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Thomas Stothard
The Horrors of War

Price:$18,000

$25,000List Price

About the Item

Provenance: Martin Henry Colnaghi (1821-1908) and Amy Mary Colnaghi, née Smith (1859-1940), by 1894. Private Collection, USA, until 2018. Exhibited: Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1 January – 10 March 1894, no. 250, as “Battle Scene,” by Thomas Stothard, lent by Mrs. Martin Colnaghi, according to a label on the reverse. Literature: Exhibition of Works by The Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School; Including Special Collections of the Works of Thomas Stothard, R.A., of William Blake, and of John Pettie, R.A., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1894, p. 51, as Thomas Stothard. This dynamic battle scene by Thomas Stothard is an unpublished and newly rediscovered oil sketch for the single most important commission of the artist’s career: the Hell staircase at Burghley House. Stothard was one of the most prolific and admired artists of his day. He began his artistic training as an apprentice to a silk weaver in Spitalfields from 1770 to 1777, during which time he developed his skill as a draughtsman. He then attended the Royal Academy in London from 1777 to 1783, becoming a regular exhibitor there from 1779 on. He was elected A.R.A. in 1791 and R.A. 1794. Stothard is perhaps best remembered for his activity as a book illustrator, although he was also a watercolorist and designer for sculpture, including Wedgewood, silverwork, and friezes for Buckingham Palace. He had a notably varied career, responding successfully to the commercial and aesthetic demands of 18th-century Britain. However, it was his paintings that contributed most to his success. In the year of Stothard’s election to the RA, John Williams extolled his abilities as a narrative painter, writing: “I congratulate the Royal Academy on the acquisition of such a member as Mr. Stothard…I do not hesitate to assert that this gentleman is the ONLY Artist in this country who can comprehend, with keen precision, a subject dependent upon historical fact.” In 1799 at the height of Stothard’s success Henry Cecil (1754-1804), 10th Earl and later 1st Marquess of Exeter, commissioned the artist to complete a series of three wall paintings at Burghley House, his grand Elizabethan manor near Stamford in Lincolnshire that is still the seat of the Cecil family. Stothard had been recommended to Cecil for this project by the artist’s close friend John Flaxman, R.A. (1755-1826). The commission was occasioned by a recent modification to Burghley that included the addition of a modern staircase based on designs by the architect Robert Adams. This renovation interrupted the original logic of the space, which was decorated with a ceiling painting depicting Hell by the Italian artist Antonio Verrio (ca. 1639-1707). Cecil commissioned Stothard to complete the unfinished walls of this new staircase with a cycle of paintings that would harmonize with Verrio’s ceiling and fit within trompe l’oeil columns and architecture already painted onto the walls. He specified the theme of Hell for the staircase, but it seems that the subjects of the three paintings were selected by Stothard himself. The Hell Staircase was an incredibly important and rare commission for the 18th century. Although Royal Academicians of the day held history painting as the highest pictorial form, there was a lack of patronage for works of this kind, especially on such a grand scale. Furthermore, Burghley was already a celebrated manor house in this period, frequently visited by tourists who came to view the extensive collection of Old Master paintings collected by the Earls of Exeter over several generations. The fact that the Hell Staircase was the final decorated room that visitors would have encountered at Burghley certainly added to the prestige of the commission. Stothard spent five successive summers, from 1799 to 1803, at Burghley at work on the Hell Staircase, for which he was paid £1300. The subjects that he chose for the three wall paintings were Orpheus and Eurydice, Intemperance (otherwise known as Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Banquet), and on the main wall opposite the stairs, The Horrors of War. Of these The Horrors of the War was certainly the most complex and impressive. The painting shows a swirling mass of warriors, both human and supernatural, engaged in combat. The composition is designed with a triangular format that draws the eye upward from the earthly battle, to the battle of the unearthly creatures above, and finally to Verrio’s depiction of Hell on the ceiling. Stothard has cleverly designed the composition so that the figure of Hercules in Verrio’s painting—shown freeing his fellow warrior Theseus from Hell—steps down on a cloud that overlaps the red smoke at the upper edge of the painting. Similarly, the spears at the bottom edge of the painting extend past the fictive architectural border, seeming to project out into the viewer’s space. The scholarly literature on Stothard is limited, and despite the Hell Staircase being his most important work, most writers on the artist have devoted few words to the Burghley commission. As Rachel Rhine has observed, this may be explained by the unique status of these paintings in the artist’s oeuvre (as a major departure from his small-scare works) or by the practical difficulties of studying the paintings prior to their cleaning in 1998. Little attention has been paid to Stothard’s working process as he developed and executed the paintings at Burghley. As attested by a letter he sent to his wife in 1801, Stothard was making sketches and designing his compositions on-site at Burghley. He writes: “Dear Rebecca, Since I last wrote, I have been very busy sketching a design for the staircase; at the same time, seeing that the walls are properly prepared, and colour ground, &c.” It is clear from the surviving works related