Anne-Marie Fiquet du Boccage, and a Bust of Alexander Pope

                               Anne-Marie Fiquet du Boccage.

  née Le Page at Rouen, Normandy, France born on 22 October 1710 and died in Paris  8 August 1802.

                            Her name can be spelt with either a single or double C.

Images from the British Museum website -

Her bust in the British Museum and depicted here is described as a terracotta portrait bust of Anne-Marie Le Page, Madame Fiquet du Boccage (1710-1802) by Jean-Baptiste Defernex (1728-83), her head turned slightly to right wearing a classical-style gown with a brooch at the shoulder and a laurel wreath in her elaborately dressed hair. It was reported that Voltaire had crowned her with laurels at an entertainment at Ferney - although his motives were questioned. Traces of surface paint, it is probably hollow, on a turned and waisted tapering socle, dated 1766. H. 60.2cms width 37cms. She would have been 56 years old, She was described by admirers as Forma Venus, Arte Minerva, Voltaire called her the Sappho of Normandy.

At the age of 17 she married Pierre - Joseph Fiquet du Boccage (died August 1767), something of a poet and translator with a special interest in English literature. After 1734 they spent 8 months of the year in Paris holding a literary salon once a week at Rue de La Sourdiere attracting international intellectuals. A proto feminist she wrote the play Les Amazones performed in 1749. Her poetry included a version of Earthly Paradise imitating Milton of 1748, she translated Alexander Pope's Temple of Fame in 1749. In 1756 she published Le Columbiadne which could also be seen as early feminist literature. Her letters to her sister were published as Letters concerning England Holland and Italy in England in 1776.

For the works of Madame Boccage, including her translation of Milton and Pope see - Recueil des Oeuvres de Madame du Bocage, des Academies de Padoue, de Bologne, de Rome, et de Lyon, published at Lyon, chez Les Freres Perisse - 1762. Vol 1, with engraved portrait frontispiece -

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jAA-W_B5spgC&pg=PA199&lpg=PA199&dq=Bocage+Temple+de+Renomme&source=bl&ots=Z7v-tf3wRv&sig=iTTSCi8N1_RVcP-JLqpJ8JuST8Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xcpMVODmCIit7AaY8oCwCg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Bocage%20Temple%20de%20Renomme&f=false

For her letters to her sister see - Recueil des Oeuvres de Madame du Bocage, des Academies de Padoue, de Bologne, de Rome, et de Lyon, published at Lyon, chez Les Freres Perisse - 1762. Vol III, Lettres sur L'Angleterre, La Hollande et L'Italie. 14th Letter at Dieppe 30 July 1750.

In Memoires Secrets de Bechaumont first published in London fro 1783 - 89, it is suggested that Dr Matthew Maty (1718 -76) was responsible for adding this bust to the British Museum Collection.

Matthew Matey was also responsible for presenting to the British Museum the 17 busts by Roubiliac, bought at the posthumous sale by Langfords of the contents of the Roubiliac studio in St Martin's Lane.
He later became chief librarian - Matthew Maty was of Huguenot extraction, his family having moved from France to the Netherlands. He had trained as a doctor at Leiden University and moved to London in 1740. He practised as a physician but also moved in literary circles, he founded the Journal Britannique in 1747 and falling out with Dr Samuel Johnson, who in 1756 described him as “that little black dog!”

He wrote Authentic Memoirs of the Life of Richard Meade published in 1755


Madame Boccage corresponded with Lord Chesterfield in 1750-52 and twelve of his letters to her were published by Dr Matthew Maty in Miscellaneous Works of the late Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield: consisting of letters to his friends, never before printed, and various other articles. To which are prefixed, memoirs of his life, tending to illustrate the civil, literary and political history of his time, 2 vols, London, 1777, vol. II, pp.242-81, letters LXXXV-XCVI.

In the Chesterfield letters to Madame Boccage there are several references to him giving her the busts of Pope, Milton, Dryden and Shakespeare.

14 June 1750 - replying to her asking for a bust of himself he tells her that he will be sending her busts of Pope and Milton.

