The Wrest Park Lead Groups by John Cheere.
Part 1. Venus and Adonis.
The Four Groups at Wrest Park are Venus and Adonis, the Rape of the Sabines, Aeneas and Anchises, and Meleager and Atalanta (Diana and Actaeon).
For Part 2, the Rape of the Sabines cast by John Cheere see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/see-garden-leadwork.html
For Part 3, Aeneas and Ancheses cast by John Cheere -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/06/anteus-and-anchises-lead-group-at-wrest.html
For Part 4. Atalanta and Meleager (sometimes referred to as Diana and Actaeon)cast by John Cheere -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/06/atalanta-and-meleager-lead-group-at.html
The statues were purchased by Thomas de Grey (1781 - 59), 2nd Earl de Grey for Wrest in 1846.
He wrote to his daughter of his purchases in 1846 "in lead and most beautiful works ... off Brown".
Alan Cirket edited a History of the building of Wrest
by Earl de Grey 1846.De Grey comments "The large group of figures in the French garden are in lead and
most beautiful works. They were brought to this country from Holland and Belgium, I believe , by a man afterwards
known as Ex sheriff Parkins. He was a pewterer by trade ; grew rich : built a
villa: decorated it with statues; consequently and naturally grew poor and sold them all; and eventually went America, where I believe he still is. I
bought them of Brown , who was a good while before he could dispose of them".
Joeph Browne fl. 1814 - 45 -
For Joseph Browne and Co, Stone and Marble Merchant, 33
University Street, Tottenham Court Road (active 1814 - 51) see -
https://www.sculpture.gla.ac.uk/mapping/public/view/organization.php?id=msib1_1231191259
There is a detailed entry for Joseph Browne in the
Biographical Dictionary of British Sculptors... Pub Yale, 2009. He supplied
funeral Monuments, chimneypieces and was responsible for the sculpture on
Nashes Marble Arch. see - https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GGJ_1997_Vol_7_07_Saint_0001.pdf
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A version of Venus and Adonis was supplied to the Royal Palace at Queluz, Portugal in 1756.
The Meleager and Atalanta (Endymion and Atalanta) are possibly based on an original statue by Francesco Fanelli (1590 - 1653) there is another version of the Cheere group at Anglesey Abbey.
It had been suggested that the eight statues of the seasons and the element were by Cheere but it is clear that the original eight stone statues which formerly stood on the parterre at Wrest were sold in 1917 and are now at Ditchley Park were sculpted by the Irish sculptor Terence Farrell RHA (1798 - 1876) who had been introduced to Earl de Grey when he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the early 1840's.
They had been removed from the corners of the two rectangular parterre panels in the French garden at Wrest Park. These statues, represented the four seasons and the four elements earth, fire, air, and water (see old photograph of the parterre at Wrest below
For a brief biog. of Farrell see the notes at the bottom of this page.
Venus and Adonis and Aeneas and Anchises were restored by the Skillington Workshops for English Heritage and completed in 2021.
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/search-news/pr-wrest-park-statues/
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For an excellent overview of the History and Architecture at Wrest see -
https://bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk/CommunityHistories/Silsoe/WrestParkInThe20thCentury.aspx
and
https://bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk/PDFs/Big-Estates.pdf
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Venus and Adonis in the Garden of the Royal Palace of Queluz, Portugal.
Commissioned by Infante Dom Pedro (1717 - 86), younger son of King Dom Joao V.
A stipulation by Dom Pedro was that the statues not be
embarrassingly naked and an assurance from the sculptor that they were
"girdled".
The first Collection was sent in May? 1755 in 36 crates on board
the ship Camberwell and consisted of -
Meleager and Atalanta (as Diana and Endymion at Wrest Park).
Vertumnus and Pomona.
23 statues of Mythological figures -
Neptune, Meleager, Mercury, Fame, Apollo, Diana, Bacchus,
Venus, Ceres and Flora.
A Gladiator and 4 Seasons,
4 Commedia dell' Arte figures, - (Pierrot, Harlequin,
Scaramouche and Columbine)
4 Picturesque figures - Shepherd and Shepherdess, a man with
a flute and drum and a woman with a rake.
24 Vases.
Cost £290.5s. 2d including shipping - £340.18s. 6d.
