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Painted towards the end of John James Heidegger’s life, this lively enamel portrays the business partner and friend of the composer George Friedrich [Frederick] Handel (1685-1759). Almost twenty years older than Handel, Heidegger had been involved in London’s theatre scene from his early 20s, having moved from his native Zürich with his family. From 1707, there are references to Heidegger’s operational role and by 1710 he had established a name for himself, after triumphantly reinvigorating the production of Italian operas, such as Almahide (1710). [1] These were quickly followed by Antiochus (1711), Ernelinda (1713), Arminio (1714), Lucio Vero (1715).

Heidegger’s long association with Handel began in the early 1710s.[2] Attracted by the new opera company formed in London, and Heidegger’s role in Almahide , performed for the first in time entirely in Italian, Handel came to the capital. He was likely also enticed by the number of excellent instrumental musicians in London at the time, drawn to sanctuary during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Coming from the court of the Elector of Hanover, where his services were much underused, Handel soon found himself composing for the same opera-loving ruler – this time with the title of George I. On the death of Queen Anne in 1714, George became king and Handel’s music was performed for at the Chapel Royal for services which marked the arrival of members of the Hanoverian family in London.

Handel’s next opera, Amadigi, is probably his best-known and was first performed in May of 1715. Heidegger's dedication in the wordbook of the opera to Richard Boyle, third earl of Burlington, said that the opera had been 'composed in your own Family', providing valuable information that Handel likely lived for some time at Burlington House.[3] Very little is otherwise known about Handel’s first twelve years of his career in London.

Undoubtedly, Heidegger, as manager of the King’s Theatre, had a close working relationship with the composer as he put down roots in England. The lease Heidegger signed with Sir John Vanbrugh in 1716 at a rent of £400 per annum gave him control of the opera house, putting him at the centre of London's operatic ventures into the 1740s. In 1718–19 'a project was formed by the Nobility for erecting an academy at the Haymarket. The intention of this musical Society, was to secure to themselves a constant supply of Operas to be composed by Handel, and performed under his direction.' George I subscribed £1000 a year and from 1720 to 1728 the ‘Royal Academy of Music’ performed opera at the theatre, with Heidegger as manager. In January 1728/9 the academy agreed to permit Handel and Heidegger 'to carry on operas without disturbance for 5 years', Heidegger’s association with Handel ended slightly before the 1740s, when it is known that the subscription they offered for 1738/9 was rejected, and an opera company run by Lord Middlesex occupied the King’s Theatre.[4]

Handel was naturalised in 1727 and composed the music for the coronation of the new king, George II, including 'Zadok the priest'.

Heidegger became a celebrated figure in London society, but not until his early 50s. Warmly and wittily satirized by writers and artists (including John Hughes, Alexander Pope, Henry Fielding (as Count Ugly in The Author's Farce), and William Hogarth - particularly in The Bad Taste of the Town, 1724, and Masquerade Ticket, 1727), his moral reputation came under fire in the later 1720s, with his part in entertainments seen as highly dissolute.

Although Heidegger was something of an outsider – both in terms of nationality and social class – the rarefied world of Italian opera accepted him and, unusually, he was well paid for his services. His appointment as gentleman to the Privy Chamber in 1727 no doubt enhanced his position in the higher echelons of society. The renumeration he received for his work organising events for nobility and royalty allowed him to buy a fine house in Richmond, where he died in 1749.

This enamel, taken from the painting by Jean Baptiste van Loo, was likely painted during van Loo’s stay in London between 1737 and 1745, when Heidegger’s reputation was firmly established. John Faber junior produced an engraving in 1742, taken from van Loo’s painting.[5]

Very few portraits of Heidegger exist, making this enamel an important addition to the small group of extant works largely based around van Loo’s portrait. Vanity may have played a part in his reluctance to sit for a portrait - he seems to have made a joke of the ugliness for which he was renowned. Pope refers to 'a monster of a fowl, / Something betwixt a Heideggre and owl' and Heidegger reputedly won a wager with Lord Chesterfield that no uglier face could be found in London.[6] The portrait enamel here is attributed to Jean André Rouquet, who was part of the circle of Heidegger’s friends, including William Hogarth.[7] Hogarth’s portrait enamel by Rouquet is in the National Portrait Gallery.[8] Technically the present portrait fits well with Rouquet’s known oeuvre; like his contemporary enameller Christian Friedrich Zincke, he occasionally made copies from oil paintings. Faber’s engraving, produced the same year, attests to the public’s desire to own a portrait of Heidegger, despite his own self-proclaimed unsightliness, and is testament to his profound and lasting influence on the public arts of the eighteenth century.

[1] Milhouse, J, (2004) ‘Heidegger, Johann Jakob (1666-1749) impresario,’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online]. Available at https://www-oxforddnb-com.lonlib.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-12866?rskey=Ki4mVC&result=2(Accessed 28 January 2022).

[2] Abbott, G., (7 July 2021). Handel’s Operas: Part Three' Graham's Music, [online]. Accessed at https://www.grahamsmusic.net/p... (28 January 2022).

[3] Deutsch, O.E. (1955) George Frideric Handel, 1685-1759, New York: W W Norton, p. 67.

[4] Built by (Sir) John Vanbrugh in 1704–5, The King’s Theatre was the home of opera for most of the 18th and 19th centuries in England.
[5] Interestingly, the first record of Faber’s engraving is from 1742, the year that Handel’s Messiah was first performed in Dublin.

The National Portrait Gallery lists four mezzotints of Heidegger in their collection, stemming from the same plate, with the earliest originating in 1742.

Cole, H., (Summer 1984) ‘Handel in Dublin’, Irish Arts Review, Vol. 1, No. 2., pp. 28-30.

[6] Pope, A., (1743) The Dunciad, Book 1, London: Printed for M Cooper

[7] Hogarth and Heidegger certainly knew each other, with Hogarth satirising Heidegger in the caricature ‘The Bad Taste of the Town’ (1724), which reflects on the public taste of the 1720s when Londoners flocked to popular entertainment and the fashionable opera rather than legitimate drama. At the right, crowds queue for the pantomime while masqueraders pour into the theatre on the left, overlooked by Heidegger, who devised this lucrative craze.

[8] NPG 5717.