An Aide Memoire.
Bust of Henry Hatley (died 1716).
Erected by his son George Hatley (d. 1742).
Over the South doorway of St Mary's Church Hunton, nr Maidstone, Kent.
Image courtesy John Vigor. facebook page historic churches.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10238417573916350&set=g.584528982020638
The bust of Henry Hatley is not mentioned in the Biographical Dictionary of British Sculptors.... pub. Yale, 2009.
Possibly by Peter Scheemakers??
The Coade Bust of Caracalla.
Inscribed 1792.
60 x 49 cm (23 ½ x 19 ¼ in.).
https://www.tomasso.art/artworkdetail/885959/20448/12-coade-caracalla
I was first made aware of this bust in early January this year.
.............
Since my previous posts of January 26 and February 16 of this year I have discovered that the bust is currently with the dealers Tomasso Brothers of London and Leeds - here are the links -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/01/coadestone-bust-of-caracalla-indented.html
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-bust-of-caracalla-at-foundling.html
The intention of this post is to illustrate the history of the reproduction of the bust of Caracalla in England in the 18th and into the 19th Centuries.
The busts of Marcus Aurelius share a similar history.
From the importing of the Bartolemeo Cavaceppi copy of the ancient bust of Caracalla from Rome by Matthew Brettingham the younger - the reproduction of the bust by Roubiliac, and its further reproduction by Harris of the Strand and later 18th Century versions by Coade 1792 and the mid19th century terracotta by Blashfield.
The genesis of these posts was a conversation with Lars Tharp regarding the surprising lack of any works by Roubiliac at the Foundling Hospital given his links with the Foundling and the St Martin's Lane Academy.
This dovetailed neatly with researches into the use of variations of the socle used uniquely by Roubiliac in the mid 18th century until his death in 1762 which was inspired by conversations with Dino Tomasso which led to researches into a marble bust of Laocoon now firmly attributed to Roubiliac (see the illustration below).
This form of socle was continued by various manufacturers of porcelaine, terracotta, Coade Stone and glazed earthenware into the 19th century.
A squatter version of this type of socle also appears on the Coade stone busts of Nelson
and Raleigh on the Orangery at Bicton, Devon and the bust of John Wesley ( Wesley Chapel, Broadmead, Bristol).
As yet nobody seems to have made the link between the plaster busts of Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius at the Foundling Hospital and the Roubiliac versions (as seen in the posthumous contents of the Roubiliac workshop Langford's 4 Day sale catalogue of May 1762) and the Holkham Busts.
I will take the liberty to publish the Tomasso brothers excellent photographs here.
This Roubiliac plaster bust seems to have disappeared but the Francis Chantry copy of the bust is still at Holkham.
The BM say the bust pictured is by Francis Chantry after
Roubiliac, but the socle suggests to me that this might be an engraving of the
original Roubiliac bust from the Roubiliac Sale - Day 2. Lot 21. Plaster Bust and copied
by Chantry.
The Marble bust of Lord Leicester (in Roman dress) at Holkham is a copy by Chantry which uses a turned socle.
Roubiliac was responsible for the busts of Lord Leicester (with wig) and his wife Ladfy Margaret Tufton on the monument in the church at Tiitlleshall, Norfolk.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-tittleshall-monument-with-marble.html
W C Edwards was known as a silhouettist from an entry in Jackson’s ‘Dictionary’. This records him as the artist and engraver of a print silhouette depicting Sir Thomas William Coke of Holkham
Edwards was a line engraver by trade, he was based in Norfolk in
the early 19th century. The silhouette print is inscribed “From a Drawing made
at Holkham by W. C. Edwards, in 1824”
The Busts of Thomas Coke, Lord Leicester at the the Roubiliac Sale.
Day 1. Lot 87. Bust unfinish'd of Marble.
Day 2. Lot 21. Plaster Bust, Lot 27.
Day 3. Lot 90. A whole length of the Earl of Leicester in his robes plaster.(see image below)
Day 4. Lot. 55. Mould in plaister The Earl of Leicester in modern dress.
Lot 56. Ditto Mould - Earl of Leicester in Roman dress.
Lot 57. A small figure ditto.
Roubiliac uses the same form of the outer drapery on this
bust as his busts of Charles I at the Courtauld Institute Gallery at Somerset House and the Fordham Marble bust of
Shakespeare now in the Folger Library, Washington DC. USA. These three busts all use the same type of Roubiliac late type socle.
