The Life of Josiah Wedgwood: From His Private Correspondence and Family Papers ... with an Introductory Sketch of the Art of Pottery in England, Volume 2. Hurst and Blackett, 1866.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KpxGAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Hoskins+and+Grant%22+London&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Signed to the underside 'R.Parker/Strand. c 1770's.
................
The Richard Parker Letterhead.
Undated - prior to 1776 when Parker was made bankrupt.
I am very grateful to Lucy Lead of the Wedgwood Archives for supplying the image below.
On the bill is the printed heading.
‘Scagliola;/or Plaster casts of Elegant subjects/ proper to introduce into the decoration of rooms, staircases, halls etc/ Richard Parker/ Opposite the new church in the Strand/ having obtained from Joseph Wilton Esq. statuary to his majesty,/ various moulds of bas reliefs and bustos, made upon his original models / has the honour to acquaint the nobility and gentry, that they may be accommodated with casts at the shortest notice, Sundry samples of which with/ their prices may be seen at the above RICHARD PARKER’S /
N.B. These original casts can be had at no other place; and although it may happen/ that some figure makers may clandestinely make moulds of any of those casts, they can / produce at best but an impression void of every original touch’.
The reference to the various moulds .... Joseph Wilton is instructive. This might have include moulds etc purchased at the posthumous Roubiliac sale at St Martin's Lane in May of 1762.
Harris was still trading at the Strand address in 1794
Flaxman Snr's was living in King St Covent Garden between 1773 and 1776 his shop was by 1766 in New Street, Covent Garden, and he then
moved to larger premises on the north side of the Strand.
James Hoskins, Samuel Euclid Oliver and Benjamin Grant.
Hoskins was apprenticed to John Cheere in 1747. He seems to
have progressed in his employment at some speed: a note in the London Evening
Post of December 1751 concerning the successful treatment of William Collins’s
leg ulcer with ‘Iron Pear Tree Water’ described Hoskins, a witness to the
recovery, as ‘Foreman to Mr Cheere’ (Friedman and Clifford 1974, appendix C).
By 1770 Hoskins had
set up in business with Samuel Euclid Oliver, and together they supplied works
for Mersham Hatch (1, 2) and a good many reliefs, busts and other works for
Wedgwood (4, 8-11). Hoskins also held the post of ‘moulder and caster in
plaster’ to the Royal Academy from its foundation. In July 1773 he provided two
casts of lions for the Academy (3). A group of academicians, including Agostino
Carlini, George Moser and Benjamin West went to Slaughters coffee-house to
inspect the casts, which they found acceptable.
By 1775 he had entered into partnership with Benjamin Grant, another of John Cheere’s apprentices. They together supplied Wedgwood with more items (5, 6).
An invoice
in the Wedgwood archives for a large number of moulds, dated 16 January 1773,
came to 11s 6d. Another invoice of March 21, 1774, from Hoskins and Grant, was
for ‘plaister casts prepaird to mould’ which included busts of Zeno, Pindar,
Faustina, Inigo Jones and Palladio, at what appears to be a standard price of a
guinea a bust, and moulds of antique stone. The whole bill came to £29 13s 2d.
Another Hoskins and Grant invoice of January 1775 notes the
supply of many more busts, including a Galen and Hippocrates, and British
worthies such as Ben Jonson, ‘Sir W Reigle’, Fletcher and Beaumont, Harvey and
Newton. This bill came to £23 17s 4d, and was signed ‘for self and partner Benj
Grant’.
In 1779 they were paid £26 6s 6d for items including figures
of Zingara and Chrispagnia at £2 2s (Meteyard 1866, 1, 324-5). Hoskins was
still active in 1790, when he provided small works for Lord Delaval (12).
Literary References: Meteyard 1866, 1, 324-5; Gunnis 1968,
211; Pyke 1973, 70; Friedman and Clifford 1974, appendix H; Clifford 1992, 58
Archival References: RA Council Minutes, 1, ff160-1 June
1773; Wedgwood/Hoskins
Letter from Wedgwood to Bentley 24 June 1774.
