AFA Summer 2019

Summer 104 www.afamag.com |  www.incollect.com WINTERTHUR PRIMER W ith her flowing skirts, glinting pearl earrings, and demure blush, Lady Anne Fortescue (née Campbell) is poised before a cluster of trees, a landscape stretching behind her (Fig. 1). The portrait is characteristic of work by Francis Cotes, a mid- eighteenth-century English artist. But this painting in the Winterthur collection is not by his hand; Cotes’ original was transformed into a mezzotint by engraver James Watson (ca. 1739–1790), which was published in London and subsequently traveled to Canton, where it inspired a Chinese artist to paint this version of Lady Fortescue in the reverse glass technique, also referred to as églomisé. Chinese artists first began to make paintings on mirrors and glass following the arrival of Jesuits who brought examples with them. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Father Giuseppe Castiglione of Milan arrived in China after the Kangxi Emperor, Xuanye, requested the imperial court be supplied with a painter on glass. 1 A market for reverse glass painting subsequently developed in Canton, and by the 1770s, Spoilum (active 1785–1810), one of two known painters on glass to sign his work, was creating portraits of ship captains and merchants. 2 While Spoilum’s portraits are often painted with a gray backdrop, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, other artists were setting full-length portraits of European visitors, painted in reverse, in a distinctly Chinese landscape, such as that of a Mrs. and Miss Revell, in the Peabody Essex Museum collections. These portraits satisfied an early market for specially commissioned work, but by the 1780s paintings based upon European and American prints were being created for export. Another artist, Fatqua (active 1810–1830), is known to have re-created several prints, including a portrayal of Hebe with Zeus as an Eagle. Oftentimes, the subjects selected were allegorical in nature, from Edward Savage’s Liberty (Fig. 2) to representations of a sailor’s farewell. A watercolor in the Victoria and Albert Museum depicts a Chinese reverse glass painter at work, while an original print is An English Lady Inspires A Chinese Artist by Oliva Armandroff Fig. 1: Interior of library. A William Morris tapestry is over the shelves at far end of the room. A long library table with chairs and at the end sits the wooden Byrdcliffe card catalogue. Modern print from glass plate negative. Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (Collection 209, 92x39.1140.11c). Fig. 1: Unknown artist, after Francis Cotes, Portrait of Lady Anne Fortescue (née Campbell), 1785–1800. China. Oil paint, glass. 12⅘ x 19⁄10 inches. Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont (1956.38.132 A). Courtesy, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. mounted above him for reference; by virtue of this technique, the scene was painted in reverse. 3 Artists used a layered technique, adding thin washes of color that they then highlighted from the back with white. The Chinese artist responsible for Lady Fortescue’s reverse glass painting was working from Watson’s mezzotint rather than Cotes’ original, which he would not have seen. Rather than recreate the richer tones used by many British artists such as Cotes, Chinese artists of this period who were creating reverse paintings on glass worked in palettes they favored, which gravitated to pastel hues as seen in figure 1. 4