Sir William and Lady Hamilton in 18th century Naples

The exhibition “Sir William and Lady Hamilton” is dedicated to an extraordinary protagonist of the Neapolitan cultural world of the 18th century, William Hamilton, English ambassador to the court of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, and to the sometimes legendary figure of Lady Emma Hamilton. curated by Francesco Leone and Fernando Mazzocca, hosted by Intesa Sanpaolo at the Gallerie d’Italia – Naples, from 25 October to 2 March 2025.

The exhibition, organized with the support of the British Embassy in Rome and the Italian Embassy in London and with the patronage of the Municipality of Naples and the University of Naples Federico II, presents seventy-eight works including paintings, ceramics, sculptures and works from important national and international museums, such as the Royal Palace of Caserta, Certosa and Museum of San Martino, National Portrait Gallery in London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate in London, The British Museum, Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, as well as private collections and galleries.

In the wake of the fundamental studies of Carlo Knight – recently deceased – and the great 1996 exhibition at the British Museum, the exhibition reconsiders and enhances the human, political and intellectual story of Hamilton, diplomat, antiquarian and volcanologist, who with his multifaceted personality , found in the “enlightened” Naples of the second half of the eighteenth century fertile ground to affirm and develop his great passions: antiquity and science.

The sections through which the exhibition develops highlight his great interest in volcanology, landscape painting, music, collecting, as well as the role he played in Neapolitan society and worldliness of the time, amplified by the figure of Lady Emma Hamilton.

William Hamilton’s passion for the ancient materialized in the creation of his own original collection of extraordinary painted Greek vases, some of which are present in the exhibition, coming from Herculaneum, Pompeii, Southern Italy and Greece. The sale of part of this collection to the British Museum in 1772 had a decisive role on British antiquarian collecting and taste.

The exhibition illustrates his original initiative to create and publish one of the most beautiful and famous illustrated books of all time, the magnificent Antiquités etrusques, grecques et romaines. It was an exceptional set of five hundred engraved and decorated plates, hand-watercoloured in red and black with white and blue touches, which reproduced the paintings present in the vases. The texts of the volumes were written by the great and bizarre scholar Pierre-François Hugues d’Hancarville who initially availed himself of the contribution of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. With this publication Hamilton also intended to offer models to contemporary artists, making vase painting the main source of inspiration for the so-called “linear style” which characterized the most experimental and original artists of Neoclassicism, such as the famous sculptor and illustrator John Flaxman and Josiah Wedgwood, owner of the factories of the same name.

A substantial part of the exhibition is dedicated to the figure of Lady Hamilton. After the death of his first wife in 1782, Hamilton became a protagonist of the most exclusive worldliness thanks to his second marriage to Emily Lyon, better known as Emma Hart (Neston, 1765 – Calais, 1815), the famous adventuress who also had a great influence on political level due to his ties with Queen Maria Carolina and his scandalous relationship with the famous Admiral Horatio Nelson. The magnificent portraits on display by the Englishman George Romney and the German Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein restore the charm of Emma, ​​who was also represented by other painters of the time in the guise of classical and mythical figures. Thus was fueled the image of a woman destined to enter legend for her dazzling beauty, for her spirit and for the unscrupulous freedom of her customs. He then became famous for his “attitudes”, or the suggestive poses he assumed while representing tableaux vivants for his guests where he evoked the divinities and heroines of the classical world.

Also on display is the screening of a video created by the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana which collects the cinematographic images that best tell the story and myth of Lady Hamilton.

Another important part of the exhibition deals with the theme of travel. A decisive moment in Hamilton’s life was the visit that Johann Wolfgang Goethe paid him in 1787 during his famous trip to Italy. The ambassador was also a great traveler: he ventured into the then little-used and unsafe territories of Calabria and Sicily, animated by his curiosity and scientific passion for exceptional natural phenomena such as volcanoes and telluric movements. An exceptional testimony of these interests remains in another famous editorial undertaking promoted by him, the publication of the volumes entitled Campi Phlegraei published in Naples in 1776, to which a supplement was added in 1779 with an Account of the Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, work illustrated by a team led by the painter Pietro Fabris, who was his companion on excursions on the slopes of Vesuvius and Etna.

The magnificent illustrations of these volumes, colored by hand, document Hamilton’s expertise in volcanology, investigated in all its aspects, from eruptive phenomena to all the morphological peculiarities of the territories he explored. This scientific vocation and interest in nature led him to become a promoter and collector of landscape painting.

The exhibition focuses on his particular relationship with the great Roman landscape artist Giovanni Battista Lusieri and with the most experimental and modern English painters such as Joseph Wright of Derby, Thomas Jones, John Robert Cozens, whom he hosted and encouraged. It was also thanks to this commitment that Naples became one of the major workshops for the creation of the modern landscape.

Michele Coppola, Executive Director of Art, Culture and Historical Heritage of Intesa Sanpaolo and General Director of the Gallerie d’Italia, states: “The stories that arise from the immense cultural heritage of Naples are always exciting and linked to exceptional human events, just like what we create today at the Gallerie d’Italia in via Toledo. Telling the collector Hamilton is a new homage to the city, the result of the extraordinary dialogue with important institutions in Italy and abroad, a new original project that once again confirms the cultural, civil and social contribution given by Intesa Sanpaolo thanks to the vitality of its museum headquarters, which fully ranks among the most active European museums”.