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William Thomas Beckford

William Thomas Beckford (1 October 1760 – 2 May 1844), usually known as '''William Beckford''', was an England|English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed to be the richest commoner in England. He was Member of Parliament for Wells (UK Parliament constituency)|Wells from 1784 to 1790http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/wcommons2.htm, for Hindon (UK Parliament constituency)|Hindon from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820.http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Hcommons3.htm He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel ''Vathek'', the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower ("Beckford's Tower"), Bath, and especially for his art collection.

Biography

Beckford was born in the family's London home at 22 Soho Square.british-history.ac.uk At the age of ten, he inherited a fortune consisting of £1 million in cash (£{{Formatprice|}} as of ),, land at Fonthill Gifford|Fonthill (including the Palladian mansion Fonthill Splendens) in Wiltshire, and several sugar plantations in Jamaica from his father William Beckford (politician)|William Beckford, usually referred to as "Alderman Beckford", who had been twice a Lord Mayor of the City of London. This allowed him to indulge his interest in art and architecture, as well as writing. He was briefly trained in music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but his drawing master Alexander Cozens had a much greater influence on him, and Beckford continued to correspond with him for some years until their falling-out. On May 5 1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the Charles Gordon, 4th Earl of Aboyne|fourth Earl of Aboyne. However, Beckford was bisexual, and was hounded out of polite English society when (probably unfounded) gossip accused him of seducing the Hon William Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon|William Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon. Beckford chose exile in the company of his wife, whom he grew to love deeply, but who died in childbirth at the age of 24. Beckford's fame, however, rests as much upon his eccentric extravagances as a builder and collector as upon his literary efforts. In undertaking his buildings he managed to dissipate his fortune, which was estimated by his contemporaries to give him an income of £100,000 a year. The loss of his Jamaican sugar plantation to James Beckford Wildman was particularly costly. Only £80,000 of his capital remained at his death. File:Grand Tour William Thomas Beckford.jpg|thumb|250px|William Beckford's Grand Tour through Europe shown in red. Having studied under William Chambers (architect)|Sir William Chambers and Alexander Cozens, Beckford journeyed in Italy in 1782 and promptly wrote a book on his travels: ''Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents'' (1783). Shortly afterward came his best-known work, the Gothic novel ''Vathek'' (1786), written originally in French; he boasted that it took a single sitting of three days and two nights, though there is reason to believe that this was a flight of his imagination. ''Vathek'' is an impressive work, full of fantastic and magnificent conceptions, rising occasionally to sublimity. His other principal writings were ''Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters'' (1780), a satirical work; and ''Letters from Italy with Sketches of Spain and Portugal'' (1835), full of brilliant descriptions of scenes and manners. In 1793 he visited Portugal, where he settled for a period.

Art collection

Beckford was a compulsive and restless collector, who also frequently sold works, sometimes later repurchasing them. In terms of today's taste his collection was most notable for its many Italian Quattrocento paintings, then little collected and cheap. Despite his interest in Romantic medievalism, he owned few medieval works, though many from the Renaissance. He was also interested in showy Asian objets d'art such as Mughal Empire|Mughal hardstone carvings. But though he avoided the souped-up classical marbles typical of the well-educated English collector, much of his collection was of 18th century French furniture and decorative arts, then enormously highly priced compared to paintings by modern standards. He bought an isolated J. M. W. Turner|Turner in 1800, when the artist was only 25 (''The Fifth Plague of Egypt'', £157.10s), and in 1828 William Blake's drawings for Gray's Elegy,Reitlinger, I, 85 & 250 as well as several works by Richard Parkes Bonington, but in general he preferred older works. By 1822 he was short of funds in debt and put Fonthill Abbey up for sale, for which 72,000 copies of Christie's illustrated catalogue were sold at a guinea apiece; the pre-sale view filled every farmhouse in the neighborhood with visitors from London."He is fortunate who can find a vacant chair within twenty miles of Fonthill," a contributor to the ''London Times'' reported. "ostrich feathers, which by their very waving we can trace back to Piccadilly are seen nodding at a casement window over a dispopulated poultry yard". (quoted in Lewis Saul Benjamin, ''The life and letters of William Beckford of Fonthill'', 1910:315). Fonthill, with part of his collection was sold before the sale for £330,000 to John Farquhar, who had made a fortune selling gunpowder in India.Quoted in Lewis Saul Benjamin, ''The life and letters of William Beckford of Fonthill'', 1910:314 Farquhar at once auctioned the art and furnishings in the "Fonthill sale" of 1823, at which Beckford and his son-in-law the Duke of Hamilton were heavy purchasers, often buying items more cheaply than the first price Beckford had paid, as the market was somewhat depressed. What remained of the collection, as it was maintained and added to at Lansdown Tower, amounting virtually to a second collection, was inherited by the Dukes of Hamilton, and much of that was dispersed in the great "Hamilton Palace sale" of 1882, one of the major sales of the century. The Fonthill sale was the subject of William Hazlitt's scathing review of Beckford's taste for "idle rarities and curiosities or mechanical skill", for fine bindings, ''bijouterie'' and highly-finished paintings, "the quintessence and rectified spirit of ''Still life|still-life''", republished in Hazlitt's ''Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England (1824)'',Hazlitt online text and richly demonstrating his own prejudices.Reitlinger, II, 82-5 Beckford pieces are now in museums all over the world.Reitlinger, I, 85, and passim in vols I & II Hazlitt was unaware that the sale had been salted with many lots inserted by Phillips the auctioneer, that had never passed Beckford's muster: "I would not disgrace my house by Chinese furniture," he remarked later in life. "Horace Walpole would not have suffered it in his Strawberry Hill, London|toyshop at Strawberry Hill".(Benjamin 1910:320) Beckford was dismissive of Walpole. "Walpole hated me," he told Cyrus Redding. "I began Fonthill two or three years before his death. Mischief-making people annoyed him by saying that I intended to buy up all his nic-nackery when he was dead. Some things I might have wished to possess—a good deal I would not have taken as a gift. The place was a miserable child's box—a species of gothic mousetrap—a reflection of Walpole's littleness... My having his playthings he could not tolerate, even in idea, so he bequeathed them beyond my reach." (Benjamin 1910:299). The Strawberry Hill sale of 1842 gave him his opportunity.

