William Thomas Beckford
Encyclopedia
William Thomas Beckford (1 October 1760 – 2 May 1844), usually known as William Beckford, was an 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
from 1784 to 1790, for Hindon
from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820. 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.
. At the age of ten, he inherited a fortune consisting of £1 million in cash (£ as of ),, land at Fonthill
(including the Palladian mansion
Fonthill Splendens) in Wiltshire
, and several sugar plantations in Jamaica
from his father 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 5 May 1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the fourth Earl of Aboyne
. However, Beckford was bisexual, and was hounded out of polite English society when his letters to the Hon William Courtenay
, later 9th Earl of Devon
, were intercepted by the boy's uncle, who advertised the affair in the newspapers. 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.
Having studied under 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 (1834), full of brilliant descriptions of scenes and manners. In 1793 he visited Portugal
, where he settled for a period.
hardstone carving
s. But although he avoided the 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 a single 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, 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. 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. 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
", republished in Hazlitt's Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England (1824), and richly demonstrating his own prejudices. Beckford pieces are now in museums all over the world. 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 toyshop at Strawberry Hill
".
:
Now in the Frick Collection
:
Other collections:
'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. Lord Nelson
visited Fonthill Abbey with the Hamiltons in 1800. The house was completed in 1807. Beckford entered parliament as member for Wells
and later for 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 (£ as of ), and moved to Bath, where he bought No. 20 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 (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. This interestingly is the first part which included the shrine to St Anthony — Beckford's patron when he was living in Lisbon.
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 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.
, a satire on the Minerva Press
novels. and also published Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780), 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.
, and inherited his collection. The elder, Margaret Maria Elizabeth Beckford, married Lt-Gen. James Orde.
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.
Works
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, reputed to be the richest commoner
Commoner
In British law, a commoner is someone who is neither the Sovereign nor a peer. Therefore, any member of the Royal Family who is not a peer, such as Prince Harry of Wales or Anne, Princess Royal, is a commoner, as is any member of a peer's family, including someone who holds only a courtesy title,...
in England. He was Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Wells
Wells (UK Parliament constituency)
Wells is a county constituency centred on the city of Wells in Somerset. It elects one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, by the first past the post voting system...
from 1784 to 1790, for Hindon
Hindon (UK Parliament constituency)
Hindon was a parliamentary borough consisting of the village of Hindon in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1448 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act...
from 1790 to 1795 and 1806 to 1820. He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek
Vathek
Vathek is a Gothic novel written by William Beckford...
, the builder of the remarkable lost Fonthill Abbey
Fonthill Abbey
Fonthill Abbey — also known as Beckford's Folly — was a large Gothic revival country house built around the turn of the 19th century at Fonthill Gifford in Wiltshire, England, at the direction of William Thomas Beckford and architect James Wyatt...
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 SquareSoho Square
Soho Square is a square in Soho, London, England, with a park and garden area at its centre that dates back to 1681. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, whose statue stands in the square. At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut...
. At the age of ten, he inherited a fortune consisting of £1 million in cash (£ as of ),, land at Fonthill
Fonthill Gifford
Fonthill Gifford is a village in Wiltshire, England. Its population has dwindled from 493 in the 1801 Census to 120 in the 2001 Census.The current Church of England parish church of All Saints was built in 1864–66 to designs by the Gothic Revival architect T.H. Wyatt...
(including the Palladian mansion
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
Fonthill Splendens) in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, and several sugar plantations in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
from his father William Beckford
William Beckford (politician)
William Beckford was a well-known political figure in 18th century London, who twice held the office of Lord Mayor of London . His vast wealth came largely from his plantations in Jamaica...
, 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
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
and architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, as well as writing. He was briefly trained in music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, but his drawing master Alexander Cozens
Alexander Cozens
Alexander Cozens was a British landscape painter in watercolours, a published teacher of painting, and father of John Robert Cozens.-Life:...
had a much greater influence on him, and Beckford continued to correspond with him for some years until their falling-out.
