ROBERT FREEBAIRN (1764-1808)

A CAPRICCIO VIEW OVER LAKE NEMI WITH CASTEL GANDOLFO BEYOND
Signed & indistinctly dated l.r. Freebairn. Roma / 1790
Oil on canvas
82.5 x 120.5 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
H. Beekes;
J.C.B. Swete, Devon, by March 1878;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 23.11.1979, lot 163;
With Julian Simon Fine Art, London;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 04.12.2024, lot 188 (where acquired by the previous owner)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Freebairn, thought to have been of Scottish descent, was born the son of a London chemist. Various biographies suggest that he was the last pupil of Richard Wilson; however, this is not certain, as he was certainly articled to Pgilip Reinagle, and it was from Reinagle’s studio and house that he dispatched his first entry to the Royal Academy’s exhibition in 1782, the year of Wilson’s death. 
 
He exhibited each year thereafter until 1786, when he travelled to Italy. He is recorded several years later, in Rome, from where he sent several grand Italian landscapes like the present work to the RA. Like so many artists, the few years he spent in Italy influenced his art for the rest of his career, and he painted neoclassical landscapes that were clearly influenced by Claude and Gaspard Dughet, as well as his contemporaries and the previous generation of British artists in Rome (which of course included Wilson). 
 
During his time in Italy, Freebairn was patronised by Lord Clive, and upon his return he received regular commissions from Lord Suffolk and several other collectors among the gentry and peerage. He did occasionally diverge from Italianate subjects to paint Welsh subjects and views from Lancashire in particular, but it was for the former that he is chiefly remembered. 
 
His son, Albert Robert Freebairn, posthumously published a volume of his father’s drawings called Outlines of Lancashire Scenery, from an unpublished Sketch-book of the late R. Freebairn, designed as studies for the use of schools and beginners, and etched by the younger Freebairn (London, 1785).