Lot 206: Thomas Patch (Exeter 1725-1782 Florence)

Thomas Patch (Exeter 1725-1782 Florence) A view of the Arno, Florence, from the Cascine Gardens, with the Ponte alla Carità, the Ponte Vecchio beyond oil on canvas 35 ¼ x 49 in. (89.5 x 124.5 cm.)

89.5 x 124.5 cm.

Col. Henry Abel Smith (1862-1930), Woodhall Park, Hertfordshire, and by decent to, Reginald Abel Smith; Sotheby's, London, 23 July 1952, lot 60 (£260 to Agnew's on behalf of the late owner).

Born in Exeter, Thomas Patch travelled to Rome in 1747, where he met Joshua Reynolds and worked in the studio of the French landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet. Expelled from the Papal States in 1755, probably on grounds of ‘moral turpitude’ (E. Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters in oils and crayons, Woodbridge, 1981, p. 69), he settled in Florence establishing a successful painting practice helped by his friendship with Sir Horace Mann, the British Envoy to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which gave him introductions to the touring British milordi. The latter were a key source of patronage and it was principally for this group that Patch executed his celebrated views in and around Florence This view is taken from the Cascine Gardens, looking East along the River Arno with the Ponte alla Carità and the Ponte Vecchio beyond. Brunelleschi’s Cupola for the city’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, and Giotto’s Campanile can be seen through the trees of the Cascine Gardens on the extreme left, with the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio on the right. The church of San Frediano in Cestello flanks the right of the composition on the Oltrarno side of the river, with the church of San Miniato visible in the distance. When sold at Sotheby’s in 1952, the present work was preceded by its companion picture, showing a view of the Arno from above the Ponte alle Grazie on the south side of the river. This view can be compared with the picture, dated 1771, in the collection of the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Houghton Hall, Norfolk (see F.J.B. Watson, ‘Thomas Patch (1725-1782)’, The Walpole Society, XXVIII, Oxford, 1940, p. 39, no. 25). We are grateful to Fausta Navarro for conforming the attribution to Patch and for dating the picture to the 1770s.