In one of our previous blogs we took a look at the famous painting by Johan Zoffany, ‘Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match’. His name cropped again in our research so we thought we’d find out more about the man and his family and came across this book online, which would definitely recommend – John Zoffany, R. A., his life and works. 1735-1810 by Lady Victoria Manners and G.C Williamson.
His life and his works appear to be have been very well documented but, in brief, Zoffany was born in Germany, moved to London and married twice. His first wife, Anthonie Theophista Juliane Eiselein, whom he married in the late 1750s, left him at some stage to return to Germany and died shortly after, after which he married for the second time and the couple had 4 daughters. He died 11 November 1810.
So that’s the basic facts of his life in a nutshell … but needless to say we have come across a few anomalies for which we have no answers, perhaps our readers can offer some help.
Everywhere we’ve looked states that he was born on 13 March 1733 near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and baptized on 15 March at St Bartholomew’s Cathedral (including the ODNB). If you ‘do the maths’ on this, he would have been aged 77 when he died.
So who got it wrong? The entry in the burial register, although a faint copy, quite clearly records his age at the end of the line as 87, a full 10 years older than stated everywhere, added to this, his gravestone also gives his age as 87.
We are unsure why no-one has ever questioned this. We know it is quite common for entries to be a year or so out, but it’s very unusual for them to be a whole 10 years out – so someone got it wrong, was it his wife who arranged for the tomb to be erected, did she simply get it wrong or was it historians, who over the years just assumed that what they had read about his date of birth was correct without checking any further?
In 1769 he was admitted to the Royal Academy and lived at 43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
He had 4 daughters, all four of whom he mentions in his will – Maria Theresa Louisa who was born on 4th April 1777, but who was not baptised until 1801.
Cecilia Clementina Elizabeth (baptised 10th December 1780) at St George’s Hanover Square.
Claudina Sophia Ann, (no sign of her baptism, but census returns confirm that she was born c1793) and finally Laura Helen Constantia who was reputed to have been born 1795 (RIP July 11, 1876), making Johan quite elderly when she was born (62 or 72).
The strangest thing of all though is, despite his 4 daughters, his marriage to Mary Thomas, didn’t take place until 20 April 1805 making him either 72 or 82 at the time. He was reputed to have married Mary in Florence c1771/72 and it is said that they had a son whilst living there. However, Mary married as a spinster in 1805 so either the Italian wedding was not legal in England, or no marriage had previously taken place.
It begs the question as to why he left it so late. It can’t have been an attempt to legitimise his daughters before they were of an age to marry, as the two eldest, Maria and Cecilia, were married 1801 and 1799 respectively. Perhaps it was to give his wife security for when he died given that she was some considerable years younger than her husband? Mary died in 1832, aged 77.
We end this post with more questions than answers, perhaps someone in the future will be able to solve this mystery, so in the meantime, we will continue to enjoy his works.
Featured image
The Tribuna of the Uffizi 1772-77 Courtesy of the Royal Collection
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a more recent and very well researched biography on him is by Penelope Treadwell, and there was an exhibition with good catalogue at the RA a few years ago http://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions/johan-zoffany-ra-society-observed
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Thank you so much for the additional information 🙂
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Researching a bio of a Regency courtier I found heaps of inconsistencies that I’ve never been able to explain. Nothing that changed the course of history, but still perplexing. Perhaps people had different priorities, and accuracy was not always one of them. Even in the 1990s I was told it was rude to research local history that had already been ‘done’ by a living author.
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As you say it doesn’t change the course of history, it’s just one of those anomalies that raises questions. As technology evolves and with it access to data that was previously unavailable we are now, more than ever before able to find new information, it’s rarely meant as a criticism of existing work, more often than not it’s simply adding to the existing knowledge.
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