Saturday 25 July 2015

Bust of Francis Smith of Warwick by Rysbrack


A terracotta bust of Francis Smith of Warwick (1672 -1738),
Builder and Architect.
signed Michael Rysbrack, dated 1741.





In Radcliffe Camera, Oxford.
Photographs Conway Library, Courtauld Institute.

Left to the trustees of the Radcliffe Camera by Francis Hiorne, architect and successor to the Smiths building practice in 1789. The relevant passage is 'to the Trustees of Dr Radcliffe's Library in Oxford the bust executed by Mr Rysbrack of the late Francis Smith one of the builders thereof, requesting they will place and continue it in the said library in the neech answerable to that wherein stands the bust of Mr Gibbs the architect' (see previous entry).

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A marble bust Below has passed through the salerooms of Sotheby's - lot 278 on 7th July 1988.





Francis Smith, Architect.
Mezzotint by Alexander van Aken (1701 -57) after William Winstanley
Plate size - 35.3 x 25.0 cms.

NB. Bodleian Library (Radcliffe Camera) designed by James Gibbs in the background.