Society of Dilettanti
The Society of Dilettanti, founded in 1734, was a British society of noblemen and scholars that sponsored the study of ancient Greek and Roman art and the creation of new works in that style.
History
Although the exact date is unknown, the Society is believed to have been founded as a gentlemen's club in 1734 by a group of individuals who had traveled on the Grand Tour. Records of the society's earliest meeting were recorded somewhat informally on loose sheets of paper. The first entry in the society's initial minute book is dated April 5, 1736. For several years, it held its meetings at the Thatched House Tavern in St. James's.
In 1743, Horace Walpole condemned its affectations and described it as "... a club, for which the nominal qualification is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk: the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy."
Initially led by Sir Francis Dashwood, the group included several dukes and was later joined by Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Uvedale Price, and Richard Payne Knight, among others. It was closely associated with Brooks's, one of London's most exclusive gentlemen's clubs. The society quickly became wealthy through a system in which members contributed to various funds to support building schemes and archaeological expeditions.
The first artist associated with the group was George Knapton.
The Society of Dilettanti aimed to correct and purify the public taste of the country; from the 1740s, it began to support Italian opera. A few years before Joshua Reynolds became a member, the group worked towards the objective of forming a public academy, and from the 1750s, it was the prime mover in establishing the Royal Academy of Arts. In 1775, the club had accumulated enough money towards a scholarship fund to support a student's travel to Rome and Greece, or for archaeological expeditions such as that of Richard Chandler, William Pars, and Nicholas Revett, the results of which they published in Ionian Antiquities, a significant influence on neoclassicism in Britain.
Among the publications published at the expense of the society was The bronzes of Siris (London, 1836) by Danish archaeologist Peter Oluf Bronsted.
Membership
The society has 60 members, elected by secret ballot. An induction ceremony is held at Brooks's, an exclusive London gentleman's club. It makes annual donations to the British Schools in Rome and Athens, and a separate fund set up in 1984 provides financial assistance for visits to classical sites and museums.
Notable members
- Thomas Anson (founder member)
- Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks
- George Beaumont
- Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode
- Anthony Morris Storer, Esq.[8]
- Charles Crowle, Esq.
- Henry Dawkins of Standlynch Hall, Wiltshire
- Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer (founder member)
- Lord Dundas
- Sir Henry Englefield
- Stephen Payne-Gallwey, Esq.
- David Garrick
- Philip Eyre Gell (from 1748)
- Major General Claude Martin
- Sir James Gray, 2nd Baronet (founder member)
- Sir George Gray, 3rd Baronet (founder member)
- The Honourable Charles Francis Greville
- Sir William Hamilton (diplomat)
- Thomas Hope
- Philip Metcalfe (from 1786)
- Richard Payne Knight (from 1781)
- Duke of Leeds
- Constantin John Lord Murlgrave
- Uvedale Price
- Sir Joshua Reynolds (from 1766)
- Lord Seaforth
- John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer
- Spencer Stanhope, Esq.
- Sir John Taylor, 1st Baronet
- Richard Thompson, Esq.
- Sir Anthony R. Wagner, Garter Principal King of Arms
- William Wilkins
- Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet
- Charles Williams-Wynn (the elder)
- Sir Charles Williams-Wynn (the younger)
- Charles Towneley, antiquary and collector
Further reading
- Dorment, Richard. The Dilettanti: exclusive society that celebrates art (Daily Telegraph 2 September 2008)
- Harcourt-Smith, Sir Cecil and George Augustin Macmillan, The Society of Dilettanti: Its Regalia and Pictures (London: Macmillan, 1932).
- Kelly, Jason M., The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment (New Haven and London: Yale University Press and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2009).
- Redford, Bruce, Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-century England (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008).
- Robinson, Terry F., "Eighteenth-Century Connoisseurship and the Female Body" Oxford Handbooks Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 10 May 2017.
- Simon, Robin, "Reynolds and the Double-entendre: the Society of Dilettanti Portraits", The British Art Journal 3, no. 1 (2001): 69–77.
- West, Shearer, "Libertinism and the Ideology of Male Friendship in the Portraits of the Society of Dilettanti", Eighteenth Century Life 16 (1992): 76–104.
External links
- Review of Bruce Redford, Dilettanti: The Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-Century England. in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.08.28
- "Gentlemen Did Not Dig", by Rosemary Hill, review of The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment, by Jason Kelly (Yale, 366 pp., January 2010, ISBN 978 0 300 15219 7). London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 12 · 24 June 2010
- Antiquities of Ionia (Part 1 of 3) Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Digital Library.
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