Wedgwood to Bentley 16 August 1774.
Ann Clark of St Mary-le-Strand, widow of Edward Clark decd.
Richard Parker of St Mary-le-Strand, statuary.
Edward Clark died intestate and letters of administration were granted to his widow. The lease of 26 Jun 1769 is now assigned to Richard Parker.
Enclosed 1770: Fire Insurance Policy issued to Richard Parker 25 Jun 1770 and thereafter assigned Jun 1770 to John Hotley of The Strand, baker and subsequently 23 Apr 1774 by ....Hotley to William Cobb of Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
22 Dec 1769.
.................
2. Their ref. 1366/05/03.
Richard Parker of St Mary-le-Strand, Strand, statuary.
John Hotley of St Clement Danes, baker.
Mortgage in the sum of £150 of the lease dated 26 Jun 1769 of premises in The Strand abutting Somerset House.
.......................
3. Westminster Archives their ref. 1366/05/04.
3.1. John Hotley of St Clement Danes, baker.
2. Richard Parker of St Mary-le-Strand, statuary
3. William Cobb of St Giles, gentleman.
Assignment of the mortgage of £150, all interest to date having been paid.
4. Their ref. 1366/05/05.
1. William Cobb of St Giles, gentleman
2. Richard Parker of St Mary-le-Strand, statuary
3. Henry Hoare junior of the Royal Terrace, Adelphi, Esq
Further asignment of the mortgage debt, now in the sum of œ172. 9s.
ENCLOSED 31 Jan 1777:
Fire insurance policy issued in the name of Charles Harris on 162 The Strand stating that the two adjacent houses are now intercommunicating. On the reverse is a memorandum stating the policy shall be for the benefit of Henry Hoare junior as consideration for a loan based on the security of utensils and stock.
Flaxman Snr moulded and sold plaster casts from a shop in New Street, Covent Garden, had moved to 420 Strand in 1775.
At the time, Flaxman Junior(1755 - 1826), then twenty, began working for Wedgwood and was already noted for his precocious talent and conceit (conceited coxcomb I believe is how Wedgwood described him).It appears that he was living in (27) Wardour St until he went to Italy in 1787.
In the autumn of 1794, Flaxman Jnr and his wife Nancy returned from their seven-year stay in Rome.
They lodged, temporarily, with Flaxman’s father in his house at 420 Strand, between Bedford Street and where the Adelphi Theatre (built in 1806) now stands - the couple later moved to 6 Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square.
Flaxman Snr's shop was first in New Street, Covent Garden, and he then
moved to larger premises on the Strand in 1775.
It was said that he had ‘kept a large shop in
the Strand, for the sale of plaster figures, which was not then so hackneyed a
trade, as it has now become by the large importation of Italians’ (Gentleman’s
Magazine, vol. 97, 1827, p. 273)
Mrs. Mary Landré (fl 1766 - 74) - Plaster Figure Maker.
A few notes.
See Metyard extract above for objects supplied to Wedgwood
Wife of John Landre (d.1765) of St Giles Parish. .
Will proved - 23 December 1765. The National Archives' reference -PROB 11/914/414 - he left his house in Dublin to his wife and after her decease to the two daughters of his brother Francis.
..........................
Mary Landre - In 1766, supplied ornamental figures and vases to Duke of Bedford (Poole/Woburn Abbey).
from - https://www.northernceramicsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/DEALERS-LIST-November2022.pdf
The Trade Card of John Landre.
Image courtesy British Museum.
prior to 1765.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-18
For more on John and Mary Landre see -
http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2024/09/mrs-mary-landre-figure-maker.html
..........................
For the possibility of two plaster busts of Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius being supplied to the Foundling Hospital by Roubiliac see -
Robert Shout must have been born around 1760, for in 1835 he gave his age
as 75 (Shout/Peel) and he was probably the son of John Shout (1738-81), a mason
of Stockton-on-Tees, and his wife Mary (†1814).
