- Museum number
- 1890,0512.148
- Description
-
Three caricature portraits of Edward Gibbon, historian; one study seated to front, one half-length in profile to right, and another head in profile to right looking down
Graphite
- Production date
- 1762-1831
- Dimensions
-
Height: 287 millimetres
-
Width: 186 millimetres (oval)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Mounted with another portrait of Edward Gibbon by Lady Diana Beauclerk (reg.no 1890,0502.10).
The following entry is taken from K. Sloan, 'A Noble Art', BM exh. cat., 2000, no. 182:
Lavinia Bingham, the daughter of Lord and Lady Lucan, toured Italy with her family for nearly two years from the age of sixteen. Horace Mann wrote to Walpole from Florence that Lady Lucan 'is very clever and has many accomplishments, and is teaching them to her daughters, who by their judgement of the pictures and all the collection in the Gallery are looked upon as prodigies at their age here.'
In 1780, thanking Walpole for his notice of her work in his Anecdotes, Lady Lucan requested that he 'grant my daughter Lavinia the same protection you have afforded me, as she has an original genius; and if you will scold and encourage her, make her wish to see you, and at the same time dread it, I am certain that she will become upon some future day...worthy of being mentioned by you in another volume.' Encouraged by her mother, she had indeed shown her drawings to Walpole who later added a note about her in his MS 'Book of Materials': 'Lavinia Bingham, Countess Spencer, daughter of the celebrated copyist Lady Lucan, drew only in bistre, and was happy in expression, but for some time very incorrect in drawing, but improved much and succeeded particularly in the characters of children.'
Lavinia Bingham married 2nd Earl Spencer in 1781 and thus became the sister-in-law of the Duchess of Devonshire and Viscountess Duncannon (both amateurs) as well as being related through marriage to the Countess of Pembroke and her sister Lady Diana Beauclerk. Her portrait of Lady Duncannon was etched by Bartolozzi in 1787 (V&C 1068). A folio of her drawings from before and after her marriage survives at Althorp; on their original 18th-century mounts, they are all figural subjects and include portraits of her family, and nymphs, cupids and bacchantes later engraved in stipple by Bartolozzi and Bovi.
According to the DNB 'she was a woman of great beauty and intelligence, brilliancy of conversation and charm of character. For many years ... she was well-nigh the most prominent lady in London society, and was remarkable for having been the friend of a singularly large number of men of eminence, literary, naval and political'. She knew Johnson as a girl and her father moved in the same Whig circles as Lady Diana Beauclerk's husbands, friends of Johnson, Reynolds, Burke and Fox. She and Lord Spencer went abroad for her health in 1785 and they visited Gibbon daily during their stay in Lausanne. He described her as 'a charming woman, who with sense and spirit, has the simplicity and playfulness of a child. You [Lord Sheffield] are not ignorant of her talents, of which she has left me an agreable specimen, a drawing of the Historic muse sitting in a thoughtful posture to compose'. These sketches of Gibbon were acquired at the Percy sale as by J. Walpole, who has not been identified, but it has since, very plausibly, been attributed to Lady Spencer. An old label in the dossier in the department indicates that the drawings once belonged to Horace Walpole who added the inscription attributing them to J. Walpole as 'a rather obscure joke'. The pen and ink inscriptions on the versos of both sketches of Gibbon (by Lady Beauclerk and by Lady Spencer) appear to be in Walpole's hand.
There is slightly more finished version of the larger figure in a private collection (NPG archives).
Literature: Wal Corr. v. 41, p. 419; J.E. Norton, ed., The Letters of Edward Gibbon, 1956, pp. 33-4; Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Visitors to Italy
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2000 May-Sep, BM P&D, 'A Noble Art', no.182
- Acquisition date
- 1890
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1890,0512.148