Works owned by Beckford

Now in National Gallery, London:
- Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Raphael); the National Gallery paid c £6,000 in 1839, as part of a bulk purchase from Beckford.Reitlinger, I, ?
- Agony in the Garden (Bellini), bought at the Joshua Reynolds sale in 1795 for £5, sold with Fonthill and repurchased by Beckford at the Fonthill Sale (as a Mantegna) for £52.10s.Davies, 59 & Reitlinger, I, 122
- Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, Giovanni Bellini, bought 1807, 13 guineas, sold to NG in 1844 for £630.Davies, 55, & Reitlinger, I, 122
- ''Exhumation of Saint Hubert'', Rogier van der Weyden and workshop, bought by Beckford in 1802 for £96.12s, by NG in 1868 for £1,500.Reitlinger, I, 130 & 217
- Philip IV in Brown and Silver by Diego Velázquez, bought by NG for £6,300 at the 1882 Hamilton Palace Sale, a very high price for a Spanish painting at the time.Reitlinger, I, 135
- ''Tuccia'' and ''Sophonisba'', Andrea Mantegna, £1,785 the pair in 1882
- ''Adoration of the Magi'', Filippino Lippi,Davies, 287 £1,227 in 1882
- ''The Poulterer's Shop'', Gerrit Dou.
- ''Circumcision'', Luca Signorelli, £3,150, 1882.All 1882 prices from Reitlinger, I, 128-9
- ''St Jerome in a Landscape'', Cima da ConeglianoDavies, 145
- ''Virgin and Child with St John'', Perugino.Davies, 402
- ''Crucifixion Altarpiece'' Jacopo di Cione or "Style of Orcagna", the principal Trecento work in the collection.Davies, 398 Now in the Frick Collection:
- Claude Lorrain, ''The Sermon on the Mount'', inherited from his father, c.1656.http://collections.frick.org/Obj923
- Gentile Bellini, ''Doge Giovanni Mocenigo''Getty Provenance Index Other collections:
- the "Altieri Claudes", one now in the National Gallery of Scotland,Claude, ''Landscape with Apollo and the Muses'', 1652 a famous index of taste, as they were auctioned in 1947 for only £5,300 in 1947, when Beckford had paid £6,825 in 1799, and sold them in £10,500 in 1808, making them among the most expensive paintings of the day.Reitlinger, I, 40 & 224, précis-ed in ''Art and Money'', by Robert Hughes
- Other works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Pesellino ''Madonna and Child with Six Saints'', attributed by Beckford to Fra Angelico; Giovanni Bellini, ''Virgin and Child'', attributed by Beckford to Cima da Conegliano; Benjamin West, commemorative portraits of Beckford's grandparents, commissioned in 1797 for Fonthill Abbey,Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, "Beckford's Gothic West" ''The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin'', New Series, '''13'''.2 (October 1954), pp. 41-49 describes and illustrates Beckford objects in the Metropolitan Museum.) the 13th-century Malmesbury Abbey Limoges enamel|Limoges champlevé enamel chasse, a matching commode and secretaire made by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie Antoinette,and two from the 400-piece Meissen porcelain table service for the Prince of Orange, ca 1770; the National Gallery of Art Washington (Bronzino, ''Eleanor of Toledo''), Wallace Collection (Canaletto & Corneille de Lyon), Getty Museum (Gerrit Dou, ''Astronomer by Candlelight'').Getty Provenance Index, & Reitlinger ''passim'' Walters Art Museum (the Byzantine agate Rubens Vase), Huntington Library and Art Gallery George Romney (painter)|George Romney portrait of Beckford as a young man and his double portrait of Beckford's daughters).
- The growing database of The National Inventory of Continental European Paintings lists 20 other works from the collection in various other UK public collections.The National Inventory of Continental European Paintings

