Pricasso

William Patch of Rock bear Cira 1550 ¯


William Patch of Aylisbornre initials on Tenor bell 1613 ¯


Thomas Patch 1609 - 1696 surgeon of Tallaton === Mrs Florence Hussy

5 children John 1659 Alice 1650 died young Thomas 1663 ¯ Susan Zachary 1669--1731
Thomas Patch 1663 -1724 Surgeon of Coffins well Devon buried at night Coffinswell (1) Johanna Harris 1668 -1713
(2) Jane Taller shall 1718 (3) Elizabeth Hutton 1719
4 children John 1791 ¯ Thomas 1693 Zechariah 1697 A daughter Mrs Minifie
John Patch Surgeon of Exeter Buried at St Pauls Exeter Portrait in Boardroom of Devon and Exeter Hospital Residential surgeon to
The Pretenders Family at St Germains France =======Hanna Burnet Daughter of Bishop Burnet of Salisbury
8 children Hanna 1721 (John 1723 –1787 Surgeon Exeter Hospital portrait in board room) (Thomas Patch Artist 1725 -1782 Moved to Italy Florence)
Robert 1726 1725 Phillip Merchant India Margaret Mary 1840 Lucy James 1733 ¯ Sophia 2 Daughters DY
James Patch Surgeon Norfolk Street London === Mrs Gaulet formally Miss Page Daughter of John Page
2 children John ¯ sophia1768 --1858
John Patch 1756 –1814 Surgeon Bengal EICS lived and died in Bengal Kat rack ====Frances married 1795 Daughter of J Revel Esq died in Cul lack 1814 aged 48
8 children John 1756- 1814 Ann1798 -1824 Henry 1800- 1858 ¯ Sophia 1801-1875 James1802-1844 Eliza1803-1882 Harriet 1805-1806 Joseph 1809 1877
Henry Revel Patch 1800-1858 ===== Charlotte Davies Widowers Sturmer Daughter of Capt Robert Davis Killed in action 1799 between BR Sybille and FR La Forte
7 children Henry 1833-1836 Charlotte1827 James 1838 Sophia Robert1842 1927 ¯ Katherine 1835 1851 Eliza 1831 1893
Robert Patch 1842- 1927 Colonel CIB ====Francis Mary Lloyd of Compton Duns ton Somerset
5 children Francis Robert Patch Brig Gen CB Chg. DSO 1866 1947 Henry 1869 Frances James 1872 -1942 ¯ Burnet Lt Col RAMC
James Patch OBE 1872—1942====Mary Dorahea Phillips Treby 1885 –1923
3 children John 1913 RAF killed 1943 over Germany Oliver 1914-1996 RM DSO DSC Thomas 1916-2008 RN ¯ -
Thomas Patch 1916—2008 Royal Navy ====== Pamela Crawford Hill of Sydney Australia
2 children Sally 1948 Timothy 1949¯
Timothy Patch 1949 moved to Australia 19772003 became PRICASSO === I st Frances Ann Young 2 children
===2 Penny Ann Hulbert 2 children
4 children Kim 1974 Victoria 1976 Sky 1979 Oliver 1993

