I have recently been looking at the socles of the busts of Louis Francois Roubiliac 1702 - 62.
This research was inspired by a request to identify the identity of the sculptor of a bust of the bearded father in the antique Laocoon Group.
The form of the socle immediately rang bells - I had recently visited Tittleshall Church in Norfolk to photograph the pair of busts by Roubiliac on the monument to Thomas Coke and his wife Margaret nee Tufton.
This then led me to the investigation into the other busts by Roubiliac which utilised the same socle - and this which eventually brought me to the plaster busts of Thomas Bodley at Oxford.
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The socles on the two plaster busts of Bodley have the same socle as those on a series of at least 15 busts by or confidently attributable to Roubiliac.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/03/louis-francois-roubiliac-joseph-wilton.html
This form of socle is unique to Roubiliac with the single exception of that on a marble bust of Lord Chesterfield by Joseph Wilton inscribed I. WILTON:fecit: ad Vivum.1757 (British Museum aquired 1777) which has a gilt bronze cartouche on the front face of the socle - there is a plaster cast of this bust including the socle at the Rangers House, Blackheath. Currently I can find no further examples of Wilton's use of this form of socle
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1777-0620-1
This form of socle is the same as that on the two plaster busts of Thomas Bodley at Oxford illustrated below.
It occurs to me that the manufacture of the socles were perhaps carved by a member of the Roubiliac workshop or an apprentice or even subcontracted to an outside sculptor. Henry Cheere certainly used sub contractors including Colbert Woods of Little Sanctuary Westminster who he used to finish his polishing. (see Craske, Silent Rhetoric... pub Yale)
In order to make the plaster casts of Bodley sit on their socles, the cast taken from the original Bodleian bust, has had the trunk extended by a very competent sculptor.
It is more than tempting to suggest given the evidence of the use of the Roubiliac type socle here that this cast might have been made in the workshop of Roubiliac.
Roubiliac is known to have reproduced his busts in plaster - his posthumous sale catalogue of May 1762 includes numerous busts and piece moulds suggesting that the casts were made in his workshop in St Martins Lane at least from 1740 when he took it over.
For the Roubiliac Sale Catalogue 12 May and the three following days see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-roubiliac-sale-catalogue-with-list.html
I have contacted Merton College and will contact the Bodleian in due course.
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The Three Busts of Thomas Bodley compared.
The Bodleian Library Plaster the Bodleian Stone Bust and the Merton College Bust
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The Marble Bust of Laocoon.
with Tomasso Brothers of London and Leeds.
Here attributed to Roubiliac.
Image courtesy Dino Tomasso of Tomasso Brothers, London and Leeds, Sculpture and Works of Art.
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Below are further examples of the use of the Roubiliac type socle.
Further examples of this form of Roubiliac socle appear on the 12 following busts:
Sir Peter Warren marble at the Huntington, the Charles I Terracotta at the Courtauld, Shakespeare at the Folger Library, John Bamber on the monument in Barking Church , Princess Amelia marble in the Fitzwilliam, the pair of busts on the monument to Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester and his wife in the church at Tittleshall, Norfolk, the plaster of Thomas Coke is at Holkham, the marble of Lord Leicester at Holkham (seen in an engraving) on 5 drawings by Nollekens of the busts at the posthumous Roubiliac sale in the Harris Collection in Preston Museum and on several other busts which can now fairly safely attributed to him.
These are illustrated here -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/03/louis-francois-roubiliac-joseph-wilton.html
Below is the drawing of Lord Leicester (inscribed Lister) by Nollekens
One of a series of 7 drawings
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-harris-museum-preston-drawings-of.html
These drawings are attributed to sculptor Joseph Nollekens
(1737 - 1823).
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Two Plaster Busts of Thomas Bodley, after the original stone bust in the Bodleian.
some notes and illustrations.
1. The Plaster Bust of Thomas Bodley 1535 - 1613) in the Bodleian Library. Oxford.
In 1636 Archbishop Laud gave, along with his Statutes, the
bronze bust of King Charles (No. 108) which faces the stone head of Bodley
across the entrance to Duke Humphrey's Library
This bust was recently in store at the Weston Library, Oxford.
