Post under construction
A Marble Bust of the Laocoon.
This bust is currently with the Tomasso Brothers of London and Leeds.
https://www.tomasso.art/
The photographs kindly provided by Dino Tomasso.
Here attributed to Roubiliac on the evidence of the form of the socle.
This form of socle is unique to Roubiliac with the possible exception of a similar socle on the marble bust of Lord Chesterfield by Joseph Wilton in the British Museum and a plaster of Oliver Cromwell in the Royal Academy Stores (see below).
Two busts, one of plaster and the other in marble of Laocoon
were included in the Roubiliac posthumous sale.
The Roubiliac Sale Catalogue - 12 May
1762 and the following 3 Days contains Lot 48, 3rd Day - Plaster Bust Laocoon.
Lot 72, 4th Day – Marble Laocoon.
A marble bust of Laocoon by Joseph Wilton signed and dated
1758 which uses the oval socle typical of Wilton’s busts is in the Victoria and
Albert Museum. Wilton was a great friend of Roubiliac – he was in Rome from
1751 – 55 where he made casts and copies of Antique works – it is tempting to
suggest that Wilton provided the original cast of this bust.
Roubiliac, uses the same socle on 14 different busts known
to be from his workshop, as those socles on the four unsigned busts of Laocoon, Milo of Croton, the Anima Dannata (the Damned Soul) after Bernini and a man depicted as the Good Roman Emperor Trajan at Goodwood House illustrated here.
At this point in the researches it is difficult to gauge when he first used this form of
socle - possibly as early as 1746 (perhaps that on the Mary Okeover bust?) but more likely
in the 1750's.
4 of the busts drawn by Joseph Nollekens at the Roubiliac
posthumous sale use this type of socle. These drawings are now in the Harris Museum at Preston, Lancs (see the illustrations below).
I can only find two other uses of this form of Socle by Joseph Wilton - the 1757 marble bust of Lord Chersterfield and a plaster bust of Oliver Cromwell at the Royal Academy.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1777-0620-1
In July 1752, Roubiliac travelled with the portrait painters Thomas Hudson and Arthur Pond for a very brief visit to Rome.
As they were travelling to Italy they met Joshua Reynolds at Mont Cenis who was returning from Rome - they met up with him again in Paris on their return journey and they returned to London together Reynolds arrived back in London on 16 October. George Vertue states ' their tour of Italy very quick and their stay very little' that they were in Rome 'only long enough to say that they have seen Rome'. Vertue 3. 162. but the dates suggest that they were in Ital from July until early October -
Roubiliac is later said to have exclaimed to Reynolds that the sculpture of Bernini made his own look ‘meagre and starved, as if made of nothing but tobacco pipes’.
Certainly the busts of the Anima Dannata and Milo of Croton (if one accepts the attribution to him!) illustrated here show his admiration for Bernini, Puget and the Baroque.
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Milo of Croton. (Milo Crotoniensis).
The Marble Bust at Blenheim Palace.
Here tentatively ascribed to Roubiliac given the evidence of the form of the socle.
The Roubiliac 4 Day Sale Catalogue of May 1762 Lists - Milo.
Day 1, under plaster busts, Lot 6 and Lot 17.
Third Day May 14 under busts and heads in plaster Lot and
Lot 11, lot 40.
Fourth Day May 15, Lot 1 and Lot 18.
A bust of Milo appears in the Catalogue of Charles Harris of
the Strand in 1777.
I am very grateful to
Carmen Alvarez -Archivist at Blenheim Palace
who provided the images below.
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The Anima Dannata after Bernini.
Here again suggested as by Roubiliac on the evidence of the form of the socle.
The socle is of Nero Portero Marble which matches that on the bust of a gentleman depicted as Trajan (below).
Roubiliac sale under the heading Busts, Heads etc. Plaister,
Lot 18, Day 1, 14 May 1762, A Despairing Soul.
Anima Dannata (Damned soul in hell), both of which are in
the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, Palazzo di Spagna in Rome.
