Some Coade Stone Church Monuments.

 

Essay in preparation.

The Memorial to Frances Brown, daughter in law of Lancelot "Capability" Brown in Coade stone at Parish Church of St Peter And St Paul, Fenstanton. Cambridge.

 TheWife of Lancelot Brown [Jnr] Lord of the Manor and sister of Rose Fuller Esq of Rose Hill ... Sussex". She died  2 December 1792 aged 38. Couple had married in 1788 at Lausanne.

The Victoria and Albert Museum version.

This Coade stone monument to Sir William Hillman, made by Coade and Sealy in 1800, was originally in the demolished church of St. James's, Hampstead Road, London.

Monument to Sir William Hillman (1740–93)

Commisioned bySir William Hillman’s sister, Elizabeth Walter.

William Palmer (1673 - 1739) and his son Benjamin Palmer fl 1712 - 78) - London Sculptors. The Late Roubiliac Type Socle.

 

The 1756 Monument to Arthur O'Keeffe .

In the Cloisters at Westminster Abbey.

Another bust which appears to have the early Roubiliac type socle.

The Monument is inscribed Palmer to the bottom right.

It seems the family home was in Dunbullog(e) in Co. Cork in Ireland (his brother Daniel owned a mill and estate there). 

https://okeefeclan.org/2020/castles/

It is possible his father was the Arthur O'Keeffe from Ballymaguirk co. Cork in Ireland who was admitted to Gray's Inn in London in 1682-1683. (The family motto is the same but his coat of arms is different to that mentioned above). Arthur the younger was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1738 and Gray's Inn in 1740.

The Inns were colleges for lawyers. He married Isabella Casburne, widow, at her house in Piccadilly 4th April 1738 by special licence. The marriage was recorded in the parish register of St James's Church, Westminster. 

He died childless - his will described him as of Bedford Row, London and his wife inherited his mansion and parklands at Bailey Park, Heathfield in Sussex. (now Heathfield Park) Isabella bequeathed all her property to her sister Mary Ann (who later married Arthur's cousin Cornelius O'Keeffe).

Bailey Park was sold in 1766 to Lt Gen. Elliot

 

Arthur was buried in the cloister on 3rd October 1756 and his wife on 5th October 1762 aged 70.

Excerpts from The Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church of the Abbey of St Peter Westminster... - Page 401 Joseph Lemuel Chester · 1876

Page 403 Anstis O'Keeffe in the West Cloister. Mother of  Arthur O'Keeffe

The Will of Arthur O'Keefe.(O'Kyffe) of Bedford Row - PROB-11-826-140. a very short document where he appoints his wife Isabella (d.1762) sole heir and executor.

Isabella left Bailey Park to her sister Mary Ann.

Benjamin Palmer.

Sir William Harpur 

Portland Stone

Bedford

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/sir-william-harpur-c-14961574-311031

Is this bust by Nollekens - another post on the Roubiliac Late Type Socle. William Posonby Earl of Bessborough.

The Two Ponsonby/ Bessborough Monuments in Derby Cathedral.

The Rysbrack Monument to Caroline, Countess of Bessborough.

and the monument to William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Second Earl of Bessborough by Joseph Nollekens.

A brief look at the monuments to act as an aide memoire for a possble future post.

Church Monuments using earlier busts are unusual but as used here are not unique ref. Cirencester.

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Here we find the use of what I have characterised as the "late Roubiliac type socle" on two busts on the two Ponsonby / Bessborough monuments at Derby.

Many of the busts created by Roubiliac in the latter part of his career use variations on this type of socle.

see my posts for further examples -

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/marble-bust-of-laocoon.html

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-roubiliac-type-socle-some-mor.html

I have discovered at least 18 instances of Roubiliac's use of this type of socle.

I can only find two instances of the use of variations of this form of socle by Joseph Wilton.

Here we have the use of this type of socle on the busts on two monuments in Derby Cathedral.

