«I hope you're again pittore di storia»: Lo spartano Isada di Charles Lock Eastlake e la pittura anglo-romana intorno al 1827

· «I hope you’re a again pittore di storia»: The Spartan Isada by Charles lock Eastlake and the Anglo-Roman Painting around the year 1827 · Studies about Charles Lock Eastlake’s pictorial activity have always taken a back seat to the roles he held in English cultural institutions. Yet, the works and events related to Eastlake’s Roman painting production – in particular around the year 1827 – provides a unique insight into the activities of the new group of British painters who settled in Rome after the end of the Napoleonic wars. What emerges is a unanimous ambition to a ‘large scale’ history painting, devoted to a confrontation with Europe and to the rejection of the cult of English isolationism, as well as a common path of voluntary sharing of working spaces, collective practice and the creative phase of the works. An inclination facilitated by the founding of the British Academy of Arts in Rome in 1823 and in tune with other artistic communities in Rome at the time. This essay analyses Eastlake’s production of history paintingsin Rome and compare it with that of his Anglo-Roman contemporaries (especially Joseph Severn and John Bryant Lane), highlighting the fgurative and sense connections between the various works.