Brudenell, John Montagu, Lord

(1735 - 70), o. s. of 4th E. of Cardigan (cr. D. of Montagu 1766); educ. Eton; MP 1761 - 2; sty. Ld. Brudenell - 1762 when cr. B. Montagu of Boughton; sty. M. of Monthermer 1766; Dilettanti 1764; unm.

1754 - 60 Genoa (Dec. 1754 - Jan. 1755), Rome (Apr. 1756), Naples (by 27 Apr. - Aug. - ) with visits to Benevento (8 Jun.) and Paestum ( - 14 Jun.); Sicily (by 3 Nov.) [with visit to Malta, early Nov.] Naples (25 Nov. 1756 - 27 Apr. 1757), Calabria (Taranto), Rome (1757 - Sep. 1758) with visit to Naples (Feb. 1758); Venice (by 21 Sep. 1758 - 24 Feb. 1760)

At the age of seventeen Lord Brudenell was sent abroad with his tutor Henry Lyte.1 By November 1751 they were in Paris, where they appear to have stayed some considerable time before arriving in Genoa in December 1754. Their Italian tour was to be remarkable both for the itinerary, which led them to hitherto unfamiliar areas, and for their extensive patronage of Italian artists. But when Robert Adam first saw them in the Balbi Palace he thought Brudenell 'a stupid meaningless creature [who] has not the mein of a tailor nor the spirit of a louse', although Lyte appeared to be 'a clever-like fellow'.2 By contrast Lyte, while at times vexed by Brudenell's dilatory and original behaviour, described his charge as 'a good observer both of Men & Things, but avoids the former a little too much. Tho' when they happen to fall in his way He will see as far into them in half an hour, as most other young men will in half a year' (11 Feb. 1758).

They were expected in Rome in the autumn of 17553 (when Adam told his family that Brudenell wanted, but couldn't have, his apartment on the Strada Felice), but it was April 1756 before they finally arrived. They stayed only for Holy Week before proceeding to Naples, where they lodged with Sir William Stanhope 'and our consul Mr Jemineau' (27 Apr. 1756) and where they were to remain based for a year. Despite Lyte's inclination to return to Rome, Brudenell explored Magna Graecia and he was amongst the first travellers to see the newly discovered Doric temples at Paestum (15 Jun.). They visited Ischia twice, on 25 May and, with Jamineau, on 8 August, and they went on to Malta and Sicily, where Girgenti 'pleases my lord Brudenell and me beyond measure' (3 Nov.). They had spent two weeks in Palermo before returning to Naples on 25 November (30 Nov.). It had originally been agreed with his father (Lord Cardigan) that Brudenell should return to Paris for the winter, but this was prevented by the outbreak of the Seven Years War (8 Jun.); Cardigan eventually agreed they should stay in Italy (30 Nov.). They were expected back in Rome in December 1756,4 'where', Lyte confessed to Cardigan, 'your Lordship had all the reason in the World to imagine we were arriv'd some months since' (5 Apr. 1757), but Brudenell stayed in Naples. 'It would have been both more entertaining and improving to my Lord Brudenell, had he pass'd the three or four last months at Rome, instead of continuing so long in this part of the World, but his Lordship is of a different opinion, having seen, he says, as much as He desires of Rome' (18 Apr. 1757). On 27 April Brudenell set out on a Calabrian expedition to Taranto, which he later discussed with Winckelmann.5 They then returned to Rome, though they were to pay another fifteen-day visit to Naples in February 1758 (7 Feb. 1758).

Back at Rome, where they stayed in the Casa Guarnieri,6 Lyte became both agent and connoisseur for Brudenell and Lord Cardigan. He had already tried unsuccessfully in 1757 to acquire works by Correggio from Parma (14 Mar. 1757), and by Guido Reni and Albani from the Sampieri collection in Bologna (19 Jul. 1756); now he approached Thomas Jenkins, 'very skilfull in his profession and a worthy honest man' (8 Mar. 1758). 'Piranesi, Russel, Jenkins, and their crew ... had so prepossessed my lord Brudenell', complained John Parker to Lord Charlemont, 'that I could never get admittance ... to his lordship (with whom the year before I had dined several times, invited by his lordship)'.7 Of contemporary artists, Brudenell had visited Jonathan Skelton by 20 August (though he had at first been deterred by the artist's association with Andrew Lumisden),8 and he sat to both Batoni (for a half-length) and Mengs (a whole-length). 'They have promised to finish them out of hand and they will both be fine pictures', Lyte reported (8 Mar. 1758), 'the more so as there is a great emulation between those two celebrated painters'. Mengs showed him whole-length, in his study before a bust of Cicero (Boughton), Batoni half-length with a lute and the score of a Corelli violin sonata (Clark/Bowron 202; Boughton) and the portraits were finished by 21 June. Mengs also painted a half-length portrait of Brudenell (Beaulieu) and a head of Lyte (Brinsley Ford coll.). In Naples Brudenell had already (it appears) commissioned from Antonio Joli at least thirty-eight French, Italian and Sicilian views (of which sixteen remain at Beaulieu and eight at Bowhill) and large pendant views of Vesuvius and Naples from Carlo Bonavia (Beaulieu and Bowhill).9

