This post under construction
I first posted on the bust of Lee July 2017.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/07/bust-of-dr-matthew-lee-by-roubiliac.html
This was the first published essay on the subject of this
bust - peculiarly it is not recorded in the Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain
.. Roscoe et al, pub Yale 2009.
Mrs Esdaile states in Roubiliac, Oxford 1928 'placed on a bracket below the gallery of the college Laboratory... is thickly covered in paint which effectually prevents the search for a signature'.
Currently at the foot of the staircase in the Lee Building, the former Anatomy School, Christ Church College, Oxford now the Senior Common Room.
Placed in the building in 1758 (info from A Christchurch
Miscellany, Hiscock, 1946).
This bust went unnoticed by Mrs Poole until she was alerted to it by Mrs Katherine Arundell Esdaile
see page 317, Catalogue of Portraits Oxford... Vol III, Mrs
Reginald Lane Poole, 1925.
Noted in the lecture room in 1925, now in the hallway on the
ground floor.
Mrs Poole says the bust was painted but I am informed there is no obvious evidence.
The bust is very dirty and could do with a gentle wash.
I suspect that neither ladies actually examined this bust.
...................
Matthew Lee born in Northamptonshire matriculated in 1713
and studied medicine, graduating BA (1717), MA (1720), BM (1722) and DM (1726).
He showed marked affection for the House, and the Chapter leased to him the
lucrative tithes of the Rectory of Chippenham, which no doubt secured his material comfort, since
the tithes were additional to the income from his rewarding and extensive
medical practices.
Candidate for the Royal College of Physicians on 12 April
1731, became a Fellow on 3 April 1732
Having married a young lady from London in 1730, he moved to
the capital, where he practised even more successfully. Lee does not at this
stage appear to have had great interest in the scientific aspects of the
profession; his contribution was to come later, in his will.
Matthew Lee was a Westminster School and Christ Church
physician, who graduated MB in 1722, delivered the Bodleian oration in 1723,
and received his DM in 1726.
He lived in part of Frewin's house in New Inn Hall Street,
so probably gained his clinical practice with him. However, when James Keill
died in 1719, he left Lee his microscope and all his medical books, and as Lee
was a Northampton man, he may have studied with Keill as well.
Dr Lee moved to London in 1730, became a fellow of the
College of Physicians and Harveian orator, and succeeded Noel Broxholme as
physician to Frederick Prince of Wales, but neither he nor Sir Edward Wilmot
recognised the gravity of the Prince's fatal illness. Prince Frederick died in
1751 from an infected cyst possibly initiated two years previously by a blow
from a cricket ball.
It is thought that the creation of the Anatomy Laboratory
had originally been suggested by John Freind, physician to Queen Caroline, who
gave a course in Chemistry in 1704. His
will directed that, if his son should die without children, £1000 would be
given for the building of an Anatomy School at Christ Church and for the salary
of a Reader in the subject. It is not clear what happened to this benefaction
but the son died unmarried in 1750 and it is probable that the bequest was
indeed made to Christ Church, since 1750 is the commonly quoted date of the
foundation of the Matthew Lee Readership (the Freind bequest would in any case
have been inadequate for the purpose intended).
This bequest was later augmented by some £10,000 by Matthew
Lee.
Matthew Lee died in 1755 and left the bulk of his estate
(over £20,000) to Christ Church for the advancement of Westminster students and
for the endowment of a Readership in Anatomy.
Nevertheless, there
were strict conditions: the holder of the post was to have been educated at
Westminster, to hold the degree of MA having studied physick, to be a layman,
to reside in Oxford for at least six months annually, to instruct only in
Anatomy, Physick and Botany, and to dissect two bodies each year (for which the
Trust provided an additional £40 per annum as running costs). The dissections
were public spectacles: the Dean could nominate four Students and two Commoners
to attend without charge, all others being required to pay a fee.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/07/bust-of-dr-matthew-lee-by-roubiliac.html
The Monument to Mrs Deborah Gibbons (nee Favell) d . 1711.
Mother of Elizabeth Lawes later Home, Countess of Home (née Gibbons; 1703/04 – 15 January 1784).
The monument is inscribed by John Cheere and was ordered by Elizabeth Lawes perhaps at the same time as that of her husband in 1737.
see my previous post - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-monument-inscribed-by-john-cheere-in.html
For Monuments in the West Indies see -
https://ia601306.us.archive.org/20/items/monumentalinscri00lawrrich/monumentalinscri00lawrrich.pdf
There is another version of this bust at Blair Castle described as
This terracotta and the marble version in the Birmingham
Museum were almost certainly commissioned by Tyers himself. These two busts were recorded in the
possession of the Tyers's grandson, and then passed by descent to the Reverend
Jonathan Tyers Barrett of Brandon House, Suffolk.
A Second Terracotta Bust of Ray was offered for sale by Sotheby's London - Lot 65 - 5 July 1990.
This bust has the fur collar.
...............
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