On 5 May 1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the fourth Earl of Aboyne
Charles Gordon, 4th Earl of Aboyne
Charles Gordon, 4th Earl of Aboyne . The eldest son of John Gordon, 3rd Earl of Aboyne and Grace Lockhart, he succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Aboyne on 7 April 1732...
. However, Beckford was bisexual, and was hounded out of polite English society when his letters to the Hon William Courtenay
William Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon
William "Kitty" Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon was the youngest son of William Courtenay, 2nd Viscount Courtenay and his wife Frances Clack. He was baptized on 30 August 1768....
, later 9th Earl of Devon
Earl of Devon
The title of Earl of Devon was created several times in the Peerage of England, and was possessed first by the de Redvers family, and later by the Courtenays...
, were intercepted by the boy's uncle, who advertised the affair in the newspapers. 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
James Beckford Wildman
James Beckford Wildman was an English landowner and Tory politician who served as a Member of Parliament for Colchester from 1818 to 1826. His properties included plantations in Jamaica and Chilham Castle in Kent, England, which he sold in 1861. The Jamaican plantation, Quebec Estate, was...
was particularly costly. Only £80,000 of his capital remained at his death.
Having studied under Sir William Chambers
William Chambers (architect)
Sir William Chambers was a Scottish architect, born in Gothenburg, Sweden, where his father was a merchant. Between 1740 and 1749 he was employed by the Swedish East India Company making several voyages to China where he studied Chinese architecture and decoration.Returning to Europe, he studied...
and Alexander Cozens
Alexander Cozens
Alexander Cozens was a British landscape painter in watercolours, a published teacher of painting, and father of John Robert Cozens.-Life:...
, Beckford journeyed in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
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 (1834), full of brilliant descriptions of scenes and manners. In 1793 he visited Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, where he settled for a period.
Art collection
Beckford was a compulsive and restless collector, who also frequently sold works, sometimes later repurchasing them. His collection was notable for its many Italian Quattrocento paintings, then little collected and relatively inexpensive. 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 MughalMughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
hardstone carving
Hardstone carving
Hardstone carving is a general term in art history and archaeology for the carving for artistic purposes of semi-precious stones, also known as gemstones, such as jade, rock crystal , agate, onyx, jasper, serpentine or carnelian, and for an object made in this way. Normally the objects are small,...
s. But although he avoided the 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 a single Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
in 1800, when the artist was only 25 (The Fifth Plague of Egypt, £157.10s), and in 1828 William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's drawings for Gray's Elegy, as well as several works by Richard Parkes Bonington
Richard Parkes Bonington
Richard Parkes Bonington was an English Romantic landscape painter. One of the most influential British artists of his time, the facility of his style was inspired by the old masters, yet was entirely modern in its application.-Life and work:Richard Parkes Bonington was born in the town of Arnold,...
, 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. Fonthill, with part of his collection was sold before the sale for £330,000 to John Farquhar
John Farquhar (arms dealer)
John Farquhar , was a Scottish millionaire.Farquhar was born of humble parents at Bilbo, parish of Crimond, Aberdeenshire. In early life he went to India as cadet in the Bombay establishment, but soon after his arrival received a dangerous wound in the hip, which seriously affected his health, and...
, who had made a fortune selling gunpowder in India. 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
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
'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
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
", republished in Hazlitt's Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England (1824), and richly demonstrating his own prejudices. Beckford pieces are now in museums all over the world. 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 toyshop at Strawberry Hill
Strawberry Hill House
Strawberry Hill is the Gothic Revival villa of Horace Walpole which he built in the second half of the 18th century in what is now an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham, London...
".
Works owned by Beckford
Now in National Gallery, LondonNational Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
:
- Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Raphael)Saint Catherine of Alexandria (Raphael)Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. In the painting, Catherine of Alexandria is looking upward in ecstasy and leaning on a wheel - an allusion to the breaking wheel of her martyrdom....
; the National Gallery paid c £6,000 in 1839, as part of a bulk purchase from Beckford. - Agony in the Garden (Bellini)Agony in the Garden (Bellini)The Agony in the Garden is an early painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, who painted it around 1459-65. It is in the National Gallery, London....
