Post under construction.
The Portrait Sculpture at Wilton House, Part 7.
The Portland Stone Statue of William Shakespeare in van Dyke costume.
by Peter Scheemakers.
I would say that the Westminster Abbey Shakespeare Monument is probably Scheemakers masterpiece.
It was certainly the piece that made his name and was perhaps the most influential piece of portrait statuary of the 18th Century.
I am very grateful to the 18th Earl and Countess of Pembroke for allowing me to visit Wilton House with my camera and for giving me free access to the sculptures outside of visiting hours.
I am also very grateful to all the staff at Wilton, Charlotte Spender, Sandie Buxcie, and in particular the House Manager Nigel Bailey and all at Wilton who made me feel most welcome.
Perhaps the best portrait sculpture of Shakespeare from the 18th Century and one of the most influential is that by Peter Scheemakers dated 1740 on the Monument in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Shakespeare was sculpted by many sculptors in the 18th Century including Rysbrack, Roubiliac, and Scheemakers in several versions.
William Kent
The pose was first used on the statue of Shakespeare by the sculptor Giovanni Battista Guelphi on the Craggs monument in Westminster Abbey which was designed by James Gibbs (see images below).
For Guelfi see my blog post - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/notes-on-giovanni-battista-guelfi-16912.html
The pose of the statue on the Craggs Monument in Westminster Abbey by Giovanni Guelfi (1690 -? )(fl 1714 - 1734) was very influential on future monuments - the Westminster Abbey monument to Shakespeare by Scheemakers of 1740 being the prime example, a short and not exhaustive list of further examples -
This pose was used on the monument of 1746 to William and Elizabeth Powlett at St George's Church West Grinstead by Michael Rysbrack.
The 1748 Monument to Peregrine Bertie 2nd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. at St Michael and All Angels, Edenham, Lincolnshire by the Workshop of Henry Cheere.
see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/11/monuments-in-church-at-edenham-part-3.html
The statue of George Cooke of about 1749 formerly in the gardens of Belhamonds House, Middlesex and now in the Ashmolean.
A lead statuette of Alexander Pope ( V andA) height 47 cms. c1749 by John Cheere and another in bronzed plaster at York Museum (ex Kirkleatham) of 1749, height 46.5 cms.
Charles Seymour Duke of Somerset (1662 - 1748) Chancellor of the University 1689 - 1748
A rare example of a statue dressed in the van Dyck style by Michael Rysbrack 1756, Senate House, Cambridge.
The 1757 monument to Charles Polhill, St Bartholemew, Otford, Kent by Henry Cheere,
The 1761 monument to Cholmley Turner, at St Cuthberts, Kirkleatham, Cleveland also by
Henry Cheere. A design by Scheemakers is in the Soane Museum.
Arthur Devis (1712 - 87) frequently used the pose in his painted portraits -
One of the most famous uses in portraiture is the full length David Garrick with the bust of Shakespeare by Gainsborough of 1766 purposely echoing the pose.
see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016_01_08_archive.html
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The Terracotta for the Craggs Monument. Westminster Abbey.
The first use in England of the crossed leg pose, leaning on a pedestal.
By Giovanni Battista Guelfi.
Illustrated below is the model for the Craggs monument now in the Soane Museum, Lincolns Inn Fields - The figure was purchased by Soane at the Richard Cosway sale, held by Mr Stanley from 22nd to 24nd May 1821, as lot 47: 'A figure resting on an urn, in terracotta' for £1.1s.
The face has been replaced in wax.
A Design for the monument to Craggs attributed to James Gibbs.
no date.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O715383/drawing-gibbs-james/
The pose originated from ancient statues but perhaps the source for Guelfi's statue of Craggs from a design by James Gibbs, was from an Engraving of Autumn by Jacobus Sarazin an Engraving by P Davet of 1642.
Illustrated here is the terracotta model for the statue at Stourhead by Michael Rysbrack dated 1744. The Statue at Stourhead was put up in 1747.
Numerous 18th Century painted portraits later adapted the same pose.
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The First Sculpture of Shakespeare by Peter Scheemakers.
