Prince Hoare (September 1755 - 1834)

Prince Hoare (September 1755 - 1834)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

Playwright and artist, born at Bath, the younger son and fourth of the five children of William Hoare RA (1707/8–1792) and his wife, Elizabeth, née Barker (d. 1793). Educated by Mr Hele, first master of the grammar school at Bath, and instructed in art by his father. He won a prize for a drawing of outlines from the Society of Arts in 1772 and in 1773 entered the Royal Academy Schools. He visited Rome in 1776 where he studied under Mengs, together with Fuseli and Northcote, before returning to England in 1780. On his return he exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1781 to 1785 but increasing ill-health forced him to abandon painting. He exhibited once more at the Royal Academy in 1815 as an ‘Honorary Exhibitor’.

After a recuperative visit to Lisbon, Portugal in 1788 he returned to London and began to write light comedies, often set to music by Stephen Storace (1763–96), including works such as No Song, No Supper (1789) and The Prize (1792) which met with considerable success. Hoare maintained his interest in the art world, collecting biographical material on British artists. He also maintained the friendships he had made with artists in Rome, particularly with Fuseli and Northcote.

A gifted linguist, in 1799 Hoare was appointed Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy, and in this capacity he published Extracts from a Correspondence with the Academies of Vienna and St Petersbourg (1802), Academic Correspondence (1804), and Academic Annals of Painting (1805; 2nd edn, 1809). He also published several books of criticism, including An Inquiry into the … Art of Design in England (1806), Epochs of the Arts (1813), and Memoirs of Granville Sharp (1820). He edited a collection of essays (some his own work) entitled The Artist (2 vols., 1809–10).

He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and of the Royal Society of Literature, to which he bequeathed his library. He also bequeathed a large number of books and prints to the Royal Academy Collection. In his later years he lived mainly in Brighton for his health and died there from the delayed effects of a carriage accident on 22 December 1834.