By 1785 Shout was working in partnership with his uncle,
Benjamin Shout. Their tradecard, printed that year, describes them as
‘Sculptors and Masons’. Shout married his first wife, Lucy, in or around 1794
and their child, Charles Lutwyche Shout, was christened at St Andrew, Holborn,
in December that year. Benjamin and Robert’s business was run from 18 High
Holborn, where Robert lived, and from 13 Eagle Street, St Andrew’s, Holborn.
They remained in partnership until Benjamin’s death in 1811.
Robert’s earliest known design, for an unidentified
wall-monument with a sarcophagus in relief, dates from May 1795. The surviving
drawings are all signed by Robert Shout alone and he may have been chiefly
responsible for the firm’s designs. Neither they nor the works themselves are
particularly noteworthy. Most are well-carved wall-monuments with the standard
motif of a woman grieving over an urn or column and they often incorporate
familiar neoclassical features, such as a sarcophagus with lion’s feet, strigil
decoration or a tabula ansata (or winged board) .
By 1798, when Shout published his bust of Nelson (41), the
partners were supplying works in plaster for the popular market. The venture
appears to have been successful, despite competition from John Flaxman I, and
later Humphrey Hopper. Among Shout’s products in plaster were architectural
ornaments, particularly lamp-stands (52, 54-6), and busts, sold singly or as a
series (43).
Benjamin Shout died in 1811, leaving instructions in his
will that his half-share in the business should be sold to Robert, to provide
financial support for his own widow and son. The enforced purchase does not
appear to have had an adverse effect on Robert’s business, which he probably
conducted alone until around 1820. He continued to produce monuments and casts
of works by famous sculptors. In 1819 the Annals of the Fine Arts published a
puff for the casts which Shout had recently produced of works by Antonio Canova
(37-40). These were said to have been taken from the original works and were
praised for the ‘delicate precision’ with which every detail had been
reproduced. The article concluded by suggesting that Shout had given Canova’s
admirers an ‘opportunity of gratifying themselves at a moderate expense’
(Annals of the Fine Arts 1819, 632).
variously marked 'made by R. Shout/Holborn' and variously
dated '1800[?]' and '1820.
An ornamental plasterer, nothing is known of his early life or training, except that he took a wife, Elizabeth, before 1722, when his first son, Joseph Wilton was born.
In 1737 he worked with Thomas Carter I providing plasterwork for a building belonging to William Pulteney in Chandos Place, London and he was also responsible for the elaborate rococo plasterwork ceilings of the Foundling Hospital
By the 1740s Wilton must have been relatively affluent since
he paid for an expensive Continental training for his son in the Nivelles
workshop of Laurent Delvaux. Delvaux and Wilton may have had business dealings
for in his notebooks of 1740-1 the Flemish sculptor refers to ‘Mr Wllm.
Wilton,’ then living in Margaret Street, near Cavendish Square (Jacobs 1997,
58).
Wilton founded a highly-profitable factory producing
papier-mâché ornaments for chimneypieces and mirror frames. J T Smith wrote
that the workshops employed ‘hundreds of people, including children’ (Smith
1828, 2, 167). In addition to his Cavendish Square premises, Wilton also had
works on the south-west corner of Hedge Lane, Charing Cross. He later retired
to Wanstead, Essex, and he was buried in Wanstead parish church, Essex on 27
January 1768.
In his will he left three residential properties in
Cavendish Square jointly to his friend, the architect William Chambers, and to
his son Joseph. From the profits made on leasing them, the beneficiaries were
instructed to pay an annuity of £50 to another son, William Wilton II, and to
support the education of Wilton’s three grandchildren, Frances Wilton, and two
boys. He also left three guineas to his nephew and former pupil Thomas Collins
to buy a ring. Administration of the trust occasioned some spirited
correspondence between Chambers and Joseph Wilton.
MGS
Literary References: Builder 1859, 849; Survey of London
1970, vol 36, 264; Allen 1983, 196; Coutu 1996, 175-85
Archival References: Chambers’s Letter-Books Add MS 41133,
fols, 94
Miscellaneous Drawings: Three designs for unidentified
monuments VAM E 1185-87-1965
Will: PROB 11/935/316-318
and much more info on the Sarti family see -
http://217.204.55.158/henrymoore/sculptor/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=2361
The Sarti Brothers.
