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A copy of Guido Reni’s Aurora
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Richard Cosway RA (1742 - 1821)
A copy of Guido Reni’s Aurora
Museum number: P351
On display: Model Room (pre-booked tours only)
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
For tours https://www.soane.org/your-visit
Curatorial note
After the original painted in 1613-14 on the ceiling of the central hall of the Casino dell’Aurora, a summer-house in the grounds of the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi on the Quirinale in Rome.
Richard Cosway became a student at the Royal Academy in 1769. He was rapidly elected an associate member in 1770 and a full Academician in 1771. He and Soane must have met through the Academy, perhaps while Soane was a student there in the early 1770s. Richard Cosway married the Italian artist and musican, Maria Hadfield in 1781, the year after Soane returned from his Grand Tour and the Cosways knew Soane and his wife Eliza well.
Unlike many contemporaries Cosway never visited Italy and he must have made this meticulous pencil drawing in England, probably copying an engraving.
There is no record of Soane purchasing the drawing from Cosway and it may have been a gift from either Richard or Maria. It would have been a very suitable one as the original 17th century ceiling by Reni, visited by Soane in Rome, inspired that painted by Henry Howard on the ceiling of Soane's Library.
Richard Cosway became a student at the Royal Academy in 1769. He was rapidly elected an associate member in 1770 and a full Academician in 1771. He and Soane must have met through the Academy, perhaps while Soane was a student there in the early 1770s. Richard Cosway married the Italian artist and musican, Maria Hadfield in 1781, the year after Soane returned from his Grand Tour and the Cosways knew Soane and his wife Eliza well.
Unlike many contemporaries Cosway never visited Italy and he must have made this meticulous pencil drawing in England, probably copying an engraving.
There is no record of Soane purchasing the drawing from Cosway and it may have been a gift from either Richard or Maria. It would have been a very suitable one as the original 17th century ceiling by Reni, visited by Soane in Rome, inspired that painted by Henry Howard on the ceiling of Soane's Library.
Associated items
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