Emma, Lady Hamilton
Emma, Lady Hamilton, was an English model, dancer and actress. She began her career in London's demi-monde, becoming the mistress of a series of wealthy men, culminating in the naval hero Lord Nelson, and was the favourite model and muse of the portraitist George Romney.
In 1791, at the age of 26, she married Sir William Hamilton, British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, where she was a success at court, befriending the queen who was a sister of Marie Antoinette, and meeting Nelson.
Early life
She was born Amy Lyon on April 26, 1765, in Ness near Neston, Cheshire, England, the daughter of Henry Lyon, a blacksmith who died when she was two months old. She was baptised on 12 May 1765. She was raised by her mother, Mary Kidd, and grandmother, Sarah Kidd, at Hawarden, and received no formal education. She later went by the name of Emma Hart.With her grandmother struggling to make ends meet at the age of 60, and after Mary went to London in 1777, Emma began work, aged 12, as a nurse-maid at the Hawarden home of John Thomas, father of Honoratus Leigh Thomas. A "Miss Thomas" is the first person known to sketch Emma. The sketch survives.
She moved to London late 1779 or early 1780. She started to work for the Budd family in Chatham Place, Blackfriars, London, and began acting at the Drury Lane theatre in Covent Garden. She worked as a maid for actresses, including Mary Robinson. Emma next worked as a model and dancer at the "Goddess of Health" for James Graham, a Scottish "quack" doctor.
At 15, Emma met Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, who hired her for several months as hostess and entertainer at a lengthy stag party at his Uppark country estate in the South Downs. She is said to have danced nude on his dining room table. Fetherstonhaugh took Emma there as a mistress, but frequently ignored her in favour of drinking and hunting with his friends. Emma soon befriended the Honourable Charles Francis Greville. It was about this time that she conceived a child by Fetherstonhaugh.Image:George Romney - Lady Hamilton as Circe.jpg|thumb|Emma as Circe, by George Romney, 1782Greville took her in as his mistress on condition that the child was fostered out. Once the child was born, she was removed to be raised by her great-grandmother at Hawarden for her first three years, and subsequently deposited with Mr John Blackburn, schoolmaster, and his wife in Manchester. As a young woman, Emma's daughter saw her mother frequently, but later when Emma fell into debt, her daughter worked abroad as a companion or governess.
Greville kept Emma in a small house at Edgware Row, Paddington Green, London, at this time a village on the rural outskirts of London. At Greville's request, she changed her name to "Mrs Emma Hart", dressed in modest outfits in subdued colours and eschewed a social life. He arranged for Emma's mother to live with her as housekeeper and chaperone. Greville also taught Emma to enunciate more elegantly, and after a while, started to invite some of his friends to meet her.
Seeing an opportunity to make some money by taking a cut of sales, Greville sent her to sit for his friend, the painter George Romney, who was looking for a new model and muse. It was then that Emma became the subject of many of Romney's most famous portraits, and soon became London's biggest celebrity. So began Romney's lifelong obsession with her, sketching her nude and clothed in many poses that he later used to create paintings in her absence. Through the popularity of Romney's work and particularly of his striking-looking young model, Emma became well known in society circles, under the name of "Emma Hart". She was witty, intelligent, a quick learner, elegant and, as paintings of her attest, extremely beautiful. Romney was fascinated by her looks and ability to adapt to the ideals of the age. Romney and other artists painted her in many guises, foreshadowing her later "attitudes".
In 1783, Greville needed to find a rich wife to replenish his finances, and found a fit in the form of eighteen-year-old heiress Henrietta Middleton. Emma would be a problem, as he disliked being known as her lover, and his prospective wife would not accept him as a suitor if he lived openly with Emma Hart.
To be rid of Emma, Greville persuaded his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, British Envoy to Naples and younger brother of his mother, to take her off his hands.
Greville's marriage would prove useful to Sir William, as it relieved him of having Greville as a poor relation. To promote his plan, Greville suggested to Sir William that Emma would make a very pleasing mistress, assuring him that, once married to Henrietta Middleton, he would come and fetch Emma back. Sir William, then 55 and newly widowed, had arrived back in London for the first time in over five years.
