Nathaniel Dance, six years older than his brother George, was in Rome by May 1754 and had returned to England by June 1766. In Rome he studied painting and added to the allowance made him by his father with commissions for portraits and conversation groups of British travellers. His main purpose became the development of his skill as a painter of large Classical history pieces of which The death of Virginia by the hand of her father, to prevent her falling prey to the lust of Appius ... was the first example.

David Goodreau (1977, p.2 of introduction) wrote of the significance of the sketch sent to the elder George Dance. 'Dance's drawing is highly important to neo-classical studies because it is the earliest firmly dated visual record known of a history painting, drawn from a classical text, executed by a British artist in Rome. Moreover, Dance's painting influenced Gavin Hamilton in his slightly later Oath of Brutus on the Death of Lucretia, and Dance's work subsequently enters into the French stream of history painting, culminating in Jacques-Louis David's Oath of the Horatii.'

The Death of Virginia... was sent to England and exhibited at the first Exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain at their Great Room in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, in May 1761. Painted in Rome, it was (as Nathaniel feared) ineligible for the history painting competition at the Society of Arts exhibition of 1760. The painting is now lost but known through a mezzotint engraving by Johann Gottfried Haid (1767).

Nathaniel Dance continued as a painter when he returned to London but after his marriage in 1783 to a very rich widow, Mrs Harriet Dummer, no longer worked as a professional artist though he painted landscapes for his own pleasure. He became a Member of Parliament in 1790, added the name of Holland to his own in 1800 and soon after was made a baronet. Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland's affectionate relationship with his brother George lasted until his death in 1811. For a design for a town house for the Dance-Hollands at 143 Piccadilly, Westminster, 1807-08.

There is in the Soane Museum a chalk drawing of Soane at the age of 21 made by Nathaniel Dance [SM P317]. 'Executed in about 1774, some four years before he went to Italy, [it] shows Soane as the eager young architect, lively intelligent and full of promise. Soane's wife had this hanging in her Morning Room which was essentially her private closet where she kept her favourite belongings' (Thornton & Dorey, 1992, p.76, fig.76).

LITERATURE. D.Goodreau, Nathaniel Dance, catalogue of an exhibition at Kenwood House, Greater London Council, London, 1977; P. Thornton & H. Dorey, Miscellany of objects from Sir John Soane's Museum, 1992; J. Ingamells (ed.) A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701-1800, 1997.