Forbes, Anne
- Dictionary and Archive of Travellers
- Title
- Forbes, Anne
- Full Text of Entry
-
(1745 - 1840), painter, yst. dau. of Hugh Forbes of the Ross; exh. RA 1772.
1767 - 71 [dep. Scotland 1 Sep. 1767] Rome (Oct. 1767 - 15 Apr. 1771), Florence (20 Apr.), Bologna, Turin [Edinburgh 1771]
Anne Forbes went to Italy as a young painter, accompanied by her mother Margaret, herself the daughter of the artist William Aikman. Anne's travels were sponsored by a number of interested patrons, including the 7th Earl of Strathmore, Lord Gray, Sir Lawrence Dundas and her grandfather, William Aikman. She had already met James Byres in Scotland in July 1767 and she took with her introductions to Gavin Hamilton and the Abb? Grant. Her brother, Captain John Forbes, travelled out with them, and later returned to bring them home. They had expected to reach Rome in October 1767, and Hayward records their arrival that year.1
In Rome mother and daughter stayed in the Strada Gregoriana. In 1769 the Runciman brothers were staying in the same house (though their names do not appear in the Forbes family correspondence).2 On 1 March 1768 Mrs Forbes wrote that Anne was 'making great progress, and in a month is to try to paint a head, as Mr Byres, Mr [Gavin] Hamilton, [James] Nevay and others who are her directors are of the opinion that the sooner she begins to the colouring the better. She has drawn in chalk several pretty heads and so accurately, that only a great connoisseur would know them from the originals'.3 The heat of the Roman summer led to 'violent headaches when she was applyed too close, which sometimes she was obliged to do to return pictures in a limited time, which were lent her to draw from' (14 Aug. 1768). These included a George III belonging to William Hamilton (who had recently visited Rome),4 and prints after Guercino and Guido Reni.5 In September 1768 Gavin Hamilton proposed 'that she should begin to paint in oil in the month of October and hope that in another year and a half she will be able to make a considerable figure in her own country'.6 In 1769 there was again illness in the heat of summer; she was copying pictures by Volterrano ('a little girl with a fiddle'), Luti ('a boy with a flute'), Correggio (St Agnes) and Guido Reni (a St Jerome and a Magdalen's head, destined for the 3rd Earl of Bute if successful); she also had copies commissioned by Charles Greville.7 On 13 September 1769 Mrs Forbes denied that Anne was about to be engaged: 'the only men to come near her are Hamilton and Nevay', she wrote. In November 1769 Anne was to paint her cousin, Captain John Clerk, who wrote on 8 November that she had 'uncommon talents' and had already painted 'several portraits from Nature'; the portrait was successfully finished by 30 March 1770 (see Capt. John Clerk).
Her brother John returned to Rome in May 1770,8 and she was painting his portrait (and one of her sister Elizabeth) in September, by which time she had completed a copy of Titian's portrait of his daughter.9 The same month she was copying Van Dyck's Children of Charles I,10 which Father Thorpe noticed, commenting that her 'pencil is admirable in such performances', and later adding that she 'cannot fail of having a great reputation when she returns'.(11) She was making a copy for Lord Arundell (possibly the Van Dyck is again referred to, although Wickstead was also copying it for Arundell), which she was going to finish on her return to England.(12) Her portrait of Maria Giovanna Felice painted in Rome was engraved by Smith and she showed An Italian Girl at the RA in 1772.
The Forbeses finally left Rome on 15 April 1771 and arrived in Florence five days later; they were then proposing to go to Bologna and Turin and then to Edinburgh via Lyons.(13)
1. RBF note from Forbes MSS. Hayward List, 13, 23. 2. AVR SA, S.Andrea delle Fratte (1768 - 71). 3. All letters cited are Forbes MSS. 4. J. Aikman, Ross, 22 Jun. 1768. 5. Mrs Forbes, n.d. 6. J. Aikman, Ross, 3 Oct. 1768. 7. Mrs Forbes, 24 Aug. 1769. 8. J. Forbes, 30 May 1770. 9. Ibid., 8 Sep. 1770. 10. Mrs Forbes, 15 Sep. 1770. 11. Thorpe letters MSS (29 Sep.*, 15 Dec. 1770*). 12. Ibid. (29 Jun. 1771). 13. J. Forbes, 22 Apr. 1771.