Older masters were not neglected. Brudenell bought a huge Giordano Truth finding Fortune in the Sea (Drumlanrig) for £;50; 'he has for once passed over the limits prescribed him', commented Lyte (8 Mar. 1758), 'which he will avoid doing in his future purchases as I most certainly shall'. Lyte bought a little Annibale Carracci for Lord Cardigan (8 March), and a copy of Raphael's Uffizi Self portrait by Jenkins. By 21 June works by Titian ('representing [as they say] A Mistress of the Duke of Ferrara') and Raphael had been acquired, 'so that your Lordship now has a picture of each of the three great masters (Titian, Raphael and Annibale Carracci) which we think ourselves happy in having procured for you, the like of which we should not be able to meet with in many years'; all were to be sent back to England with the portraits by Mengs and Batoni 'on the next convoy' (21 Jun.).

'Three Antique heads, two of which are as fine as any in the world' had been bought by 3 May 1758, and modern bronze copies of the centaurs from Hadrian's Villa (Lyte helpfully explaining, 1 Jul. 1758, that he would keep them himself if his Lordship did not take them), and on 8 July Lyte described an antique bronze group he had bought from Jenkins: 'the scarcity of these kind of things is inconceivable and the price they ask for them by no means moderate'. He was still trying to acquire some mosaic tables. Four export licences were granted to Lyte and Brudenell between 12 May 1758 and 22 January 1759, nearly all the items being antique marbles (totalling over thirty pieces).(10) On 27 September 1758 Brudenell and Lyte had 'lately' left Rome for Venice on their way home.(11)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed them in Venice. On 3 October she wrote they had been there a fortnight; on 31 December she described Brudenell as appearing to be 'in a very bad state of Health, and extreme unwilling to return to England ... He seems highly dispos'd to, if not actually fallen into, a Consumption'. Later, on 24 June 1759, he was in Padua, where he seemed 'to have no Desire of seeing his Native Land'.(12) While he was in Venice Brudenell became one of Guardi's earliest British patrons, acquiring a set of six Venetian views (of which four remain at Bowhill).(13) Cl?risseau had shown him his drawings of the temples at Pola, and Brudenell was remembered by his Venetian landlady, la Mingotte, as one who 'read three hours at a time without a word from anyone'. He left Venice on 24 February 1760, when Lady Mary again described him as 'singular both in his manner and Sentiments ... too Indolent to dispute with any body and appears indifferent to our Sex'.14 The last entry of Lord Brudenell's travel accounts is dated 1760, and indicates that his years on the Continent had cost just over £;12,600.15

1. See J. Fleming, English Misc., 9[1958]:127 - 41. Lyte letters MSS (dates given in brackets). 2. Fleming, Adam, 123 - 4. 3. See also HMC Charlemont, 1:223. 4. Lucy Family, 91. 5. Winckelmann 1898, 2:347. 6. AVR SA, S.Andrea delle Fratte 1758. 7. HMC Charlemont, 1:251. 8. Skelton 1960, 47, 54 - 5. 9. See Treasure Houses, no.175. F. Russell, CL, 25 Apr. 1985, 1149 - 50. 10. ASR ABA 11, ff.280 - 1 (12 May, 20 Jun., 7 Jul. 1758, 10 Jan. 1759). 11. Lucy of Charlecote MSS (R. Mylne, 27 Sep. 1758). 12. Montagu Letters, 3:180, 195, 214. 13. F. Russell, Burl.Mag., 138[1996]:8 - 11. 14. Montagu Letters, 3:235. 15. Note by J. Cornforth from accts. at Drumlanrig.