A Strange Business

Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain

James Hamilton

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782394310
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Britain in the nineteenth century saw a series of technological and social changes which continue to influence and direct us today. Its reactants were human genius, money and influence, its crucibles the streets and institutions, its catalyst time, its control the market.

In this rich and fascinating book, James Hamilton investigates the vibrant exchange between culture and business in nineteenth-century Britain, which became a centre for world commerce following the industrial revolution. He explores how art was made and paid for, the turns of fashion, and the new demands of a growing middle-class, prominent among whom were the artists themselves.

While leading figures such as Turner, Constable, Landseer, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Dickens are players here, so too are the patrons, financiers, collectors and industrialists; lawyers, publishers, entrepreneurs and journalists; artists' suppliers, engravers, dealers and curators; hostesses, shopkeepers and brothel keepers; quacks, charlatans and auctioneers.

Hamilton brings them all vividly to life in this kaleidoscopic portrait of the business of culture in nineteenth-century Britain, and provides thrilling and original insights into the working lives of some of our most celebrated artists.

CONTENTS

	Foreword & Acknowledgements
	List of Illustrations
	Introduction: A Sharp and Shining Point
1	Conditions of Success
2	Patron Old Style: ‘Business is often friendship’s end’
3	Patron New Style: ‘The delicate lips of a horse’
4	Painter: ‘Painting is a strange business’
5	Sculptor: Creating intelligent life
6	Dealer: ‘I have picked up a few little things’
7	Colourman: ‘The dangerous symptoms he labours under’
8	Engraver: ‘Brother scrapers’
9	Publisher: ‘Six hundred and eighty-five ways to dress eggs’
10	Curator: ‘The awful care’
11	Spectator: ‘So useful it is to have money, heigh-ho’
12	A Gigantic Birdcage
	Dramatis personae
	Bibliography
	Notes
	Index

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A Strange Business is the last in an evolving quartet of books that began with my Turner: A Life (1997), continued with Faraday: The Life (2002) and looked more widely at the social background of art and science in the nineteenth century in London Lights: The Minds that Moved the City that Shook the World (2007).

J. M. W. Turner, ‘Mr Turner’ as he has been known in our house for twenty years, is the thin red line that runs through all four books. He is an occasional presence in Faraday: The Life; he hovers about London Lights; and in A Strange Business he is a constant undercurrent, churning here, surfacing there. Beyond, around and reflected by Turner, the nineteenth is a rich and extraordinary century, a gleaming, oil-streaked, sun-drenched pool. The only way that seemed appropriate for me to approach it was with a running jump and something of a splash.

Those listed here all helped usefully and critically in bringing this book to fruition, and I thank them all warmly: Lucy Blaxland, Felicity Bryan, Julius Bryant, Claire Burnand, Neil Chambers, Robert Chenciner, James Collett-White, Nicholas Donaldson, Zach Downey, Tracey Earl, David K. Frasier, Colin Harris, Colin Harrison, Kurt G. F. Helfrich, Rosemary Hill, Jeannie Hobhouse, Frank James, Andrew Kernot, Stephen Lloyd, David McClay, John Maddicott, Martin Maw, James Miller, Sebastian Mitchell, Clare Mullett, John and Virginia Murray, Oswyn Murray, Mark Norman, Jan Piggott, Froukje Pitstra, Jonathan Reinarz, Gabrielle Rendell, Eric Shanes, Bruce and Maggie Tattersall, Jevon Thistlewood, Michele Topham, Matthew Turi, Nicholas Webb, Andrew Wilton, Joan Winterkorn, Lucy Wood, Susan Worrall and Vicky Worsfold. Staff of the Bodleian, the Royal Institution, the British Library, the National Art Library, the National Gallery Archive, the University of Birmingham Cadbury Research Library, the Barclays Bank Archive, the London Metropolitan Archives and Coutts & Co. were active and prescient in their assistance. Likewise, my love and thanks go to my family, in particular my wife Kate Eustace who has once again put up with a lot, and advised sagely.

Permissions to quote from copyright material have been generously given by Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; Bourlet; British Library Board; Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham; Lilly Library, University of Indiana; National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum; National Gallery Archives, London; National Library of Scotland; RIBA Drawings & Archive Collection, British Architectural Library; Royal Institution of Great Britain; Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. If I have inadvertently quoted copyright material without proper acknowledgement, I apologise and invite copyright holders to contact me. I would like to thank the John R. Murray Charitable Trust for a generous grant towards illustration costs. At Atlantic Books Ben Dupré, Toby Mundy and James Nightingale have been sources of strength and confidence. I thank them all.