Greville did not inform Emma of his plan, but instead in 1785 suggested the trip as a prolonged holiday in Naples while he was away in Scotland on business, not long after Emma's mother had suffered a stroke. Emma was thus sent to Naples, supposedly for six to eight months, little realising that she was going as the mistress of her host. Emma set off for Naples with her mother and Gavin Hamilton on 13 March 1786 overland in an old coach, and arrived in Naples on her 21st birthday on 26 April.
Marriage to Sir William Hamilton
After about six months of living in apartments in the Palazzo Sessa with her mother and begging Greville to come and fetch her, Emma came to understand that he had cast her off. She was furious when she realised what Greville had planned for her, but eventually started to enjoy life in Naples and responded to Sir William's intense courtship just before Christmas in 1786. They fell in love, Sir William forgot about his plan to take her on as a temporary mistress, and Emma moved into his apartments, leaving her mother downstairs in the ground floor rooms. Emma was unable to attend Court yet, but Sir William took her to every other party, assembly and outing.They were married on 6 September 1791 at St Marylebone Parish Church, then a plain small building, having returned to England for the purpose and Sir William having gained the King's consent. She was twenty-six and he was sixty. Although she was obliged to use her legal name of Amy Lyon on the marriage register, the wedding gave her the title Lady Hamilton which she would use for the rest of her life. Hamilton's public career was now at its height and during their visit he was inducted into the Privy Council. Shortly after the ceremony, Romney painted his last portrait of Emma from life, The Ambassadress, after which he plunged into a deep depression and drew a series of frenzied sketches of Emma.
The newly married couple returned to Naples after two days. After the marriage, Greville transferred the cost of Emma Carew's upkeep to Sir William, and suggested that he might move her to an establishment befitting the stepdaughter of an envoy. However, Sir William preferred to forget about her for a while.
The marriage was not favorable to Sir William's family and relations, to the point that Sir William wrote to Thomas Graham, the husband of his niece Mary Graham, defending his marriage to Emma. Emma also wrote seeking approval from Graham and other family relations.
Life in Naples and the "Attitudes"
She lived for some time in a house in Caserta rented by Sir William. Lady Hamilton became a close friend of Queen Maria Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette and wife of Ferdinand I of Naples, and soon acquired fluency in both French and Italian. She was also a talented amateur singer. She sang one of the solo parts of Joseph Haydn's Nelson Mass and entertained guests at her home. At one point, the Royal Opera in Madrid tried to engage her for a season, in competition with their star, Angelica Catalani, but this offer was turned down. Sir William commissioned many portraits of Emma, although not for their sentimental value; he almost always sold them for a profit, usually in England. M. de Talleyrand, the youngest son of the ambassador at Naples, responded to a remark about Sir William's interest in the arts by saying "Rather, it is the arts that look out for Sir William's interests".Emma's vulgar toilette, unaristocratic mannerisms, and drinking sometimes raised the eyebrows of her refined company. During a dinner in Naples, the Duc de Bourbon remarked on the manner in which Emma drank port- noting it must have been a "habit of hers as she did not become drunk after finishing two or three bottles."
Sharing Sir William Hamilton's enthusiasm for classical antiquities and art, she developed what she called her "Attitudes"—tableaux vivants in which she portrayed sculptures and paintings before British visitors. Emma developed the attitudes, also known as mimoplastic art, by using Romney's idea of combining classical poses with modern allure as the basis for her act. Emma had her dressmaker make dresses modelled on those worn by peasant islanders in the Bay of Naples, and the loose-fitting garments she often wore when modelling for Romney. She would pair these tunics with a few large shawls or veils, draping herself in folds of cloth and posing in such a way as to evoke popular images from Greco-Roman mythology. This cross between postures, dance and acting was first revealed to guests in the spring of 1787 by Sir William at his home in Naples. It formed a sort of charade, with the audience guessing the names of the classical characters and scenes Emma portrayed.
With the aid of her shawls, Emma posed as various classical figures from Medea to Queen Cleopatra, and her performances charmed aristocrats, artists such as Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, writers—including the great Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—and kings and queens alike, setting off new dance trends across Europe and starting a fashion for a draped Grecian style of dress.
"Attitudes" were taken up by several other artists, among them Ida Brun from Denmark, who became Emma's successor in the new art form. The famed sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen admired her art.