The Marble bust of c. 1735.
The bust on top of a bookcase in the Library at Hagley Hall, Worcester.
Photographed by the Author.
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The Wilton House Portland Stone Statue of William Shakespeare.
1743 - 44.
Height 173 cms.
Inscribed on the front of the plinth P. Scheemakers Ext.
The pedestal is of a round section rather than rectangular as in the Westminster Monument.
The head of Henry V appears again on the pedestal but the head of Elizabeth I is replaced by that of Puck.
On the 1 August 1743 Scheemakers received £25 "in part of seventy pounds when he shall deliver a statue of Shakespeare in fine freestone with its little pedestal and ornaments" The total sum of £75 18s 4 1/2d was recorded on the 29 April 1744 (Wilton House Book, 1733 - 49, Wilton House A.5/1)
Info from Scheemakers by Ingrid Roscoe Walpole Society Journal1999 Cat No. 120 (page 256).
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Unidentified Drawing of the Wilton Shakespeare statue.
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The Inscription on the Wilton House Shakespeare Scroll.
(from Macbeth 5.5.24-6).
LIFE’s but a walking SHADOW
a poor PLAYER
that struts and frets his hour
upon the STAGE,
And then is heard no more!
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The Inscription on the Westminster Abbey Shakespeare Monument Scroll.
(modifed from Prospero's Speech from the Tempest, Act 4. Scene1)
Thee Cloud cupt Tow’rs,
The Gorgeous Palaces
The Solemn Temples,
The Great Globe itself
Yea all which it Inherit,
Shall Dissolue;
And like the baseless Fabrick of a Vision
Leave not a wreck behind.
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The Wilton House Guides.
The statue of Shakespeare in the Black Marble Table Room in -Kennedys Guide, 1769, Page 111.
Size of the Marble Table 11' 9" x 4' 2".
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011618077
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The statue is still in the Black Marble Table Room - The 1786 Guide. Page 111.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t2n597k3b&seq=7
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The Westminster Abbey Shakespeare Monument.
The first full length statue of Shakespeare.
Peter Scheemakers.
The monument designed by William Kent.
1740.
The Pedestal with the heads of Queen Elizabeth I and Kings Henry V and Richard III.
Photographs taken by the Author under difficult circumstances.
At least the powers that be at Westminster Abbey have ceased to police the taking of photographs in the Abbey.
Much less public and well known is the statue of Shakespeare in Portland Stone at Wilton House.
The Wilton Houses statue is a slightly later variant - the details of the pedestal on which he leans are quite different. The pedestal is round and has attributes to comedy (the mask) and tragedy (the dagger).
The scroll was left bare and only later completed with the lines from The Tempest. The Dean of Westminster was accused in some London journals of being afraid to incur the wrath of the Prime Minister. The implication was that Shakespeare was also now the victim of censorship. Realising he had to defuse a delicate situation, the Dean ordered the blank scroll to be filled with some bland misquoted lines from The Tempest instead. This hasty, botched piece of work apparently infuriated Pope, who in his notes to the 1743 revision of the Dunciad calls it ‘that Specimen of an Edition ... which indeed Shakespeare has great reason to point at’.
see the article by Susannah Fleming in - https://www.thelondongardener.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2021/03/Volume08_05_SusannahFleming.pdf
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The Contemporary Engravings of the Westminster Abbey Shakespeare Monument.
Mezzotint of the Shakespeare Monument.
'Mr: Fleetwood, & Mr: RIch Masters of ye two Theatres, |
having Generously given a Benefit Play each, | towards erecting a Monument to
the Memory of | that Inimitable Poet, Shakspear, which is now | set up in
Westminster Abby, by the Direction of | The Rt Honble the Earl of Burlington, |
Dr: Mead, Mr: Pope, and Mr: Martin. This Plate, is most Humbly Dedicated to
them, | by their most Obedient Humble Servt: | Andrew Miller. | Ch.
Delaffontaine del. Andrew Miller fec.t. 1741.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1886-0617-72
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The Hubert Gravelot Engravings.
Benjamin Cole after Gravelot.