20 May 1751 - He is sending four ambassadors, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope.

7 November 1751 - the bust of himself should arrive at Dieppe on the first good wind.

Chesterfield had asserted that "Roubiliac only was a statuary, and all the rest were stone cutters" from The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol 53 Jan. 1783


 Jean-Baptiste Defernex(6) was born in the parish of Saint-Nizier, Lyon, on 26 January 1728. He worked for his father, a master card-maker, who used carved wooden moulds. His earliest known dated work is a signed bronze bust of the duc de Valentinois dated 1750 in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris.(7) A terracotta bust of Mademoiselle Marie Anne Botot d'Angeville is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.(8) It too is signed and bears the date 1752. In 1754 and 1755 Defernex was working for the Vincennes/Sèvres factory on models for small-scale sculpture in biscuit and glazed porcelain.(9) On 17 October 1760 he was admitted to the Académie de Saint-Luc and exhibited in the Salons of 1762 and 1774. In the 1777 Almanack des artistes he was described as 'sculpteur statuaire de Mgr le duc d'Orléans'. He had been linked to this powerful family since at least 1763 when he supplied decorative elements for the staircase for the Palais Royal through the architect Contant d'Ivry. Defernex is best known for his portrait busts in bronze, marble and terracotta, and for his petite sculpture in biscuit porcelain for Sèvres.

see - http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=31594&partId=1

She wrote to her sister

"Avant que de quitter le rivage que je vous décris,je viens de répondre au beau présent que Mylord Chesterfield m’a envoyé : ce sont les bustes des quatre plus grands Poëtes d’Angleterre, Mylton, Dryden, Pope, & Shakespear ; lisez mon remerciement, trop peu digne, par malheur de son attention flatteuse : […] Je reprochais vivement à ces bustes célèbres, d’avoir passé la mer sans le vôtre ; je préférois, leur dis-je, à la représentation de vous autres morts fameux, l’image de l’illustre vivant qui vous envoie […] Je crus […] que de demander votre portrait, étoit trop oser. Je me borne donc à vous faire mes très-humbles remerciements […] je les destine à l’ornement de ma petite bibliothèque de Paris."

Horace Walpole wrote - There is come from France a Madame Bocage, who has translated Milton: my Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.

Footnote - Madame du Boccage published a poem in imitation of Milton, and another founded on Gesner's "Death of Abel." She also translated Pope's "Temple of Fame;" but her principal work was "La Columbiade." It was at the house of this lady, at Paris, in 1775, that Johnson was annoyed at her footman's taking the sugar in his fingers and throwing it
into his coffee. "I was going," says the Doctor, "to put it aside, but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en tasted Tom's fingers."

Mrs Thrale Letter in the Rylands Library - Mrs. Thrale is  occasionally  very  severe on the French! 

This appears in  her account of a visit to dine with Madame de Bocage on October 5th 1775 :

" The Morning was spent in adjusting our Ornaments in order to dine with Madame de Bocage at 2 o'clock.  There was a showy Dinner with a Frame in the middle, and she gave us an English Pudding made after the  Receipt of  the Dutchess of  Queensbury.  We saw nothing particularly pleasing at this Visit but the beauty of Madame de Bocages niece, the Countess of Blanchetre, whose husband was so handsome too that being a Frenchman - I  wonder'd.  In the course of  conversation, however, he turned out an Italian, and  there was another Italian Noble - man who hailed Baretti and made himself agreable to us  all.  Nothing would serve him but attend us at night to the Colissee which, after leaving our Names with the Sardinian Ambassadress, we were willing  enough to permit.  In Madame de Bocage's Drawing room stood the Busts of Shakespear, Milton, Pope and Dryden, the lady sat on a Sopha with a fine Red Velvet Cushion fringed with gold under her Feet and just over her Head a  Cobweb of  uncommon  size & I am  sure  great Antiquity.  A Pot to spit in, either of  Pewter or Silver quite  as black & ill-coloured, was on her Table, & when  the  Servant carried Coffee about he put in Sugar with  his Fingers.  The House these people live in is a fine one but so contrived that we were to pass through  a sort of Hall where the Footmen were playing at Cards before we arrived at Madame's Chamber."