___________________________
The second lot of sculptures sent in 58 crates on the ship
Nossa Senhora do Socorro in September 1755.
The speed with which these sculptures were ordered suggests
that John Cheere already had these objects in stock at his premises at Hyde
Park Corner..
Rape of Proserpine.
Aeneas Carrying his father Anchises.
Rape of the Sabine Women (another version is at Wrest Park).
David and Goliath
Cain and Abel actually Samson Slaying the Philistine from
the Giambologa original then at Buckingham House (another lead version at
Harrowden Hall, Northants).
Venus and Adonis (another at Wrest Park),
Bacchus and Ariadne.
and 6 individual figures -
Hercules.
Meleager.
Atalanta.
Justice.
Mars.
and Minerva.
and 16 animals -
4 Monkeys.
4 Lions.
4 Tigers.
2 Foxes a Harpy and an Eagle.
8 Boys to decorate the waterfalls.
48 Painted Bronze and gold vases.
Information on the Cheere statuary at Queluz (below) culled
from - John Cheere's lead garden
statues.... by Maria Joaon Neto and Fernando Grilo. Sculpture Journal Vol.
15.1, 2006.
The Gardens of the National Palace of Queluz, Ana Duarte
Rodrigues, Denise Pereira da Silva and Gerald Luckhurst, pub. 2011.
see John Cheere, the Eminent Statuary ..... Moira Fulton,
Sculpture Journal, Volume X, 2003.
Details of the purchases are contained in Correspondence
between the Portuguese Ambassador in London Don Louis da Cnha Manuel and the
Foreign Secretary in Lisbon Sebasteao Jose de Carvalho e Melo (future Marquis
of Pombal).
Links.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303048030_The_Conservation_Intervention_of_the_Gardens_-_An_Overview
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303048106_The_Workshops_Framework_and_Implementation_Strategy
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https://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/sj.15.1.1?journalCode=sj
This links to the first page of the Sculpture Journal piece, John Cheere's lead garden statues.... by Maria Joaon Neto and Fernando Grilo on the Cheere lead sculpture at Queluz and offers the rest of the article for the bargain price of £25.
Contact me if anyone is interested in the contents of
this article. I will, in due course, be publishing my own photographs (samples
here) and a more up to date look at the works of John Cheere which were
supplied to Queluz.
Two invaluable general works on the subject of Lead Statuary
are English Leadwork, ..... by Lawrence Weaver, pub. 1909 and available on line
at -
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Of tangential interest he Irish sculptor Terence Farrell, R.H.A. some notes from -
https://www.libraryireland.com/irishartists/terence-farrell.php
Farrell was born in 1798 at Creve, County Longford, where his grandfather owned stone-quarries.
In 1810 he was brought by his mother to Dublin, where his elder brother was employed as a stone-cutter, and placed in the Modelling School of the Dublin Society in Hawkins Street. Here he had the advantage of the instruction of Edward Smyth, and afterwards of John Smyth.
On his leaving the school he entered the studio of Thomas Kirk in Jervis Street, and remained there nearly seven years as a pupil, and then for some time as an assistant.
His first contributions to the Royal Hibernian Academy, in 1826, were sent from his master's studio in Jervis Street.
In 1819, at the age of 21, he married a Miss Ruxton. About 1828 he set up for himself, at first in Golden Lane, then in Peter Street, and Mecklenburgh Street, and, after some years in Lower Gloucester Street he finally settled, in 1861, at 11 Warrington Place.
Besides a few monuments and statues for churches his work consisted chiefly of portrait busts, many of them "miniature busts" in which he excelled, and many persons of note sat to him; but his work neverreached any distinction.
He was a regular exhibitor in the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1826, and was elected an Associate in July, 1851, and a Member in May, 1859. He was patronized by Earl de Grey, Lord Lieutenant, for whom he executed several works now at Wrest Park.
He died, after a few hours' illness, in his house No. 11 Warrington Place, on 19th March, 1876, aged 78, and was buried in the vaults of St. Andrew's Church, Westland Row.
His wife died in 1839, and was buried in Golden Bridge Cemetery.
He had six sons, all of whom followed their father's profession: 1st, James; 2nd, Joseph; 3rd, Thomas; 4th, John; 5th, Michael; and 6th, William.
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