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THOMAS PATCH (1725-1782)
NOTES ON HIS LIFE, TOGETHER WITH A CATALOGUE OF HIS
KNOWN WORKS
By F. J. B. WATSON
THOMAS PATCH was born at Exeter early in 1725 and his baptism is
recorded in the register of St. Paul's Church on 3 Ist March of that year. I
He came of a family of surgeons, his father, John Patch, having been at one time surgeon to the Old Pretender at St. Germain and afterwards first surgeon tothe Exeter (now the Royal Devon and Exeter) Hospital, where his portrait by
William Gandy still hangs in the Board Room. Thomas's eldest brother John
and his younger brother James, as well as various nephews, were also surgeons,
the eldest brother succeeding his father at the Exeter Hospital. On his mother's
side he was a descendant of Bishop Burnet.
The family was one of considerable position in Exeter. The painter's brother
John built himself Rougemont House, the grounds of which are now one of the
city's principal parks; he appears to 'have been a man of considerable learning.
His son told Farington2 that 'Jackson', the musician,3 'was accustomed to say
"He never wanted Chambers's Dictionary while Mr. Patch lived'" and that 'His
knowledge was so extensive that from conversing with a child abt. His "Tom
Thumb" He could go through the depths of Newtonian Philosophy'.
Thomas himself was intended for the medical profession, but early in life his
inclination for drawing asserted itself and whilst apprenticed to an Exeter
apothecary he spent so much of his time drawing that more than sixty years
later the offence caused by his caricatures of his fellow townsmen was still
remembered.4 In spite of this he was allowed, though only after a considerable
struggle, to abandon his medical career and take up the study of art. The final
break away from medicine took place in London, whither his family had sent
him to live with, and study under, the learned physician Dr. Mead.s In the
cultured circle which Mead's antiquarian interests attracted around him,
Patch no doubt met many artists and formed the contacts necessary for his
preliminary training. .
He cannot have remained in London for more than a year or two, for in
I G. K. S. Edwards, Apollo, Oct. 1937, x,wi,
217.
2 Farington Diary, ed. James Greig, 7 vols.
London, 1922-7, vi. 182 and 184.
3 William Jackson of Exeter (1730-1803).
4 Farington Diary, vi. 18!.
5 Mann, letter to Walpole, 22nd February
177!. This and subsequent information about
Mann's letters to Walpole has been kindly supplied
by Mr. W. S. Lewis of Farmington, Connecticut,
U.S.A., who now possesses the MSS. of
the letters, and by Mr. WyndhamKetton-Cremer.
Unfortunately they contain nothing of importance
about Patch which has not already been published
in 'Mann' and Manners at the Court rifFlorence 1740-
86 by Dr. Doran, London, r876

grounds of Patch's caricature groups and the original idea of this picture was
perhaps suggested to Reynolds by Patch.
Caricature does not seem to have been practised by Patch during his residence
in Rome. With the example of Ghezzi so close at hand this must seem
strange, but no mention of his caricatures has been found in any contemporary
document relating to this time, and the only portrait surviving from his Roman
period is the 'Head of a Man' (Catalogue, NO.I4), which is a straightforward
portrait study. Yet it is unlikely that he entirely dropped the vein in which he
had first displayed his artistic abilities and which at the end of his life was to
bring him, if not fame, at any rate a local celebrity. The drawings in the Uffizi
(see Catalogue, Nos. 54, 55), as well as the engraved caricatures, show that
Patch must have been in timately acquainted with the work, at any rate, ofG hezzi.
One of Patch's earliest and most faithful patrons was Lord Charlemont, who
arrived in Rome towards the end of 1748. He was a good friend to the English
artists there and when, in April of the following year, he set off for an extended
tour of the Near East he took with him as draughtsman Patch's former travelling
companion, Richard Dalton. Charlemont had not been slow to appreciate
the Devonshire artist, for he left with him a number of commissions for pictures
of the neighbourhood of Rome. In particular he ordered a set of views of
Tivoli which took some time to execute, for Cardinal Albani told Sir Horace
Mann that Patch had been working there for his patron during the three
summer months of 1750 and again in 175I .1 None of these views of Tivoli2 has
so far been traced, but the picture of 'The Falls of Terni' (Catalogue, No. 35)
was almost certainly executed for the same patron. An old note on the back of
this picture states that Charlemont, Mann, and Richard Wilson are represented
in it. The tradition is false, in part at any rate, as Mann had never met Patch
before he arrived in Florence in 1755, and, in any case, the British Minister in
Florence was not likely to visit the Papal States.
The artist was at this time working at the 'Academy'3 founded in Rome by
Lord Charlemont, and in 1753-4 he is recorded in the 'Status Animarum' of
the Palazzo Zuccari as MonSZl Tommas Pace, inglese, eretico, pittore di anni 314 (an
age which does not correspond with the baptismal entry, see p. 15)' At this
time the Palazzo Zuccari was in the hands of Alessandro Nazari of Bergamo who
had converted it into an inn catering especially for artists. Patch was a fellow
lodger with Reynolds5 and Vernet. 6 Here, as he wrote in grea t delight to his family
at this date, he was able to live in Rome on not more than a guinea a week.
I MS. letter of Cardinal Albani to Mann, of its existence apart from the mention of it in
October 1751 (Austrian State Archives, Vienna). Parker's letters (see below).
2 Cat. Nos. 35a and 35b only came to light while 4 Werner Korte, Der Palazz:-o Zuccari, Rom,
this paper was in the press. Leipzig, 1935,56.
3 This so-called Academy was probably only a 5 Resided there 1752-3; Korte, loco cit.
small group of artists meeting together under 6 Resided there 1748-53, Korte, loco cit.
Lord Charlemont's patronage. There is no trace
XXVIII D

