his being 20 years her senior. Richard Cosway was an effeminate Macaroni with "a mincing, affected air" dressed in the height of fashion: "His small plain person was to be seen in all the public places clothed in a mulberry silk coated embroidered with scarlet strawberries, with a sword and bag and small three-cornered hat perched on the top of his powdered toupée." It was also said he was "well known as a libertine and commonly described as resembling a monkey." In 1784, the Cosways moved into Schomberg House, Pall Mall, which became a fashionable salon for London society. They employed the former slave Ottobah Cugoano as a servant. In 1791 they moved to a larger house in Stratford Place. In 1821, after selling most of the treasures he had accumulated, he went to reside in Edgware Road. In later life, Cosway also suffered from mental disorders and spent some time in various institutions. He died in London in 1821 and was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church. Sir John Soane bought more than 30 objects put up for sale at auction after Cosway's death. Cosway's wife Maria survived him many years, and died in Italy in January 1838, in a school for girls which she had founded, and which she had attached to an important religious order devoted to the cause of female education, known as the . She had been created a baroness of the Empire on account of her devotion to female education by the emperor Francis I in 1834. Examples of Cosway's work References Further reading Gerald Barnett, Richard and Maria Cosway: A Biography. Tiverton, Devon, UK: Westcountry Books, 1995. Philippe Bordes, "Richard and Maria Cosway, Edinburgh," Burlington Magazine, vol. 137, no. 1111 (Oct. 1995), pp. 700–702. In JSTOR. Daphne Foskett, Miniatures: Dictionary and Guide. London: Antique Collectors' Club, 1987. Duncan MacMillan, "The Cosways," RSA Journal, vol. 143, no. 5464 (Nov. 1995), pp. 65–66. In JSTOR. "Richard Cosway, 'The Macaroni Miniature Painter,'" The Art Amateur, vol. 8, no. 2 (Jan. 1883), pg. 38. In JSTOR. External links Victoria and Albert Museum miniatures gallery Frits Lugt, Les marques de collections de dessins & d'estampes, 1921 and its Supplement 1956, L.628 and L.629, online edition A catalogue of the very curious, extensive, and valuable library of Richard Cosway, Esq. R.A, digital facsimile from Houghton Library, Harvard University. 1742 births 1821 deaths 18th-century English painters 19th-century English painters 18th-century