Painted by Marieanne Loir, engraved by Tardieu c. 1745. There are several other later engraved portraits of Madame Boccage, but they are all inferior versions of this engraving.

Pastel of Madame Boccage

sold by Olivier Baron, Montargis - Encheres, France, 20 June 2010.

Lord Chesterfield after William Hoare of Bath

 National Portrait Gallery - mezzotint, mid 18th century by John Brooks

                      19 1/2 in. x 13 3/4 in. (496 mm x 348 mm) paper size Purchased, 1966.

Intriguing representation of a bust behind him is this Alexander Pope or the bust of Chesterfield by Hoare  ?

Waddesden Manor - Fame and Friendship.

Waddesdon Manor - Exhibition - Fame and Friendship: Pope, Roubiliac and the Portrait Bust - 18 June – 26 October 2014

This is the second showing of the exhibition having  originally appeared in a different form  at  the exhibition at the Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven from 20 February to 19 May 2014.

It was prompted by the purchase at Sotheby's New York, lot 355 on 26 January 2012 of the marble bust of Pope by Lord Rothschild, thus reuniting it with its pair - the bust of Isaac  Newton. 

These two busts were separated after having been purchased at the Poulett Sale of the contents of Hinton St George in 1968. Bought by dealer Cyril Humphries of Bond St. London, and sold in 1969 to Armand G. Erpf. of New York. On his death in 1971, they passed to his widow who became Mrs Gerrit P.van de Bovenkamp.

The Newton bust next appears without the Pope at Sotheby's New York - Benjamin Sonnenberg sale, Lot 391, on 5 June, 1979, where it was bought jointly by 14, St James Place and Cyril Humphries. The Newton is now in the Collection of Lord Rothschild.

It is my opinion that this version is the best of the Roubiliac busts of Pope. It has not been over cleaned and appears to retain much of its original surface. It is very similar to the Yale bust but is slightly longer and closer to the Barber terracotta. The bulging vein visible behind his right collar bone is a remarkably realistic touch.

The current exhibition brings together eight different versions of the busts of Pope attributed to Roubiliac and a bust of Pope by Michael Rysbrack a bronze bust of Lord Chesterfield and a Nollekins marble bust of 1776 of William Murray Lord Mansfield  -

The Rysbrack bust of 1730 from the National Portrait Gallery.

The Roubiliac terracotta bust  of c. 1740 from the Barber Institute.

The Temple Newsam Roubiliac ad vivum marble of 1738.

The Shipley/David Garrick ad vivum marble bust with a very badly chosen, over scale square socle - it must surely have been possible to make a replacement of the correct proportions - after all the plaster version from Felbrigg Hall which is a direct cast of this bust was also included in the exhibition. (illustrated above).

The Milton / Mansfield ad vivum marble bust of 1740.

The Poulett marble now in the Rothschild Collection and paired with that of Isaac Newton. (illustrated above)

The Yale Roubiliac marble inscribed ad vivum of 1741.

The British Museum plaster by Roubiliac bought from the studio of Roubiliac in the posthumous sale of 1762.

The recently discovered bronze which was sold by Sotheby's 6 July 2007 and appears to be a version of the Milton / Mansfield bust but  without the inscription.

The Nollekins marble bust (another version of the Milton / Mansfield bust) along with its pair of Sterne. Illustrated above).

I would like to be have been able to say more complimentary things about this exhibition. It is something of an achievement to convince the various owners to lend these busts but I find it a shame that the opportunity was wasted to collect all the Roubiliac Pope busts together in one place in England. Where were the Seward, Roger Warner, Saltwood Castle, Windsor Castle and the Vand A marble busts  - all currently in England? Why was the bronze bust of Denis Diderot by Jean - Baptiste Pigalle of 1777 included? - it had no relevance to the current exhibition either in terms of its facture (it was made long after the death of Roubiliac in 1762) or to the literature of the period.