Bernini
considered the models to be among his earliest sculptures and may later have
been responsible for inscribing them: D'anni 12 ('aged 12'). The early history
of the busts is unclear, but Andrea Bacchi has concluded that they are likely
to have been made circa 1619 and were possibly acquired by Fernando Botinete y
Acevedo (1565-1632). Despite an early inventory reference listing them as 'a
nymph' and 'a satyr'.
This bust of Anima Dannata was sold for £176,400 at Christie's, London 7 December 2023 - I don't usually publish the price achieved at auction but in this case I will make an exception -
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6458288
The catalogue entry makes the case for it having been carved by Joseph Wilton on the basis of the socle being similar to that on Wilton's bust of Lord Chesterfield in the British Museum - the evidence I provide here would suggest that only one bust definitely by Wilton uses this form of socle - on the other hand there are 14 busts by Roubiliac which use this same form.
If we include the four busts suggested here as by Roubiliac, the Laocoon, Milo of Croton, The Goodwood Trajan type bust and the Anima Dannata - it brings the total to 18.
The catalogue entry suggests that "a final element supporting an attribution to Wilton is that
the treatment of the reverse, namely the patterns left by the tooling, is
comparable to the bust of Philip Stanhope and other known works including his
portrait of Dr. Antonio Cocchi (V&A, London, inv. no. A.9-1966) and ‘Bust
of a Man (After the Antique)’ (Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 87.SA.110)".
Whilst this statement is true, they are certainly not the only busts of the period with the backs finished similarly with a claw chisel.
The Terracotta Bust of Anima Dannata (the Damned Soul), after Bernini,
in the Cloisters at Wilton House.
This pair of busts appear in
A Description of the Antiquities and Curiosities in Wilton-House by
James Kennedy of 1769. page 101 - Two bustos one representing TORMENT the other CONTENTMENT.
This catalogue is available online see -
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ptid=gri.ark:/13960/t07w7bk29&seq=205&q1=torment
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Bust of a Gentleman depicted in the Guise of the Good Emperor Trajan.
at Goodwood House.
Here suggested as by Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Lot 78, on the 4th Day of the Roubiliac sale under the heading Marble Busts Etc is A Caeser
This bust again uses the Roubiliac Type socle and as the anima Dannata above the socle is carved from Nero Portero Marble.
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The Folger Library bust of Shakespeare.
Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Provenance: Acquired by AR Fordham's grandfather in 1859,
Sold Sotheby's, Lot 54, on 15 November 1929.
Perhaps Lot 74, sold on the fourth day of the Roubiliac Sale
on Saturday 15th May 1762.
I am extremely grateful to Georgianna Ziegler, Assoc.
Librarian and Head of Reference at the Folger Shakespeare Library for providing
me with these photographs.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-folger-library-marble-bust-of.html
https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/bib244412-309653
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The Harris Museum, Preston Drawings by Joseph Nollekens.
It has been suggested that they had been drawn at the studio
of Roubiliac in St Martin's Lane by Nollekens sometime around the time of the sale on 12 May
1762 and the following three days.
This would have been just before he departed for Italy. On
21 May he had received the last and greatest of his 5 prizes from the Society
of Arts and having won in all £123 18shillings Hayward noted his arrival
in Rome with Jiacomo Freys son on 11
August - a droll account of his journey survives in a copy of a letter written
to sculptor Thomas Banks (1735 - 1805), see Whitley 1821 - 37
For an in depth look at these drawings see
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Oliver Cromwell.
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Sir Isaac Newton.
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Thomas Coke, Lord Leicester (not Lord Lister).
A Plaster bust of Lord Leicester was in the 3rd Day 14 May 1762. Lot 21 of the posthumous Roubiliac Sale.
The Busts and figures of Lord Leicester at the the Roubiliac Sale.
Day 1. Lot 87. Bust unfinish'd of Marble.
Day 2. Lot 21. Plaster Bust, Lot 27. Plaster Bust.
Day 3. Lot 90. A whole length of the Earl of Leicester in his robes
plaster.
Day 4. Lot. 55. Mould in plaister, The Earl of Leicester in modern
dress. Lot 56. Ditto Mould, Earl of Leicester in Roman dress. Lot 57. A small figure ditto.
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Charles I.
This is a drawing of the terracotta bust now in the British Museum.
