Lot 188: JACOB MORE 1740 - 1793

VARIOUS PROPERTIES

THE ERUPTION OF ETNA, WITH THE PIOUS BROTHERS OF CATALNIA

measurements note
146 by 199 cm., 57½ by 78½ in.

signed and dated l.c.:Jacob More / Rome 1787.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Acquired from the artist's studio by John Smith Barry, Marbury Hall;
By descent at Marbury Hall until 1819;
Anon. sale, Christie's, 10th April 1992, lot 55

EXHIBITED

Royal Academy, 1788, no.837

LITERATURE

The artist's MS Letterbook (Edinburgh University Library, f.42 to Mr Sandys 3rd January 1787, f.49 to Lord Bristol 11th January 1787, f.63 to John Smith Barry 19th May 1787);
Memorie per le Belle Arti, Volume III, 1787, pp.29-32;
A Catalogue of Paintings, Statues, Busts etc. at Marbury Hall, the seat of John Smith Barry Esq. in the County of Chester, 1819;
Patricia Andrew, 'Jacob More, Biography and a Checklist of Works', Walpole Society, Vol.LV, 1989-1990, B.19, Fig.130

NOTE

The present dramatic composition represents the story of Ansinomo and Anapio rescuing their elderly parents from the eruption of Etna, and carrying them to a waiting boat. This story is recorded in the writings of Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian of the first century B.C.

More's painting of this subject was clearly inspired by the discovery of the ruins of Pompeii in 1770. The discovery of a fossilised city was itself romantic and intriguing, but combined with the artistic possibilities of using shadow and light which could derive from depicting an eruption, paintings of volcanoes provided artists with an unmissable opportunity. Joseph Wright of Derby first exhibited a painting of the subject as early as 1776, and subsequently painted a series of paintings of the eruption of Vesuvius. More himself had painted a Last Days of Pompeii which now hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland.

More left Edinburgh in 1767 to travel to Italy. He is recorded as being in Rome in 1771, and he quickly established an impressive reputation. Frederick Hervey, 4^th Earl of Bristol, was More's most important patron, and More soon became the sole agent for acquiring works for Ickworth and Downhill. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that Jacob More ever went to Sicily, and the present composition is an attractive mix of natural realism, and traditional history painting. The reviewer in the Memorie per le Belle Arti writes that More "has portrayed Nature with extraordinary fidelity, and like a tragedy, the picture both terrifies and delights at the same time" (op. cit.). The painting was conceived as a pair with The Deluge, and More was clearly keen to combine dramatic visual effects on a monumental scale. It was in the collection of John Smith Barry at Marbury Hall, who travelled to Italy in late 1771. In Rome he met Thomas Jenkins who began to sell him paintings and antiquities. He acquired art voraciously, and by 1814 there were recorded to have been 325 pictures and over sixty antiquities at Marbury Hall.