AGOSTINO AGLIO (1777-1857)

AN EXPANSIVE VIEW OVER THE ANCIENT THEATRE OF TAORMINA, TOWARDS ETNA
Inscribed to partial label on backboard A view from T... / from a drawing...
Gouache on card
42.5 x 67 cm
 
 
 
 
Born in Cremona, Agostino Aglio’s family moved to Milan in 1787, where he was educated at the Collegio dei Barnabiti. After admission to the Accademia di Brera, he was taught painting by Andrea Appiani and design by Giocondo Albertolli. He served as a volunteer in the Legione della República Cisalpina and fought in the battle of Faenza in 1797. He subsequently joined the studio of the landscape painter Luigi Campovecchio in Rome. In 1799, on the recommendation of Canova, Aglio was employed by the architect William Wilkins as a draughtsman on an expedition to Sicily, Greece, and Egypt, the results of which were eventually published as Antiquities of Magna Graecia in 1807. The present view might have been worked up later from a drawing made on this trip. 
 
In 1803, Wilkins enabled him to become drawing-master at Caius College, Cambridge, but after a quarrel, Aglio left to become a drawing-master in London. He married Laetitia Clarke (1783-1849), the daughter of a merchant, with whom he had several children, at St. Anne Soho 16 Mar 1808. Aglio was in the King’s Bench prison for debt in 1811-1812 and his bankruptcy was announced in the London Gazette, 23 October 1813, with a final creditors’ meeting scheduled for 12 Nov 1814. He subsequently laid out his residence in Edwardes Square, Kensington, his home from 1814-1820. His later career was one of scene-painting for the London theatres and the production of frescoes, notably for the Catholic church of St. Mary Moorfield in 1819 (later restored by himself and his son of the same name (1)), for the Duke of Bedford at Woburn, and for the nineteenth-century Manchester Town Hall. 
 
Between the years 1820 and 1830, he published several books on art, including a Collection of Capitals and Friezes drawn from the Antique and Antiquities of Mexico, illustrated with over 1000 plates, drawn from the originals. He also painted a portrait of the young Queen Victoria shortly after her accession (now in the Parliamentary Art Collection), as well as exhibiting another work in 1840 titled The Enthronization of Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey. An early biographical note on the artist stated that he was eventually to return to Italy, sent by the Jesuits in London to source ancient central American codexes that they did not have copies of, though he must have returned to London after this. 
  
  
Aglio exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, and elsewhere 1807-1850, and began working in lithography in 1809. There were financial difficulties again in the 1830s, brought on by the bankruptcy of his chief backer, Viscount Kingsborough. Aglio was once more declared bankrupt in March 1832, in proceedings which continued to at least April 1837, in connection with which a number of his paintings were auctioned at the Exchange Rooms, Manchester, 23 May 1837. In May 1844, he was among of a deputation of leading artists which went to Downing Street to protest at legislation relating to Art Unions (2). In 1850, Aglio suffered from a stroke which partially paralysed him. He never fully recovered and died at his son’s house in Camberwell and was buried in Highgate Cemetery on the 6th of February 1857. His children, Augustine Lewis Gaetano Aglio (1816-1885) - with whom he is sometimes confused - and Mary Elizabeth Aglio (1818-1892), also exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists.