Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/622

 in both houses — at the Villa Careggi a vast one — were arranged for him. Nothing was more characteristic of the man than his quietly ascetic way of living in the midst of luxury and the unshaken industry which never let itself be seduced by social attention or flattery. He worked hard during these Florence years, always with high ambitions though always with a modest estimate of himself. He began with portraits of Lord and Lady Holland, of which the former was afterwards nearly destroyed by fire. He also painted the grand duke of Lucca, Countess Walewska, and Princess Mathilde Bonaparte. In the evenings he drew pencil portraits of many interesting guests and friends. He decorated the courtyard of the Casa Feroni with frescoes, which have since disappeared under whitewash. At the Villa Careggi there is still preserved a fresco painted by him of the scene following the death of Lorenzo de' Medici. In the great studio at the villa he designed and began to execute many vast canvases inspired by Italian literature and legend. Among these was the subject from Boc- caccio's tale of 'Anastasio degl' Onesti,' afterwards carried out on a huge scale in his studio in Charles Street; Dante's 'Paolo and Francesca,' in its final form perhaps the noblest extant rendering of the theme in painting; the Fata Morgana from Boiardo; and the scene of Buondel- monti riding under the portico on the day that saw the beginning of the great feud. He practised modelling also, and an alabaster Medusa of the time is still pre- served. He paid visits with Lord and Lady Holland to their villa at Naples and to Rome, where he learned to prize the Sistine ceiling of Michelangelo as the highest achievement of human art after the marbles of the Parthenon. After 1845 the Hollands (no longer at the legation) lived much at Naples, Watts staying on by himself at Careggi, and receiving sym- pathetic attentions, such as at all times he needed and attracted, from Lady Duff Gordon and her two daughters, Georgiana and Alice, who remained his staunch friends to the end. In 1847 the Westminster Palace commissioners invited a new competition for an historical painting, and Watts began to prepare with immense pains preliminary studies for a great design of Alfred urging his countrymen to fight the Danes by sea. In April of this year he sailed from Leghorn to London, and brought with him several huge canvases, intending to finish them in England and then return to Italy. But destiny decided otherwise, and the remainder of his life, except for an occasional trip abroad of a few weeks or months, was spent in England. The princely amateur Mr. R. S. Holford, whose acquaintance he had made shortly before leaving Careggi, offered him a vacant room in Dorchester House as a temporary studio. While working here he lodged at 48 Cambridge Street. In the Westminster Hall compe- tition he won one of the three fixst premiums of 500l., Frederick Richard Pickersgill [q. v. Suppl. I] and [[Armitage, Edward (DNB01)|Edward Armitage [q. v. Suppl. I] carrying off the others. The commissioners desiring to purchase Watts's work, he offered it for the nominal price of 200l., and it was placed in one of the committee rooms of the House of Commons. At Dorchester House Watts painted 'Life's Illusions' and 'Time and Oblivion,' the two of his allegorical designs with which to the end he remained least dissatisfied- John Ruskin, with whom Watts had made friends after his return from Italy, for a while had 'Time and Oblivion' in his house, but presently found in it not enough minute imitation of natural detail. He afterwards bought a picture by Watts of 'Saint Michael contending with Satan for the body of Moses.' For the Duff Gordon ladies Watts at this time painted a portrait of Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, for whose gifts of mind and person and powers as an amateur artist he conceived the strongest admiration. Lord and Lady Holland having by this time (1847-8) come back to England, Watts resumed his intimacy with them, and painted decorations on some of the ceilings at Holland House, as weU as a new full-length portrait of the lady. About the same time he painted portraits of Guizot and Panizzi. Pencil designs of nearly the same date were 'The Temptation of Eve' and 'Satan calling up his Legions.' Meanwhile he was cherishing a great dream, which has been aptly called 'the ambition of half his life and the regret of the other half.' This was for a vast comprehensive sequence of emblematic and decorative paintings illustrating the cosmic evolution of the world and of human civilisation. 'The House of Life' was the name which, looking back on the scheme in retrospect, he would have given it. But much as his enthusiastic projects for monumental works of painting impressed the circle of his immediate friends, they left cold the public powers who dispose of funds and wall-spaces, and scope and opportunity for their realisation were seldom granted him. Of this particular scheme only a few