First Draft.
A Coade Stone bust of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, known as Caracalla, Emperor 211- 217. AD.
The antique busts of Carracalla,their copies and later versions made in England in the 18th Century.
https://arachne.dainst.org/search?fl=20&q=Caracalla
Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus, known as Caracalla – from
the name of the Gallic robe he used to wear - was born in 186 A.D. to Giulia
Domna and Settimio Severo. He went down in history as a cruel emperor for
having ordered the assassination of his brother Geta, in 212 A.D.
I have posted these images below of the Coade Stone Bust of Caracalla and notes on the subject for three reasons -
Firstly - I have had an abiding interest in the products from Mrs Coades manufactury in Lambeth for many years - I bought my first piece of Coade in 1979, a Laughing Philosopher keystone from dealer extraordinaire Paul Farnham.
The second reason for posting is the use of this particular form of socle or varients of it by Louis Francois Roubiliac. Apart from a plaster bust of Cromwell by or more likely after Joseph Wilton, at the Royal Academy store, the use of this type of socle or variants in the 18th century is unique to Roubiliac.
A bust of Caracalla is mentioned in the Langford's sale catalogue of May 1762 of the contents of the Roubiliac workshops at St Martin's Lane.
The third reason is that when some time ago in conversation with someone regarding Roubiliac and the Foundling Hospital - they had expressed surprise that Roubiliac was not represented at the Foundling Hospital by any sculpture made by him at the time. This led me to take a somewhat cursory look at the two busts in the reconstucted Courtroom at the Foundling and a tentative attribution to Roubiliac.
see my post -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/plaster-busts-at-foundling-hospital.html
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The predominating historical sources for the rule of Caracalla are Cassius Dio and Herodian, both of whom portray the emperor in an overwhelmingly negative light. They focus on the martial elements of his character and question his fitness to rule over the empire, implying that his mother Julia Domna shouldered the administrative and domestic burden of his reign.
Much of the historical reporting on Caracalla from these sources takes
the form of reported gossip. Herodias reports that rumours that Caracalla
and his mother had a sexual relationship were so current in
Alexandria that she became widely known by the name of Oedipus’ mother Jocasta.
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This essay -
The intention here is to provide some sort of overviw of the two different types of the ancient busts of Caracall (Farnese Collection National Museum Napoli (inv. no. 6033 and 6088) and to show the popularity of his portrait busts particularly of those in England in the 18th Century (Holkham), but to focus on the Coade busts and its derivation.
I would like to suggest here that Roubiliac saw the bust of Caracalla either at Thomas Coke, Lord Leicester's country home at Holkham Hall in Norfolk or perhaps more likely at his London town house - Thanet House in Gt Russell Street, Bloomsbury (rebuilt in the mid 19th Century) only a stones throw away at the top end of St Martins lane.
The bust had been purchased for Lord Leicester by Matthew Bettingham in Rome in 1754.
Both Lord Leicester and his wife Tufton had sat to Roubliac for their portrait busts now on the Coke monument in Tittishall Church, Norfolk. A plaster version is in the marble Hall at Holkham.
The busts of Caracalla illustrated here were much reproduced in ancient Rome and were of two basic types.
This is probably an hopeless task given the sheere number of these busts both ancient and modern but I will attempt some sort of overview.
During Caracalla's sole reign two types of portrait seem to have been current - the first type breaks with tradition. It is characterized by a deep, grim, downward frown on the forehead. The head has a strong leftward rotation. This is the version that was much copied in the 18th century by Cavaceppi etc and is the version reproduced by Coade. It appears that the first version of this bust to arrive in England is the bust at Holkham Hall in Norfolk
The second type represents Caracalla in the more traditional format Roman Emperors: calm and composed represented by the Townley version in the British Museum (see below).
The first type has been attributed to the first years of Caracalla's sole reign, the second to 215-217 AD. Of the latter type, ten examples have survived, all found in Italy.
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A bust of Caracalla is included in the 1769 edition of
Kennedy's Guide to Wilton House.
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The Farnese Marble Busts of Caracalla.
Lots of photographs here -
At the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, in the Farnese Collection, they have two busts of Caracalla : one in armour , diagonally covered by the drapery of his cloak, originally a full statue found in the Baths of Caracalla, damaged and therefore cut into a bust (inv. 6033);
and a second portrait of the same type
integrated by Albacini with a modern bust (inv. 6088).
