Wednesday 17 October 2018

Roubiliac's Myddleton Monuments St Giles Parish Church Wrexham (part 2) - & a few other examples of Roubiliac relief monuments.




The Roubiliac Monuments.
  St Gile's Parish Church
Wrexham.

Part 2.

With a few further examples of Roubiliac's smaller relief monuments for comparison.

Monument to Rev. Thomas and Mrs Arabella Myddleton

Thomas Myddleton d. 1754
Arabella Myddleton d. 1756



















Photographs by the author.






Attributed to Roubiliac.
Design for a monument.
c. 1753.
Drawing Pencil, pen and ink wash.
330 x 200 mm.
Victoria and Albert Museum.

Possibly one of two designs (media unspecified) for Mr and Mrs Middleton sold in the Roubiliac Sale of May 1762 (2nd day lot 71).


This drawing is illustrated and commented on in Rococo Art and Design in Hogarth's England, Exhibition Catalogue Victoria and Albert Museum, 1984. This catalogue entry suggests that it was a rejected design for the monument to William Harvey and his wife in St Andrews Church Hempstead, Essex. It is doubtful whether the author had actually seen this monument (see below). Whilst there are similarities in the two portrait reliefs the superstructure is completely different.

The monument to Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke in Battersea Church also has similarities.


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Monument to Richard Children (d. 1753)
Signed L.F. Roubiliac invt et sct.
St Peter's and St Paul's Parish Church
Tonbridge, Kent.

With verses by James Cawthorn

O thou, whose Manners unadorned by Art / Ennobled every Virtue of the Heart, / Fond to forbid in each sad scene of Woe

The Pang to torture, and the Tear to flow, / Take from the Muse, thou Lov'd, this honest Line / Sacred to Goodness, and a soul like thine,

A Soul supreme, that 'midst fair Ease and Health / The Warmths of Nature, and the Pomps of Wealth / Careless of all that wild Ambition Fires

All Av'rice wishes, and all Pride admires, / Gave Year on Year beneath her genial Ray / To melt in modest Innocence away,


And made each Passion, spite of all its Rage, / Calm as her Sun, — set in unclouded Age.


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Monument to Henry Fynes
Roubiliac c. 1758/9.
Wing Buckinghamshire.

Photograph from - http://www.ipernity.com/doc/stiffleaf/42975166/in/keyword/1567243/self


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Monument to Jane (d. 1744) and Cecilia Kerridge (d. 1747)
St Michaels Church, Framlingham.
Erected by William Folkes

c. 1747/8.

Cecilia Folkes left the manor of Shelley to William Folkes, barrister and younger brother of Martin Folkes (PRO Prob. II 764 fols 356 v - 357r).

Roubiliac sculpted the bust of Martin Folkes.


see -

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-plaster-bust-of-martin-folkes-at.html

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2016/05/bust-of-isaac-newton-by-roubiliac-at.html

Info above from Roubiliac and the Eighteenth Century Monument, Bindman and Baker, Yale 1995.
p.175 and 341.


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Monument to Anne Taylor
St Mary Magdalene
Newark.

Signed LF Roubiliac invt. et Sct.
c. 1757/8.

On the east wall of the north transept is the marble memorial erected to their youngest daughter, Anne Taylor, wife of Dr Robert Taylor, Physician Extraordinary to the King. It is in marble, comprising a profile bust surmounting a detailed inscription, and it is executed by Roubiliac.


http://southwellchurches.nottingham.ac.uk/newark-st-mary/hmonumnt.php


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Monument to William Harvey (d. 1742 ) and his wife Mary (d. 1761).
Erected in 1758.
St Andrews Church
Hempstead, Essex


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St Mary's Parish Church
Battersea 


Henry St John, d.1751, Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary of War and Secretary of State under Queen Anne, ‘one of the brilliant lights of the Augustan age of literature in England’, noting that ‘his attachment to queen Anne exposed him to a long and severe persecution; he bore it with firmness of mind. He passed the latter part of his time at home, the enemy of no national party, the friend of no faction, distinguished under the cloud of a proscription which had not been entirely taken off, by zeal to maintain the liberty, and to restore the antient prosperity of GREAT BRITAIN.’ The other half of the shield-shaped, black polished panel commemorates his wife, Mary Clara des Champs de Marcilly, Marchioness of Villette and Viscountess Bolingroke, d.1750 – both epitaphs were in fact written by Bolingbroke himself. 

image courtesy - http://www.speel.me.uk/chlondon/batterseach.htm


The present Battersea Church was built by Richard Dixon in 1775/77 replacing the much decayed old church.

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Monument to Elizabeth Craven (d. 1728).
Signed L.F. Roubiliac Sct.
St Mary's Church, Scarborough

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Monument to Spencer Cowper (1670 - 1728). 
Roubiliac.
Hertingfordbury, Herts

https://www.courtauldprints.com/image/171508/roubiliac-louis-francois-monument-to-spencer-cowper








Spencer Cowper Monument
Heringfordbury, Herts.

Poor quality internet photographs.
for a biog of Spencer Cowper see - 

https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/cowper-spencer-1669-1728

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Monument to Elizabeth Smith
Roubiliac
St Botolph's, Aldersgate, City of London.


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Monument to William Stapleton
St Peter
Port Royal,  Jamaica.

For an excellent in depyth look at Sir William Stapleton see -


https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m2311&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF

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Detail clearly showing the Roubiliac Inscription.

Poor quality image from Commercial photography website


https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art-prints/Louis-Francois-Roubillac/357580/Detail-of-a-memorial,-1725-marble.html

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From an original Photograph of 1862

Photograph courtesy Bristol Museums Galleries Archives

Roubiliac Monuments in Wrexham Church, Part 1.




The Roubiliac Monuments.

  St Giles Parish Church,
Wrexham.

Part 1.

The Monument to Mrs Mary Myddleton (1688 - 1747).

Louis Francois Roubiliac.

To the memory of Mrs. Mary Middleton (daughter of Sir Richard, and sister to Sir William Myddleton, of Chirk Castle), who died April 8th, 1747 aged 59. 

The monument, which was erected by William Lloyd, Esq., of Plas Power, her executor and devisee, and bears an inscription recording that the deceased lady.

"By a life of true religion and virtue, illustrated the eminence derived from birth, and the advantages glowing from an excellent education, her superior understanding and great politeness ever commanded the highest respect and esteem: her amiability and unaffected benevolence rendered her delightful and amiable to all; in her principles unshaken in her friendship steady; constant in her charity, the misfortunes of other she felt with compassionate tenderness and relieved with a generosity truly magnificent, so that her conduct in this life demonstrated how steadfastly she had fixed her hopes upon a better."













































All Photographs above taken by the author.

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The monument in the 19th Century before alteration and removal of the framing.


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Images courtesy National Trust - Chirk Castle.


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St Giles is also the location of the grave of Elihu Yale, who founded Yale College in the United States. Just west of the tower is his grave with the following epitaph.

Born in America, in Europe bred,
In Africa travell'd, and in Asia wed,
Where long he lov'd and thriv'd;
At London dead.


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Wrexham and St Giles Church

Buck. 

1748.

Image courtesy British Museum.