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Letter from LORD BUCHAN to JAMES BARRY, written 11 February 1805, at Edinburgh

Source: Fryer, Works of Barry, i. 292-93.

David Steuart Erskine (1742-1829), earl of Buchan, [img] had written in a letter to the Society of Arts (18 December 1804), 'I desire to renew my request to the individual members of the Society...that a donation of yearly annuity may be settled on the worthy Barry, as Emeritus of the society, and of the fine arts of painting in Britain'.1 Buchan had mooted the idea in 1802 (see Buchan to Barry, 20 April 1802).

My Dear Sir,

It gave me great pleasure to learn from Mr. Taylor2, secretary of our truly useful and respectable Society of Arts, &c. at London, that a considerable number of our body3 have come forward to co-operate with me in testifying their respect for you and gratitude for your zeal for the society, and for the advancement of the fine arts.

I have contributed my mite towards an annuity for your being enabled, with tranquillity and comfort, to employ your time in the prosecution of your favourite art, and in the society of those you like, by an exemplary annuity of ten pounds, which I am confident will be followed up with what may be sufficient, not to pay the debt of the society and the public due to your merits, but to your desires; I shall long to see your print from the Pandora,4 a picture with which I was more captivated than with any thing I have ever seen. I am, my dear sir, with sincere esteem and admiration of your talents,

Your obliged humble servant,

Edinburgh,5February 11, 1805.

Show/Hide other notes [why?]

1 ^
painting in Britain] Buchan to Taylor, Secretary of the Society of Arts, Fryer, Works of Barry, i. p. 292, note.

2 ^
Taylor] Charles Taylor (d.1816), a chemist from Manchester, succeeded as Secretary to the Society on the death of Samuel More in 1799; his portrait was printed as the frontispiece of the Society's Transactions, 1817, vol. xxxv. [img]

3 ^
a considerable number of our body] Secretary Taylor had sent a letter to members asking for subscriptions to a fund for Barry: this raised £1,000, and on 30 January the Society of Arts agreed to launch a public appeal for subscriptions. The money was invested in an annuity of £120 per year for Barry (Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painters (London, 1808), pp. 318-19). As Barry was to die within the year, he did not see the benefits of Buchan's initiative and much of the money went to pay for his funeral and burial in St. Paul's Cathedral.

4 ^
your print from the Pandora]

Barry began The Birth of Pandora in 1791 and completed it in 1804; [img] ) see Barry to Buchan, 21 February 1805 where he describes the difficulties he had in making a print from his engraving of the picture: according to a visitor it measured 'eighteen feet long and ten broad' (cited by Michael Phillips, 'James Barry: Artist-Printmaker', James Barry, 1741-1806, 'The Great Historical Painter' (Kinsale, 2005), p.145

In Greek mythology Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods; for Barry, 'This story of Pandora is one of the most splendid of the many specimens of the Heathen manner of adumbrating or allegorizing that momentous introduction of evil, or fall of mankind, which is related in Genesis, and which, however difficult to be accounted for, is traceable in the traditions and feelings of all nations' ('Fragment on the Story and Painting of Pandora', Fryer, Works of Barry, ii. 147).

5 ^
Edinburgh] Buchan's family home was Dryburgh Abbey, Berwickshire, near Edinburgh.