1754.
Image courtesy the Folger Shakespeare Library.
https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img28899
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Mr Garrick delivering his Ode, at the Jubilee Celebrations at Stratford.
Henry Giffard attempted the last theatrical season at The Dukes Theatre in Lincolns Inn Fields in 1742-43.
Lincoln's Inn Fields was built in 1714 and vacated in 1732 when the manager, John Rich, moved to his new theatre in Covent Garden.
There
were occasional performances for 12 years, including the 1742-1743 theatrical
season under the management of Henry Giffard. Although flush from his success
with David Garrick’s debut the previous season at Goodman’s Fields he could no
longer compete without his star actor and the season at Lincoln’s Inn ended
prematurely, the theatre going dark forever.
Giffard used a full size plaster? statue of Shakespeare by Scheemakers as a pantomime stage prop at his previous theatre - at Goodman's Fields, when he first put on Garrick in Harlequin Student (1741), in which Garrick took the role of Harlequin when Richard Yates fell ill, ends with the arrival of Jupiter announcing that
“Immortal Shakespear’s matchless Wit revives, / And now the Bard in speaking Marble lives”,
after which “The Scene draws and discovers the monument of Shakespear, exactly represented, as lately erected in Westminster Abbey” from Michael Dobson, The Making of the National Poet, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1992,
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A Temple of Shakespeare was erected in the garden at Wimborne St Giles in Dorset, the seat of the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury. Unfortunately, we have no illustration of this structure, but it was described as a round thatched building positioned in a mound containing glass bookcases for Shakespeare’s works and a small Statue of the Bard” - somewhat in the manner of Queen Caroline’s emblematic Merlin's Cave at Richmond.
see - https://www.thelondongardener.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2021/03/Volume08_05_SusannahFleming.pdf
The Sotheby's New York Marble Statue of Shakespeare.
20 October 2022, Lot 372.
Unsigned.
They say 19th Century - I say - when in doubt say it is 19th Century - I speak from experience!
I see no reason why it shouldn't be a Scheemakers workshop copy.
Height: 24 1/4 in.; 61.6 cm width: 16 1/2 in.; 41.9 cm.
Ingid Roscoe in the Walpole Journal, 1999 says in her list of Scheemaker's works:
Under the heading - Statue: Historical subject known only from Documentary Source.
This would seem a very high price for the Sotheby's reduced marble version (below). The quality is very fine and the sculptor would have had to have had access to a terracotta bozetto or to a full size version of the original which could be reproduced by the use of a pointing machine.
Maximum dimensions including plinth approximately 117cm
wide, 56cm deep, 264cm high (46in wide, 22in deep, 103.5in high)
Sold 4 August 2009. Lot 63.
Provenance: This lot was removed from the Foreign Press Association, Carlton House Terrace, London where it stood in the entrance hall for some years. It was reputedly acquired from the Criterion Theatre at Piccadilly Circus.
https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/16827/lot/63/
Currently I can not substantiate this provenance.
A communication in 2015 from Marcus Risdell former curator/ keeper of the Collection at the Garrick Club.
The Roubiliac terracotta bust at the Garrick Club became known through association of the theatre as the
Davenant Bust, but as we now suspect was sited at the theatre by Henry Giffard
who attempted the last theatrical season there in 1742-43 (Incidentally Giffard
also used a full size Scheemakers statue as a pantomime stage prop at his
previous theatre Goodman's Fields where he first put on Garrick. This I covered
in the catalogue: The Face & Figure of Shakespeare at Orleans House
Gallery.
The Garrick Club, London believed two replicas of the Roubiliac terracotta bust were produced. One is in the Royal Shakespeare Company
Collection in Stratford and the other was presumed lost in the London Crystal
Palace fire in 1866. The presence of the State Library’s bust in Australia in
1857 strongly suggests that either a third replica was produced, or that this
may be the bust that was believed lost in the Crystal Palace fire.
Photographs below courtesy Bonham's.
After its appearance at Bonham's sale room the statue then went to dealer Westenholz.
where it remained until sold to dealer James Graham Stewart.
