Allegorical Tomb of Joseph Addison (1642-1719) essayist and poet

Location

Country: Italy
City: Rome
Place: British Embassy

Commissioned during the 1720s by the impresario Owen Swiny (1676-1754), this painting is by the Italian Baroque artist Donato Creti. It once formed part of a series of 24 allegorical tomb paintings, made by a team of Venetian and Bolognese artists, which were intended to commemorate great Englishmen, particularly those involved in the revolution of 1688, when King James II was overthrown. There is another example from the series, also painted by Creti, in the Government Art Collection: ‘Allegorical Tomb of Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton (1648-1715) Politician’ (GAC 4528).

Places

Subjects

statue (as Subject), book, writer, essayist, poetry, allegory & symbolism, landscape C18th, tree, wing, armour, helmet, spear, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, putto, tomb/sepulchre/mausoleum, archway, column, plinth (represented)

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Donato Creti (1671 - 1749)
Carlo Besoli (1707 - 1754)
Nunzio Ferraiuoli (1660 - 1735)

Title

Allegorical Tomb of Joseph Addison (1642-1719) essayist and poet

Date

c.1721

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 217.00 cm, width: 138.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Frost & Reed, February 1958

Inscription

inscribed on book held by putto: Donato Creti a fatto queste figure in Bologna nell'anno 1721

Provenance

Collection of Owen Macswiny; collection of the Duke of Richmond, Goodwood; collection of Sir Humphrey de Trafford; sold through Sotheby's, London, on 26 June 1957 (Lot 55); with Frost & Reed; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in February 1958

GAC number

4529