The Monument to the Countess of Bessborough by Michael Rysbrack of post 1760 and the monument to her husband William Ponsonby 2nd Earl of Bessborough by Joseph  Nollekens of post 1793.

Neither Rysbrack or Nollekens used this type of socle on their portrait busts as far as I am aware.

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William Ponsonby and a bust mentioned in correspondence with Mr Stanley in 1768.

To cloud the issue - there is a letter from William Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough dated 9 August 1768.

Presenting compliments to Mr. Stanley about a bust left at his house in London by Mr. Stanley.

https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/834

Is this the bust on the Derby Cathedral Ponsonby /Bessborough monument?

This reference cannot be to Charles (Simon Carl) Stanley the English/Danish sculptor who died in 1761 but is perhaps his son Carl Frederick Stanley (d. Rome 1805) who trahis studio.

The second marriage of Charles Stanley took place on 2 August 1737 to Magdalene Margrethe Lindemann, the sister of the German chaplain to the Court of St James. The couple had a son, Carl Frederick Stanley who trained as a sculptor with his father.

 Carl Frederik Stanley became one of the first students to enter the new Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1755. That same year he won his first award and in 1758 he won the Academy's large gold medal for the sculpture Noah's Sacrifice.

see - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Frederik_Stanley

In the summer of 1746 he accepted an invitation from Frederick V to return to Copenhagen as court sculptor, a post he held until his death in 1761. He departed hastily for Denmark leaving his affairs in a confused state. Letters to Leeke Okeover from Joseph Sanderson, who was responsible for building work at Okeover, relate that Stanley left ‘without settling with several of his acquaintances’ and that he had failed to show Sanderson a bust, a chimneypiece (4, 6) and a gilt picture frame with ribbon and flowers, all prepared for Okeover (Sanderson/Okeover, 25.10.1746). A later letter adopted a more philosophical tone: ‘One thing we must allow him [Stanley], is your ceiling is well done and cheap’ (Sanderson/Okeover, 9 December 1746).

After returning from England in 1746 Charles later had a successful career in Denmark, where he became a professor at the Copenhagen Academy.

Charles Stanley d.1761 in England.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2021/02/marble-bust-by-charles-stanley-of-mary.html

I have written a long essay on the  Little Easton Church Monumentto the Maynards and the possible involvement of Roubiliac.

Given the date of the monument and the sudden rapid departure of Stanley to Denmark in October 1746 - I suspect that the monument might not have been finished and although there is no documentary evidence the work might have been concluded by another sculptor.

 This idiosyncratic sculpture is very much a favourite of mine and shows the influences of the best sculptors working in London in the mid 18th century, the pose is similar to that on the Craggs Monument by Guelfi at Westminster Abbey with the central figure of Henry leaning on an urn with the relief representing his wife but without the crossed legs. 

The pair of lamps are similar to those used on several monuments by Henry Cheere. 

The bust of  Elizabeth Lady Maynard show the influence if not actually the hand of Louis Francois Roubiliac and the influence of Rysbrack and the Saxon deities at Stowe House Buckingham.

It uses the same form of dress as that used on a bust of Mary Okeover (suggested as by Stanley but I would suggest Roubilic!)

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-maynard-monuments-at-little-easton.html

For a potted history of Charles Stanley (d.1761) see -

https://gunnis.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/sculptor/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=2555

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This is dangerous territory but I suggest that this pair of busts busts had been made as a pair for display in a family homeand and added to the Derby Ponsonby Bessborough monuments by Rysbrack and Nollekens.

This is not impossible - the earlier Bathurst monument in Cirencester church by Nollekens utilises a pair of earlier busts. see my post on the earlier carreer busts by Nollekens which use a socle with the eared supports convex panel specific to him - developed by him whilst working in the Rome studio of Bartolemeo Cavaceppi who had also used a similar form of socle on his busts based on ancient antecedents.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/some-earlier-nollekens-busts.html

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Church of St John the Baptist, Cirencester - Nollekens Design for the monument to Earl and Countess Bathurst, c.1776.

