RICHMOND:
database file source="h:/!Genuki/RecordTranscriptions/NRY/RichmondGuide.txt"
Robinson's Guide to Richmond (1833)
Part 23
Appendix II
Appendix II
CUIT, IBBETSON,
Remains of Ancient Art, &c.
THE name of Cuit has already been noticed
in the previous pages. The following account of this eminent artist
is taken from Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, and the History
of Richmond. He was born at Moulton, near Richmond, and shewing
very early in life a strong inclination for drawing, was patronized
by Sir Lawrence Dundas, who sent him to Rome. Having pursued his
studies there for nearly six years, with great perseverance and
skill, he returned to England and was employed by his patron in
taking the portraits of some of his grand children. Mr. Cuit was
very desirous of settling in London to follow his profession,
and took apartments for that purpose; but a slow fever, which
had for some time been troublesome, compelled him to try the benefit
of his native air. Consequently he revisited the north, and, finding
his health restored, finally settled at Richmond. There he quietly
passed the remainder of his life, painting with equal exactness
the polished features of park scenery, and the mansions of the
opulent, and the moss-grown cliffs and roaring torrents which
are so profusely scattered about in Richmond and its vicinity.
Having for a number of years secluded himself from the world of
art, he contracted a style peculiar to himself, working his pictures
as near as he could to approach the effect which the camera obscura
throws upon paper. It is the daily effect of nature, without any
poetic license of form in compositions, or violent contrast in
colouring. During Mr. Cuit's long residence in Richmond, his suavity
of manners, and inoffensive deportment, gained him the friendship
of the most respectable part of the inhabitants, to whom he was
always a welcome visitor. He died at the age of 75, on the 7th
of February, 1818.
There is another painter of still higher eminence, who, although
he never resided at Richmond, may with propriety be introduced
here, Mr. JULIUS IBBETSON,
the father of the late J. C. Ibbetson, of this town. The short
notice of his life, given by Pilkington, is very incorrect and
we therefore avail ourselves of the hints respecting his setting
out in life, contained in his ludicrous "Accidence, or Gamut
of Painting in Oil."
From his earliest youth he had a most violent propensity or
inclination to the art, without ever meeting with instruction,
encouragement, or patronage, and he at last, on making his way
to London, found himself moored in a picture dealer's garret.
Here he was employed in repairing the mischiefs done to the works
of the old masters by the sand and scrubbing brush of the merciless
picture cleaners. "I had," he says, "by a continual
acquaintance with hardship and ill usage, acquired a sort of impervious
husk or cork jacket, which enabled me to hold up my head in such
miserable situations as would have consigned to oblivion every
propensity to exertion, in any other beside myself. The least
attempt at painting any thing of my own was discouraged to the
last degree, by the gloomy fanatic with whom I was a prisoner,
prisoner I may well call myself; instead of raising my pittance,
on which I could not exist, he would advance me trifling sums,
and I became his debtor. Seven whole years that I lost in that
manner, I had the dread of the consequences hanging over me. I
never knew the amount till the consummate hypocrite had me arrested,
at the moment of my setting out on the first embassy to China.For
what? Forty Pounds, which had been seven years accumulating. This
last indignity almost broke my heart."
"My drawings, which were only to be seen in the shop windows,
as I was entirely unknown, had attracted the notice of some persons
of taste, who, with great difficulty, discovered me. I was, all
at once, noticed in a manner totally new to me; by people, so
contrasted to the sordid vermin with whom only I had been concerned
till then, that it was no wonder I was elevated beyond measure."
He now rose to such eminence in his profession, that his landscapes
were eagerly sought for by collectors of the first rank. The late
Mr. West, very appropriately, called him the Berghem of England.
He afterwards retired to Masham, his native place, and died there
in the year 1817. Good specimens of his style have now become
scarce and severa1 of them have lately been sold at very high
prices.
Whilst on the subject of artists, we may notice a curious old
painting preserved in the Bede House, or Hospital, on Anchorage
Hill, which was founded in the year 1607, by Mrs. Elenor Bowes,
upon the ruins of a chapel dedicated to St. Edmund. It is a
PORTRAIT OF
QUEEN
ELIZABETH, decked out with a profusion of lace
and jewels. The vanity of the virgin Queen has often been the
subject of historical remark, and such an ascendancy did this
feeling acquire over her sounder judgment, that in the latter
part of her reign she issued a proclamation against setting up
ill-favoured likenesses of her royal visage. She also strictly
forbid any shadow to be introduced in her portraits, so that it
was difficult to give them any other appearance than that of a
flat flesh coloured surface. The latter peculiarity is strikingly
apparent in the picture at the Bode House, and may, in some degree,
be considered a proof of its authenticity, though it detracts
much from its effect as a work of art. It has lately been cleaned,
so as to restore the original colours, which had become almost
concealed under a coat of smoke and dirt.
When part of the west end of the castle fell down, some years
ago, a curious horn and large silver spoon were discovered, and
sent to the Duke of Richmond. The silver spur of a Knight has
also since been found in the castle, and enriches the cabinet
of one of our townsmen.
In the year 1720, upwards of 600 Roman silver coins, of Constantius,
Julianus, Valentinianus, &c., were discovered in a crevice
of the rock at the south-east corner of the bottom of the castle
hill. Gale ingeniously supposes that some rich citizen of Catterick,
(the Roman Cataractonium) allured by the pleasantness of the woods
and water, had fixed his villa here, and trusting to the solitude
of the place, buried this treasure at the approach of the Saxons,
or on his being called off on a distant excursion. Others take
this as a proof that the Roman City of Cataractonium was actually
situated here, close to the cataract, from which its name seems
to be derived: but the weight of evidence certainly preponderates
in favor of the claim of Catterick.
A number of common English coins, of various dates, from Henry
III. downwards, have been found at different times in and around
the town; and pieces about the reigns of Henry VIII. and his children,
are frequently discovered in the rubbish of old houses, which
is generally shot into the Swale, below the bridge; the first
succeeding flood washes away the crumbling fragments of lime,
&c., and leaves the coins in the crevices which intersect
the rocky bed of the stream; and they then, of course, become
a tempting object of research to the juvenile antiquaries of the
neighbouring streets.
Data transcribed from:
Robinson's Guide to Richmond (1833)
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