George Cumberland (27 November 1754 – 8 August 1848) was an English art collector, writer and poet. He was a lifelong friend and supporter of William Blake, and like him was an experimental printmaker. He was also an amateur watercolourist, and one of the earliest members of the Bristol School of artists. He made use of his wide circle of connections to help its other members, in particular assisting and influencing Edward Bird and Francis Danby.
Early life
Cumberland, whose father was also called George, was born in London in 1754. From 1769–85 he was an insurance clerk with the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation. In 1772 he also attended the Royal Academy Schools and exhibited at the Academy in 1782 and 1783, but failed to be elected an Associate in 1784. He formed a low opinion of the Academy and attacked it in various essays.
Along with John Flaxman and Thomas Stothard, Cumberland joined the social circle of William Blake within a year of Blake becoming a student at the Royal Academy Schools in 1779. This circle also included the engraver William Sharp. The young Cumberland held radical views; with Stothard and Sharp, he joined the Society for Constitutional Information, becoming a friend of its leader, John Horne Tooke, and attracting the attention of government spies. However, when Cumberland witnessed the Gordon Riots of 1780 at first hand, he reacted with horror.
Cumberland was to be a lifelong friend and supporter of Blake. As early as 1780 a contribution by Cumberland to the Morning Chronicle praised Blake's first exhibit at the Academy, the watercolour The Death of Earl Goodwin. Cumberland would often seek to provide clients for Blake, as in 1798 when he tried to persuade Tooke to use Blake as the engraver for a new edition of Tooke's book Diversions of Purleigh.
Cumberland shared an interest with Blake in printmaking. In 1784 they both experimented with new methods of printing etched texts. In that year Cumberland printed an account of his "New Mode of Printing", although it does not seem to have been a practical commercial proposition. In printing his own works Cumberland would come to rely on Blake's technical advice on copperplate and lithography.
Italy
In 1784 Cumberland received an inheritance providing him with an annual income of £300, enabling him to leave his job. From 1785–90 he travelled in Europe, mainly living in Rome. He also visited Paris and Florence, and in 1786 visited Switzerland with Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough. In 1787 he eloped with Mrs Elizabeth Cooper née Price and took her back to Italy.
In Rome he joined a circle of artists which included John Deare, Robert Fagan, Charles Grignion the Younger and Samuel Woodforde. Cumberland studied the works of Raphael and the engravers Marcantonio Raimondi and Giulio Bonasone and formed a collection of prints and objects, in particular a large collection of Bonasone engravings.
Publications
After Cumberland's return from Italy in 1790 he first lived near Southampton, where he continued to build his art collection. From 1793–98 he lived in Egham, Surrey. In 1793 he published Poem on the Landscapes of Great Britain and the illustrated poem Lewina, the Maid of Snowdon. In the same year he published Some Anecdotes of the Life of Julio Bonasoni, prefaced by A Plan for the Improvement of the Arts in England, which contained a proposal for the formation of a national gallery. His Italian studies bore further fruit in 1796 when he published Thoughts on Outline, a set of theoretical principles for classical art illustrated with 24 designs by Cumberland on classical subjects. Cumberland etched 16 of the designs and commissioned Blake to etch the other 8, with Blake providing the inscriptions for all 24. Blake also provided Cumberland with advice on the engraving process.
Another of Cumberland's friends was Thomas Johnes, who was influenced by Cumberland to become a translator of medieval French chronicles. In 1796 Cumberland produced An Attempt to Describe Hafod, a guide to Johnes's estate of Hafod in Wales. Cumberland commissioned Blake to engrave a map to accompany the guide.
In 1798 Cumberland published a utopian novel, The Captive of the Castle of Sennaar. He called his utopia Sophis, setting it in Africa, and gave it classical Greek virtues but without war, slavery or sexual inequality. Fearing that its radicalism would antagonise the authorities, Cumberland withdrew the novel, though not before he had sent a copy to another of his acquaintances, Isaac D'Israeli.