Allen, 1st Earl Bathurst and Countess Bathurst (It is my belief that the busts are almost certainly not by Nollekens).

 I cannot find any good close up photographs of these busts and the monument which are high up and backlit by a stained glass window make it difficult to obtain good close ups for comparison.

I suspect that the bust of Allen Bathurst is by Peter Scheemakers and is related to a missing bust of Bathurst from the Temple of Friendship at Stowe.

The socles are typical of earlier works by Nollekens.

In my opinion there is a sort of uniformity almost blandness in Scheemakers depictions of male subjects but his female busts are usually much more realistic.

see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/scheemakers-at-kintbury.html

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/04/anonymous-bust-at-lady-lever-art.html

William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough PC PC (Ire) (1704 – 11 March 1793) was an Anglo-Irish politician. 

He was an Irish and English peer and member of the House of Lords (styled Hon. William Ponsonby from 1723 to 1739 and Viscount Duncannon from 1739 to 1758). 

He served in both the Irish and the British House of Commons, before entering the House of Lords, and held office as a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, and as Postmaster General of the United Kingdom. 

He was also a Privy Counsellor, Chief Secretary for Ireland and Earl of Bessborough.

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                  The Ponsonby/ Bessborough Monuments in Derby Cathedral.

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The Thomas Missing Monument of 1738.

With the Marble Bust on the Monument by Roubiliac.

at Holy Rood Church, Crofton and Stubbington, Hampshire.

Formerly Crofton.

 Perhaps acoincidence but the Nollekens Ponsonby / Derby Monument and the Crofton and Stubbington Monuments are very similar in form.

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The Rysbrack Monument to Caroline, Countess of Bessborough.

Born 22, May  1719 - Death: January 20, 1760 aged 40.

Derby Cathedral , Derbyshire, England.

The bust on the monument which utilises the "late period Roubiliac type socle" is perhaps an earlier bust the pair to the bust of Lord Bessborough on his monument in the same church.

Daughter of William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire and Catherine Hoskins, Duchess of Devonshire.

Wife of William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough - married 5 Jul 1739 aged 20.

Mother of Catharine Beauclerk, Duchess of St. Albans (Ponsonby); Charlotte FitzWilliam and Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough

Sister of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Prime Minister; Lord George Augustus Cavendish; Lady Elizabeth Ponsonby; Rachel Walpole, Countess of Orford; Lord Frederick Cavendish (British Army officer) and 1 other.

She had 8 children.

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Caroline, Countess of Bessborough.

A pastel? portrait currently housed in the Stansted Park Home Gallery.

By Jean Etienne Liotard.

William Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough.

By Jeremiah Davidson.

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/william-ponsonby-17041793-2nd-earl-of-bessborough-172335

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The Pastel Portrait by Jean Etinne Liotard.

Rijksmuseum

Ponsonby first encountered Liotard at Rome in 1738 and took him as his draughtsman to Constantinople, where the artist’s independent career began. He remained a loyal friend and patron, eventually owning some 70 works by Liotard. This portrait was presumably made during one of Liotard’s two sojourns in London. It is one of Liotard’s rare excursions into Neoclassicism, and presents the sitter as a trompe l’oeil Roman shell cameo.

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Onyx Cameo of Ponsonby then styled Viscount Duncannon.

1750.

Johann Lorenz Natter (1703 - 65).

His skill in carving lead the German medalist Johann Lorenz Natter to Switzerland, Venice, Florence, England, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Russia, where he died. 

William Ponsonby (1704–1793), an influential parliamentary politician, was an original member of the band of aesthetes known as the Dilettanti Society. 

Natter presented him here with cropped hair, in the neo-Roman style of budding Neoclassicism. The ground stratum is carved so thin as to be transparent, allowing a delicate play of light. A companion cameo dated 1750 of Ponsonby’s wife, Lady Caroline, née Cavendish, was auctioned at Christie’s in London in 1923 but has since disappeared

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/198376

for an excellent and informative article on Natter see - https://britishartjournal.co.uk/lorenz-natter-1705-1763/

The Fogg Art Museum Harvard Portrait of William Ponsonby.