His satisfaction with Roman life, however, was not reciprocated by the
authorities, and in 1751 he began the first of his quarrels with the Holy Office
which culminated four years later in his being exiled from the Papal States.
When Patch returned to Tivoli in the summer of 175I to complete the commission
for Lord Charlemont he was allowed to work undisturbed for a short
while and then received a peremptory order from the Bishop of Tivoli to quit
his diocese. Sir Horace Mann, who was the nearest English Minister and the
one most concerned with Roman affairs, was called upon to help his future
friend. In October he wrote to the friendly Cardinal Albani to inquire the
reason for this harsh treatment of the artist. He presumed that Patch's Protestant
views were the cause of his dismissal, but pointed out that it was usual for
foreign heretics to be allowed at least eight days' stay in Catholic places.
Albani, who was always amicably disposed towards "artistsand was a personal
friend of Patch's absent patron, wrote at once to the Bishop of Tivoli. He evidently
believed that the artist's Protestant beliefs were the cause of the trouble,
for according to Parker the artist dealer, and others, Patch was not given to
restraining his tongue, and habitually expressed his opinions in the most forthright
way. Albani begins his letter tactfully by writing: 'I am more than ever
convinced that it would be of the greatest advantage if one could prevent any
dealings at all between Catholics and sectarians', I but goes on to say that circumstances
sometimes require a certain tolerance in these matters and ends by
surmising that the Bishop must have some very strong reason for not ~xtending
this toleration to Thomas Patch. The Bishop's reply was evasive. On 18th
October he wrote: 'If Patch had kept within the limits of his permission to
draw his views of Tivoli he would have been left in peace this year as he was for
three months last year', and excused himself from any charge of harshness to
Patch by giving the equivocal pretext that he only ordered him to leave the
diocese and had not in fact set a definite time-limit to his stay such as the law
would have allowed him to do. It is nevertheless certain that the dismissal was
couched in such stern terms as to make Patch believe he was to be expelled
immediately. The Bishop's letter ends as vaguely as it had begun and hints at
some unnameable crime so gross that the Bishop's conscience forbad him to
allow its perpetrator to remain in his domains.
Cardinal Albani passed this unsatisfactory information on to Mann, and
there the matter was allowed to rest for the time being. Patch's crime remains
unknown. It may perhaps have been connected with some love affair, for later
John Parker hinted, in a letter to Lord Charlemont, some scandal of the
artist's 'girl of Tivoli'.2 At any rate it is unlikely to have been a very serious
I Quoted from the Vienna State Archives by pendix, Part X, Manuscripts and Correspondenceqf
Fr. Noack, Der Cicerone, 1924, xvi, 411. James, First Earl of Charlemont, London, 1891,
Z Hist. MSS. Commission, Twelfth Report, Ap- p. 223

