A WONDERFUL AND RARE SET OF SIX 18TH CENTURY ENGRAVINGS BY HAMILTON
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A WONDERFUL AND RARE SET OF SIX 18TH CENTURY ENGRAVINGS BY HAMILTON
A WONDERFUL AND RARE SET OF SIX 18TH CENTURY ENGRAVINGS BY HAMILTON, William (1730-1803) – d'HANCARVILLE, Pierre François Hugues (1719-1805). Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. William Hamilton. Naples: 1766[-1776]
Hamilton is best known for the works he commissioned on his own collections of classical antiquities. The first catalogue, Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques, et Romaines Tirées du Cabinet de M. Hamilton (often abbreviated AEGR), a four-volume folio set published in Naples in 1766–67, is lushly illustrated with hand-colored engraved plates. Baron d'Hancarville (Pierre-François Hugues), a sort-of rogue scholar of antiquities, wrote the catalogue's text. D'Hancarville attempted to formulate a stylistic chronology of ancient vase painting, which was both influenced by and in contradiction to similar theories of the famous German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768). The English language version of AEGR is entitled Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Honble. Wm. Hamilton.
Sir William Hamilton financed the publication of this work which was originally intended to publicize his collection of Greek vases and thereby to encourage its purchase by the British Museum in 1772.
Hamilton is a fascinating character. As Envoy Extraordinary to Naples, he served as a British diplomat to Ferdinand I (1751–1825), King of the Two Sicilies. He was also a collector and a polymath, with an enormous sense of curiosity. His presence in the court of King Ferdinand allowed him free range to indulge in his intellectual passions, whether it was researching the eruptions of nearby Vesuvius, playing his violin with a very young Mozart, or collecting antiquities, his favorite pastime. Readers of modern fiction may be familiar with him as the protagonist in Susan Sontag's 1992 novel The Volcano Lover, while fans of British history are aware of the scandalous love affair between Hamilton's second wife, Emma (1765–1815), and Lord Horatio Nelson (1758–1805).
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