Copley’s Theatrical Nun at the Huntington

The Huntington Library in California just announced that it had acquired this “newly discovered painting by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815) depicting celebrated 18th-century British actress Mary Robinson.”

According to the institution:

Mrs. Mary Robinson in the Character of a Nun (ca. 1780) is a cabinet portrait, perhaps commissioned by an admirer, of one of Britain's most famous actresses of the late 18th century.

Lost for generations until it was sold in 1999 at auction as a French painting of an unknown sitter, the newly identified work portrays Robinson in her role as Oriana in George Farquhar’s comedy The Inconstant; or The Way to Win Him, which she performed on the London stage in the spring of 1780. In the course of the play, Robinson's character engages in a series of ruses—dressing as a nun, feigning madness, and finally disguising herself as a pageboy—to win the heart of her love interest.

The portrait was painted just a few years after Copley, who had already established himself as a leading portraitist in colonial America, moved from Boston to London to test his skills at the Royal Academy, and at the height of Robinson's career. 

In Boston, of course, Copley had never seen an actress or a nun. In 1768 Myles Cooper paid Copley for what he called “the little Piece which I so much admired, the Nun with the Candle before her,” but scholars think that referred to Copley’s first portrait of his little half-brother, Henry Pelham, reading a thick book by candlelight. [That sketch in oils hangs at the Museum of Fine Arts. I use it as my Twitter avatar.]

As for Mary Robinson, she went on to have relationships with the Prince of Wales, Banastre Tarleton, and Charles James Fox. So she didn’t make the nun’s role a habit.

The Chevalier and the Chavelière

Yesterday I described the busy, accomplished life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a champion swordsman and celebrated musician in pre-Revolutionary France.

In the late 1780s he spent a couple of years in London. And there he encountered an old acquaintance, the Chevalier d’Eon. Reportedly D’Eon had seen Saint-Georges fence as a teenager in Paris.

D’Eon had had an eventful military and diplomatic career before going into exile in Britain in 1760s. Starting in 1777, D’Eon had lived in France full-time as a woman. In 1785 the chevalier returned to London, where people still remembered him as a skilled swordsman.

On 9 Apr 1787, Saint-Georges and D’Eon performed a fencing exhibition in front of George, the Prince of Wales, and his entourage. Charles Jean Robineau painted the scene, and by 1789 it was turned into a print for the popular market. The print’s caption referred to D’Eon as “Mademoiselle La chevalière.”

I’d seen this image in connection with D’Eon, who certainly stands out in dress and bonnet. But Saint-Georges was also a celebrity and, as a man of African ancestry, a curiosity. His dark tan skin is not evident in the print, at least not in some hand-colored examples, but it’s clear in the painting.

The Celebrated Saint-Georges

A concert in Seattle got me intrigued about the life of Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

He was born on Guadeloupe in 1745, son of a wealthy planter and his black slave. At around age seven, he traveled to France to go to school. His parents joined him in Paris a couple of years later, his father receiving a noble title.

At age thirteen, Joseph went to a school of military arts. By his late teens, he was known as one of the finest swordsmen in France. The king granted him the title of chevalier.

That would be impressive enough, but in his twenties Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges became one of Paris’s most celebrated musicians, concertmaster of the Concert des Amateurs. He wrote an opera with Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, later author of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He also crossed paths with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, though no music seems to have come of that.

Then the American War started to affect Saint-Georges’s life. Because his orchestra’s patrons had put all their money into supplying the French army in America, the Concert des Amateurs had to shut down in 1781. He bounced back with a new patron in Philippe D’Orléans, duc de Chartres, and his lodge of Freemasons. With their support, Saint-Georges commissioned the Paris symphonies from Joseph Haydn.

In 1785, Philippe succeeded to his father’s title as duc d’Orléans. A cousin of King Louis XVI, the duke favored a constitutional monarchy along British lines, particularly if he could be in charge as regent. He sent Saint-Georges to London to strengthen contacts with the Prince of Wales, early anti-slavery activists, and other potential allies.

The portrait above comes from Saint-Georges’s time in London. It was painted by Boston-born Loyalist Mather Brown at the request of the Prince of Wales.

Saint-Georges was in the audience at the opening of the Estates General of France in 1789. That limited attempt at political change soon brought on the larger French Revolution. At first Saint-Georges continued work as a musician and courtier, but in 1792 he accepted a commission as colonel of a cavalry legion of free men of color from Haiti.

For the next several years, Saint-Georges was part of the army of Revolutionary France, caught up in its politics. That meant he spent some of his time at the front, some in Paris, some in jail. There’s evidence he went to Haiti in 1796 as part of the central government’s unsuccessful campaign to suppress Toussaint Louverture. Finally he returned to music, frustrated by government service and suffering from illness. Saint-Georges died in Paris in 1799.

TOMORROW: Another picture of Saint-Georges.