JOHN SAMUEL HAYWARD (1778-1822)

A VIEW OF ARICCIA FROM BENEATH
Watercolour with pencil & black chalk, heightened with bodycolour
51.5 x 44.5 cm
 
PROVENANCE
Christie's, South Kensington, 16.07.2014, Lot 597 (as A View of Tivoli);
Private Collection, U.K.
 
EXHIBITED
Royal Academy, London, 1811, no.784 (A frame containing four views in Italy... [3] A view near Lerici)
 
 
 
 
We are grateful to Dr Kim Sloan for pointing out that the present view is Ariccia, and not Tivoli as
the painting had previously been thought to depict when sold at Christie's in 2014.
Born in London to a family of carpet & floor-cloth manufacturers, Hayward was one of five children.
In spite of comparatively humble beginnings, Hayward was fluent in both French and Italian and
became well-travelled by the standards of his time. He would go on to produce the same sorts of
commercial floor cloth and canvas as his father had, also providing more sophisticated services such as house painting and interior decoration, an indication of his commercial success and rise through the ranks of the trade.
 
 
An accomplished watercolour painter in his own right, Hayward contributed various works to the
Royal Academy, largely a mixture of figure and landscape subjects. He also assisted several
professional artists in painting the then-popular large-scale 'panorama' pictures which were the height
of fashion at the turn of the 19th century. Among his various artistic travels, Hayward accompanied
Thomas Girtin and Sir George Beaumont on their sketching trip to Wales in 1800, as well as touring
various provincial regions himself.
 
In 1802, he made his first foray into Italy, sketching and painting a number of views of Tivoli, the
Roman countryside and further nearby towns. Unusually for an amateur who did not come from an
affluent background and whose primary career was in 'the trades', Hayward was well-known and liked
among his artistic confrères, and clearly found time to paint and exhibit regularly. He partook in both
the activities of the sketching club started by Thomas Girtin (acting as its secretary for a time) and the
Chalon brothers' later sketching society, and was a close friend of Girtin, Joshua Cristall and John Sell
Cotman among others.