Programska knjižica - Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo

Nijedna od nabrojenih akcija nije još dala rezultata. Međutim, tijekom
portage došli smo do zanimljivih detalja o životu u Engleskoj za vrijeme boravka
Ruđera Boškovića i do zanimljivih spoznaja o suvremenicima iz reda
znanstvenika, umjetnika, diplomata i društva općenito, koji će biti izneseni u
ovom izlaganju.
Ključne riječi: Ruđer Josip Bošković, Robert Edge Pine, portret
SEARCH AFTER ROBERT EDGE PINE’S PORTRAITS
OF ROGER JOSEPH BOSCOVICH
By the end of his stay in London, Roger Boscovich wrote to his brother
Baro on 5 and on 12 of December 1760 about the portraits commissioned by
his London friend, Dr William Bromfield, not hiding his dissatisfaction with
them. The name of the painter has not been mentioned, but Boscovich’s notebook
Gente Conosciuta contains a note ‘my painter’ associated with the name
Pine. In the first letter of Irene Bromfield directed to Boscovich in Nancy at
the beginning of 1761 there is a sentence that “Pine made your portraits very
well”. It seems that three portraits were painted altogether. One of them was
sent to Boscovich’s family in Dubrovnik, where it ended up in the Franciscan
monastery, from where it was stolen in the night of 15/16 October 1972. The
other two, the bust and full figure, remained in England without leaving a
trace.
Round anniversaries of Roger Boscovich have usually stimulated the
searches for the lost portraits. After the bicentennial of Boscovich’s birth,
Vladimir Varićak was disappointed by not finding his portrait in the Royal Society
on his visit to London in 1912. Before the 250 th birth anniversary Lancelot
L. Whyte published an appeal in the magazine Country Life of 7 August 1958,
accompanied by the black-and-white reproduction of the ‘Dubrovnik’ portrait.
We have started our search by publishing the appeal in the same magazine of
7 July 2010, accompanied by the colour reproduction of the same portrait. Our
search was extended to include the magazines Art History News and Art Newspaper,
and the organisation Art Loss Register.
In our search for the works of Robert Edge Pine we consulted experts
of the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts and Victoria and Albert
Museum from London, as well as Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery,
Washington, D.C. We also contacted auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s.
The search of the archive materials was conducted in the Frick Art Reference
Library, Glasgow University Library, Royal Society Library, Bodleian Library
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