gs. a week for 10 months. Boydell said his first proposal was to receive 4gs. a week, while carrying on the first volume, and that at 6 gs. a week the lessening of expence to us wd. be scarcely anything.—He then sd. He would meet us half way and take 5 gs. a week for 10 months, in which time the 2d. volume shd. be completed.—He said He wd. under¬ take to finish by January if required. These terms we closed with. April 19.—Copley is to have £300 more from the City, out of which * The transactions entered under April 17 and 18 are examples of the reprehensible practice of Reynolds, Lawrence, and other painters of the period. Sir Joshua’s staff of assistants occasionally copied his portraits, and some of these copies were apparently passed off as his own, although he, as in the case referred to above, had never touched them. The pictures on which Lawrence “ had been obliged to paint on near a fortnight,” were doubtless sold as Sir Joshua’s. The great difficulty about the delivery of Sir Joshua’s portraits after his death, complained of by Lady Inchiquin, is in a measure accounted for by the following paragraph in the Morning Post, dated March 26, 1796. The note reads : “ The portraits of several people of fashion will be exposed when they come under the hammer at the sale of Sir Joshua’s pictures. Many people sat to him through vanity, merely to see how charming they looked on canvas, without a distant idea of releasing the pictures. ’