I have lifted the following from the NPG website
Anthony Sarti (d.1851) has been studied by Timothy Clifford (Clifford 1992 pp.62-3). However, it is suggested here that he is not the same person as Anthony Sartine and that he was not a plaster figure maker.
The Lofts advert above suggests otherwise!
Sarti exhibited anatomical figures in wax of Venus and Adonis at the
Florentine Anatomical Gallery at 27 Margaret St in 1839 and a wider range of
figures at 209 Regent St in 1847 (Richard Altick, The Shows of London, 1978,
p.340; see also The Times 28 March 1839, 8 June 1847).
In his will, made 19 August 1847 and proved 12 February
1851, Antonio Sarti, modellist of Spur St, Leicester Square, formerly of
Tuscany, made Selina Isabella Sarti (otherwise Doti(?), subsequently Barker)
one of his executors, describing her as having had the management of his
business in this country for many years. He divided his estate in three with
one third going to his wife, Susan, another third to Selina Isabella Sarti, and
the final third to his sister, Carolina Francois in Florence, for the care of
Fanny Sarti, age 10. He refers to his estate as consisting, among other things,
of ‘anatomical and other models, plates and prints and other specimens of
considerable value’.
Isabella Selina Sarti, to be identified as Selina Isabella
Sarti, married Daniel Barker in the Bradford district in 1851, shortly before
Anthony Sarti’s will was proved. She and her husband continued to exhibit wax
anatomical figures, as can be seen from a handbill for a display at Boston in
Lincolnshire in about 1854 entitled ‘The late Sarti's new Florentine anatomical
model’.
Peter Sarti - Pietro Angelo Sarti.
fl.
working in London until 1838.
Peter Sarti, London by 1816, 6 Upper King St, Bloomsbury
1822-1826, 59 Greek St, Soho by 1825-1833, 92 Dean St, Soho 1833-1838,
Southampton St 1836. Plaster cast figure maker and moulder.
Peter, Pier, Petro or Pietro Angelo Sarti (1793-1868) has been described as the figure maker who above all, for capacity, erudition and exceptional talent, merits the memory and admiration of posterity (Paolo Tagliasacchi, Coreglia Antelminelli: Patria del Figurinaio, Coreglia Antelminelli, 2008, p.127).
He was born at Vetriano, a village near Pescaglia
in the province of Lucca. He played a prominent part in figure making in London
in the early 19th century. Working initially for Matthew Mazzoni (qv), he was
employed by Richard Westmacott (qv) in making plaster casts of classical
marbles in the British Museum in the period 1816-23 (Jenkins 1990 pp.101-5). He
published a poem in London in 1838 as Pier Angelo Sarti, La Reggia dell’
Invidia: cantica, shortly before returning to Italy, where he died at Lucca in
1868. His work has been studied by Ian Jenkins, to whom this account is
indebted.
Described as Petro Angel Sarti, figure maker and moulder, he
gave evidence to a Select Committee on the British Museum in 1835 (see Sources
below). In his responses, he stated that he had been in France before coming to
London, where he was under Mazzoni ‘for about five years, moulding continuously
down at the [British] Museum’, probably from about 1816. He said that he had
been working for Westmacott for years, for Rundell & Bridge (qv) for models
and for Chantrey (qv).
To mould statues, Sarti told the Select Committee, he would apply for permission through a gentleman of rank to Westmacott (qv), who acted in a private capacity for the Museum. He said that the Theseus statue in the Elgin collection had been moulded three times, twice by himself for Benjamin Robert Haydon and for Richard Westmacott (the statue is now identified as Dionysos; early cast in Royal Academy).
A list of marbles in the British Museum
moulded by Sarti, including the Rosetta Stone for the Government of Prussia,
was appended to the Select Committee report. Sarti reported that he had
obtained permission to mould the bust of Homer and was able to sell 80 casts in
the first month (this is presumably the Arundel head in bronze, now identified
as perhaps of Sophocles).