The last time there was attempt  to gather a group of the Pope busts together was in 1961, was by William Kurtz Wimsatt at the National Portrait Gallery, but he could muster only six. He wrote the masterful Portraits of Alexander Pope published by Yale in 1965. My work on the subject has built on his chapters about the portrait sculpture of Pope.

 I note that no mention was made of the pair of busts of Newton and Pope described in the Gentleman's Magazine of 11 Feb 1741 as being in the Long Room at Wiltshire's Assembly rooms in Bath - the obvious candidate for sculptor of these busts is Roubiliac. They can be seen in a drawing by George Virtue George Virtue in the Broadly Collection Scrapbook relating to Pope and Bath at Bath Reference Library.  These busts were not mentioned in the current exhibition catalogue or leaflet. Instead, a date for these busts of 1760 was used to suggest that the exhibited busts were "probably" made for Lord Poulett for his house in Twickenham. There is not a shred of evidence for this (unless I am not party to information that proves otherwise). There is no other mention as far as I am aware of  a pair of busts of Newton and Pope in the 18th century except those at Bath.  Lord Chesterfields epigram of about 1741 - If these busts are those from Wiltshire's Rooms in Bath then it is an example of a very public display of the busts of 18th century celebrities rather than for private contemplation as suggested by the literature for this exhibition.

Immortal Newton never spoke

more truth than here you'll find

Nor Pope himself ere penned a joke

More cruel on mankind

This statue placed these busts between

Gives satire all its strength;

Wisdom and Wit are little seen,

But Folly at full length!

This refers to the full length portrait of Richard "Beau" Nash between the busts of Newton and Pope.

Whilst it is most likely that William Murray had his bust of Pope from Roubiliac there is no evidence that either he  or David Garrick obtained their busts from Roubiliac although of course, it is a distinct possibility. It would seem somewhat perverse to base an exhibition on the possibility that these busts of Pope were superintended by himself and made for his friends with no concrete evidence - if  a discussion about the replication of portrait busts in England, in the mid 18th century  was intended, then the discussion should also have included, amongst others, the replication of busts of Locke, Milton and particularly more on Newton and further discussion regarding the plaster versions might have added to our understanding - the posthumous Roubiliac sale included two mould for busts of Pope and 5 casts.

In the publicity for this exhibition and its forerunner at Yale one of its stated aims was "In bringing together autograph busts and copies, the exhibition explored not only the complex relationship between these various versions but the hitherto little understood processes of sculptural production and replication in eighteenth-century Britain". I was unable to attend the Yale exhibition and so am unable to judge  but the Waddesdon version failed in its attempt if this was one of its intentions.

Having inspected all the various busts of Pope in some depth it is plain to see that there are three distinct versions which show the progressive deterioration in health of Pope who suffered from Potts disease -  a tuberculosis of the bones between 1738 and 1741 - the Seward and Temple Newsam versions, The Garrick, Roger Warner and Milton/Fitzwilliam type, and the Barber Institute terracotta which all the others follow

The French dimension to the exhibition was I'm sure of interest to literary scholars but adds very little to the study of English 18th century portrait sculpture. Whilst one of the three Roubiliac bronze busts of the Francophile Philip Dormer Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield was on display there was no mention of the set of busts given by Chesterfield to  the poet, dramatist  and diarist Madame Marie - Anne Fiquet du Boccage (1710 -1802). Busts of Pope, and of Dryden, Milton and Shakespeare were sent with three others to Paris in 1751.

see - Miscellaneous Works of the Late Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of ..., Volume 3.  By Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield, Matthew Maty. 1779. A letter from London 14 June 1750 - page 338.

"I will send you two busts that not only deserve, but claim a place in your garden, in consequence of the reception they have met with in your closet, I mean Milton and Pope. There they will not be afraid of company, besides they have already got their vouchers and patents, countersigned by your own hand. I shall send them as soon as they are done".

Madame Boccage had translated Miltons Paradise Lost in 1748 and Popes poem The Temple of Fame into French in 1749.

The fact that they were suitable for her garden suggests that they were of marble.