, bought at the Joshua ReynoldsJoshua ReynoldsSir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
sale in 1795 for £5, sold with Fonthill and repurchased by Beckford at the Fonthill Sale (as a MantegnaAndrea MantegnaAndrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
) for £52.10s. - Portrait of Doge Leonardo LoredanPortrait of Doge Leonardo LoredanThe Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, dating from 1501. It is on display in the National Gallery in London....
, Giovanni BelliniGiovanni BelliniGiovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
, bought 1807, 13 guineas, sold to NG in 1844 for £630. - 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.
- Philip IV in Brown and SilverPhilip IV in Brown and SilverThe Portrait of Philip IV or Philip IV in Brown and Silver is a portrait of Philip IV of Spain painted by Diego Velázquez. It is popularly known as Silver Philip and is now on show in the National Gallery in London....
by Diego VelázquezDiego VelázquezDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
, bought by NG for £6,300 at the 1882 Hamilton PalaceHamilton PalaceHamilton Palace was a large country house located north-east of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The former seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, it was built in 1695 and subsequently much enlarged. The house was demolished in 1921 due to ground subsidence despite inadequate evidence for that...
Sale, a very high price for a Spanish painting at the time. - Tuccia and Sophonisba, Andrea MantegnaAndrea MantegnaAndrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
, £1,785 the pair in 1882 - Adoration of the Magi, Filippino LippiFilippino LippiFilippino Lippi was an Italian painter working during the High Renaissance in Florence, Italy.-Biography:...
, £1,227 in 1882 - The Poulterer's Shop, Gerrit Dou.
- Circumcision, Luca SignorelliLuca SignorelliLuca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening...
, £3,150, 1882. - St Jerome in a Landscape, Cima da ConeglianoCima da ConeglianoGiovanni Battista Cima, also called Cima da Conegliano was an Italian Renaissance painter.-Biography:Giovanni Battista Cima was born at Conegliano, now part of the province of Treviso, in 1459 or 1460...
- Virgin and Child with St John, Perugino.
- Crucifixion Altarpiece Jacopo di CioneJacopo di CioneJacopo di Cione was an Italian painter.Born in Florence between 1320 and 1330, he is closely associated with his three older brothers Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo , Nardo di Cione and Matteo di Cione. The di Cione brothers often worked collaboratively...
or "Style of Orcagna", the principal TrecentoTrecentoThe Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...
work in the collection.
Now in the Frick Collection
Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States.- History :It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick House, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt...
:
- Claude LorrainClaude LorrainClaude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French Claude Gellée, , dit le Lorrain) Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French...
, The Sermon on the Mount, inherited from his father, c.1656. - Gentile BelliniGentile BelliniGentile Bellini was an Italian painter. From 1474 he was the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice.- Biography :...
, Doge Giovanni Mocenigo
Other collections:
- the "Altieri Claudes", now at Anglesey AbbeyAnglesey AbbeyAnglesey Abbey is a country house, formerly a priory, in the village of Lode, 5 ½ miles northeast of Cambridge, England. The house and its grounds are owned by the National Trust and are open to the public as part of the Anglesey Abbey, Garden & Lode Mill property, although some parts remain...
, "The Father of Psyche Sacrificing at the Temple of Apollo", 1663 and "The Landing of Aeneas" painted in 1675. A famous index of taste, as they were auctioned from the estate of HRH the Duke of Kent in 1947 for only £5,300 in 1947 and bought by Lord Fairhaven for Anglesey Abbey, when Beckford had paid £6,825 in 1799, and sold them in £10,500 in 1808 and Philip John Miles paid £12,000 for them in 1813 to hang them at Leigh CourtLeigh CourtLeigh Court is a country house which is a Grade II* listed building in Abbots Leigh, Somerset, England.The manor of Leigh at the time of the Norman Conquest belonged to the lordship of Bedminster but William the Conqueror awarded it to the Bishop of Coutances...