In 1836 Pietro Angelo Sarti of Southampton St, described as
‘the most substantial of the formatori resident in London’, formerly in the
employ of Westmacott at the Museum, was contracted to become the Museum’s first
official maker of plaster casts, but the following year he announced his
intention of returning to his native Italy, resigning his business to Loft
& Fletcher (Jenkins 1990 p.104, see also Ian Jenkins, Archaeologists &
Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum 1800-1939, 1992, p.36).
Peter Sarti was in business independently as a plaster cast figure maker by 1822 and was described as a mould figure maker in Robson’s 1826 London directory.
Sarti’s premises at 59 Greek St were shared in 1827 and 1829 variously with a piano maker, a cabinet maker, an ironmonger and the booksellers, Messrs Treutel Wurt and Co of 30 Soho Square, according to their insurance policy (London Metropolitan Archives, Sun Fire Office policy registers, 516/1069311, 527/1099411).
Sarti was at 92 Dean St, 1833-7 and perhaps later, sometimes listed as Pedro Sarti, and was succeeded in business there by James Loft and Angus Fletcher as sculptors and moulders until 1839, later by Loft and William Scoular as sculptors, figure makers and moulders until 1844, and then by Scoular alone until his death in 1854 (London Gazette 10 September 1839, 15 November 1844; Survey of London, vol.33, St Anne Soho, 1966, p.140).
Subsequently, the premises were occupied by Scoular & Edwards in 1855,
while James Loft went on to trade from 29 Clipstone St. For another figure
maker by the name of Pietro Sarti (d.1854), see Alexander Sarti, above.
A good idea of the range of Sarti’s stock-in-trade can be had from the catalogue issued by his successors in January 1839, very soon after he had sold the business (see Loft & Co.’s, late Sarti’s, Gallery of Casts from Antique and Modern Statues, Busts, Bassi Relievi, &c, 1839 (Tate Library).
The most expensive antique statue was the
7ft Group of Laocoon at £30, while the most expensive modern work was Canova’s
6ft Group of the Graces at £21. The following large-scale works by British sculptors
were stocked: Westmacott’s Venus and Cupid at £5.10s, Distressed Mother at £6
and Nymph at £4, Baily’s Eve at £5 and Maternal Affection at £6, and Nollekens’
Mercury and Juno, both at 8s. The catalogue featured small-scale copies from
modern works, antique busts, modern busts (numerous figures from British
history, mostly at 15s), bas reliefs including Flaxman’s frieze from Covent
Garden Theatre and his Mercury and Pandora, animal torsos, pedestals, brackets
and candelabra.
Peter Sarti is surely the ‘Sarti of Greek-Street’, described by John Thomas Smith as being in possession of moulds of John Deare’s bas-reliefs, Summer and Autumn, and also of ‘fifty-two varieties of Fiamingo’s children’ (John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and his times, 1828, vol.2, p.313).
For
the Athenaeum Club in London in 1830 he supplied figures of Diana dressing and
Venus victorious at £8.8s each and eleven busts of British worthies at £1.10s
each (Joshua Reynolds cost £3.3s since it needed moulding as well; Sarti was
not allowed by the Royal Academy to retain the mould) (John Kenworthy-Browne, A
Temple of British Worthies: The Historic Portrait Busts at the Athenaeum, 2011,
especially pp.29-30). Sarti produced various busts, Dryden, Milton and Locke,
signed (Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire), and Lord Tenterden, 1833 (untraced), as
well as figures, Apollo and Diana, 1835, for Goldsmiths’ Hall (Roscoe 2009).
