Monday, January 27, 2003

East or West

I came across this quote from David Blayney Brown:

"Probably in the same year [1809] Turner visited Sussex landowner, Jack Fuller at Rosehill Park, Brightling to begin work on a picture of the estate.
It was possibly Fuller who commissioned the series of watercolours of West Sussex which were later engraved as Views in Sussex."

The question is surely Brown means East Sussex - as the pictures show Brightling Park, the Vale of Heathfield, the Vale of Ashburnham, Pevensey Bay and Battle Abbey - all firmly in East Sussex.

"The Art of JMW Turner", David Blayney Brown, Knickerbocker Pr; ISBN: 1577150309

Sunday, January 19, 2003

Where is the Portrait of George Augustus Elliot, Lord Heathfield, Governor of Gibraltar?

Michel-Edouard Nigaglioni, Conservator of Historic and Artistic Patrimony of Bastia, Corsica, is researching the work of 18th Century Corsican painter Anthony de Poggi. Of particular interest is a painting called "George Augustus Elliot, Lord Heathfield, Governor of Gibraltar", 10 Sep 1788. An engraving of this work by Francesco Bartolozzi is owned by the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London. Nigaglioni would like to know the whereabouts of the original painting.

Anthony de Poggi lived in London where he was a publisher and print seller. He exhibited his works at the Royal Academy from 1776 to 1781. Many portraits were done of George Augustus Eliott in 1787, the year he was raised to the peerage of Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar.

Lord Heathfield appears in John "Mad Jack" Fuller's family tree. George Augustus Eliott's daughter, Anne Eliott married Fuller's first cousin John Trayton Fuller on 21 May 1777. Their son Augustus Elliot Fuller inherited Rose Hill from Mad Jack. Augustus Elliot Fuller was MP for Sussex from 1841 until his death in 1857.