There are two bust of Charles I by Roubiliac. The first is that purchased by Dr Matthew Maty at the posthumous Roubiliac sale and presented to the British Museum.
The second terracotta is that at the Courtauld Gallery on a marble socle
The terracotta bust of Charles I was lot 79 on the 2nd day of the Roubiliac Sale Thursday 13th May 1762.
Another terracotta was in the posthumous sale under the heading Busts terracotta lot 74 Third day 14 May 1762.
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The Marble bust of Charles I.
by Roubiliac.
Height 71 cm.
Wallace Collection.
Provenance - George
Selwyn; Maria Fagnani; Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford
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The Terracotta Bust of Charles I. (mark II).
Roubiliac.
Courtauld Gallery.
This bust not only utilises the socle but also uses same drapery as that used by Roubiliac on his marble and
terracotta busts of Viscount Ligonier and the Fordham Marble bust of
Shakespeare at the Folger Library, Washington DC.
.
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The Bamber Monument the bust of Dr John Bamber (1667 - 1753).
c.1754.
On the monument in the North Aisle in St Margaret of Antioch Church, Barking, Essex.
The monument is perhaps by Henry Cheere typically showing
his use of coloured marbles but the bust has all the hallmarks of the mature
Roubiliac and his mastery of depicting old men naturistic fashion.
The bust possibly made for Dr Bamber and later placed on his monument.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019_04_05_archive.html
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The Marble Bust of Sir Peter Warren (1703 - 52).
Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Height 83.8cms.
Huntington Library. San Marino. California.
This is a version of the bust of Warren on his monument by Roubiliac in Westminster Abbey.
https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/3122/sir-peter-warren-naval-officer?ctx=501ef96c-0c19-4357-adeb-a20bb14c85d4&idx=3
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/02/bust-of-sir-peter-warren-roubiliac.html
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The Marble Busts of Lord Leicester and his wife on the Monument at Tittleshall.
This pair of busts by Roubiliac are on the Monument at
Tittleshall Church, Norfolk. The busts were made originally for Holkham Hall,
Norfolk and later placed on the monument.
A plaster bust of the bust of Coke remains in the Hall at Holkham, which uses the
same socle. The Nollekens drawing of another bust of the Earl by Roubiliac but
without a wig is in the Harris Museum Preston showing the use of this socle.
This bust is shown in an early 19th century engraving.
Lady Margaret Tufton, The Countess of Leicester (1700 -75)
by Roubiliac utilises the same form of Socle. When Thomas Coke died in 1759,
Lady Margaret completed the work to the house to his exact specification, and
continued to live at Holkham until her death in 1775.
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The Plaster Bust of Lord Leicester, Thomas Coke at Holkham Hall, Norfolk.
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Mary Okeover.
Marble Bust Height 58.4 cms.
c. 1745.
I have contacted Okeover but the busts of the Okeovers have disappeared.
Perhaps by the Danish
Sculptor Charles Stanley but I now consider that it is much more likely to have
come from the workshop of Roubiliac. My argument again rests on the use of a form of socle unique to
Roubiliac and the repetition of the drapery - a.
The socle on an unsigned marble bust of the young Marcus
Aurelius at Seaton Delaval previously at Melton Constable Hall, Norfolk follows
the same pattern.
Another pointer to the Roubiliac authorship is the use of
the same drapery on another bust on the Maynard Monument see below. - Another
feature that appears only on Roubiliac's busts.
Of Tangential interest.
At Okeover Thomas Carter acted as a supplier of sculpture from
another neighbour in Piccadilly, John Cheere. The accounts show that £8, with
18s for casing, was paid for ‘work done by order of Mr Carter per John Cheere.
To making a statue of a black’ (Oswald 1964, 175).
In addition to the
Blackamoor, which arrived in 1741, it is possible that ‘two spinx’, supplied by
Carter in 1740, also came from Cheere’s workshop.
The most prestigious name
associated with the Carter workshop is Louis Francois Roubiliac, who, according
to the painter James Northcote, was ‘working as a journeyman for a person of
the name of Carter’ in or around 1752 (Northcote 1813, 29).