By John Singleton Copley (1738 - 1815).

Signed: l.r.: J. S. Copley RA/ 1790.

inscription: on verso: Earl of Bessborough

Provenance - Claude A. C. Ponsonby, presumably by descent; sold at Christie's sale of Ponsonby Heirlooms to Sabin, March 28, 1908; purchased through Martin Birnbaum by Grenville L. Winthrop, November 1941; his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

There are two other versions of this portrait - Lord Clanbrassil and Admiral Caldewell.

The creation of the mezzotint was the subject of some controversy

https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/230361

Robert  Dunkarton, after John Singleton Copley, Portrait of William Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough (1794), mezzotint, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum

Sculpture and Architecture of the Foundling Hospital - some notes and images

A work in progress.

This post was inspired by a conversation with Lars Tharp.

After 17 years of tireless campaigning, Thomas Coram (d.1751) receives the Royal Charter from King George II to establish the Foundling Hospital in 1739.

The 34 acre site was purchased 1740.

A temporary home was set up in a house belonging to Sir Fisher Tench in Hatton Garden

On 25 March 1741 the first 30 babies, 18 boys and 12 girls, were admitted to the Foundling Hospital.

The Foundation Stone was layed 16 September 1742.

and by 1744 the interior was being fitted out and by late 1745 the West wing was almost ready for occupation but much remained incomplete including the Court Room in 1746. The West wing is shown completed in Roques Map of 1746.

The Foundation stone for the chapel was layed on 1st May 1747.

The East wing wasn't completed until 1752

In 1926, the Hospital moved to Redhill, Surrey, and then to Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. In 1954, the last pupils left, and the charity became The Thomas Coram Foundation for Children.

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For an in depth study of the building of the Foundling see - Alan Borg Vol Xii 2002. Georgian Group Journal. - Theadore Jacobsen and the Building of the Foundling Hospital

with an apendix by Richard Hewlings - The Builders of the Foundling Hospital.

https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GGJ_2003_02_BORG.pdf

The apendix is particularl useful in that it detaills the all the various craftsmen involved.

https://csca.aha.cam.ac.uk/the-hewlings-catalogue/

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According to Borg all papers relating to the Foundling are now in the London Metropolitan Archives.

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Theodore Jacobsen by Thomas Hudson.

Presented by the artist in 1746.

Theodore Jacobsen was a German merchant. In retirement he became an amateur architect and was commissioned to design the Foundling Hospital in 1742. He had become a Governor in 1739 and offered his services as architect free of charge. 

In this portrait he is shown holding the architectural plans for the Hospital. Jacobsen’s architecture was a means of augmenting his social status as well as providing an outlet for his philanthropy. He also designed the East India House in London, the Royal Hospital at Haslar and the West Front of Trinity College Dublin. 

Thomas Hudson was the most fashionable portrait painter within Establishment circles in London in the 1740s and 1750s. He arrived in the capital from Devonshire in the 1720s and entered the studio of Jonathan Richardson.

 Hudson married Richardson’s daughter Mary and inherited many of his clients when Richardson retired in 1740. 

Hudson became a Governor of the Foundling Hospital in 1746, along with a number of artists who frequented Old Slaughter’s Coffee House on Saint Martin’s Lane. 

This group included Francis Hayman and Samuel Scott. More than 30 members of the Foundling Hospital’s Grand Court were past or future patrons of Hudson’s. 

Hudson sat alongside Jacobsen on a sub-committee which was tasked with choosing ‘ornaments’ for the Hospital. He donated this painting (below) to the Hospital in the year of his election, along with his portrait of the Hospital's Vice President John Milner.

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/venue:foundling-museum-7069

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Daniel Lock (1681 - 1754).