It is worth repeating here that the Roubiliac marble busts of Princess Amelia (with the late type socle), and of Elizabeth Fitzwilliam, Countess of Pembroke at Wilton house share the same dress.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-marble-bust-of-princess-amelia.html
For more on the Roubiliac socles see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-bust-of-unidentified-man-as-trajan-by.html
.jpg)
This bust of Caracalla and the Marcus Aurelius were almost
certainly a product of the Cavaceppi workshop in Rome although they lack the eared
support on the socle frequently used by him.
Caracalla was bought in Rome in 1749 by Matthew Brettingham and sold to Lord Leicester for £30.
In the posthumous Roubiliac sale of 13 May 1762
under the heading of Antique
busts etc in plaister - Lot 46, Marcus Aurelius.
For an essay on the subject of this plaster bust at Seaton Delaval and another perhaps of Venus or Aphrodite at Saltram House, Devon see
Another plaster bust of Commodus or the young Marcus Aurelius is at Burton Constable which has slightly different hair, a fuller body and the typical socle used by John Cheere with the slightly convex, recessed panelled front.
The posthumous Roubiliac Sale May 1762
Esdaile ... Roubiliac 1929 .... states that a number of Artists at a meeting at the Turks Head on 7 December 1760, had agreed to appear on the 5 November in the following year ...........among those signing the paper recording the promise were Joshua Reynolds, Wilson and Roubiliac.......
Esdaile goes on to say that the busts were presented on the same
day and that they bore his signature? and the date 7 November 1760. She had
contacted the secretary Mr RW Nichols who had had the busts taken down and
inspected but stated that any inscription had been obscured by the repeated
coats of paint - (not unusual given that it was easier to repaint this type of
object rather than laboriously clean them - a fate of many plaster objects and
their surroundings from the 18th century). (My Italics).
In the ambiguous footnote she says " I have most unfortunately omitted to give my authority - an 18th century one - for my note: Foundling Hospital. Plaster Busts of M Aurelius and Caracalla L.F.R. Dec 7th 1760".
She then states that "The historian of the Foundling Hospital however states that the busts were presented by Richard Dalton (Print seller / art dealer) - in 1754? but although this would exclude Roubiliac from the list of donors of works of art to the Hospital they may well have been his work. (this does not exclude John Cheere either) my italics! Certainly versions of these two busts appeared in his posthumous sale.
Mrs Esdailes work was the first in depth work on Roubiliac until Malcolm Baker's and David Bindmans recent works the only book on the works of Roubiliac.
Edsaile is not entirely to be trusted and attributions etc need to be checked against modern researches.
Height: 70cm, 27 1/2″ - Width: 55cm, 21 2/3″.
The height of the bust without the socle is 51 cms.
It has been claimed in the past that Blashfield had obtained moulds from Coade but the dates of the disposal of the objects from the Coade manufactory in 1843 .
Blashfield appears to have commenced manufacture of terracotta with James George Bubb (1781 - 1861) as an assistant in 1839 at Canford in Dorset. Bubb had previously worked as a sculptor with Messrs Coade.
I will attempt to obtain better photographs and details of any marks in due course.
This terracotta bust is with the excellent dealers Jamb of the Pimlico Road, London in September 2025.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1456802126448472&set=pb.100063560954873.-2207520000&type=3
For a reasonable overview of the history of Messrs Blashfield and terracotta see -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marriott_Blashfield
.....................
For Coade Blashfield etc. see Papers Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects -
Page 262 - 1867.
The enormously rich
Quaker Vandewall / Neate family of Greenwich and Lindsey House, Lincolns Inn
Fields have appeared several times in the blog.
Bonham's Old Master Paintings 25 September – 2 October 2024 - Lots 212 and 213.
Portrait of Frances Vandewall, née Ingram, later Mrs George Augustus Killigrew,
and her mother Mary Ingram nee Bellers.
by William Hoare of Bath (near Eye, Suffolk 1707-1792 Bath).
inscribed 'Mrs Vanderwall' (verso).
pastel.
61 x 45.7cm (24 x 18in).
framed: 83 x 67cm.
Literature.
N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online
edition, no. J.395.1342., ill.
The sitter, was the daughter of draper Joseph and Mary Ingram of Cheapside, she married Joseph Vandewall (b.1714) in 1737. Joseph died in 1739 at French Ordinary Court in the hospital of Crutched Friars.
for much more on Samuel Vandewall and the Vandewall family see
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/02/samuelvandewall-1719-1761-and-his-wife.html
Frances later married Captain George Augustus Killigrew (1717-1757) in 1753.
