Johann Zoffany

• Name — Johan Zoffany • Birth Name — Johannes Josephus Zaufallij • Born — 13 March 1733 • Birthplace — Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire • Died — 11 November 1810 • Place of death — London, England • Field — Painting • Honorific Suffix — RA • Honorific Prefix — Freiherr

Of noble Hungarian and Bohemian origin, Johan Zoffany was born near Frankfurt on 13 March 1733, the son of a cabinet maker and architect of the court of Alexander Ferdinand, 3rd Prince of Thurn and Taxis. He undertook an initial period of study in a sculptor's workshop in Ellwangen during the 1740s, possibly the shop of Melchior Paulus, and later at Regensburg with the artist Martin Speer. In 1750, he travelled to Rome, entering the studio of Agostino Masucci. In the autumn of 1760, he arrived in England and initially found work with the clockmaker Stephen Rimbault, painting decorative designs for his clocks. By 1764, Zoffany was enjoying the patronage of King George III and Queen Charlotte for his charmingly informal scenes such as Queen Charlotte and Her Two Eldest Children (1765), in which the queen is shown at her toilette inside Buckingham House. He was also popular with the Austrian imperial family and was created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa. A founding member of the new Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, Zoffany enjoyed great popularity for his society and theatrical portraits. He painted many prominent actors and actresses, in particular David Garrick, the most famous actor of his day, often in costume – Garrick as Hamlet and Garrick as King Lear. Zoffany was a master of what has been called the 'theatrical conversation piece', a sub-set of the 'conversation piece' genre that arose with the middle classes in the 18th century. (The conversation piece – or conversazione – was a relatively small, though not necessarily inexpensive, informal group portrait, often of a family group or a circle of friends. This genre developed in the Netherlands and France, and it became popular in Britain from about 1720.) Zoffany has been described by one critic as "the real creator and master of this genre". He painted a number of 'conversation pieces' featuring a violoncello – the Cowper-Gore family, Sharp family, Morse and Cator family, and the family of Sir William Young. Around 1780, he painted a portrait of the octogenarian professional cellist and composer Giacomo Cervetto. • Illustration — The Tribuna of the Uffizi (17721778), Royal Collection In the later part of his life, Zoffany was especially known for producing huge paintings with large casts of people and works of art, all readily recognizable by their contemporaries. In paintings like The Tribuna of the Uffizi, he carried this fidelity to an extreme degree – the Tribuna was already displayed in the typically cluttered 18th-century manner (i.e. with many objects hanging in a small area, stacked high on the wall), but Zoffany added to the sense of clutter by having other works brought into the small octagonal gallery space from other parts of the Uffizi. Zoffany spent the years 1783 to early 1789 in India, where he painted portraits including the Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings, and the Nawab of Awadh, Asaf-ud-Daula; an altarpiece of the Last Supper (1787) for St John's Church, Calcutta; and a vibrant history painting, Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Fight (1784–86) (Tate), described by historian Maya Jasanoff as 'easily the liveliest illustration of early colonial India'. In the usual way, he sired several children by an Indian mistress, or 'uppa-patni'. Returning to England, he was shipwrecked off the Andaman Islands. The survivors held a lottery in which the loser (a sailor) was eaten. William Dalrymple describes Zoffany as having been "the first and last Royal Academician to have become a cannibal". • Illustration — Zoffany's former house at 65 Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick, London Zoffany died in his home at Strand-on-the-Green on 11 November 1810. He is buried in the churchyard of St Anne's Church, Kew.

Around the age of 27, Zoffany married the daughter of a court official in Würzburg. She accompanied him to London but returned to Germany within a decade or so. Zoffany left for Florence in 1772 and was followed by young Mary Thomas, the daughter of a London glovemaker, who was carrying his first child. Whether they married in Europe is uncertain, but Zoffany's portrait, Mary Thomas, the Artist's second wife (c. 1781–82), shows her wearing a wedding ring. Following the death of his first wife in 1805, Zoffany married "Mary Thomas … Spinster" in accordance with Church of England rites. Johan and Mary Zoffany had five children, including a son (who died in infancy) and four daughters. Their second daughter, Cecilia (1779–1830), was involved in a well-publicised child custody case in Guernsey in 1825.

• Illustration — David Garrick in Vanbrugh's Provoked Wife, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1763) • Illustration — David Garrick by Johann Zoffany) (1763) • Illustration — The Three Sons of the Earl of Bute, 1764 • Illustration — Michael Arne (1765) • Illustration — Portrait of Ann Brown in the Role of Miranda (c. 1770) • Illustration — George Nassau Clavering, 3rd Earl of Cowper (1738–1789) • Illustration — The Porter and the Hare (1768) • Illustration — Portrait of George III (1771) • Illustration — Portrait of Queen Charlotte (1771) • Illustration — John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, best known as inventor of the sandwich. • Illustration — Queen Charlotte with Members of Her Family (1772) • Illustration — Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor • Illustration — Archduchess Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, (1742–1798), called "Mimi", (1776) • Illustration — Hugh Chamberlain (1780s) • Illustration — Portrait of Sophia Dumergue holding a cat (1780) • Illustration — David Garrick and his Wife by his Temple to Shakespeare at Hampton (c. 1762) • Illustration — The Garden at Hampton House, with Mr and Mrs David Garrick taking tea, 1763 • Illustration — Venice Preserv'd (1763) • Illustration — Queen Charlotte with her Two Eldest Sons (1765) • Illustration — David Garrick in The Provoked Wife (1765) • Illustration — The Family of Sir William Young (c.1768) • Illustration — Charles Macklin as Shylock (1768) • Illustration — The Bradshaw Family (1769) • Illustration — The Drummond Family (1769) • Illustration — The Academicians of the Royal Academy (1771–72) • Illustration — Sir Lawrence Dundas and his Grandson Lawrence (c. 1775) • Illustration — A Florentine Fruit Stall (1777) • Illustration — The Sharp Family (c. 1780) • Illustration — The Sayer Family of Richmond (1781) • Illustration — Lalbagh Fort, Dhaka (1787) • Illustration — The Last Supper at the St. John's Church, Kolkata • Illustration — Painting titled Nagaphon Ghat: The Columbo Sahib mausoleum located in the Dhaka Christian Cemetery: 1786 • Illustration — Plundering the King's Cellar at Paris (1794)