Charity: The Case History of a Pattern

In his Reflections on British Painting, Roger Fry discussed the composition of Reynolds's portrait of Lady Cockburn and her Children (P1. 57b), and suggested that it ought to be possible to find its Italian or Flemish model.' The group of pictures reproduced on plates 54-5 7 and 59 supply a somewhat formidable answer. They show that Reynolds's composition is one of many variations of a pattern originally invented by Michelangelo. There is nothing surprising in this discovery, for Reynolds has often and proudly confessed himself an admirer and disciple of that master. In his self-portrait in Florence he carries a folder which has the inscription : "Dissegni dell' immortal Buonarotti." His self-portrait in the Royal Academy shows Michelangelo's bust in the background. In his Discourses he recommends Michelangelo as the greatest model of composition, and even places his name as a memento at the end of the last page. Yet, to say (as undoubtedly we must) that the fashionable portrait of Lady Cockburn was inspired by the austere and heroic figures of Michelangelo is to state, rather than to solve, the riddle. For how could Reynolds believe that in this flattering picture of a lady with her children he was carrying on the Michelangelesque tradition? It is possible, with regard to this particular pattern, to reconstruct the entire line of descent which links the eighteenth century to the sixteenth, and connects, on the other hand, the period of Reynolds with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The place, in this genealogy, of Reynolds himself is not one which he filled by accident. Never has an artist chosen and defined his position more deliberately. When he planned the portrait of Lady Cockburn he was acquainted not only with Michelangelo's original group (P1. 54a) and its adaptation by Raphael (P1. 54c), but probably also with the bulk of the minor versions, many of which were diffused by prints. The chief Bolognese example, Carlo Cignani's 'Charity' (P1. 56a), now in Hampton Court, was in the possession of George III who had acquired it in 1762 from the collection of Consul Smith.2 Van Dyck's composition (P1. 57a), apart from being engraved, had found its way into English collections in no less than four different replicas.3 To see Reynolds administer this heritage is to watch his eclecticism in action. He was fully aware that the 'Michelangelesque tradition' was a series of surprising vicissitudes. He did not hesitate to add to their number by transposing a design of Michelangelo into portraiture -the one medium to which Michelangelo himself had been a stranger. To judge the full meaning of this innovation, it would be useful to survey the whole history of the particular design which Reynolds employed. But this would take a book. All that can be attempted in the confines of this essay is to select what appear to be the four most interesting episodes. 1 Roger Fry, Reflections on British Painting, 1934, P-. 54. S Cf. Collins Baker, Catalogue of Hampton Court, No. 248. 3 Cf. Catalogue of the Pictures at Dulwich, 1926, No. 8 i.