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Caracalla_Farnese
Below inventory 6088
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Farnese Caracalla, Naples inventory no. 6033.
The bust which in to which the head is inserted is not original to it and given the form of the socle was perhaps added by Bartolemeo Cavaceppi.
The eared socle is typical of the work of Albacini and his large workshops on the Corso in Rome.
Cavaceppi also worked as a restorer for the pope at the
Museo Clementino. His fame was firmly established between 1768 and 1772, when
he published three volumes of engraved images of works he had restored or
possessed, the Raccolta d'antiche statue, busti, teste cognite.
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The Torlonia Collection Marble Bust of Caracalla.
Dangerous to be too positive but the socle looks like the work of Cavaceppi.
https://www.fondazionetorlonia.org/portrait-caracalla-1
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The Two Types of the busts of Caracalla.
The Farnese Collection Busts 0033 and 0066
The bust on the left below is an example of the first type of brooding bust although here the dress is on the left shoulder proper - on the Cavaceppi and English versions it is on his right (proper) shoulder.
The marble bust on the right from the Townley Collection British Museum is type 2 - the benign Caracalla.
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The Holkham Hall Marble Bust of Caracalla by Bartolemeo Cavaceppi.
This bust of Caracalla and the Marcus Aurelius are almost certainly a product of the Cavaceppi wokshop although it lacks the eared support on the socle frequently used by him.
Bought in Rome by Matthew Brettingham and sold to Lord Leicester for £30 in 1749.
His account book notes carriage and custom house fees for a "modern coppye of ye" bust of Caracalla in November 1747.
Brettingham, who kept an account book when he was in Rome, listing thirteen statues and twenty-one busts sent to Holkham
see - “Matthew Brettingham’s Rome Account Book 1747-1754,” Walpole
Society 49 (1983):
The Marble of Caesar Marcus Aurelius (161–180 AD) was also purchased in Rome in early 1754 by Matthew Brettingham for 10 crowns.
During his seven-year sojourn in Rome (1747-54) Matthew Brettingham not only dealt in casts and antiquities - he provided the Earl of Leicester, with casts and marble statues for Holkham Hall - but also commissioned actual moulds to be taken from famous Roman antiquities.
The idea was that casts could then be made to order when he returned to London.
He commissioned moulds for sixty busts, divided between Greek and Roman subjects, and twelve moulds of full-size statues.
This was something of a speculation and probably not a financial success.
His casts went, chiefly, to houses at which his father was architect. Apart from Holkham, Richmond House and Kedleston, it is known only that he sold plaster busts to Lord Egremont, and a few of them survive at Petworth.Very likely, his moulds passed to John Cheere soon after 1760, for during the next decade we find Cheere supplying plaster and lead statues from Brettingham's rather distinctive repertory to Croome Court and Stourhead, while undocumented examples areseen in other houses such as Syon.
Some of these plasters are at Holkham and a group of these busts are also at Keddleston,
Many casts provided by Brettingham were in Charles Lennox, the 3rd Duke of Richmond's Gallery at Richmond House, Westminster which opened in 1758 - the gallery building was dismantled in 1778 - 82 during remodelling and later destroyed by fire in 1791, though the collection of casts was saved and later sold by Christie's.
See the article in the British Art Journal (Vol. 10, Issue 1) by John Kenworthy Brown.
In the Petworth Archives (Bundle 626) there are receipts for eight plaster busts dated 24 June and 19 Sept 1759. Also, in 1759, the elder Brettingham sold 'two plaster bustos from Italy to the Earl of Buckinghamshire for his house in Dover St
Goodwood Archives, Box 36/20. Brettingham's receipt, dated 13 Nov. 1756, is for the following casts: Petus and Arria , £30; Dying Gladiator , £20; Meleager , £20; Apollo Belvedere , £20; Flora , £20; St Susanna , £18; Callipygian Venus , £12; Apollino , £8; Camillus from Wilton survive, but only for smaller objects
I would like to suggest that this is the bust of Caracalla which Louis Francois Roubiliac used as the model for his bust of Caracalla - Roubiliac made busts of various classical luminaries including Marcus Auelius (see the 1762 sale catalogue below).
MARCUS AURELIUS: antique marble bust, bought by Brettingham, (There are two antique busts of Marcus Aurelius at Holkham, both bought by Brettingham.