offence, for the Holy See was very ready to banish Protestants from the Papal
States, especially when they were English.
Patch was not banished this time in spite of the fact that his patron was not
at hand to plead his cause with Pope Benedict XIV, who was a close friend of
Lord Charlemont. The affair does not seem to have shaken Charlemont's
faith in his protege, for several years later, in July 1755, the accounts! show that
Belloni, the banker, was still paying Patch sums of one hundred and two hundred
zecchini on Charlemont's behalf, and these were not merely charitable gifts,
for there are in addition considerable charges for packing and dispatching
Patch's pictures to Ireland.
Parker, whose letters to Lord Charlemont are the principal source of infor""",
mation about Patch at this time, was a painter as well as a picture-dealer and
general agent in Rome for Charlemont. Possibly Patch's greater artistic success
gave rise to a feeling of jealousy. Parker was certainly no friend to the artist
in spite of his protest, after Patch had finally been banished from the Papal
territory, that it was only 'his disgrazia which hindred me from further friendship'.
2 'Crazy he always was', he had written a few weeks earlier. Patch himself
evidently distrusted Parker. He refused to allow the dealer to dispatch to
Charlemont a picture which the latter had ordered but which remained incomplete
at his departure from Rome; in spite of the inconvenience he preferred
to make his own forwarding arrangements. When he was eventually
ordered to leave Rome he departed without a word to his patron's agent.
There is little doubt that Patch was of an exceedingly difficult temperament.
Early in 17553 he had broken up the 'Academy' by quarrelling and fighting
with Warner, another painter-dealer, so that Charlemont had to close it. He
seems to have been aware of his own weakness for quarrelling, and in his own
account of his dismissal from Rome he feels it necessary to excuse himself from
any charge of aggressiveness by writing to Charlemont 'and for more than a
Twelve-month past I have not Been in any Italian Company and as Little as
Possible my own Countrymen. never have had any Dispute of any kind
whatsoever nor talk about Religion'.
It may have been that the Pope's great friendship for Charlemont saved
Patch for a time from the consequences of his eccentric behaviour. A few
months after the final departure from Rome of his patron the blow fell, and on
22nd October 1755 he received an order from the Holy Office to quit the Papal
States within twenty-four hours. The unfortunate artist was reduced to the
last stages of terror, as John Parker delightedly reports to Lord Charlemont
the very next day.4 His account ofthe affair differs very little from Patch's own
I MS. accounts with Parker's letters in posses- 4 Ibid., p. 222. The letter is dated 24th
sion of the Royal Irish Academy. December but was evidently written over a con-
2 Charlemont Papers, lac. cit., p. 225. siderable period of time.
3 Ibid., p. 246.
which

which he sent Charlemont from Florence a few weeks later. As the letter
appears to be the only one of Patch's which survives, it is quoted in full.
Florance January 2do
My Lord, 1756
I must beg your Lordships Pardon for the Liberty I take after So Long neglecting
my Duty towards your Lordship but it proceeded from knowing that you had a
Continual Correspondent in Rome weh gave me frequent Pleasure of hearing that
your Lordship enjoyed perfect Health and perhaps I should not have been So Bold
now had it not been for an Accident that has Lately Befall'n me weh perhaps may
Appear in Bad Light when you are told I am sent out of the Pope's State.
for this Reason I think my selfe under an Absolute Obligation of Vindicateing my
self to you more Particularly than anyone liveing as your Lordship was Pleased to
Honour me wth your Patronge whilest in Rome.
on the twenty second of October I was Sited to appear before a Notary Belonging
to the Governor of Rome I begd of Abbe Grant to Accompany me weh he did and was
Soon Informed by a Petition made from the Santo Offizzio to the Cardinal Secretary
of State for to Exile me out of the Popes Dominion but without mentioning any
Reason weh Surprised me much as I cannot recollect anyone thing Possible for them
to take Hold on unless the Old Affair of Tivoli whitch has been before acquainted wth
and for more than a Twelve-month past I have not Been in any Italian Company and
as Little as Possible my own Countrymen. never had any Dispute of any kind whatsoever
nor talk about Religion. I had but four and twenty hours to Stay in ye State
weh gave me more Trouble than that of Leaveing the Country weh I hope I shall have
no reason to Regret as Mr Stevens had taken Particular Notice of me on account of
my haveing been before Honourd wth your Lordships Protection. So on this affaire,
weh I acquainted him wth immediately assisted and did all that Lay in his Power for
me by Strongly recommending me to Monsignior Piccolomini who has Given me a
Letter wth the Strongest recommendation to the Count Richcourt here in Florance
as has Mr Stevens to Mr Mann Ld Huntingdon and others. another Letter Mr
Stevens procured, for me from Card! Albani to Mr Mann by home I have been
reseived wth extreme Politeness and promises of his Protection. so that I am in hope of
Soon finding Florance more Agreable and Profitable to me than Rome and shall be
entirely Happy when I can be assured of (your) Lordships being Persuaded of my
innocence in this Affair
and that I am on all commands
Your Lordships mos Obligd
and Obet Servt
Whether Patch ever carried his eccentricities to the point of criminal behaviour
will probably never be known. Certainly Parker thought so and hinted
as much on several occasions to Charlemont. But Parker is not a wholly
reliable witness. He was accused by Sir William Stanhope of interfering with
Charlemont's correspondence and other misdemeanours. Besides he seems to
I The MS. of this letter, and of a number of possession of the Royal Irish Academy, by whose
others addressed to Lord Charlemont, is in the permission they are reproduced.

