The Male Figure is based loosely on Francois Girardon's (1628 - 1715) Apollo at Versailles of c.1666 -1675.
The group was sculpted in colaboration with Thomas Regnaudin (1622 - 1706).
The statue of Apollo was originally was accompanied by 7 nymphs. Initially placed in the middle of the Grotto of Thetis, it was later installed in the grotto designed by Hubert Robert in the 18th century.
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The Engraving by Edelinck of 1678.
Images courtesy British Museum.
Newbridge House was built by Archbishop Cobbe between 1747 and 1752 to the design of architect James Gibbs.
The Wall bracket with the figure of Apollo, attributed to John
Cheere, plaster, 1758, with a replica of its pair moulded from the version at Felbrigg Hall,
Cobbe (see below - photo by Alexey Moskvin).
In 1758, during a sojourn in London, the couple had bought
quantities of porcelain, both Chinese and English Bow and Derby. Exceptionally
large Chinese pots decorated in rouge de fer, have Thomas’s initials fired into
the inside of the lids, so were probably a special commission. On their
journeys to Bath they stopped over in Worcester, visiting the newly established
porcelain works and commissioning one of the largest Worcester dessert and
dinner services on record, complete with matching porcelain handles fitted to
Irish cutlery. Some of the many rococo carved gilt looking glasses they had
made, were fitted with little platforms to display porcelain. China figures and
vases were also placed on gilt wall brackets, one incorporating a figure of
Apollo and a swan (doubly appropriate since the Cobbe heraldic devices are
swans). This must have originally had a pair with the figure of winged Victory,
since an original pair survive at Felbrigg; they are attributed to the London
sculptor John Cheere, and therefore the Cobbes probably bought theirs during
the 1758 visit to the capital.
"The poetic pattern for this pair of 'Brackets for Bustos' is
likely to have been invented for the 'Cabinet Room' at Felbrigg, Norfolk, which
was designed for William Windham in the 1750s by the architect James Paine (d.
1789), whose 'Picturesque' decoration of the Mansion House, Doncaster was
celebrated by his Plans, Elevations, Sections and other ornaments of the
Mansion House of Doncaster, 1751, (Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England,
Victoria & Albert Museum, Exhibition Catalogue, 1984, nos. S30, S31 and
S55)".
'The Plaster Shops of the Rococo and Neo-Classical Era in Britain', T. Clifford, Journal of the History of Collections, 4, No. 1 (1992) p. 41, fig. 2.
Available on line - dated but an useful introduction.
The bracket of Apollo paired with a figure
of Fame, was sold from the collection of Callaly Castle, Alnwick,
Northumberland, Christie's, 22-24 September 1986, lot 114, and then
subsequently from The Collection of Christopher Gibbs, The Manor House, Clifton
Hampden, Christie's, 25-26 September 2000, lot 365.
Height: 44 cm / 17.5 inches
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