It is my opinion that the Bodleian stone bust could not have been carved by Nicholas Stone.
Stone would have been aged about 19. A comparison with the bust on the monument which to my eye is fairly wooden would suggest a much more competent and perhaps mature sculptor for the Bodleian stone bust.
The Bodleian Library was opened in 1602, and three years later the first portrait to be housed within its walls was presented by Thomas, Earl of Dorset, Chancellor of the University, and was put up where it now stands.
Mrs Reginal Lane Poole in her Catalogue of Portraits in the Possession of the University Colleges City and County of Oxford pub 1912 in 3 vols - says -
"This bust of the Founder which was ' carved to the life by an excellent hand in London ' and intended for the ' perpetual memory of him and his bounty to the public has scarcely received the attention it deserves.
It is a
good and faithful piece of work, and the only portrait of Sir Thomas Bodley we
possess which was given in his lifetime. It was not till 1634, twenty years
after his death, that the University acquired the large canvas which displays
the best known figure of him".
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2. The Plaster Bust of Thomas Bodley at Merton College. Oxford.
Sizes - Height 68 x Width 60 x Depth 24 cms.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/thomas-bodley-15451613-244922
This is another cast from the original stone bust.
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The Stone Bust of Thomas Bodley in the Bodleian Library.
Bodleian Library Interior from the East.
It is not clear whether the Polychromy is the original finish
This remarkable bust is here suggested as either by Isaac James (d. 1625) or by Hendryk de Kayser.
It is comparable with the bust of an unknown man (probably Joachim Wtewael 1566-1638.)
Modelled in polychromed terracotta in the Rijksmuseum, the bust was inscribed in the damp clay ANO1606.
The bust was given to the University 'for the perpetual memory' of the
founder and 'for his bounty to the public' by the Chancellor the Earl of Dorset
who sent it 'carved to the life by an excellent hand at London' in 1605'.
It is my opinion that this bust could not have been carved
by Nicholas Stone.
Nicholas Stone would have been aged about 19 in 1605. A comparison with the
bust on the monument to Bodley carved by the Stone workshop, put up in the
Chapel at Christ Church College, which to my eye is fairly wooden, would
suggest a more competent and perhaps more mature sculptor than Stone.
It shows the influence of the Amsterdam sculptor and
architect Hendryk de Keyser (1565 - 1621).
Hendryk de Keyser was in England in 1606 - Nicholas Stone a pupil of
Isaac James went to Amsterdam with de Keyser and married his daughter and returned
to England in 1613.
see my post -
http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/hendrick-de-keyser-and-his.html
I have used this list extensively to flesh out the histories
of these sculptors on this blog.
This list is not exhaustive but the number of candidates for
the possible sculptor of the Thomas Bodley Bust who were working in London at the
beginning of the 17th century is surprisingly small. I have not included
Nicholas Stone
Presented here in alphabetical order -
Bartholomew Atye (fl 1600 - 1618).
The Colt Family Workshop:
John Colt fl. 1685 - d.1637.
Maximillian Colt (Coult). fl. 1602 - 27/8.
The Cure family workshop:
Cornelius Cure (d. 1608/9).
William Cure (d.1632).
Garret Johnson The Elder fl.1591 - 1611.
Garrat Johnson the Younger
Nicholas Johnson f. 1594 - 1624. (son of Garret Johnson The
Elder).
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The Monument to Thomas Bodley.
Merton College Chapel. Oxford
Erected May 1615.
see - The Notebook and Account Book of Nicholas Stone
-Walter Lewis Spiers
Walpole Society Journal, VII - 1918/19
This post forms part of an ongoing project suggested by Dana Josephson to update the researches of Mrs Rachel Poole and most recently by Kenneth Garlick into the portrait sculpture of the 17th and 18th Centuries at the Bodleian Library, Radcliffe Camera and Christchurch College.
This includes a survey of other portrait sculpture in Oxford including the 24 plaster
busts by John Cheere and the Roubiliac bust of Archbishop Chichele in the
Codrington Library at All Souls College, and the sculpture at St John's
College.
An original preparatory drawing for the Monument to Sir
Thomas Bodley.