A letter from Chesterfield to Madame du Boccage, 7 November 1751, suggests there was then a bust of Chesterfield in her house in Paris in the rue de la Sourdière; no sculptor or material is mentioned.

Whilst obtaining two busts from the Louvre represented a coup for the Waddesden curators perhaps the inclusion of the terra cotta bust of Madame Boccage of 1766 by Jean - Baptiste Defernex now in the British Museum would have had more relevance.

The display of the version of the stipple engraving of the marble bust of Pope formerly with the Vandewall family and with William Seward by 1788 with no heading was a strange choice considering that there is another version giving the ownership and stating that it was by Rysbrack (surely a typo).

In conclusion this is a very good looking exhibition in a wonderful setting of a rather unfashionable area of English Art which needs more information.

One can only hope that Malcolm Bakers long delayed and forthcoming opus The Marble Index on the portrait busts of Roubiliac will go into the subject in much greater depth. The catalogue for the current exhibition appears to be a very rushed affair adding little to current knowledge.

These are personal observations gleaned from studying the busts of Pope by Roubiliac from time to time over several years.

Below are on the left the Shipley /David Garrick Bust - centre The British Museum Plaster and the Yale version on the right.

All photographs lifted from the TLS website.

Silvanus Bevan, Sculptor

                          Silvanus Bevan Amateur Sculptor.

Bonhams, Lot 282. - 12 July 1993. The property of DB Waterhouse Esq.

Carved Hone Stone portrait of perhaps Silvanus Bevan. Inscribed on the back in the hand of Mary Waterhouse (1805 -80) "Silvanus Bevan of Hackney and Plow Court Silvanus Bevan married daughter of Danl. Quare at Gt Ch:Meeting. Wm Penn and many others present- see wedding certificate. Busts and Certificate given to M.W. (Mary Waterhouse) by her father 16. 4mo 67 but the certificate is at this date7mo 69 i9n her brother W.B's possession. Silvanus Bevan carver of these busts 29 - 1 a double one making XXX"

This stone carving and the following two ivory pieces with the same provenance, sold at Bonhams of Knightsbridge, London, Fine Portrait Miniatures Objects of Virtue and Important Ivories sale of 12 July 1993.

Ivory carving almost certainly by Johan Christoff Ludwig Lucke (1703 -1780).

The sitter is possibly Silvanus Bevan and carved when Lucke visited in England in 1726.

Johan Christoph Ludwig Lucke was born in Dresden into a family of sculptors well known for small scale sculptures (klienplastik) he is believed to have been apprenticed to his father and subsequently worked with the Dresden sculptor Balthazar Permoser. and then journeyed around several European cities including Amsterdam, Hamburg (1724) and first visited London in 1726 where he is believed to have worked with ivory sculptor David le Marchand. He had a brief period with the Meissen porcelain factory. He was employed by various German Courts at Dresden Weimar and Mecklenburg - Schwerin. Lucke was again in London in 1760 when he exhibited a superb ivory carving which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum of George II at the Free Society of Artists.

Another Ivory carving signed in a fold of the dress by Johan Christoff Ludwig Lucke (1703 -1780) - CL Lucke Fecit with the same provenance. Lot 283 Bonhams, 12 July 1993 - possible Martha Heathcote, wife of Silvanus Bevan.

Martha Heathcote daughter of Quaker Gilbert Heathcote, MD of Cutthorpe, Derbyshire married Silvanus Bevan in 1719.

A scan from The Chemist and Druggist, 12 August 1933 by Ernest C. Cripps.

Cripps says possibly of Silvanus Bevan

Timothy Bevan (1704 -86) - scanned from Through a City Archway - The Story of Allen and Hanbury's. 1715 - 1954. by Desmond Chapman Huston and Ernest C Cripps - 1954.

Very fuzzy photograph - difficult to date and now lost. In the style of Thomas Hudson.

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Low resolution photograph of another carving of an anonymous gentleman by Lucke, unsigned, but of similar quality to the Bevan portrait..

Sold Holloways of Banbury, 4 January 2005.