W Bro Leonardo Monno, Media Team member, provides an insight to an 18th Century Freemason and artist of renown.

Although Provincial Grand Lodge of Middlesex was to be a future manifestation, the area of West London and of course, much of the East End as we would call it, was very much within that area of land known as Middlesex.

The formal administrative County also came later.

Zoffany at one stage lived on Strand on the Green, Chiswick.

Who Was Zoffany ? –

Zoffany was born Johannes Josephus Zaufallij on March 13, 1733 in Frankfurt, Germany.

He became an outstanding observer and commentator on canvas of Georgian society and illustrated it with an accuracy that astounded many at the time.

In the 1740s he began his apprenticeship in a sculptor’s workshop in Ellwangen, and thereafter at Regensburg with the artist Martin Speer.

And then in 1757 he worked as Court Painter to the Archbishop Elector of Trier or Treves and in 1760 made his move to England.

It is not known why he came, but we can surmise that he thought London would present him with opportunities to show his genius and gain rich commissions, especially since the King of England was a Hanoverian.

In London he lived in the garret of a house in Covent Garden and painted clock faces and vignettes for Stephen Rimbaud, a renowned French Musical Clock-maker who had a workshop in the Seven Dials neighbourhood.

He became known to the famous actor David Garrick who was the catalyst in paving the way for Zoffany’s fame and fortune.

By 1764 he had become well known and won the patronage of King George III and his Consort Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Zoffany The Man –

Johann Zoffany, Self-Portrait[/caption] He was quite tall with a face marked by chicken pox.

He also had a squint in one eye which drove those who despised him to call him “the one-eyed German”.

Notwithstanding these physical faults, Zoffany was a man of immense charm.

The wife of his first teacher, Frau Speer, described him also as “a man entirely free from prejudices and with little power of resistance to feminine charms”.

He was profligate and he depended on creditors to finance his flamboyant lifestyle.

In 1772 he accepted a commission from Queen Charlotte to travel to Florence where his works still are displayed in the Uffizi Gallery.

Regrettably, however, this coincided with the sale of his possessions to pay off his debts by a certain Mr Christie whose name is still familiar in connection with art and antiques.

In 1779/80, while in Florence he painted “The Tribuna,” which is his most well-known composition.

It depicts a group of twenty-two Englishmen cluttering a room already crammed with paintings and sculptures from the Uffizi.

Queen Charlotte, however, was not pleased with the painting and the Royals excluded Zoffany from future commissions.

Added to this catastrophe Zoffany had also to deal with a general shift in taste for portraiture back in England and the death of his friend David Garrick, who had passed away in January 1779.

In 1783 he decided to leave England and sail to India where he settled; first in Calcutta and later in Lucknow returning in 1789.

In India, he practised his craft successfully, made new friends and created masterpieces whose rich colours captured the Anglo-Indian society of Lucknow.

The painting above is Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match (1786-1787) is a resounding example.

On returning to England in 1789, he had meanwhile amassed a fortune. He no longer needed patrons and settled in Middlesex as a country gentleman.

Zoffany The Freemason –

The witted Zoffany knew that admission into Masonic society would open many doors for him and in 1763, three years after his arrival in England, he applied to join the Old Kings Arms Lodge No. 28 in Covent Garden.

The Lodge’s minutes report that on 19 December the first two degrees were imparted on the artist, as was the custom of the time.

However, he attended the Lodge only four times and fell in arrears with his subscription.

On his return from Italy, he did not renew the membership of his Mother Lodge and instead applied to join the Nine Muses Lodge, No. 502 (now 235).

It was a prestigious Lodge made up of many Italians, some of whom had settled in England.

Chevalier Ruspini who founded what would become the Royal Masonic School for Girls was a founder member of the Lodge in January 1777 and became its Worshipful Master in 1796.

Zoffany had a penchant for the material world and an inveterate playfulness and lewd humour.

Such personality traits suited him fine in the Nine Muses Lodge which had a reputation for extreme “eating, drinking, and other diversions”.

After his return from India in 1793, he joined his third and last Lodge called Pilgrim Lodge No.238, which was and has remained German speaking. ( pilgrim-lodge.org )

It comprised rich merchants and refugees from Hanover who had been displaced by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in his march across Europe.

His full masonic activities are unknown; he certainly never rose to the position of Worshipful Master in whichever Lodge he entered.

In December 1769, King George III made him a founder member of the distinguished Royal Academy of Arts and in return Zoffany painted a huge coral portrait of its thirty-five members, many of whom were also Freemasons.

The Empress of Austria, Maria Theresa in 1776 went even better than George III and conferred upon Zoffany the title of “Baron”.

The Middlesex Connection –

In 1765 Zoffany moved to Stile House in Chiswick, Middlesex.

It was possible that he had learned about Chiswick through William Hogarth but more likely it was to be close to the home of the 3rd Earl of Bute, who had been responsible for introducing him to King George III.

Later he moved to Albermarle Street in London but in 1789 went to live at 65-69 Strand on The Green, on the banks of the Thames, which even today has an air of opulence.

Zoffany purchased a colourful boat and kept it moored next to his house.

He would then sail it in full grandeur, with servants wearing magnificent livery in scarlet and gold and blue, which were the colours of the coat-of-arms that the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria had awarded him.

He celebrated Strand-on-the-Green in his monumental painting The Last Supper by depicting local fishermen as the Apostles.

Old Age And Death –

Unfortunately, we do not know much about his private life, because in 1830, during the cholera pandemic in London his descendants burned all his sketches, letters and documents for fear of contagion.

On his return from India, exhibiting symptoms of a slight paralysis, he subsequently appeared to have developed dementia.

On 11 November 1810 he died at his home at Strand-on-the-Green and his estate passed to his widow under the terms of the will.

He was perceived as a curious individual at the time of his death.

His paintings were regarded only as historical records of their time.

Today, however, he is recognised as a charismatic artist who would certainly become a talking point at any dinner party.

Joannes and Mary Zoffany were laid to rest in the churchyard of St Annes, Kew Green just across the River Thames from his home.