The Maynard Monuments at Little Easton, Essex.

 

Revisiting my previous post on the Maynard Monument, 

by the Danish Sculptor Charles Stanley (1703 - 61).

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/03/maynard-monument-by-charles-stanley.html

The 1746 monument for the Maynard family by the Danish sculptor working in England, Charles Stanley, commissioned by Charles Maynard, 1st Viscount Maynard (1690-1775), in the Bouchier-Maynard South Chapel of the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Little Easton, Essex, England.

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The intriguing bust of the Hon. Elizabeth Maynard.

The Missing Bust of Mary Okeover.

Here attributed to Louis Francois Roubiliac.

The bust is Illustrated in the Exhibition Catalogue: The Treasure Houses of Great Britain, 500 Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting, 1985 (see the image below).

The entry for the bust was written by Malcolm Baker and makes the assertion that this bust was carved by Anglo/Danish Sculptor Charles Stanley with the socle carved by Joseph Wilton to make it match the bust of Leake Okeover by Wilton (below) signed by Wilton and dated 1762.

 I have only examined the Maynard bust but the treatment of the backs of these busts might support the theory.

My theory is that the socle the later bust of Leake Okeover was carved to match that on the earlier bust of Mary Okeover 

I have so far been unable to locate the bust of Mary Okeover (or that of her husband Leake Okeover by Joseph Wilton).

I have contacted Okeover Hall, Staffordshire but without success.

 

 The details of the drapery on the bust of Lady Elizabeth Maynard on the Charles Maynard Monument of 1746 by Stanley at St Mary's Little Easton, Essex., which are the same as the drapery on the Mary Okeover bust was pointed out by Malcolm Baker in the exhibition catalogue.

 

 I might be in error here but as far as I am aware this is the only the second case of a sculptor using the same drapery on busts of different sitters, the first being several examples by Roubiliac. Matthew Lee at Christchurch, Oxford and John Belchier in the Royakl College of Surgeons) is one example another is the busts of John Ray B.M. etc., Jonathan Tyers and Henry Streatfield.

 Suggesting that Roubiliac and Stanley either used similar methods of reproducing their busts with some sort of pointing machine or that Roubiliac was somehow involved with the sculpture on the Maynard Monument

It is possible that the bust of Elizabeth Stanley was made as a portrait for the Maynard House and later placed on the church monument.

This all begs the question - what was the connection (if any?) between Stanley and Roubiliac or is it just coincidence that they used similar methods to reproduce their busts.

Was Stanley working with Roubiliac in the 1740's before his return to Denmark in 1746?

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Having investigated the use of the socle type on the bust of Mary Okeover I now consider that the bust of Mary Okeover was probably carved by Roubiliac and the socle of the bust of Leake Okeover by Joseph Wilton was carved to match the bust of his wife Mary.