Roubiliac had long practised as an
independent sculptor by this date, but may have assisted Carter or worked as a sub-contractor.
Roubiliac later owned a bust of ‘Mr Carter, Statuary,’ although
this could be by Benjamin rather than Thomas I. (sold in his postumous sale).
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An Anonymous Bust at West Wycombe Park.
Here attributed to Lois Francois Roubiliac.
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A Plaster Bust possibly of Apollo - an Ideal Head.
Perhaps Aphrodite.
Life Size.
at Saltram House.
Photographed by the Author.
The loose hair on the shoulders is similar to that of the Cesi Venus or the Venus d'Arles but the topknot is quite different and resembles that on to Capitoline Venus, in Rome.
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The Bodleian Library Plaster Cast of the Stone bust of Sir Thomas Bodley.
This is one of three busts at Oxford of Sir Thomas Bodley.
The original polychrome stone bust of 1605 is in the Bodleian Library.
Another polychrome plaster is also at the Bodleian and third plaster painted black is at Merton College.
This bust has in the past been attributed to Nicholas Stone - it is my considered opinion that that the stone bust could not have been carved
by Nicholas Stone currently I believe that a more likely candidate would be Isaac
James ( fl. 1600 - 1624/5).
Stone would have been aged about 19. A comparison with the
bust on the monument to Bodley carved by the Stone workshop and put up in the
Chapel at Christ Church College, which to my eye is fairly wooden, would
suggest that a much more competent and perhaps more mature sculptor was responsible.
It shows the influence of the Amsterdam sculptor and
architect Hendryk de Keyser (1565 - 1621).
de Keyser was in England in 1606 - Nicholas Stone a pupil of
Isaac James went to Amsterdam with de Keyser married his daughter and returned
to England in 1613.
see - The Biographical Dictionary of London Tomb Sculptors 1560 -
1660. by Adam White, Walpole Society Journal, 1999.
see my post -
http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/hendrick-de-keyser-and-his.html
https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2017/11/stone-bust-of-sir-thomas-bodley-in.html
The Bodleian Polychrome Plaster of Thomas Bodley.
It is more than temping to suggest that the Bodleian and Merton College plasters with the extended trunks were adapted and cast from the stone original in the Bodleian Library by Louis Francois Roubiliac.
There are several other busts by Roubiliac at Oxford. Two busts of Richard Freweat Christchurch and in the Bodleian
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-busts-of-richard-frewin-by.html
Archbishop Chichele at All Souls
The three busts of Thomas Bodley compared.
of tangential interest
The anonymous terracotta bust of Sir Nicholas Bacon at Gorhambury, Herts
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/DP084661
Bust of Lady Anne Bacon at Gorhambury.
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Joseph Wilton and his use of the Roubiliac Type Socle.
The Marble Bust of Lord Chesterfield.
British Museum.
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A Plaster Bust of Oliver Cromwell in the Royal Academy Store.
Here compared with the marble version at the V and A.
I was unable to make any serious forensic investigation into
this bust - I will put down my first thoughts here. It appears to have
sustained some damage in the past and this has been disguised by the bronze
paint - in the past it has not been particularly well treated and appears to
have water staining on the surface.
There are what appears to be piece mould marks, visible
particularly on the face, and the bust has probably been broken and restored at some
point and it is difficult to make out whether the lines on the face and hair
are piece mould marks or breaks that have been restored or a mixture of the
two.
The areas outlined in red show the obvious differences in these busts.
I am extremely grateful to Daniel Bowmar, Collections
Manager of the Royal Academy for allowing me access to the Royal Academy
Collection store in East London and for facilitating the photography.
https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-busts-of-oliver-cromwell-part-23.html
http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2019/02/oliver-cromwell-marble-bust-by-joseph.html
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The Afterlife of the Roubiliac Type Socle - a later iteration.
Enoch Wood (1759 - 1840).
Painted Biscuit ware? Described as a Polychromed ceramic Bust.
Sotheby's London, Lot
72, 12 July 2017.
Titled and dated: The
Bust / of / Enoch Wood / of / Burslem aged / 62, AD 1821
62cm., 24 3/8 in.
