AH - PAINTERS - CAVIN HAMILTON

Gavin Hamilton (1723, Lanarkshire – 4 January 1798, Rome) was a Scots neoclassical history painter, who is more widely remembered for his hunts
for antiquities in the neighbourhood of Rome. These roles in combination made him an arbiter of neoclassical taste. Gavin Hamilton was born in Lanark
in 1723, into the prominent family for whom the town of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire was named, the Hamiltons of Murdiston, linked to the Dukes of
Hamilton.
By 1744 he was in Italy, and probably studied in Rome in the studio of Agostino Masucci. From 1748 to 1750 he shared an apartment with James Stuart,
Matthew Brettingham and Nicholas Revett, and with them visited Naples and Venice. On returning to Britain, he spent several years portrait-painting in
London (1751–1756). At the end of that period, he returned to Rome. He lived there for more than the next four decades, until his death in 1798.
Aside from a few portraits of friends, the Hamilton family, and British people on the Grand Tour, most of his paintings, many of which are very large,
were of classical Greek and Roman subjects. His most famous is a cycle of six paintings from Homer's Iliad. As engraved by Domenico Cunego and
reproduced, these were widely disseminated widely and were enormously influential. Also influential was Hamilton's Death of Lucretia (1760s), also
known as the Oath of Brutus. This inspired a series of "oath paintings" by European painters, which included Jacques-Louis David's noted Oath of the
Horatii (1784). Like most later paintings of the scene, it placed it over Lucretia's dead body. In Livy it is made later, after the overthrow of the Roman
monarchy.
As a painter of classical subjects, Hamilton was highly regarded by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, writer Goethe, young sculptor Antonio Canova and
others in Rome, but was less appreciated in Britain. He did receive a commission to paint the altar piece of Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi, the Scottish
national church in Rome, for which he portrayed the Martyrdom of St Andrew.
As an art dealer and archaeologist, Hamilton undertook excavations at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli in 1769–1771, at first to acquire marble for his sculptor to
restore sculptures. His excavators reopened the outlet of a low-lying swampy area and "after some weeks' work underground by lamp-light and up to the
knees in muddy water" retrieved sculptures from the muck, where they had been thrown centuries before with timber when Christians levelled the sacred
grove.(Smith 1901:308). From 1771 Hamilton excavated other sites in the environs of Rome: Cardinal Flavio Chigi's Tor Colombaro, 1771–72, Albano,
1772, Monte Cagnolo 1772–73, Ostia 1774–75, the Villa Fonseca on the Caelian Hill in Rome, Roma Vecchia (the Villa dei Quintili), ca 1775 Castel di
Guido and Gabii.
In an age when restorations to Roman sculptures were broadly conceived and the refinishing of whole surfaces was still common practice, Hamilton
maintained a reputation as an honest man who did not tamper unduly with the sculptures that passed through his hands. Hamilton sold many of the
works of art he recovered to his British clients, most notably to Charles Townley, to whom the painter wrote: "the most valuable acquisition a man of
refined taste can make, is a piece of fine Greek Sculpture"; and to William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne at Shelburne, later Lansdowne House, London.
In 1771 Hamilton discovered the Warwick Vase at Hadrian's Villa. He sold it to Sir William Hamilton, a connoisseur and the British envoy at Naples.
Gavin Hamilton worked closely with Giovanni Battista Piranesi. He was an early advisor of Antonio Canova, a young sculptor whom he met at a dinner
party in December 1779 on Canova's first visit to Rome. The painter advised the younger man to put aside his early, Rococo manner and concentrate on
conflating the study of nature with the best of antiquities and a narrow range of classic modern sculptors.
In 1785 Hamilton bought Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks and sent it to London for sale. His purchase was the version now held by the National
Gallery, London.
Such hunting and sale of antiquities was considered a marginally shady undertaking. Hamilton was successful in making generous offerings to the
Vatican's Museo Pio-Clementino, as the Pope claimed one-third of all excavated works and had the right to forbid export of outstanding treasures. In
addition, Hamilton paid landowners for excavating rights, so kept his peace with them.
He died in Rome on 4 January 1798.
For more information follow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Hamilton_(artist)
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/gavin-hamilton
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gavin-Hamilton
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/hamilton-gavin-17231798
https://electricscotland.com/history/other/hamilton_gavin.htm
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hamilton_gavin.html
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/gavin-hamilton-234
https://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095918103
https://www.invaluable.com/artist/hamilton-gavin-pcu5trxdgn/sold-at-auction-prices/
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Gavin-Hamilton/1606376A9D98ACBC

Gavin Hamilton
by Ozias Humphry,
1778, pencil, NGS

Source: Wikipedia