Photographs below taken at the Masterpiece fair in 2022, when it sold.
Current location unknown.
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The Lead Statue of Shakespeare.
John Cheere.
Stratford on Avon Town Hall.
The building was opened by David Garrick in 1769 on the
occasion of the Shakespeare Jubilee, when he presented the statue of
Shakespeare.
The Statue was conserved by Rupert Harris in 2022.
Note the earings on this statue and the Theatre Royal lead statue (below).
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The Stratford Lead Statue before restoration.
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Shakespeare Jubilee 1769, Tankard.
© The Shakespeare
Birthplace Trust.
Image above courtesy.
https://museumcrush.org/how-david-garrick-turned-stratford-into-the-shakespeare-epicentre/
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The 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee Medallion.
J Westwood.
Silver 31 mm.
British Museum.
A letter from a gentleman attending the jubilee describes in detail the festivities on p. 423 of the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1769 (pp. 421ff.) "my dress consisted of . . ., a silver medal of Shakespeare, pendant from a sky blue ribbon round my neck!" The Initials D. G. on the reverse of the medal are those of David Garrick.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_M-4766
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The Lead Statue of Shakespeare in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
Here suggested as cast by John Cheere.
I have written at some length on this statue and the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.
Photographs taken by the Author.
British History Online states that it was presented to the Theatre by the brewer Samuel Whitbread (1764 - 1815) in 1809 and placed on the portico some time after 1820.
This seems very plausible, Whitbread
purchased 20 statues from the second sale of the works of John Cheere for his
garden at Southill Park in Bedfordshire for £975. 15 shillings.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-lead-statue-of-shakespeare-and-its.html
Inscribed on the side of plinth: P. Scheemakers F. 1740.
One of a group of 19 busts and figures supplied to Kirkleatham Hall.
If this was supplied in 1749 then it is possible that it is a first generation cast by John Cheere from the original terracotta model.
The marks on the column / plinth certainly seem to suggest this!
It should be noted that only 20 to 25 casts could be taken before the moulds deteriorated and new piece moulds would have had to be prepared from a master.
A n interesting response to this figure by another contemporary sculptor is the three terracotta statuettes of Rubens, van Dyke and du Quesnoy by Rysbrack - which were reproduced in plaster in numerous iterations.
Only the statuette of Rubens appears to have survived.
see my post https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-rysbrack-statuettes-of-rubens-van_19.html
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Whilst by no means conclusive it would seem likely that
Fenwick Bull's shop on Ludgate Hill was retailing John Cheere’s plaster
productions in the 1750’s and a bust of Handel is one of the edition of thirty advertised in The Public Advertiser, 19th April 1758.
Fenwick Bull was a map and print seller at The White Horse, Ludgate Hill who married Elizabeth Foster of St Martin’s Ludgate Hill at St Georges Chapel, Mayfair – 25 March 1753.
George Foster (d.17520, who was the father of Elizabeth Foster (b. c. 1730), the wife of Fenwick Bull) - Publisher, printer, map-seller, bookseller was previously at the White Horse, St Paul's Churchyard (1737-9); and later moved to the sign of the White Horse, (18) Ludgate Hill (1741-7). information from Royal Academy.
The Model of the Vauxhall statue of Handel by Roubiliac in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Terracotta, hand-modelled and fired, height 47.2cm, width 26.9cm, diameter 36.2cm, before 1738.
Evening Post, 15th March 1751. "To be published by subscription, a figure in plaister of Paris of the celebrated Mr Handel, taken from the statue at Vauxhall. Conditions - the price to the subscriber is one guinea and a half; half a guinea to be paid at the time of subscribing, and the remainder on the delivery, which will be in May next. Subscriptions are taken at Mr Fosters on Ludgate Hill, where the model may be seen.
(George Vertue described the Fitzwilliam terracotta maquette in 1751, as “the model in clay baked of Mr Handel done by Mr Roubiliac - the same from which the Foxhall statue in Foxhall Gardens was done….. this model near 2 foot high is in the possession of Mr Hudson painter”).
As far as I know no plaster casts of the Vauxhall statue of Handel have yet come to light.
