This post to be added to when I can find time.
Part of the reason for collecting this information is to attempt to ascertain whether Henry Cheere was the sculptor or whether he users men within his workshop or hired sub contactors.
This is probably a hopeless task given the lack of documentary evidence.
I may be doing him a dis service but my suspicion is that after about 1730 he no longer worked "on the tools". This should not detract from his skills as a designer and organiser of one of the most successful workshops in London.
Until recently all the literature on 18th century sculpture / sculptors has suggested that Cheere was in the first rank of mid 18th century sculptors along with Rysbrack, Roubiliac, Scheemakers and Taylor.
But doubts have arisen when researching various church monuments given to Cheere but with busts almost certainly by Roubiliac - the monuments at Racton and Crofton Stubbington are examples.
These additions to Cheere's monuments suggest that Cheere was employing Roubiliac - probably from shortly after his arrival in England in around 1730. Roubiliac spelt Rowtiliac appears in (a copy of) a list (undated) of members of a Freemason's Lodge at the White Bear in King St, Golden Square - according to Malcolm Baker in Roubiliac and the Eighteenth Century Monument pub Yale, 1995 the Grand Lodge of Freemasons called in the names of all members of regular lodges - this would suggest that there are other similar lists!
This list should be investigated thoroughly and not accepted as fact until the date is proven to be accurate!
For an early look and useful look at the subject see - Malcolm Baker, ‘Sir Henry Cheere and the Response to the Rococo in English Sculpture’, The Rococo in England, Georgian Group Symposium,1984, pp. 143–160.
Available on line at -
https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GGS_1984_11_Malcolm_Baker.pdf
If he didn't actually sculpt these statues then can we discover who was working for with him.
Christopher Codrington (1668 - 1710).
In the Former Codrington Library at All Souls College, Oxford
H. 182 cm.
Plinth: H 90 x W 87 x D 71 cm
The Royal Infirmary was an important work by William Adam,
demolished in 1884. It was a U-plan building, fairly plain for the sake of
economy, but with a frontispiece comprising four engaged giant Ionic columns to
the 1st and 2nd floors, and a 3-bay attic storey with French roof, lantern, and
flanking bracket scrolls. This latter was the operating theatre, and the
lantern housed a winch for hoisting patients from floor to floor. Drummond
Scrolls comprises this attic storey, although it is unfortunately missing its
balustraded roof.
R.A. Macfie of Dreghorn house was a collector of architectural antiques, and bought most of the ornamental stonework from the Infirmary when it was demolished. The Drummond Scrolls were re-erected by Macfie on his stable block
The niche in the NW elevation was originally at the centre of the 2nd floor of the infirmary, and held a statue of George II by John Cheere (1759).
The statue is currently at the present Royal Infirmary in Lauriston
Place.
Further reading -
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