have had difficulties over his financial dealings with the artist, for in rendering
Lord Charlemont an account for various sums paid out to Patch by the banker
Belloni he is most careful to clear himself of all responsibility by writing, 'the
rest Patch & Virepoyl are to acct. for. yr. Lordp. may remember to have
signed Patches credit seperate from mine at his desire, so that I have no acct.
to render'. I The affair evidently caused some stir amongst the English colony
in Rome and all sorts of wild tales were passed by gossiping tongues. Parker
summed them up when he wrote, 'his behaviour has been so extraordinary of
late that the most favourable construction is to say he is mad. Crazy he always
was.'2
Patch appears to have given some colour to the gossip by telling Virepoyl,
another Roman dealer, that 'he could not imagine what it was he was banished
for, if not a thing that only he and his boy knew', for 'the truth the world shall
never know', and that is perhaps the last word on the matter.
The frightened artist hurriedly gathered together his belongings and deposited
them, not with one of his English acquaintances, all of whom he distrusted,
but with a comparative stranger. Sir William Stanhope helped him
by purchasing two landscapes, and with the remainder of a sum of one hundred
pounds that Sir William Lowther had recently paid him he set off for Florence.
His numerous letters of recommendation assured Patch a warm welcome
from the English society there, and soon he was settled down 'a-bridge painting
for Lord Huntingdon'. 3 But Parker could not let the matter rest and four months
later his virulent pen is still retailing gossip to Charlemont on the subject.
'Various are the storys told of the reason of his banishment some say B-y others
giving a potion to a Nun to make her miscarry; must be something confesed by his
boy (who dyed a few days before the order for his banisnt in the hospital of St John
Lateran) he has told strange storys to Mr Stevens and Sir Horace Man, that they have
tryed several times to Poison him, that his dog eat of a Minester set before him by
some particular people and dyed immediately, this happened at Terni, and that his
boy who also had eat of it never recovered, both false, his dog dyed in Rome several
months after he returned to Rome, and his boy of the Pox; other story that he had
several guns fired at him by order of a Mongewho now keeps his Tivoli Girl.'4
Parker's account of the gossip in Florence is almost certainly exaggerated, for
it is improbable that such highly delectable tittle-tattle would not have been
reported to Walpole, and Mann makes no mention of such things in the voluminous
correspondence sent to Walpole. Indeed, Patch's arrival in Florence
cannot have aroused any extraordinary interest, as Mann does not make any
mention of him to his friend until sixteen years later.
Mann formed the opinion that Patch's banishment from Rome was due to
I MS. letter and accounts in possession of
Royal Irish Academy.
2 Charlemont Papers, loco cit., p. 225.
3 Ibid., loco cit., p. 225.
4 MS. letter in possession of the Royal Irish
Academy, dated Feb. 26,

