The English prize : the capture of the Westmorland, an episode of the grand tour / edited by María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui and Scott Wilcox ; with contributions by María del Carmen Alonso Rodríguez [and eighteen others]
Issued in connection with an exhibition held May 17-Aug. 27, 2012, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and Oct. 4, 2012-Jan. 13, 2013, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.
Contents:
The rediscovery of the "English prize" / José M. Luzón Nogué and María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui -- The Westmorland: crates, contents, and owners / María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui and Scott Wilcox -- Trade and transport: the Westmorland in context / Eleanor Hughes -- Whose Grand Tour? / John Brewer -- Buying art in Rome in the 1770s / Jonathan Yarker and Clare Hornsby -- Educating the traveler: the tutors / María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui -- Anton Raphael Mengs's The liberation of Andromeda by Perseus: a European odyssey from Rome to St. Petersburg / Steffi Roettgen -- Christopher Hewetson: sculpture, commerce, and sociability in Rome / Alison Yarrington -- "Surpassing the others in prospect and situation": six watercolors by John Robert Cozens / Kim Sloan -- The Westmorland and architecture / Frank Salmon -- Piranesi and the tourists / John Wilton-Ely -- Books on the Westmorland / María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui -- A crate of saints' relics / José M. Luzón Nogué
Summary:
"Laden with works of art acquired by young British travelers on the Grand Tour in Italy, the British merchant ship Westmorland sailed from the Italian port of Livorno before being captured by French naval vessels and escorted to Malaga in southern Spain. The artistic treasures on board were purchased by King Carlos III of Spain, and the majority were deposited in the collections of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. There they resided, unknown, until recent research, using original inventories that survive in the Academia's archives, identified the Westmorland's rich cargo. The English Prize reveals the gripping story of the ship's capture and the disposition of its artistic contents, which included Raphael Mengs's Perseus and Andromeda, Pompeo Batoni's portraits of Frances Bassett and Lord Lewisham, and watercolors by John Robert Cozens. This volume illuminates the cultural phenomenon of the Grand Tour and the young travelers who acquired the trove of books and art works on board the Westmorland but were never able to enjoy their purchases"-- Provided by publisher.
