Seymour Stocker Kirkup (1788–1880) was an English painter and antiquarian, resident in Italy from 1816.

Life

Born in London, he was the eldest child of Joseph Kirkup, a jeweller and diamond merchant there. He was admitted a student of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1809, and obtained a medal in 1811 for a drawing in its antique school. He became at this period acquainted with

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

and

Benjamin Haydon Benjamin Robert Haydon (; 26 January 178622 June 1846) was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactles ...

. About 1816 Kirkup began to suffer from pulmonary weakness, and; after his father's death, visited Italy. He eventually settled there, living some time at Rome, where his friend

Charles Eastlake Charles Locke Eastlake (11 March 1836 – 20 November 1906) was a British architect and furniture designer. His uncle, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake PRA (born in 1793), was a Keeper of the National Gallery, from 1843 to 1847, and from 1855 its fi ...

was studying. There he knew

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

(but missed his funeral on 26 February 1821, ill in bed) and in 1822 attended the funeral of

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...

. At

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

he lived for many years in a house on the

River Arno The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber. Source and route The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a sou ...

, adjoining the

Ponte Vecchio The Ponte Vecchio ("Old Bridge", ) is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy. The only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during the Second World War, it is noted for the shops bui ...

. Kirkup became a leader of a literary circle in Florence and took up residence at the Casa Carovana, a palazzo near the Ponte Vecchio. He collected a library, of which a catalogue was printed in 1871, and maintained a copious correspondence.

Walter Savage Landor Walter Savage Landor (30 January 177517 September 1864) was an English writer, poet, and activist. His best known works were the prose ''Imaginary Conversations,'' and the poem "Rose Aylmer," but the critical acclaim he received from contempora ...

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

and

Elizabeth Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabet ...

, Giovanni Aubrey Bezzi,

Edward John Trelawny Edward John Trelawny (13 November 179213 August 1881) was a British biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Trelawny was born in England to a family ...

Joseph Severn Joseph Severn (7 December 1793 – 3 August 1879) was an English portrait and subject painter and a personal friend of the famous English poet John Keats. He exhibited portraits, Italian genre, literary and biblical subjects, and a selec ...

were his friends. As a keen student of

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

, he was a disciple of

Gabriele Rossetti Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti (28 February 1783 – 24 April 1854) was an Italian nobleman, poet, constitutionalist, scholar, and founder of the secret society Carbonari. Rossetti was born in Vasto in the Kingdom of Naples. He was Roma ...

. On

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

, Kirkup was created cavaliere of the

Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus The Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus ( it, Ordine dei Santi Maurizio e Lazzaro) (abbreviated OSSML) is a Roman Catholic dynastic order of knighthood bestowed by the royal House of Savoy. It is the second-oldest order of knighthood in the wo ...

; he subsequently affected the title "barone". He was short, and good-looking as a young man; in later life, eccentric in his dress and habits, and deaf. He was a believer in

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...

, and a follower of the medium

Daniel Dunglas Home Daniel Dunglas Home (pronounced ''Hume''; 20 March 183321 June 1886) was a Scottish physical medium with the reported ability to levitate to a variety of heights, speak with the dead, and to produce rapping and knocks in houses at will. His bi ...

. Kirkup died at 4 Via Scali del Ponte Nuovo,

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...

, where he had lived since 1872, on 3 January 1880, and was buried on 5 January in the British cemetery there.

Works

Kirkup was a capable artist, but practised painting as a dilettante. He sent to the

in 1833 a picture "Cassio", and in 1836 a lady's portrait. He also published etchings. He drew many portraits of his friends, including Trelawny and the journalist

John Scott John Scott may refer to: Academics * John Scott (1639–1695), English clergyman and devotional writer * John Witherspoon Scott (1800–1892), American minister, college president, and father of First Lady Caroline Harrison * John Work Scott (180 ...

, and in 1844 made a self-portrait. In 1840 Kirkup, Bezzi, and the American Henry Wilde, had permission to search for the portrait of Dante, painted according to tradition by

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period. Giot ...

, in the chapel of the Palazzo del Podestà in Florence. On 21 July 1840 they found it, and Kirkup made a drawing and tracing, before restoration work in 1841. The

Arundel Society The Arundel Society, often called the Arundel Club, was founded in London in 1849 and named after the Earl of Arundel, the famous collector of the Arundel Marbles and one of the first great English patrons and lovers of the arts. The society was or ...

issued a reproduction from Kirkup's sketch, which was also engraved by P. Lasinio. Kirkup gave the tracing to Rossetti, who handed it on to his son Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and it was sold after the latter's death. Kirkup made some of the designs for

Lord Vernon Baron Vernon, of Kinderton in the County of Chester, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1762 for the former Member of Parliament George Venables-Vernon. He had previously represented Lichfield and Derby in the House o ...

's edition of Dante's works.

Family

Kirkup, by his first wife, Regina Ronti of Florence, who died 30 October 1856, aged 19, had a daughter, Imogene who married Teodoro Cioni of Livorno and who died in 1878, leaving two children. On 16 February 1875, at the age of 87, Kirkup married Paolina Carboni, aged 22, daughter of Pasquale Carboni, English vice-consul at

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 ...

. After he died she married Signor Morandi of

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

Notes

External links

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkup, Seymour Stocker 1788 births 1880 deaths Artists from London English antiquarians English painters Draughtsmen Recipients of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus