Sir James THORNHILL (Dorset 1674-1735 London)

Caius Furius Cressinus accused of spells

Oil on canvas, 102 x 136 cm

PROVENANCE

- England, possible collection of Jack de BEURVILLE's mother;

- Paris, private collection Jack de BEURVILLE until October 2023.

THE WORK

Known for having contributed to the greatest artistic projects of his time, notably the decoration of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, in 1717, Sir James Thornhill is considered the greatest painter of British history of his generation. The painting that we present reveals the distinctive characteristics of Thornhill's style, starting with the canons of the figures which are rounded and very slightly simplified: it is probable that this vision of anatomy finds its origin in the art of Louis Laguerre (Versailles, 1663- London, 1721) of which Thornhill was the assistant (see Edward Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting in England , London, 1968, 2 vols., t. I, p. 265). To this rounding of the figures, a particularly unified color is added, made of red and brown ochres, recalling the appearance of the compositions of Saint-Paul; the preparatory sketch for  Saint Paul before Agrippa , on loan to the Tate Britain in London, shows this perfectly (fig.4). Let us specify here the subject of our painting, to the extent that it was then almost non-existent in art. In his Natural History (XVIII, 8), Pliny the Elder examines the art of agriculture and cites the example of the freedman Caius Furius Cressinus, who had been accused of sorcery due to the overabundance of his crops. To justify himself, he arrived on the forum in front of the aedile Albinus and showed his wife, his agricultural tools and his well-fed oxen. Having said, “This, Romans, is the fruit of my curses,” Furius Cressinus was then absolved, and this is precisely what Thornhill’s painting shows. However, the very way in which the scene was composed is again typical of the artist. The face-to-face between the accused figure and the judge enthroned aloft is very precisely what shows the composition intended for Saint-Paul Cathedral of which we spoke previously (fig. 4). Even more closely, this arrangement of figures resurfaces in a drawing by James Thornhill kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (fig.1). Here again, the concept was similar since Coriolanus, incarnation of power, appeared seated on a raised throne, while the group who came to ask him for clemency appeared below.   

Fig.1. © London, Victoria and Albert Museum

Another drawing (fig.3) coming from a set of the collection of P. Glascodine and in possible relation with our painting seems to us to be noted. It comes from a set of eight studies (fig.2) oval format similar to a set of three kept at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (D7-9/1891).

Fig.2 & 3. © London, Victoria and Albert Museum

In the both cases, the drawings are executed in pen and wash and bear numerous inscriptions. The subject would seem to be Minerva frequented by the Arts. Thornhill was to use them in three separate decorative commissions: at Garfield Hall in Essex, at Thornhill Park near Stalbridge and at Headley Park in Hampshire.

Fig.4. © London, Tate Britain

However, whether on the art market or in the collections of the National Trust, the paintings of James Thornhill which have come down to us are each time modelli , sketches, and other painted projects relating to large decorations of walls, ceilings and stairwells. This means that in the category of “finished painting”, Thornhill’s testimonies are extremely rare,  The Allegory of London  (Guildhall Art Gallery), being one of the very few surviving examples of its kind. The originality of the painting that we present is precisely that it relates to this category: nothing, on a technical level, is a sketch, and the importance of its size goes in the same direction. The question then arises of the destination of our painting. A particularly attractive hypothesis would be that it was intended for the residence of Moor Park (Herts.). Belonging to Benjamin Styles, director of the South Sea Company, it had just been built on the plans of Giacomo Leoni as well as James Thornhill around 1720. According to George Vertue, Thornhill was responsible for decorate, around 1720-1728, the walls of the living room and the gallery with eight paintings on a heroic subject “  from several stories of the Ancients, Greeks & Latins & Britons » (Croft-Murray, op. cit., p. 272). However, it is precisely a composition intended for Moor Park that the drawing for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was preparing, as the annotation indicates (and this was also the case for the drawing, sketched on the upper part of the same sheet , showing Alexander the Great bowing before the High Priest Jaddous). Obviously, the subject of   Caius Furius Cressinus  would have fit perfectly into this series of virtuous subjects of Latin origin. It remains that a painting based on a construction very similar to that of the  Coriolanus, within the same place, would have been surprising. Should we see, on the contrary, the possible origin of the dispute between Benjamin Styles and James Thornhill? At the end of the work, in 1732, we know that Thornhill's paintings were dismantled and replaced by compositions by Jacopo Amigoni as well as those of another Venetian artist. The rediscovery of testimonies relating to this order and the deepening of the art of James Thornhill, of which no catalog raisonné exists to date, will perhaps shed light on the fate of the Caius Furius Cressinus accused of spells .