Frances Vandewall
and Captain George Augustus Killigrew obtained a marriage licence on 27 June
1753 in London.
Her will was perhaps proved on 4 April 1765 at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. She may be the
Frances Killigrew, widow of Argyle Buildings, Middlesex, whose will was proved
4 April 1765 but could also be the Frances Maria Killigrew, widow of St
Marylebone whose will was proved 2 May 1753.
..................................
Mary Ingram (1689 - 17.
Inscribed 'To Mrs Ingram/ Cheapside/ all paid' (verso).
pastel.
61.1 x 47.8cm (24 1/16 x 18 13/16in).
framed: 82.9 x 66.9cm.
Literature.
N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online
edition, no. J.395.1341, ill
Bonham's Old Master Paintings 25 September – 2 October 2024 Lot 213.
Mary Bellers was the daughter of the social reformer John Bellers cloth merchant proponent of the “Colledge of Industry.”
The sitter was married to Joseph Ingram (d.1741), a Cheapside Linen Draper 25 July 1710. son of William Ingram, salter at the Bull and Mouth Quaker Meeting Gracechurch Street
........................
In his will, dated 8 March 1741, Joseph Ingram left the Hoxton property and any other real estate to his wife Mary (appointed executrix), with an annuity to his sister in law Christabell Ingram (bequeathed originally by his father).
Bequests to his sons Thomas, Samuel and Robert Ingram and his daughter
Frances Vandewall, whose marriage settlement he confirms.'
Date of Death: 21 July 1751 at Coln St Aldwin, Gloucestershire
Cause of Death: an
inflamation
Burial: 30 July 1751
at Friends burial ground near Bunhill Fields.
https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/ingram_004.html
.......................................
Highlights of Will of Mary Ingram
She confirms the marriage settlement made upon her marriage to Joseph Vanderwall, now deceased.
She leaves a £10 annuity to Susanna, the widow of Benjamin Clerk, and Christobell Lund, the wife of Benjamin Lund, both being the daughters of her late husband’s brother Robert Ingram.
She also leaves an
annuity of £10 to Ann Tarbox, the wife of Joseph Tarbox of Winchmore Hill.
She leaves the rest
of her estate to her sons Thomas and Samuel Ingram, whom she names as her
Executors.
Transcript available on line - https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/ingram_005.html
Will of Mary Ingram, Widow of Joseph Ingram of Cheapside,
London
1737. The marriage of Joseph Vandewall (d.1739) who was Samuel Vandewall's older brother (d.1761) to Frances Ingram daughter of Joseph Ingram of Cheapside, Draper,
Amongst those at the wedding were the apothecary Silvanus Bevan, Joseph Moore, and many of the Ingram family.
1739. – 5 Nov. His older brother Joseph (b. 1714) dies of fever at French Ordinary Court. Crutched Friars, He leaves to his dear wife Frances his personal estate and the reversion of an estate at Greenwich “settled on testator” by his father in law Joseph Ingram on his Marriage.
1740. Samuel Vandewall inherits Ravensbourne House and the Copperas works at East Greenwich next to the Ravensbourne at Deptford Creek and also property in Peckham, South London from Joseph Moore, his grandfather on his mothers side. The Gentleman’s Magazine in its usual mercenary manner reports the death of Joseph Moore and estate of £30,000, an immense amount of money at the time. See Public Records Office, Kew London, Will of Joseph Moore. Prob 11/705.
........................
The Will of Joseph Vandewall, Merchant of Crutched Friars, City
of London.
https://wills.qfhs.co.uk/az/wtext/vandewall_004.html
......................
Another Vandewall related portrait by Benjamin West (1738 -1820).
John Williams of Panthowell, Llandegfan, Carmarthen, South Wales.
Oil on canvas, 31 3/4 x 42 1/2 inches (oval)
Signed and dated at lower left: “B. West PINXIT/1766”
In 1766 John Williams married Martha Neate daughter of Martha Neate (nee Barrow) widow of Harris Neate who after his death married Samuel Vandewall.
The photographs used here from the website of The Schwarz Gallery of Philadelphia.
https://www.schwarzgallery.com/painting/5694/
The house of Panthowell, Trelech a'r Betws, Carmarthenshire,
was owned by the Williams family for nearly three centuries. John Williams (d.
1773) was the last of the male line at Panthowell.