'some indiscretion about religion', I though Albani had suggested in reply (letter
dated 27th December 1755) to a request for information on this point that the
cause was 'quelque discours outre en matiere des femmes'. Parker gives some
colour to this suggestion by reporting that Patch had endeavoured to poison
a nun, but he eventually abandoned this theory and wrote to Charlemont
'I am of your Lordship's opinion that his oddities and loose way of talking in
all companies was the cause of his exile'.2 Patch, as his letter shows, had evidently
a bad conscience in the matter of his forthright expression of religious opinions.
Patch could have sought refuge in no more suitable place than Florence,
where he found himself amongst his countrymen, who formed a considerable
society there, consisting for the most part of wealthy dilettanti whose acknowledged
leader was the rich and eccentric Lord Cowper. The society, too, was
constantly refreshed by new arrivals, for the sons of the English nobility all
stayed there on the Grand Tour and often found Florentine life so attractive
that their stay became indefinitely prolonged. In any case, however short
their stay, they were all presented to the Grand Duke or to the Regent (though
not without a certain amount of grumbling) by Sir Horace Mann, the British
Minister who kept open house to the English vjsitors in the Casa Mannetti and
an open eye on the activities of the Young Pretender in Rome. Mann soon
became a fast friend to Patch and was thus able to be most helpful in introducing
him to new patrons.
The pursuit of 'bridge painting', of which Parker spoke, was to become
Patch's principal occupation for the rest of his life, though not the occupation
that has brought him the greatest celebrity. Of his survivi~g pictures that have
been traced a very large number are views of Florence, and most of these show
the Ponte Santa Trinita or one of the other bridges which span the Arno. In
fact Patch adopted the then comparatively remunerative profession of vedute
painter and supplied the young English lords visiting Florence on their travels
with the contemporary equivalent of the picture postcard or photograph to be
taken home and shown to admiring relatives and afterwards put away in the
obscure corners of country houses to bring back an occasional memory of
happy holidays in the distant past.
Sometimes they were intended as decorative features of more important
rooms in the shape of Sopraporte, like the two which Mann suggested that
Walpole should accept.3 Walpole, however, thought them likely to be too large
for his 'little Gothic box' and asked instead for two smaller views of Florence,
which eventually arrived just in time for Christmas in 1771.4
I Mann to Walpole, 22nd February 177!.
2 Charlemont Papers, loco cit., p. 228.
3 Mann to Walpole, 22nd February 177!.
4 Walpole to Mann, 24th March and 28th
December 1771. Letters of Horace Walpole, ed.
Mrs. Paget Toynbee, Oxford, 16 vols., 1903-5,
vol. viii, letter 1342, p. 23, and letter 1388, p. 124.
These pictures are the two now at Houghton;
see Catalogue, Nos. 25 and 26, and PI. XI b.
THE LIFE