James Hamilton
Kidlington, 2014

ILLUSTRATIONS

First section

Interior of the British Institution, 52 Pall Mall (hand-coloured etching and aquatint, published by Rudolf Ackermann, 1808) by A. C. Pugin, after Thomas Rowlandson. (British Library / Robana via Getty Images)

Interior of the National Gallery, when it was at 100 Pall Mall (watercolour, 1834) by Frederick Mackenzie. (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

The Festival of the Opening of the Vintage of Macon (oil on canvas, 1803) by J. M. W. Turner (Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, UK / Photo © Museums Sheffield / The Bridgeman Art Library)

Noli me Tangere (oil on canvas, c.1514) by Titian. (© The National Gallery, London 2014)

Waiting for the Times (oil on canvas, 1831) by Benjamin Robert Haydon. (Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library)

William Brande and Michael Faraday precipitating Prussian Blue (oil on panel, 1827), attributed to George Reinagle. (Reproduced by permission of the Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford, ref. 56477)

Thomas Coutts (marble, 1827) by Sir Francis Chantrey, Coutts Bank, London. (Photo: James Hamilton)

The Chantrey Wall at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. (Photo: James Hamilton)

James Watt’s workshop at Handsworth, Birmingham, as he left it at his death in 1819 by Jonathan Pratt (1889). (Getty Images)

Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves (oil on canvas, 1845) by J. M. W. Turner. (© Tate, London 2014)

Isabella (oil on canvas, 1848–49) by John Everett Millais. (Courtesy National Museums Liverpool)

The Random Shot (oil on canvas, 1848) by Edwin Landseer. (© Bury Art Museum, Greater Manchester, UK)

The Random Shot (engraving, 1851) by Charles Lewis, after Edwin Landseer. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Ackermann’s premises, The Repository of Arts, in the Strand, London (hand-coloured etching with aquatint, published by Rudolf Ackermann, 1809) by A. C. Pugin. (British Library / Robana via Getty Images)

Interior of Benjamin Godfrey Windus’ library and gallery at Tottenham (watercolour, 1835) by John Scarlett Davis. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Titianus redivivus [Titian reborn]; -or- the seven-wise-men consulting the new Venetian oracle, - a Scene in ye Academic Grove. No 1. (engraving, 1797) by James Gillray. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Exhibition Stare-Case (watercolour, c.1811) by Thomas Rowlandson. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Second section

The Louvre, or the National Gallery of France. No. 100, Pall Mall, or the National Gallery of England (lithograph, c.1832), published by Joseph Hogarth. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Ruins of Fonthill Abbey (lithograph, 1826) by William Westall, after John Buckler. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Pages from Turner’s ‘Academy Auditing’ sketchbook, c.1824 (© Tate, London 2014)

Entrance to the Adelphi Wharf (lithograph, 1821) by Théodore Géricault, printed by Charles Hullmandel. (© Ashmolean Museum / Mary Evans)

Paintings being delivered for selection to the Royal Academy, Trafalgar Square (wood engraving) from the Illustrated London News, 1866 (Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images)

Mr Fuseli’s Painting Room at Somerset House (watercolour, c.1825) by an unknown artist (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Portrait of J. M. W. Turner (stipple engraving, published in 1852) by Charles Turner. (© Tate, London 2014)

The Artist’s Studio (sepia drawing, c.1808) by J. M. W. Turner. (© Tate, London 2014)

Richard Cosway RA (soft ground engraving, published 1811) by William Daniell, after George Dance. (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

‘Caleb curious – the Witty Wine Merchant’: portrait of Caleb Whitefoord (hand-coloured etching, 1792) by Isaac Cruikshank. (© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved)

Self Portrait (oil on paper, 1823) by William Etty. (Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund, and Paul Mellon Fund)

Study of a Standing Nude (oil, 1820s/30s) by William Etty. (Private Collection / Photo © The Maas Gallery, London / The Bridgeman Art Library)

John Boydell, Engraver (engraving, 1772) by Valentine Green, after Josiah Boydell. (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)

Rudolf Ackermann (oil on canvas, 1810–14), attributed to Francois Nicholas Mouchet. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

William Seguier (oil on card, c.1805), attributed to John Jackson. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

Sebastian Grandi (oil on panel, 1806) by John Opie. (© Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)

Sir John Julius Angerstein (mezzotint, c.1815), after Sir Thomas Lawrence. (Getty Images)

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