By 1831, the estate consisted of Panthowell, Panthowell
Mill, Crug y denyon and Ffynnon Sais. In 1834 the estate was sold to Lt-Col
Thomas Samuel Nicholls (1787-1857), of Tenby, Pembrokeshire.
Mrs Martha Vandewall.
Benjamin West.
c.1766.
32 x 42 1/2 inches (81.3 x 108 cm).
Gifted to Philidelphia Museum of Art, 2004.
https://www.philamuseum.org/objects/95983
The portrait of Mrs Vandewall by Benjamin West was sold by
Sotheby, Lot 138, 3 May 1961, from the collection of W.H.Willes, (a descendant
of Martha Neate),
.........................
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street * Philadelphia, PA 19107.
Staley/von Erffa Benjamin West Archive, 1940-2000. Box 32 -3 - Vandewall here is mis spelled Vanderwall.
.........................
see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/02/samuelvandewall-1719-1761-and-his-wife.html
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-william-seward-martha-vandewall.html
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/01/
First draft.
Thomas King (1741 - 1804). Marble Mason
The following paragraphs adapted from -
https://www.bathabbeymemorials.org.uk/sculptor/t-king
For an useful overview of the Monumental Masons in Bath in the 18th and 19th Centuries by Kim Jordan.
https://historyofbath.org/images/ProceedingsPDFs/PROCEEDINGS%2008%202019-20.pdf
Thomas King (1741-1804), was the founder of one of the most prolific west country firms of monumental masons, he was the son of Henry King, a clockmaker of St Dunstan-in-the-West in the City of London. His son continued the business into the 19th century.
Thomas was apprenticed on 26 March 1752 to Charles Saunders? a London mason, but settled in Bath soon after completing his apprenticeship which would have been for seven years.
I can find no record of a Charles Saunders - but William Saunders fl.1743 - 54 was a London mason who worked on the reconstruction of Leicester House (Biog Dictionary British Sculptors pub Yale 2009) with an address in Windmill Street.
He married Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Paty of Bristol on 6 May 1779 at St Augustine the Less, Bristol.
The Paty family were architects and masons, responsible for Royal Fort, The Bristol Exchange, Bristol Bridge and many monuments. The Paty family was a prominent multi-generational dynasty of masons, surveyors, and architects based in 18th-century Bristol, originating from Somerset stonemasons and carvers who established workshops in Bristol at the Horsefair and Limekiln Lane.
For an introduction to the Paty family and to be treated with caution (generated by AI) see - https://grokipedia.com/page/william_paty#biography
King maintained cordial relations with the Paty family and was left £250 in his father-in-law’s will. When his brother-in-law, William Paty, died, clients were instructed to forward outstanding debts to King. see - (Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 4 April 1801).
King had three children, Thomas and Charles, who entered the business, and Mary, who did not marry during his lifetime.
The firm produced a large number of small, wall monuments, often incorporating coloured marbles in an elegant oval, rectangular or inverted shield frame. Most were sold to clients from stock.
Thomas used the customary range of neoclassical motifs: urns, sarcophagi, willow trees, mourning women, crumpled scrolls held by cherubs and broken columns.
Thomas Gainsborough’s account at Hoare’s Bank records a payment of 18 guineas made to Thomas King in May 1771, perhaps for a picture frame (Gunnis).
King also worked on bespoke commissions, such as his first memorial to James Quin with a portrait medallion of the actor of 1769.
His memorial to Robert Walsh in Bath Abbey has a relief of a broken Ionic column clad with yew on an oval ground of streaked grey marble. It has been suggested that this was the first time the broken column, a traditional symbol of Fortitude, was employed alone on a monument.
Richard Warner, in his History of Bath, 1801, considered the monument the ‘most remarkable for happiness of design in the whole Abbey’.
His memorials for Venanzio Rauzzini and Sir Nigel Gresley are framed with deep swathes of fabric brought together with three knots.
King died a prosperous man and left his widow a number of properties in Bath, including offices, a garden and a yard ‘now in my own occupation’ at Beaufort Place, Walcot. His three children received generous bequests.
He is buried at Woolley, where a modest tablet, for which he earmarked 20 guineas in his will, bears the epitaph:
‘Many Years an eminent statuary in the parish of Walcot, who after sustaining a long and painful illness with exemplary fortitude and resignation, calmly departed this life December the 5th, 1804, in his 63rd. year.
The will of ‘Thomas King, Gentleman of Walcot, Somerset’, PROB 11/1427, proved July 1805.
............................