Extract from a Transcript of a letter from Matthew Brettingham (Rome) to his father Matthew Brettingham the Elder(England), dated 24 September 1749.
The transcript is preserved in the Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects (Br M/1/1/1)where it was discovered in 1950.
It was made by Miss Maud Brettingham (b. 1858 in Rome original is unknown, but seems to have been a draft rather than the actual letter sent to England and concerns chiefly the possibility of obtaining export permission for Lord Leicester's statues, but here Brettingham discusses the chances with greater frankness than in Horace Mann, and he goes on with advice about other matters of interest including the "Very ingenious young Sculptor', who later appears as Brettingham's 'Companion', perhaps Simon Vierpyl or Richard Hayward.
24 September 1749 -
"The Chimney Pieces & other things intended for England I shall get done & send with the first opportunity, as I have a sufficient supply of Monies for that purpose, and indeed wee have now employ'd seven hands besides my Companion.
I shall send off the head of the
Caracalla, so soon as there is a Felluca going to Leghorn; & indeed,
the Reason why I have not already something in England of our workmanship is
because the Price in your Letter has been a Constant discouragement; and really
it is a shame that a Marble Busto, well copied at Rome, with so many
advantages, should not sell for £20 exclusive of Carriage, when a Master in
England shall have 30£ for ye same head done negligently, and after bad
Plasters.
I therefore thought it would be better to keep them here and
sell them to English Gentlemen Travelling, than to send them upon an uncertainty.
The Caracalla must not be sold for less than £30; and the other 4 heads, being
companions in (pairs), I shall sell here for 20£ apiece to the person I
mention'd in my former Letters"
It appears that he also had moulds of the various heads.
https://www.holkham.co.uk/journal/uncovering-new-sources/
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The intention here in this essay is to investigate whether there might be a dirct link from the bust in the Roubiliac workshop included in Langford's sale catalogue of May 1762, the life size plaster bust of Caracalla included in the 1777 catologue of Harris of the Strand (Catalogue illustrated here), and the Coade Stone bust of Caracalla of 1792 illustrated here.
If the Coade version was taken from a plaster - either from the Roubiliac sale version or a cast by Charles Harris - then it follows that the sculptor for the final finishing was probably by, or supervised by John Bacon I.
I have written about the subject of these socles and its variants several times -
They appear to have been derived from a pair of busts in the Fitzwilliam Museum of the Marble importers, the brothers Christopher (c. 1737 -1810) and Edward Chapman Bird (1715 - 92) by Giovanni Antonio Cybei (1706 - 1784).
see my essay on the marble workshops and wharfs at Westminster see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-suppliers-of-stone-and-marble-at.html
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For much more on the Roubiliac late type socles see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/marble-bust-of-laocoon.html
This bust of Laocoon was what initiated the study into the use by Roubiliac. of varios forms of this socle
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https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/12/monument-to-francis-hooper-from.html
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-roubiliac-type-socle-some-mor.html
A marble portrait of Roman Emperor Caracalla by Michelangelo
Buonarroti is shown in an exhibition in Rome in June 2014 from the
Vatican Museums.
Esdaile ... Roubiliac 1929 .... states that a number of Artists at a meeting at the
Turks Head on 7 December 1760, had agreed to appear on the 5 November in the
following year ...........among those signing the paper recording the promise
were Reynolds, Wilson and Roubiliac.
Baker and Bindman published Roubiliac and the 18th Century Monument Yale 1995. but as the title suggests concentrates on his monuments
She goes on to say that the busts were presented on the same
day and that they bore his signature? and the date 7 November 1760. She had
contacted the secretary Mr RW Nichols who had had the busts taken down and
inspected but stated that any inscription had been obscured by the repeated
coats of paint - (not unusual given that it was easier to repaint this type of
object rather than laboriously clean them - a fate of many plaster objects and
their surroundings from the 18th century). (My Italics).
In the ambiguous footnote she says " I have most
unfortunately omitted to give my authority - an 18th century one - for my note:
Foundling Hospital. Plaster Busts of M Aurelius and Caracalla L.F.R. Dec 7th
1760.
She then states that "The historian of the Foundling
Hospital however states that the busts were presented by Richard Dalton (Print
seller art dealer) - in 1754? but although this would exclude Roubiliac from the
list of donors of works of art to the Hospital they may well have been his work.