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-sarti-busts-at-wimpole-hall.html
In 1835 and following, through Sarti and Sir Richard
Westmacott, a complete set of casts from the Elgin marbles was purchased by the
Board of Manufacturers at Edinburgh for the Trustees’ Academy, leading the
Trustees to sell off their earlier purchase of some casts from Matthew Mazzoni
(qv); the Sarti/Westmacott casts are now in the Edinburgh College of Art and
interestingly it has now been shown that those from the west frieze of the
Parthenon were cast from moulds made for Elgin in Athens by Bernardino Ledus
and Vincenzo Rosati, c.1802 (see Margaret Stewart, ‘Scenery and Scenes: the
plaster cast collection and its architecture at Edinburgh College of Art’,
forthcoming article). Sarti provided other casts for the Trustees’ Academy, now
in Edinburgh College of Art, including the Vatican Crouching Venus, 1834,
Castor and Pollux, 1835, with inset impressed metal label: P. SARTI/ 59/ GREEK
STREET/ SOHO SQUARE (the cast replaced Sarti’s poor quality first cast) and
Actaeon, 1838 (University of Edinburgh Art Collection database, where it is
noted that Sarti was paid for three unspecified casts on 9 February 1835).
Through George Basevi, architect of the Fitzwilliam Museum
then in construction, in 1837 Sarti supplied for use in ornamenting the museum
a pair of caryatids from the Elgin collection at £21 and 12 bas reliefs from
the same collection for £24 (Cambridge University Library, University Archives,
Prem.II.14 item 111, see also CUR 30.1 item 80 and Syn.Ac.1 p.12).
The following references may relate to Peter Sarti, or
possibly to Alexander Sarti (qv). ‘Sarti’ was a purchaser at Joseph Nollekens’
sale in 1823, acquiring various casts, models and work in terracotta (Clifford
1992 p.63). ‘The Dog brought one thousand guineas, and was purchased by Mr.
Duncombe, of Yorkshire; but a mould of it belongs to Sarti, the Figuremaker, a
cast from which makes a most noble appearance in a gentleman's hall.’ (John
Thomas Smith, Nollekens and his times, 1828, vol.2, p.292). In 1826, ‘Sarti’
was paid 10s for unspecified work for John Flaxman (Roscoe 2009). ‘Sarti’ was
used by John Linnell for plaster casts in 1827 (‘plasters’ at £3.10s.8d) and
1830 (two bas reliefs at £2.2s), as the artist’s account book shows
(Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 21-2000). In 1831, ‘Sarti’ was paid £7.16s.6d for
taking down architectural casts at Sir Thomas Lawrence's house in Russell
Square, on the instructions of Lawrence's executor (V&A National Art
Library, MSL/1938/1923).
Sources: Paolo Tagliasacchi, Coreglia Antelminelli: Patria
del Figurinaio, Coreglia Antelminelli, 2008, pp.127-30, repr. Sarti’s portrait.
House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on the Condition, Management
and Affairs of the British Museum, 1835, pp.255-8 and Appendix no.31 on p.445,
available though Google Book Search; Roscoe 2009. For abbreviations, see
Resources and bibliography.
For the group of plaster busts in the Athenaeum Club written by Kenworthy Brown see -
http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/athenaeum/catalogue.html
De Ville set up a plaster works in Soho in 1803, moving on
after two years to Great Newport Street in the Covent Garden–Leicester Square
area.[2][5] In the 1810s he was in business as a lamp maker and plaster caster,
dealing also in lighthouse fittings.[6] From 1814, he had business premises at
367 Strand, London, opposite Fountain Court.[2][7]
In other lines of business, De Ville dealt in architectural
metal wares, and supplied lights for the Menai Bridge. He joined the Institute
of Civil Engineers in 1823.[8] From the late 1820s he provided gas fittings to
Hanwell Asylum.[9] He also engaged in radical politics.[10]
Caster, moulder, sculptor
While still young, De Ville worked for the sculptor Joseph
Nollekens on casting. He later bought the moulds for busts made by
Nollekens.[11] In 1817 Bryan Donkin, representing an early British
phrenological group, commissioned him to do some reproductive moulding
work.[12]
De Ville's first life-mask was that of William Blake, taken
1 August 1823.[13] He travelled to Devon to take another, of the teenage
William Makepeace Thackeray, in 1824–5; it was much later used by Joseph Boehm
and Onslow Ford.[14]
Life-mask of William Blake, plaster cast by James De Ville
1823 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
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