Marbot

Who was this Andrew Marbot, whose name is not recorded in any encyclopedia? He was, as we are informed, an English nobleman from the early 19th century, 1801-1830, an aesthetician and art psychologist who astonishingly anticipated Freud's and modern insights into art. He traveled through France, Italy, and Germany, visited Goethe in Weimar, knew Byron and Shelley, Turner and Delacroix, Leopardi, Platen, and Schopenhauer. His book "Art and Life" was published posthumously in 1834 and was also translated into German. Soon, Marbot found his first biographer, Hadley-Chase, and was then thoroughly forgotten. Unjustly so, as Hildesheimer shows. For Marbot was also an interesting character, not least due to the incestuous relationship he had with his mother, Lady Catherine Marbot.