Fonthill Abbey

'The opportunity to purchase the complete library of Edward Gibbon gave Beckford the basis for his own library, and James Wyatt built Fonthill Abbey in which to house this and the owner's art collection. Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson|Lord Nelson visited Fonthill Abbey with the Hamiltons in 1800. The house was completed in 1807. Beckford entered parliament as member for Wells (UK Parliament constituency)|Wells and later for Hindon (UK Parliament constituency)|Hindon, quitting by taking the Chiltern Hundreds; but he lived mostly in seclusion, spending much of his father's wealth without adding to it. In 1822 he sold Fonthill, and a large part of his art collection, to John Farquhar for £330,000 (£{{Formatprice|}} as of ), and moved to Bath, Somerset|Bath, where he bought No. 20 Lansdown Crescent, Bath|Lansdown Crescent and No. 1 Lansdown Place West, joining them with a one-storey arch thrown across a driveway. In 1836 he also bought Nos. 18 and 19 Lansdown Crescent, Bath|Lansdown Crescent (leaving No 18 empty to ensure peace and quiet). Most of Fonthill Abbey collapsed under the weight of its poorly-built tower the night of 21 December 1825. The remains of the house were slowly removed, leaving only a fragment, which exists today as a private home.

Lansdown Crescent

He spent his later years at Lansdown Crescent, and he commissioned architect Henry Goodridge to design a spectacular folly on Lansdown Hill: Lansdown Tower, now known as Beckford's Tower, in which he kept many of his treasures. It is now owned by the Bath Preservation Trust and operated by the Beckford Tower Trust as a museum to Beckford; it is also available for hire as a holiday home from the Landmark Trust. The museum contains numerous engravings, chromolithographs of its original interior and a great deal of information about Beckford, in addition to objects related to Beckford and his life including signs and etched glasses advertising "Beckford Blend Scotch Whisky" and the skull and femur of a horse, believed to be Beckford's. After his death at Lansdown Crescent on 2 May 1844, aged 84, his body was laid in a sarcophagus placed on an artificial mound, as was the custom of Anglo-Saxons|Saxon kings from whom he claimed to be descended. Beckford had wished to be buried in the grounds of Lansdown Tower, but was instead interred at Bath Abbey cemetery in Lyncombe Vale on 11 May 1844. The Tower was sold to a local publican, who turned it into a beer garden. Eventually however it was bought back by the Beckfords' elder daughter, the Duchess of Hamilton, who gave the land around it to Walcot parish for consecration as a cemetery in 1848. This enabled Beckford to be re-buried near the Tower that he so loved. His self-designed tomb — a massive sarcophagus of pink polished granite with bronze armorial plaques — now stands on a hillock in the centre of an oval ditch. On one side of his tomb is a quotation from ''Vathek'': "Enjoying humbly the most precious gift of heaven to man - Hope"; and on another these lines from his poem, ''A Prayer'': "Eternal Power! Grant me, through obvious clouds one transient gleam Of thy bright essence in my dying hour." Goodridge designed a Byzantine entrance gateway to the cemetery, flanked by the bronze railings which had surrounded Beckford's original grave in Lyncombe Vale page 275 William Beckford 1760-1844:An eye for the Magnificent 2001, Edited by Derek E. Ostergard.

Other works

As a writer, Beckford is remembered for ''Vathek'', of which the reception from every quarter may have satisfied his ambitions for a career in ''belles-lettres'', and for his travel memoir, ''Italy: with some Sketches of Spain and Portugal''. He followed ''Vathek'' with two parodies of current cultural fashions, the formulaic sentimental novel, in ''Modern Novel Writing, or, The Elegant Enthusiast'' (1796)Noted by W.H. Rogers, "The Reaction Against Melodramatic Sentimentality in the English Novel, 1796-1830", ''Modern Language Notes'' 1934. and ''Azemia'', a satire on the Minerva Press novels.Both noted by W.H. Rogers, "The Reaction Against Melodramatic Sentimentality in the English Novel, 1796-1830", ''Modern Language Notes'' 1934. and also published ''Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters'' (1824), a literary prank burlesquing serious biographical encyclopedias. Towards the end of his life he published collected travel letters, under the title ''Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaca and Batalha'' (1835), the memoir of a trip made in 1794.

Legacy

Beckford left two daughters, the younger of whom (Susanna Euphemia) was married to Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, and inherited his collection. The elder, Margaret Maria Elizabeth Beckford, married Lt-Gen. James Orde.Gentleman's Magazine, 1822:Sept. pp. 202; ''Temple Bar'', 1900:June p.182 Beckford was memorably portrayed by Daniel Massey in the 1982 Central Television production ''I Remember Nelson'', and has been the subject of several biographies in recent decades.

Notes

References

- "Davies": National Gallery Catalogues: ''Catalogue of the Earlier Italian Schools'', Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues, London 1961, reprinted 1986, ISBN 0901791296
- Getty Provenance Research databases (Public collections etc)
- Gerald Reitlinger|Reitlinger, Gerald; ''The Economics of Taste, Vol I: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760-1960, Barrie and Rockliffe, London, 1961
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