In the wake of the fundamental studies of Charles Knight and the great 1996 exhibition at the British Museum, the exhibition deals with the human, political and intellectual story of Hamilton, diplomat, antiquarian and volcanologist, who found in the "enlightened" Naples of the second half of the eighteenth century fertile ground to affirm and develop his great passions: antiquity and science. His passion for volcanology, landscape painting, music, collecting, as well as the role he played in the Neapolitan society and high society of the time, amplified by the figure of Lady Emma Hamilton, retrace the entire path of the exhibition.
William Hamilton's Role in Antique Collecting
To the passion of William Hamilton for the ancient one is connected the collection of extraordinary painted greek vases, some of which are present in the exhibition, coming from Herculaneum, Pompeii, Southern Italy and Greece. The sale of part of this collection to the British Museum, in 1772, had a decisive role in British antiquarian collecting and taste. Furthermore, his original initiative to create and publish one of the most beautiful and famous illustrated books of all time, the magnificent Antiquités etrusques, grecques et romaines. The texts of the volumes were written by the great and bizarre scholar Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville who initially availed himself of the contribution of Johann Joachim Winckelmann.
A significant part of the exhibition is dedicated to the figure of Lady Hamilton
After the death of his first wife in 1782, Hamilton became a protagonist of the most exclusive social life thanks to his second marriage to Emily Lyon, better known as emma hart (Neston, 1765 – Calais, 1815), the famous adventurer who had a great influence also on a political level for her ties with Queen Maria Carolina and for her scandalous relationship with the famous Admiral Horatio Nelson. The magnificent portraits on display by the Englishman George Romney and the German Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein convey the charm of Emma, who was also represented by other painters of the time in the guise of figures of classicism and myth.
Another important part of the exhibition path deals with the theme of travel
A turning point in Hamilton's life was the visit he paid him in 1787 Johann Wolfgang Goethe during his famous Italian Journey. The ambassador was also a great traveller: he ventured into the territories of the then little-travelled and unsafe Calabria and Sicily, animated by his curiosity and scientific passion for exceptional natural phenomena such as volcanoes and telluric movements. An exceptional testimony of these interests remains in another famous editorial enterprise promoted by him, the publication of the volumes entitled Campi Phlegraei published in Naples in 1776, to which will be added in 1779 a supplement with an Account of the Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a work illustrated by a team led by the painter Pietro Fabris, who accompanied him on excursions to the slopes of Vesuvius and Etna. The exhibition focuses on his particular relationship with the great Roman view painter Giovanni Battista Lusieri and with the most experimental and modern English painters such as Joseph Wright of Derby, Thomas Jones, John Robert Cozens, whom he hosted and encouraged. The exhibition also includes the screening of a video made by Italian Cineteca Foundation which collects the cinematic images that best tell the story and myth of Lady Hamilton.
Michele Coppola, Executive Director of Art, Culture and Historic Heritage at Intesa Sanpaolo and General Manager of the Gallerie d'Italia, states: “The stories that arise from the immense cultural heritage of Naples are always fascinating and linked to exceptional human events, just like what we are creating today at the Gallerie d'Italia in Via Toledo. Telling the story of the collector Hamilton is a new tribute to the city, the result of an extraordinary dialogue with important institutions in Italy and abroad. This new original project confirms once again the cultural, civil and social contribution made by Intesa Sanpaolo thanks to the vitality of its museum, which fits in fully
among the most active European museums."
The exhibition, created with the support of the British Embassy in Rome and the Italian Embassy in London and with the patronage of the Municipality of Naples and the University of Naples Federico II, presents seventy-eight works including paintings, ceramics, sculptures and artefacts from important national and international museums, such as the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Certosa and Museum of San Martino, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate in London, the British Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, as well as from private collections and galleries.