, making them among the most expensive paintings of the day. - The Fonthill VaseFonthill VaseThe Fonthill Vase, also called the Gaignières-Fonthill Vase after François Roger de Gaignières and William Beckford's Fonthill Abbey, is a bluish-white Qingbai Chinese porcelain vase dated to 1300-1340 CE. It is the earliest documented Chinese porcelain object to have reached Europe...
, a 14th century Chinese porcelain vase which is the earliest known piece of Chinese porcelain to arrive in Europe, where it was given 14th century metal mounts. Now in the National Museum of IrelandNational Museum of IrelandThe National Museum of Ireland is the national museum in Ireland. It has three branches in Dublin and one in County Mayo, with a strong emphasis on Irish art, culture and natural history.-Archaeology:...
. - Other works are in the Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York (Pesellino Madonna and Child with Six Saints, attributed by Beckford to Fra Angelico; Giovanni BelliniGiovanni BelliniGiovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
, Virgin and Child, attributed by Beckford to Cima da Conegliano; Benjamin WestBenjamin WestBenjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
, commemorative portraits of Beckford's grandparents, commissioned in 1797 for Fonthill Abbey,) the 13th-century Malmesbury Abbey Limoges champlevé enamelLimoges enamelLimoges enamel was produced at Limoges, France, already the most famous, but not the most high quality, European center of vitreous enamel production by the 12th century; its works were known as Opus de Limogia or Labor Limogiae...
chasseChasse (casket)A chasse or box reliquary is a shape commonly used in medieval metalwork for reliquaries and other containers. To the modern eye the form resembles a house, though a tomb or church was more the intention, with an oblong base, straight sides and two sloping top faces meeting at a central ridge,...
, a matching commodeCommodeA commode, commode with legs, or commode on legs is any of several pieces of furniture. The word commode comes from the French word for "convenient" or "suitable", which in turn comes from the Latin adjective commodus, with similar meanings.Originally, in French furniture, a commode introduced...
and secretaire made by Jean-Henri Riesener for Marie AntoinetteMarie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
,and two from the 400-piece Meissen porcelainMeissen porcelainMeissen porcelain or Meissen china is the first European hard-paste porcelain that was developed from 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. After his death that October, Johann Friedrich Böttger, continued his work and brought porcelain to the market...
table service for the Prince of Orange, ca 1770; the National Gallery of ArtNational Gallery of ArtThe National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
Washington (Bronzino, Eleanor of Toledo), Wallace CollectionWallace CollectionThe Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
(CanalettoCanalettoGiovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...
& Corneille de LyonCorneille de LyonCorneille de Lyon was a Dutch painter of portraits who was active from 1533 until his death in Lyon, France...
), Getty Museum (Gerrit Dou, Astronomer by Candlelight). Walters Art MuseumWalters Art MuseumThe Walters Art Museum, located in Baltimore, Maryland's Mount Vernon neighborhood, is a public art museum founded in 1934. The museum's collection was amassed substantially by two men, William Thompson Walters , who began serious collecting when he moved to Paris at the outbreak of the American...
(the Byzantine agate Rubens Vase), Huntington Library and Art Gallery George RomneyGeorge Romney (painter)George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures - including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson....
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.
Fonthill Abbey
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
gave Beckford the basis for his own library, and James Wyatt
James Wyatt
James Wyatt RA , was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical style, who far outdid Adam in his work in the neo-Gothic style.-Early classical career:...
built Fonthill Abbey
Fonthill Abbey
Fonthill Abbey — also known as Beckford's Folly — was a large Gothic revival country house built around the turn of the 19th century at Fonthill Gifford in Wiltshire, England, at the direction of William Thomas Beckford and architect James Wyatt...
in which to house this and the owner's art collection. Lord Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
visited Fonthill Abbey with the Hamiltons in 1800. The house was completed in 1807. Beckford entered parliament as member for Wells
Wells (UK Parliament constituency)
Wells is a county constituency centred on the city of Wells in Somerset. It elects one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, by the first past the post voting system...
and later for Hindon
Hindon (UK Parliament constituency)
Hindon was a parliamentary borough consisting of the village of Hindon in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1448 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act...
