James Byres of Tonley

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FSAScot FSA (1733 — 1817) was a Scottish architect,

antiquary An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

and dealer in

Old Master paintings In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

and

antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...

Biography

James Byres of Tonley - Hugh Douglas Hamilton - ABDAG000094

He was born in

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

in 1733. Byres was a member of a family of Scottish Jacobite sympathisers who settled in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in 1758, where he became a

cicerone Cicerone ( ) is an old term for a guide who conducts visitors and sightseers to museums, galleries, etc., and explains matters of archaeological, antiquarian, historic or artistic interest. The word is presumably taken from Marcus Tullius Cicero, ...

and an art dealer, mainly to Scottish and English gentlemen on the

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

until his return to Scotland in 1790. His house was in Via Paolina. Byres was a painter and an adept designer, whose Vanvitellian design for a

palazzo A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...

facade won a prize from the

Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca (the "Academy of Saint Luke") is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its fir ...

in 1762. In Rome members of his circle were drawn by

Angelica Kauffman Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( ; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, K ...

in a sketchbook she used from 1762 to 1764: the portraits include the English painter

Nathaniel Dance Sir Nathaniel Dance (20 June 1748 – 25 March 1827) was an officer of the East India Company who had a long and varied career on merchant vessels, making numerous voyages to India and back with the fleets of East Indiamen. He was already awar ...

, Gavin Hamilton, and the abbé Peter Grant. By 1764 he was so well acquainted with the ancient sites and the cabinets of collectors that he took about a party of colonial Americans, including

Samuel Powel Samuel Powel (October 28, 1738 – September 29, 1793) was a colonial and post-revolutionary mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since Philadelphia's mayoral office had been abolished early in the revolutionary period, Powel was the last colonial ...

of Philadelphia, who unlike his British peers, took assiduous notes. Byres, as well as some others British residents in Rome such as Thomas Jenkins and Colin Morison, worked as an art dealer, working with important European collectors. William Constable purchased from Byres many of the Italian paintings and marble copies after Roman sculptures at Burton Constable, Yorkshire, and Byres was responsible for introducing the artist Anton Maron, who painted William Constable and his sister in the pose and dress of Cato and Marcia. Among the antiquities that passed through his hands, the most famous may be the

Portland Vase The Portland Vase is a Roman cameo glass vase, which is dated to between AD 1 and AD 25, though low BC dates have some scholarly support. It is the best known piece of Roman cameo glass and has served as an inspiration to many glass and porcelain ...

, which he sold to Sir William Hamilton in 1770. Among the commissions for which he acted as agent was the ''Noli me Tangere'' of

Raphael Mengs Anton Raphael Mengs (22 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a German people, German painter, active in Dresden, Rome, and Madrid, who while painting in the Rococo period of the mid-18th century became one of the precursors to Neoclassicism, Neoclas ...

, 1771, for an altarpiece for

All Souls College All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...

, 1771. In 1783 he was one of the founder members of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. A clear idea of his own collection can be gleaned from a 1790 inventory made upon his return to Tonley. Though he sent many of his clients to

Pompeo Batoni Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (25 January 1708 – 4 February 1787) was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign visitors tra ...

, the only Batoni portrait hanging in his house was of his sister Isabella, Mrs Robert Sandilands.Francis Russell, "Batoni's Mrs Sandilands and Other Portraits from the Collection of James Byres" ''The Burlington Magazine'' 120 No. 899 (February 1978), pp. 114, 116-117. Concerning the

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...

Byres formulated the hypothesis that Etruscan literature has not come down to us because it was purposely destroyed by the Romans. Before he left Rome in 1790 he made a payment to the

maître d'hôtel The ''maître d'hôtel'' (; ), head waiter, host, waiter captain, or ''maître d ( , ) manages the public part, or "front of the house", of a formal restaurant. The responsibilities of a ''maître d'hôtel'' generally include supervising the wa ...

of Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal York in favour of the Duchess of Albany, illegitimate daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, so it may be inferred that his Jacobite sensibility ran deep. He died at Tonley in

on 3 September 1817

Biography

Notes

Further reading