The English Prize: The Capture of the “Westmorland,” An Episode of the Grand Tour

Edited by María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui and Scott Wilcox

With contributions by Maria del Carmen Alonso Rodriguez, Sarah Armitage, John Brewer, Kelly Cannon, Elisabeth Fairman, Clare Hornsby, Eleanor Hughes, Jose M. Luzon Nogue, Aurelio Nieto Codina, Steffi Roettgen, Frank Salmon, María Dolores Sánchez-Jáuregui, Kim Sloan, Christina Smylitopoulos, Catherine Whistler, Scott Wilcox, John Wilton-Ely, Jonathan Yarker, and Alison Yarrington

Published by the Yale Center for British Art, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, in association with the Real Academia de Belles Artes de San Fernando, Madrid; the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, University of Oxford; and Yale University Press, New Haven and London

392 pages, 9 1/2 X 12, 350 color illustrations, cloth, ISBN 978-0300176056

Publication date: June 26, 2012

Description

Laden with works of art acquired by young British travelers on the Grand Tour in Italy, the British merchant ship Westmorland sailed from the Italian port of Livorno before being captured by French naval vessels and escorted to Malaga in southern Spain. The artistic treasures on board were purchased by King Carlos III of Spain, and the majority were deposited in the collections of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. There they resided, unknown, until recent research, using original inventories that survive in the Academia’s archives, identified the Westmorland’s rich cargo.

The English Prize reveals the gripping story of the ship’s capture and the disposition of its artistic contents, which included Raphael Mengs’s Perseus and Andromeda, Pompeo Batoni’s portraits of Frances Bassett and Lord Lewisham, and watercolors by John Robert Cozens. This volume illuminates the cultural phenomenon of the Grand Tour and the young travelers who acquired the trove of books and artworks on board the Westmorland but were never able to enjoy their purchases.