Benjamin West, PRA, by Agostino Aglio

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Aglio, Augustino 1777-1857, painter, decorator, and lithographer, was born at Cremona and educated at Milan. About 1801 William Wilkins, the architect, afterwards R.A., made his acquaintance abroad, and travelled with him in Italy and Greece. Aglio executed in aquatint the illustrations to Wilkins's ‘Magna Græcia.’ He returned to Rome in 1802, and afterwards came to England, where he settled and spent the remainder of his life. He decorated the Opera House in 1804, Drury Lane Theatre in 1806, and the Pantheon in 1811. In 1819 he painted the ceiling and altar-piece of the Roman catholic chapel in Moorfields, and he decorated the summer-house in the gardens of Buckingham Palace and the Olympic Theatre. From 1807 to 1846 he was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and sent many works to the exhibitions of the Society of British Artists. His contributions to the Academy were principally landscapes, but to the society he sent many scriptural pieces. A portrait of George IV as a knight of the Garter was lithographed by Aglio in 1823. In 1840 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture of ‘The Enthronisation of Queen Victoria,’ which, with two portraits of the queen and others of his works, have been engraved. In 1844 and 1847 he competed unsuccessfully for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, sending on the first occasion a large landscape with figures in fresco, and on the second a large oil picture of Rebecca. He was an artist of much industry and versatility, but of no great talent. His most extensive performance was a work called ‘Antiquities of Mexico,’ illustrated with a thousand lithographic plates from ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics in the royal libraries of Europe. This work was executed at the expense of Lord Kingsborough. Nine volumes out of ten projected were finished and issued in folio (1830-48). A set at the British Museum contains sixty pages of the tenth volume. Aglio also published ‘Twelve Pictures of Killarney,’ ‘A Collection of Capitals and Friezes, drawn from the Antique’ (1820), ‘Sketches of the Decorations in Woolley Hall, Yorkshire’ (1821), and ‘Studies of various Trees and Forest Scenery’ (two numbers only, 1831). Aglio died 30 Jan. 1859, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. West, Benjamin 1738-1820, historical painter, was descended from an old family of Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire, members of which went over to America with Penn in 1681. His father, John West, settled at Springfield in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1714; he married Sarah, daughter of Thomas Pearson, a quaker, and had a family of ten children, the youngest of whom was Benjamin, born on 10 Oct. 1738. The farmhouse in which he was born is still standing near Swarthmore, in what is now called Delaware County, Pennsylvania. According to the life by John Galt, which was written from information supplied by West himself, his early life was marked by many remarkable and prophetic circumstances. At seven years old he drew his baby niece in her cradle in red and black chalk. He received his first instructions in art from a Cherokee, and obtained from him his first colours, which were the red and yellow used by the Indians. To these his mother added a stick of indigo, and so completed the chord of what were then called the three primary colours. He shaved a cat to make his brushes, and his early artistic efforts so astonished a merchant named Pennington that he gave him a box of colours. He also gave West some brushes and a piece of canvas on which the boy painted a composition from three engravings by Guercino, also given to him by his admirer. This picture was still in existence, and was exhibited by the side of his large picture of ‘Christ Rejected’ sixty-seven years after it was painted. At nine years old he burst into tears at the sight of a landscape by an artist of Philadelphia named Williams, and declared his intention of being a painter. His father and mother were quakers, but they and the Society of Friends at Springfield were so convinced of the greatness of the lad's gifts that after solemn deliberations they allowed him to adopt art as a profession. When eighteen years old his mother died, and he set up as a portrait-painter at Philadelphia, and afterwards at Lancaster and New York. Then, with the assistance of 50l. from a merchant named Kelly, he went to Italy. The ship in which he sailed was protected from Gibraltar to Leghorn by a convoy under the command of Captain Charles Meadows (afterwards Earl Manvers), who remained his friend in after life. From Leghorn he proceeded to Rome, where he arrived on 10 July 1760, and obtained introductions to Cardinal Albani and other persons of note. The young American attracted much curiosity on account of the semi-savage life he was supposed to have led, but he soon distinguished himself by a portrait of Thomas Robinson (afterwards Lord Grantham), and was introduced to Raffaelle Mengs and Pompeo Battoni. The fame of the portrait reached his friends in America, and Chief-justice Allen and Governor Hamilton determined to supply him with funds. He remained in Italy three years, making friends and reputation wherever he went. He visited many of the principal cities of Italy, and was made a member of the academies at Parma, Florence, and Bologna. In 1763, preceded by a reputation, he came to England with two pictures painted in Rome. Here he was received by three of his American friends, Dr. William Smith (provost of the college at Philadelphia), Chief-justice Allen, and Governor Hamilton. He took lodgings in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and afterwards in Castle Street, Leicester Fields, and was introduced to Dr. Johnson, Burke, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, who received him kindly, and recommended him to exhibit his pictures. ‘Cymon and Iphigenia,’ ‘Angelica and Medoro,’ and a portrait of General Monckton appeared at the exhibition of the Society of Artists in Spring Garden in 1764. He became a member of the Incorporated Society in 1765, when he exhibited ‘Jupiter and Europa,’ ‘Venus and Cupid,’ and two portraits in fancy dress. In the same year he married Elizabeth Shewell, to whom he was engaged before he left America, and who (accompanied by West's father) came over to marry him. West dropped his quaker habit and manner of speech soon after he settled in England, and, although both he and his wife had been brought up as quakers, they were married at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (2 Sept. 1765). In 1766 he exhibited ‘Pylades and Orestes,’ ‘The Continence of Scipio,’ and other works which greatly increased his reputation; but it was a picture of ‘Agrippina landing at Brundusium with the ashes of Germanicus’ which is said to have made his fortune.

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