(this does not exclude John Cheere either) my italics! Certainly versions of these two busts appeared in his posthumous sale
Bronze cast of the marble bust from the Farnese collection in Rome, now in the Naples Museum.
Recorded in Louis XIV's collection in 1713 under number 289.
It appears in the general inventories of sculptures in the royal residences of 1722, 1757, and 1776, in the gallery of the Château de Meudon.
Moved from Meudon to the Crown Furniture Repository in Paris on May 23, 1785.
It appears in the inventory of the Crown Furniture Repository in Paris of 1788-1789 and 1791, in the gallery.
Delivered to the commissioners of the National Museum on August 3, 1793. Presented for the decoration of the Consular Palace (Tuileries) in 1801.
Listed in the Napoleonic inventory of 1810 and in
the inventory of the Royal Museums of 1814-1824, among the 15th and
16th-century sculptures. On deposit at the Hôtel Matignon from 1952 to 1960.
Bibliography -
Bresc-Bautier, Geneviève (ed.), Bormand, Marc; Gaborit,
Jean-René; Guillot de Suduiraut, Sophie; Lafabrie, Michèle; Le Pogam,
Pierre-Yves; Tupinier-Barrillon, Béatrice; Leroy-Jay Lemaistre, Isabelle;
Scherf, Guilhem, European Sculptures in the Louvre Museum: Byzantium, Spain,
British Isles, Italy, the Low Countries and Belgium, Germanic and Eastern
European Countries, Scandinavian Countries, Restored Antiques and Copies of
Antiques, Paris, Louvre éditions / Somogy, 2006, p. 406
The Crown Bronzes, exh. cat. (Paris, Musée du Louvre, April
12 - July 12, 1999), Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999, p. 166, no. 289
Souchal, François, “The Collection of the sculptor Girardon
according to the inventory after his death”, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1973, p.
80.
Landais, Hubert, “Some bronzes from the Girardon
Collection”, The Connoisseur, 1961, 136-144, p. 141, 144
Clarac (de), Frédéric, Museum of Ancient and Modern
Sculpture or Historical and Graphic Description of the Louvre and All Its
Parts, of the Statues, Busts, Bas-Reliefs and Inscriptions of the Royal Museum
of Antiquities and the Tuileries […], Paris, 1841-1853, Available at:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6434403v , p. 188, no. 3319,
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Laurent Delvaux (1696 - 1778) and the Bust of Caracalla.
Woburn Abbey.
Inscribed L DELVAUX sculpsit Romae 1732.
Photograph here lifted from
https://view.publitas.com/brun-fine-art/a-taste-for-sculpture-iv/page/86-87
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi. and Caracalla.
In the early 18th Century Caracalla's likeness was known from a bust in the Farnese collection in Rome and then Naples, believed to date from the 200s.
The Sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi drew on this famous prototype for his marble bust
of Caracalla. Carved during a period in which collectors bought sculptures
all'antica, this bust was probably intended for an English collector's
Neoclassical gallery.
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RSX
Cavaceppi was an excellent self publicist and it seems odd that the bust of Caracalla was not mentioned or illustrated in the 3 Volume overview of his restorations of Antique statues - Raccolta d'antiche statue, busti, bassirilievi ed altre sculture :restaurate da Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, scultore romano.
Published between 1768 and 1777.
Available on line at -
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/103171332
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Marble bust of Caracalla by Bartolemeo Cavaceppi.
Norton Museum,West Palm Beach, Florida. USA
The Farnese type (6033).
Sizes 73 x 50.8 x 20.3 cm (28 ³/₄ x 20 x 8 inches).
The Harwood House marble bust of Caracalla by Cavaceppi.
20¾ in. (52.4 cm.) high; 27½ in. (69.4 cm.) high, overall
This version was sold by Christie's Lot 507 on 5 Dec 2012.
Photographed in the Entrance Hall at Harewood House circa
1890 and by descent at Harewood House, Yorkshire.
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5634495
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The St Louis Art Museum Caracalla by Joseph Claus
https://www.tomasso.art/artworkdetail/781189/18036/bust-of-the-emperor-caracalla-reigned
Very little is known about Joseph Claus; he has yet to be
the focus of extended study. He was born in Cologne, and his earliest dated
bust (1754) portrays Clemens August von Wittelsbach, Archibishop and Elector of
Cologne and a member of one of the most powerful families of the time. Claus
arrived in Rome by 1755 and remained there for most of his career. He is known
for his finely-detailed classicizing portraits that are tour-de-forces of
marble carving and for his copies after the antique"
Quote above from -
https://enfilade18thc.com/2014/04/28/conference-recap-mahs-2014-st-louis/
Provenance The Hon. Stephen Tennant, Wilsford Manor, Wiltshire, United
Kingdom.