to this commission that Stothard made numerous preparatory drawings and oil studies in preparation for his final wall paintings. While these have been well-documented in the case of the Intemperance, this is not so for The Horrors of War. Several pen and ink sketches for The Horrors of War have survived, including one unpublished drawing in the British Museum and another sketch from the collection of collection of Sir Richard Brinsley Ford. In addition to the present painting, two oil sketches are also known: one at Tate Britain and another unpublished version in the National Gallery of Ireland. Whereas the pen-and-ink drawings for The Horrors of War seem to record Stothard’s first ideas for the composition, the three oil sketches show the artist progressing towards the final solution for the painting he executed on the walls of Burghley. There are several differences among these oil sketches—all roughly the same size—that reveal the small changes the artist made during his working process. The clearest differences are in the figures on the outer edges of the composition. The mounted figure in the upper left of the present work, who twists around and faces away from the viewer, is shown brandishing a curved blade. This figure wields the same curved weapon in the Dublin version, whereas in the Tate version he holds a shorter, straight sword. However, Stothard opted for an entirely different solution for this passage in the wall painting at Burghley, replacing the four soldiers clashing in the upper left of the oil sketches, as well as the horses head at the left edge, with a single mounted figure who thrusts his spear down on his challenger. Additionally, the mounted figure in the upper right of the composition is also variously posed in these works. The present painting shows the figure holding his spear in the same position as his counterparts in the version at the Tate and the painting at Burghley. Only in the oil sketch at the National Gallery of Ireland is the spear portrayed in a different orientation. Stothard’s The Horrors of War depicts an allegorical battle, rather than a historical one, presenting an image of senseless violence that emphasizes the brutality of war. From a stylistic point of view, this painting has often been discussed in relation to Stothard’s interest in the works of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). This is likely due to the fact that Joseph Farrington records two conversations with Stothard in his diary in 1796, in which the artist stated that he was consciously emulating the Flemish master. While the influence of Rubens on this painting is clear, Stothard’s The Horrors of War also shows strong parallels to the works of other academic painters of this period. The painting is similar both in content and in context to Death on the Pale Horse by Benjamin West, R.A. (1738-1820), now at the Detroit Institute of Arts. This painting, the title of which is taken from Revelations 6:8, portrays the destruction of humankind. When West painted this work in 1796, England was at war with revolutionary France. Death on the Pale Horse is thought to be a visual commentary by the artist on this war and its horrific effects. Stothard’s The Horrors of War must also be viewed in relation to this war. The Treaty of Amiens, which brought a temporary 14-month peace to a war that would last until 1814, was signed in 1802, the year before Stothard completed his commission at Burghley. It is likely that Stothard had these circumstances in mind when choosing the subject of the painting, as would have his contemporary audience viewing the work at Burghley. Henry Cecil, Stothard’s patron, was pleased with the result of Stothard’s work. Farrington records in a diary entry dated 6 February 1804: “Stothard has completed the work He undertook at Burghley. When He left the place after having been part of four years employed there, Lord Exeter told Him that no person had ever been employed by Him with whose conduct He had so much reason to be satisfied.” The importance of Stothard’s paintings for Burghley, as Edward Croft-Murray put it, have “entitle[d] Stothard to be considered as the most successful English mural painter of his time.” The provenance of the present painting is somewhat unclear. The first definite notice of the painting is when it was displayed at the Royal Academy Winter exhibition in 1894, which included a special section devoted to works by Stothard. It was lent to the exhibition by Amy Mary Colnaghi (1859-1940), daughter of the artist George Smith (1802-1838) and wife of the paintings dealer Martin Henry Colnaghi (1821-1908). It is not known where the Colnaghi’s acquired the painting, and it does not appear either in the sales of Martin Colnaghi’s personal collection and gallery stock following his death in 1908, the later sales of his widow, or in the Colnaghi stock books. Several oil sketches of The Horrors of War by Stothard were sold at auction in the 19th century, including two versions at the artist’s deceased sale at Christie’s, London, 17 June 1834. Lot 83 in this sale, “A Battle Piece, with allegorical figures,” is the version now at the Tate Britain, which was bought by Robert Vernon (1774–1849) at the sale and donated by him to the museum in 1847. Another oil sketch in the Stothard sale, lot 87, “War: Allegorically Treated,” presumably also for the Burghley commission, was bought by ‘Calcott,’ possibly Sir Augustus W. Calcott, R.A. (1779-1844). The later provenance of this painting is unknown, and it is possible that our oil sketch is identifiable with it, or one of the oil sketches for The Horrors of War that appeared at auction sales during the artist’s lifetime.

Creator:
Thomas Stothard (1755 - 1834)
Dimensions:
Height: 23.75 in (60.33 cm)Width: 26 in (66.04 cm)
Medium:
Canvas,Oil
Movement Style:
Old Masters
Period:
1800-1809
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1025778351

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