Governor of the Foundling Hospital.

Mezzotint.

Lettered with title and production detail below image: "Willm. Hogarth Pinxt." and "J. Mc Ardell Fecit".

They say c. 1742 - 65.

The original oil painting is in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

Lock was involved with the designing of the Foundling Hospital in London;

 in this portrait Lock appears to be holding a plan for the Hospital.

 Lock was the donor of the bust of Bacon in the College Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, and a close friend of Roger Cotes. He was a member of the Free Society of Artists, which is where he might have met William Hogarth, who painted this portrait; Hogarth was also a founding Governor of the Foundling Hospital.

 

Roubiliac’s bust of Lock on the mural monument at Trinity College Cambridge shows Lock surrounded by emblems of architecture, painting, sculpture and music.

The monument was completed by Nicholas Read after the death of Roubiliac on 1762.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1902-1011-3330

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/33874

For the Roubiliac Lock bust see -

https://explore.trin.cam.ac.uk/assets/lock/

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Captain Thomas Coram (1668 - 1751).

Engraving by J Brook 1751.

Based on the original painting by Balthazar Nebot of 1741.

The background was changed by the engraver to include the newly built Foundling Hospital

Image courtesy Wellcome Library

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ggtfz5gj/items

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The Plan of the Foundling Hospital as it was to be to be built.

Engraved by Paul Foudrinier after the design by Theodor Jacobsen

 1742.

The Plan of the Foundling Hospital to be built.

Engraved by Paul Foudrinier after Theodor Jacobsen

pub. 1749.

This does not show the Diocletian Windows on the east side of the west wing which appear as built clearly in the Wale Grignion Engravings (below)

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Foundling Hospital viewed from the West 

Richard Wilson

dated 1746

The Hospital was still under construction at this time although Wilson has omitted any evidence of this, presumably in order to present a more idealised image of the Hospital. 

The West Wing for the boys had been completed in October 1745 but the East Wing and the Chapel were still unbuilt when Wilson produced this painting. 

Wilson donated this work along with another landscape painting of St George's Hospital to the Foundling Hospital in 1746. The pair were displayed alongside six other roundels of London hospitals and educational institutions. The Court Room was one of the first public spaces for the display of British art and therefore a major opportunity to attract wealthy patrons.

 

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Extract from Roques Map of 1746.

The Chapel and Girls East Wing no yet commenced building.

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View of the Foundling Hospital by Samuel Wale (1721 - 86).

Engraved by Grignion (1717 - 1810).

Note the Diocletion windows at 2nd floor level on the South and East Fronts of the West Wing.

Whilst the details of the building are correct the statues I don't believe ever existed.

The Wall gates and railings if they existed can only have been temporary

Samuel Wale was elected a Governor of the Foundling Hospital in 1746. There are three painted roundels of Greenwich Hospital, Christ's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospitalwhich he presented to the Hospital in 1748, to form part of the decoration of its Court Room.

Image courtesy -

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:34163

 

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Drawn by Wale and engraved by Grignion - 1749.

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:41678

Although it depicts the East wing which was not completed until after 1752.

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Foundling Hospital, London. Etching by H. Roberts, 1749, after J. Robinson after T. Jacobson

image courtesy the Wellcome Library.

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zkkcq8hp

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Engraved View of the Foundling Hospital, 1750.

This state 1790.

Anonymous engraving for Bowles and Carver and Wilkinson.

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1880-1113-4791

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The Foundling Hospital, Holborn, London: a view of the courtyard south elevation.

 Engraving by B. Cole, 1754 [after P. Fourdrinier, 1742].

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ryufe3cc/images?id=m2a2akgx

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The Foundling Hospital.

The South Front in 1818.

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The South Front of Foundling Hospital. 1910.

Photo courtesy London Picture Archive

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The chapel was designed with a view to musical performances which, as stated above, brought large sums of money to the hospital funds, and the organ was first used by Handel himself at a special performance of the Messiah.