, quitting by taking the Chiltern Hundreds
Chiltern Hundreds
Appointment to the office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham is a sinecure appointment which is used as a device allowing a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament to resign his or her seat...
; 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 (£ as of ), and moved to Bath, where he bought No. 20 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 (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. This interestingly is the first part which included the shrine to St Anthony — Beckford's patron when he was living in Lisbon.
Lansdown Crescent
He spent his later years at Lansdown Crescent, and he commissioned architect Henry GoodridgeHenry Goodridge
Henry Edmund Goodridge was an architect whose work started in the 1820s.-Works:Goodridge's neoclassical buildings in Bath include:* Cleveland Bridge;* one of the earliest shopping arcades...
to design a spectacular folly on Lansdown Hill: Lansdown Tower, now known as Beckford's Tower
Beckford's Tower
Beckford's Tower, originally known as Lansdown Tower, is an architectural folly built in neo-classical style on Lansdown Hill, just outside Bath, Somerset, England....
, in which he kept many of his treasures. It is now owned by the Bath Preservation Trust
Bath Preservation Trust
The Bath Preservation Trust is an independent charity based in Bath, Somerset, England which exists to safeguard the historic character of the city of Bath, the only complete city in the UK that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and to champion its sustainable future. The Trust is funded entirely...
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
Landmark Trust
The Landmark Trust is a British building conservation charity, founded in 1965 by Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or architectural merit and then gives them a new life by making them available for holiday rental...
. 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 Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
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
Bath Abbey Cemetery
The Anglican Bath Abbey Cemetery, officially dedicated as the Cemetery of St Peter and St Paul , was laid out by noted cemetery designer and landscape architect John Claudius Loudon in 1843 on a picturesque hillside site overlooking Bath, Somerset, England...
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.
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) and AzemiaAzemia
Azemia is a satirical novel, written by William Thomas Beckford, that was first published in 1797. The book parodies what Beckford considered sensationalist writing, as well as political issues of the time.- Volume I :...
, a satire on the Minerva Press
Minerva Press
Minerva Press was a publishing house, noted for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction in the late 18th century and early 19th century...
novels. and also published Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780), 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 HamiltonAlexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton
Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton, 7th Duke of Brandon KG PC FRS FSA was a Scottish politician and art collector....
, and inherited his collection. The elder, Margaret Maria Elizabeth Beckford, married Lt-Gen. James Orde.
Beckford was memorably portrayed by Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (actor)
Daniel Raymond Massey was an English actor and performer. He is possibly best known for his starring role in the British TV drama The Roads to Freedom, as Daniel, alongside Michael Bryant...
in the 1982 Central Television production I Remember Nelson, and has been the subject of several biographies in recent decades.
Cultural references
According to E. H. Coleridge, Beckford is the person referred to in Lord Byron's short poem, "To Dives — A Fragment." Byron describes a person of great wealth, "of Wit, in Genius, as in Wealth the first," who feels "Wrath's vial on thy lofty head burst" when he is "seduced to deeds accurst" and "smitten with th' unhallowed thirst of Crime unnamed." Byron also refers to him in Childe Harold, Canto I, stanza 22. (The poems are readily retrievable online from many sources, as is Coleridge's edition of Byron's works.)External links
- Beckfordiana: The William Beckford Website
- Fonthill Abbey entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses
- His Obituary from the Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, p. 3
- A Visit to Fonthill — history of Beckford's Fonthill Abbey and Bath tower
- Images of Lansdown Tower (Beckford's Tower) in Bath
- Bath Preservation Trust
- Landmark Trust
Works
- Works by or about William Beckford at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) - Free eBooks by William Beckford at Manybooks
- Online edition of Vathek at eBooks@Adelaide
- Recollections of the late William Beckford, by Henry Venn Lansdown, edited by Charlotte Lansdown, 1893, from Project Gutenberg