(1760 - 1834), writer, of Stoke Park, Bucks, and Pennsylvania Castle, Dorset, 1st surv. s. of Thomas Penn; educ. Eton and Clare Camb. 1776; in Pennsylvania 1782 - 9; MP 1802 - 5; unm.
1790 - 1 Florence (1790), Rome (by May 1791), Naples
Penn inherited considerable wealth from Pennsylvania in the form of compensation for unsettled lands and a government annuity. His father had had a 'very great and Eligant' collection of pictures in Boston, which included 'several copies'.1 John Penn was in Florence in 17902 and in Rome in 1791, when he commissioned a number of works from British artists. On 14 May 1791 that year Hewetson told George Cumberland that Penn's 'vast fortune and plyable disposition has procured some considerable commissions for some of your friends, that is to say, Mr Grignion, Mr Deare, Mr Fagan & Mr Robinson. Fagan assures me that Mr Deare's share of the American Prize amounts to at least £400 Sterl'.3 Penn commissioned Grignion to make drawings 'of the most celebrated Greek marbles of a Colossal size, or at least as large as the originals'.4 Grignion had discovered that Penn's 'very unpromising manner' concealed 'a very refind taste and great classic knowledge'.5 The same letter described other aspects of Penn's patronage: he had sat for his bust to Deare (Eton Coll.), from whom he commissioned a relief of The Landing of Julius Caesar (Stoke Manor)6 and a chimneypiece, and had also taken the sculptor to Naples; he had bought a copy of a Domenichino from Fagan (although 'copies of old Pictures were not things he seemed much anxious about'), and three old masters from Hugh Robinson.
1. Copley, Letters, 272, 293. 2. Wal.Corr., 11:159. 3. Add. 36496, f.333. 4. G. Cumberland, Monthly Mag., 1 Jan. 1809. 5. Add.36497, f.69 (Grignion, 16 Nov. 1791). 6. A. Laing, CL, 27 Jan. 1983, 187.