Allegorical Tomb of Joseph Addison (1642-1719) essayist and poet
Donato Creti (1671 - 1749)
Carlo Besoli (1707 - 1754)
Nunzio Ferraiuoli (1660 - 1735)
Oil on canvas
c.1721-
About the work
- 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).
-
Explore
- 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
-
Details
- 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