Frederick Prince of Wales by Scheemakers.

 

Marble Bust of Frederick Prince of Wales(1707 -51).

by Peter Scheemakers (1691 - 1781).

Sotheby's.

Extract from Sotheby's Catalogue.

Probably Baron Augustus Schutz, Master of the Robes to King George II (1727-1757) who married Susan Bacon of Gillingham Hall, Norfolk;

by descent to John Bacon Schutz (1761-1847), Gillingham Hall, Norfolk;

certainly thence by family descent at Gillingham Hall, Norfolk

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/old-master-sculpture-works-of-art/attributed-to-peter-scheemakers-1691-1781-british

Wearing the Lesser George on a ribbon around his neck.

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Frederick Prince of Wales.

 81.0 x 51.0 x 25.0 cm

 Commissioned by Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham for the Temple of Friendship in the garden at Stowe, Buckinghamshire; by descent to 2nd Duke of Buckinghamshire;

.

For the Busts for The Temple of Friendship at Stowe see my previous post -

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/04/anonymous-bust-at-lady-lever-art.html

 

 Sold Christie's, 15 August 1848; bought Rainey; Fifth Earl Temple;

by whom sold Sotheby's, London, 9 May 1941;

bought by HM Queen Elizabeth.

 Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2015.

 https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/31169/frederick-prince-of-wales

Text and images courtesy the Royal Collection.

The bust was commissioned not by the Prince himself but by the prominent Whig peer, Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham (1675-1749), for the Temple of Friendship in the garden at Stowe in Buckinghamshire.

 

Cobham had served as a general under Marlborough and devoted his retirement to politics. His opposition to the ministry of Robert Walpole was expressed in the 1730s and 1740s in a remarkable series of politically-inspired buildings at Stowe. 

The Temple of Friendship was begun in 1737 after the Prince of Wales had visited Stowe in some state as Lord Cobham’s guest. Designed by James Gibbs, the temple was no doubt intended to confirm the allegiance of Cobham’s ‘Patriot’ faction with the Prince, in opposition to Walpole. 

Ten busts were commissioned to stand on pedestals and brackets around the walls, all with armorial socles identifying the sitters. Scheemakers was certainly responsible for the first three, probably including the present bust and Lord Cobham’s own portrait (London, Victoria & Albert Museum). 

The others represented the members of Cobham’s circle of Whig ‘Patriots’, including Earl Temple, the Earl of Marchmont, Earl Bathurst, Lord Gower, George Lyttleton, the Earl of Chesterfield, William Pitt the Elder and the Earl of Westmorland.

 

Cobham’s temple was completed in 1742, the year of Walpole’s final resignation as Prime Minister. In the single rectangular interior of the temple the busts stood beneath a ceiling representing Britannia flanked by three inscriptions: ‘the reign of Edward III’; ‘the reign of Elizabeth I’, and the third ‘the reign of …..’ (name obscured by drapery), from which Britannia averted her gaze, as if the current reign was unworthy of her.

 

Text adapted from Royal Treasures, A Golden Jubilee Celebration, London, 2002 and The First Georgians: Art and Monarchy 1714 - 1760, London, 2014

 Scheemakers drawing of Statues for the Temple of Ancient Worthies at Stowe.

Victoria and Albert Museum

A note in pencil on the reverse of the mount reads 'Original drawings for the four statues in The Temple of Ancient Worthies, Stowe.

No size given.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O613845/design-scheemakers-peter/