Fenwick Bull was advertising a plaster bust of Handel in The Public Advertiser, 19th April 1758. An edition of thirty casts of a bust of Handel was advertised for sale by subscription by F. Bull.
Fenwick Bull disappeared to America leaving his wife behind to carry on trading at the White Horse.
An engraving 1784, The Fashions of the Day by Rowlandson after H. Repton was published by her dated 1784.
She appears to have taken John Jeffreys into partnership in about 1785.
Messrs Bull and Jeffreys were still trading at 18 Ludgate hill in 1801 when the business folded.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/01/
The attribution of the two statuettes (the second being an Hercules after Rysbrack's figure in the Pantheon at Stourhead), and at least the bust of
Newton to Cheere is based on the fact that work on the the Library
refurbishment at Arniston commenced in February 1756, when the alterations were made to the
joinery and paint work and the busts were cleaned under the supervision of
Edinburgh George Stevenson. Stevenson had worked for the Dundas family
since the 1730's at their town house in Edinburgh, at Ormiston Hall in Lothian
and at Arniston. The Library was repainted by James Norrie the Edinburgh house
painter who invoiced for £14 14 8d for painting the library in "oil
white" for March and April 1756.
Norrie also gilded he capitals in library in1756.
I am very grateful to Henrietta Dundas for allowing me the
opportunity to visit Arniston and to photograph the busts and statuettes in the
upper library.
The Harris of the Strand Catalogue (in French) of 1777 of page 5, includes a statuette of Shakespeare Height 1' 8 " Price £2. 2s
Not to be confused with Harris's List.
Plaster Statues of Shakespeare in two sizes could be obtained from Messrs Shout of Holborn
https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2016/01/charles-harris-catalogue.html
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The Musee de Beaux Arts, Brussels, Plaster Statuette of Shakespeare.
51 cms
very low resolution photograph from
Currently this is the best photograph available.
The scroll is different from the Cheere versions illustrated above.
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In 1769 Mrs Landre supplied Wedgwood and Bentley with a "model of Shakespeare"
The Wedgwood modelling bills of 1769 Mrs. Landre's bill bearing the date of January 21st in that year, the sum of ten shillings is paid for the figures of Apollo and Daphne; and in September Theodore Parker is paid a trifling sum for a model of Shakespeare, and what is termed " A Boy A Couch." source Meteyard - it is unclear whether this payment was for a bust or figure.
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For a very brief survey of the engraved portraits of Shakespeare see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/01/
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The Louvre Plaster Statuette of William Shakespeare.
35 cms.
https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010091684
Provenance - Atelier Samson.
The original provenance is unknown.
In the Louvre since 1981, paired with a statuette of John Milton.
At this stage of the researches it is impossible to date these figures.
This pair of plaster statuettes are of tangential interest - the Shakespeare is related to the Scheemakers model reproduced by John Cheere but it is a version by a different hand. The Milton is also close to the John Cheere statuette.
But a close comparison can be made with the Louvre statuette and the Derby Porcelain figures of Shakespeare and Milton which are frequently found together, particularly in the pronounced Rococo style bases.
For more on the John Cheere Statuettes of Milton see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-statuette-of-milton-by-john-cheere.html
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The National Portrait Gallery Derby Porcelain Statuette of Shakespeare.
c. 1770.
Height approx. 28.5 cms.
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw292217
They do not give a size?!
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The Wood and Caldwell (1791 - 1818) Figure of Shakespeare after Scheemakers.
The Winterthur Museum Shakespeare.
Height 46.2 cms.
Initialled PV on the back of the Column.
From the 2015 Catalogue of Stockspring Antiques Formerly of Kensington Church St, London.
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The Kilmainham, Dublin Statue of Shakespeare.
Disappeared.
For another interesting and mysterious statue of Shakespeare formerly at Riversdale House, Kilmainham (demolished in 1969) see my previous blog post -
The 18th Century Busts of William Shakespeare
Louis Francois Roubiliac -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-sydney-plaster-bust-of-shakespeare.html
http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-british-museum-and-garrick-club.html