Thomas King, Statuary, nr. Walcot Turnpike. London Road, Bath.
Later he set up a marble yard and workshops at Snow Hill at the junction with London Road by the Walcot Turnpike. It was sufficiently significant to be recorded on Harcourt Masters’ 1794 map of the city.
..................
Some refs to King in the Bath press -
Bath Chronicle - 16 February 1786 - Thomas King statuary - marble chimney pieces £6 to £60. Monuments 8 guin to 50 guin.
............................
William Reeves foreman to Thomas King.
see my previous post
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/03/reeves-of-bath-statuary-and-monumental.html
Bath Chronicle - 18 October 1792 - Wm Reeves, marble mason carver etc, many years foreman to Mr King, has opened a yard in James Street, Kingsmead. Monuments, chimney pieces etc.
Premises at 6 & 7 King Street (presumably old King St) from 1792 to 1826 were used by William Reeves probably as his residence
The Kings and the Reeves were the most successful monumental masons in the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries with the Biggs and Lancashires offering competition in the heyday of the trade.
The Greenways and Thomas King.
There is an indenture of 20 September 1791, when Thomas King, the statuary of Walcot, with Mr.Charles Harford, gent., as his trustee, conveyed to John Greenway in trust for Francis Greenway, mason, of Walcot (not the transported Australian architect), who would have been only thirteen at the time], ‘part of a pasture of 2a 22p called Upper Tyning [Walcot], being all those plots on the west side of an intended building called Mount Pleasant and all those two messuages thereon erecting at the cost of Francis Greenway.
Bath Chronicle - 18 October 1792 - Wm Reeves, marble mason carver etc, many
years foreman to Mr King, has opened a yard in James Street, Kingsmead.
Monuments, chimney pieces etc.
The Monument to the actor James Quin (1693 - 1766).
Inscribed by Thomas King.
Quin retired to Bath and spent his last fifteen years lodging in the house of Mrs Simpson at 3, Pierrepont Street. Quin was fond of the city, often referring to it as 'a fine slope to the grave'.
I suspect that the relief was adapted from the mezzotint engraving by Faber after Thomas Hudson.
The monument was put up in 1769.
Bath Abbey.
He retired to Bath and spent his last fifteen years lodging in the house of Mrs Simpson at 3, Pierrepont Street (East side). Quin was fond of the city, often referring to it as 'a fine slope to the grave'.
James Quin was ‘privately interred in the Abbey on 25
January 1766. His monument was erected three years later in 1769 on ‘a pillar at the
south-eastern end of the nave”. It was probably moved in the 1860's to its present position.
For a succinct life of Quin see -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Quin
The epitaph in verse on the monument was written by Garrick.
Quin's will displayed a generous nature, and among numerous bequests was one of
fifty pounds to "Mr Thomas Gainsborough, limner."
..................................
Garrick, Johnson and Boswell and the Quin monument in Bath Abbey.
https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img30665
see also
.jpg)
_-_James_Quin,_Actor_-_N01935_-_National_Gallery.jpg)
Said to be Quin by Bartolomeo Nazzari (1699 - 1758).
This painting was acquired for only six guineas with other unfinished works from the studio sale in 1797 of Gainsborough's nephew and assistant, Gainsborough Dupont. It is a sketch for a full length portrait (now in the National Gallery of Ireland - above) painted during Quin's retirement in Bath and exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1763.
Quin was one of the leading actors of the generation before David Garrick, though the two were friendly rivals on the London stage for at least a decade.
Quin excelled in larger-than-life
stage presence and powerful declamation: Garrick was considered the better
Richard III, Quin the better Falstaff. Smollett's 'Humphrey Clinker' of 1771
contains an extended literary portrait of Quin during his Bath retirement as a
sort of real life Falstaff. Gainsborough's sketch shows similarly the lively
bonhomie of a 'big personality'.
James Quin appeared as Falstaff between 1746-1747.
Image here courtesy Christie's.
Monument to James and Anne Sutton.
After 1788.
Devizes.
......................
There is an indenture of 20 September 1791, when Thomas King, the statuary of Walcot, with Mr.Charles Harford, gent., as his trustee, conveyed to John Greenway in trust for Francis Greenway, mason, of Walcot (not the transported Australian architect), who would have been only thirteen at the time], ‘part of a pasture of 2a 22p called Upper Tyning [Walcot], being all those plots on the west side of an intended building called Mount Pleasant and all those two messuages thereon erecting at the cost of Francis Greenway.
