Andrew Marbot
Sir Andrew Marbot (1801-1830) is a fictional English art connoisseur, critic and man of letters. He is the title character of the historical fiction novel Marbot: A Biography written in 1981 by Wolfgang Hildesheimer, a German novelist, playwright, biographer and painter.
Characterization
In Hildesheimer’s meticulously written biography, Sir Andrew Marbot was born at Marbot Hall, Northumberland, into a family of Catholic landowners. His father was a country squire with few interests beyond hunting. His mother, Lady Catherine, had been raised in Italy and was possessed of a livelier, more educated mind. Her father, the third Viscount Claverton, had been British minister-resident in Venice from 1784-1797. In this capacity, he acquired masterpieces by Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Canaletto and Guardi. His guests at nearby Redmond Manor included Turner, Raeburn, Quincey, Wordsworth and Coleridge. The combined influences of Lord Claverton, his paintings, and his guests triggered his grandson’s lifelong passion for art. In addition, a Jesuit tutor provided him with a solid grounding in the liberal arts.
At age twenty, Andrew set off for his Grand Tour to Italy via London and Paris, always in pursuit of artistic interests. He soon started jotting down impressions of paintings and the first adumbrations of his future theories. Marbot made friends with the leading art scholar Baron Rumohr, spent one month with Lord Byron and his circle at Pisa. Upon the death of his father in 1822, he returned for two years to England, but he spent the remainder of his life on the Continent where his studies increased steadily in breadth and depth. He died mysteriously in Urbino, where he kept house with a mistress.
See also
- Wolfgang Hildesheimer
- Historical fiction