A pair of marble figures of Apollo and the Callipygian
Venus, by Giuseppe Claus (1718-1788).
Signed Joseph Claus Fecit Anno 1767, 85cm and 87cm high.
The Callipygian Venus, meaning the Venus of the beautiful
buttocks, is one of many copies of an Ancient Roman statue of the 1st Century
B.C. by an unknown hand.
The 1763 Burghley Inventory records: ‘the drawing room, 3’d George room……Two White
Marble Statues, & Head of Medusa in White Marble on the Chimney.’
Some brief notes ref. Claus.
A pair of marble figures of Apollo and the Callipygian
Venus, by Giuseppe (Joseph) Claus (1718-1788).
Signed Joseph Claus Fecit Anno 1767, 85cm and 87cm high.
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Pope Benedict XIII
1755.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Prior to it appearing at the Sotheby’s sale, this bust of
Caracalla has been hidden from scrutiny
at Brocklesby Park for at least a century. Consequently, it has not been
studied in person by a scholar since Michaelis visited Brocklesby in the 1870s
and published his findings in Ancient Marbles in Great Britain (1882).
Michaelis never doubted the bust’s antiquity, but scholars since then - who
have made their judgments only from images rather than in-person inspection -
had designated it as a modern replica of the 18th century.
"Recent scholarship has shown that the bust was once in the collection of Charles Townley, where it was described as ancient and originating from Naples.?
Townley, whose collection formed the nucleus of
the British Museum, bought it from Thomas Jenkins. Both men were eminent
connoisseurs of ancient sculpture in their own right, close to the source in
Jenkins' case, and probably better attuned to the authenticity of ancient
marbles than we are today".
The last two paragraphs are suspect unless Townley ownred two of these busts
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The Townley Caracalla.
Type 2 Benign Caracalla.
‘A head of Caracalla placed upon a modern bust. it was found 1776 in the garden of the Nuns delle quatre/quattro Fontane on the Quirinal hill, 40 Roman palms below the present surface’ (TY 12/3, street drawing room 2, annotated by Townley ‘now in the Dining Room’ in the Towneley Hall copy).
The British Museum.
Photograph by Roger Fenton, 'Caracalla', albumen print,
1854-1858.
‘A head of Caracalla placed upon a modern bust. it was found
1776 in the garden of the Nuns delle quatre/quattro Fontane on the Quirinal
hill, 40 Roman palms below the present surface’ (TY 12/3, street drawing room
2, annotated by Townley ‘now in the Dining Room’ in the Towneley Hall copy).
Purchased from Jenkins in Rome for £89 in January 1777.
https://www.bonhams.com/auction/16853/lot/224/a-roman-marble-bust-of-the-emperor-caracalla/
Published: Exhibition Catalogue, Rome, a Vision of
Antiquity, Chaucer Fine Arts Inc, 12th June - 18th July 1980, no.53. Catalogued
and attributed by Dr Geoffrey B. Waywell. Accompanied by a copy of the
catalogue.
Two busts, one of plaster and the other in marble of Laocoon were included in the Roubiliac posthumous sale.
The Roubiliac Sale Catalogue - 12 May 1762 and the following
3 Days contains Lot 48, 3rd Day - Plaster Bust Laocoon. Lot 72, 4th Day –
Marble Laocoon.
This bust of Laocoon with the distinctive socle was the bust that first led me investigate the later type of Roubiliac socle and to the discovery of at least 16 busts by or attributable to Roubiliac using this type of socle
Roubiliac, uses the same socle on at least 16 different busts known
to be from his workshop, including those socles on the four unsigned busts of Laocoon (Tomasso),
Milo of Croton (Blenheim) called a despairing soul Lot 18 day first day of the Roubiliac sale), the Anima Dannata (the Damned Soul) after Bernini and a man
depicted as the Good Roman Emperor Trajan at Goodwood House.
4 of the busts drawn by Joseph Nollekens at the Roubiliac posthumous sale use this type of socle. These drawings are now in the Harris Museum at Preston, Lancs,
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1777-0620-1