Of all his views of Florence, the one that Patch most often repeated was of the
Ponte Santa Trinita seen from the left bank of the Arno. It was a view with
which he must have been very familiar, for the back of Mann's house should
be visible in the background, though it is not possible to identify it with
certainty.
Patch did not paint his view 'from the life' but copied it from the recently
published and popular engraving of the same subject by G. Zocchi. He follows
the engraving with the greatest fidelity, only varying the positions of the boats
on the river and the groups of figures on the banks. Occasionally he takes a
boat or a group from another of Zocchi's engraved views of Florence, but
always he retains the little coach and galloping horses that hasten across the
bridge in Zocchi's view like the flying figures in the Willow Pattern. I
Another view which he often produced for travellers to carry back to
England was naturally of the Piazza delIa Signoria. He always showed it from
the same spot on the north side and only introduced variations in his groups of
figures, sometimes putting in a group of soldiers drilling or sometimes making
a mountebank or a Punch and Judy show his main point of interest.
When Walpole received his two views of Florence his comment was that he
found them 'a little hard', adding, '1 speak plainly that he may correct'.2 For
his vedute paintings Patch developed a hard, tight style quite different from the
soft luminosity of Vernet. Perhaps this change was in part due to his visit to
Venice in 1760, where he must have seen works by Canaletto and his followers.
His work is less accomplished than the Venetian's, and is much colder in
tone, but from time to time works by Patch appear in the sale rooms with
an ascription to Canaletto. Bellotto, too, had worked in Florence in 1745 and
Patch may have seen his work there-the view of the Piazza delIa Signoria by
Bellotto (now in the Budapest Gallery, No. 255) has obvious affinities with
Patch's treatment of the same subject.
Patch not only supplied his travelling patrons with views of Florence but
continued to paint for them the imaginary sea and harbour scenes that he had
learnt to execute in Vernet's studio at Rome. Sir Horace Mann had four of
these in his large reception room, where they must have constituted a permanent
exhibition of Patch's works to tempt English purchasers. They have unfortunately
disappeared, but four similar paintings (possibly replicas) still
existJ These were commissioned by John Apthorp; who married Mann's
niece Alicia. In his diary the latter writes, 'January 1St 1764 agreed with
Mr. Patch for four landscapes the size of Sir Horace's in the great room, for
50 sequins to be done in three months.'4
I See Catalogue, Nos. 15-23.
2 Walpole to Mann, 28th December 177!.
Letters if Horace Walpole, loco cit., vol. viii, letter
1388, p. 124.
3 Catalogue, Nos. 36-9.
~ MS. diary in private possession.
It

It was, however, Patch's turn for caricature which most attracted the interest
of his contemporaries and has since made him familiar to posterity. If he
practised the art at all during his stay in Rome he did so casually and with a
diffidence which failed to excite the interest or encouragement of his countrymen,
nor do any caricatures from this period seem to have survived. But within
five years of his arrival in Florence he was in great demand and his style in this
genre shows itself fully matured in the two groups dated 17601 which he painted
for Lord Stamford. These are the earliest dated caricatures, but others such
as 'The Cognoscenti'2 were almost certainly painted before this.
Patch had evid~ntly learnt his lesson against quarrelsomeness in Rome, for
Mann records 'that he was always so prudent as never to caricature anybody
without his consent and a full liberty to exert his talents'. Perhaps it was to
forestall criticisms that he always included his own caricature in his groups and
that in a more caustic manner than any other of his subjects. His caricature is
never savage. No social or political criticism is implied in it as in so much
eighteenth-century art. His chief concern, as he shows in the quotation from
Machiavelli, which he uses in one of his large caricature groups (Catalogue,
NO.5), is to show come it mondo e guasto. He merely passes a kindly and humorous
commentary on his subjects by a trifling exaggeration of their most distinguishing
characteristics, such as Lord Cowper's heavy underslung jaw or
the Duke of Roxburghe's cherubic face. His subjects are almost always represented
in profile, a position which facilitates the exaggeration of facial
characteristics. Sometimes they are shown in some amusing situation, as
when the Duke of Roxburghe is seen attempting to steel himself to propose to
the rich but hideous Portuguese dwarf, Miss Tabitha Mendes-an incident
that had evidently been the subject of considerable gossip in Florence. But more
frequently the artist shows his characters grouped around a table conversing
or drinking punch.
In 1760 he seems to have travelled to Venice and Pola in company with Lord
Gray (afterwards Lord Stamford), Jacob Houblon, Sir Henry Mainwaring,
and the Rev. Jonathan Lipyeatt. Their interests were those of connoisseurs of
the antique and Patch has depicted the reverend gentleman in the act of deciphering
a classical inscription, whilst Lord Stamford writes down the results
of his investigation on a paper supported on Houblon's back. This picture and
its companion, 'The Punch Party'3 (Plates IX a and IX b), are supplied with keys
giving the names of all the persons depicted. It is a great pity that more such
keys have not survived-particularly that giving the names of more than forty
persons shown with the Duke of York leaving Sir Horace Mann's house (see
below, p. 25). Apart from the engraved caricatures (see below, pp. 44, 45) they
provide the only certain means of identifying the figures in Patch's groups.
I Catalogue, Nos. I and 2. 2 Ibid., No.8. 3 Ibid., No. 1.