Is this bust by Nollekens - another post on the Roubiliac Late Type Socle

The Ponsonby/ Bessborough Monuments in Derby Cathedral.

A brief look at the monuments to act as an aide memoire.

Church Monuments using earlier busts.

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Here we find the use of what I have designated the "late Roubilic type socle".

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

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 ofthis 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.

This is dangerous territory but I wonder whether these busts had been made as a pair and added to the 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 antecedent

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

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 (I believe that the busts are almost certainly not by Nollekens).

 I cannot find any good closeup photographs of these busts and the monument which are high up and backlit by a stained glass window

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

see -

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.

Caroline Countess of Bessborough.

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

Derby, Derbyshire, England

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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William Ponsonby.

By Jeremiah Davidson.

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

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.

Is this a Coade Stone model of the Laocoon, slight return.

 


https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/03/laocoon-18th-century-lead-group-some.html

An Mid Eighteenth Century Lead Statuette of the Laocoon Group.

45cm wide, 51cm high.

Mounted on a wooden base.

There appears to be remains of the original bronze finish in the crevices of the surface.

Here suggested as cast by John Cheere (1709 - 1787) at Hyde Park Corner, from a model by Peter Scheemakers. (ref. JT Smith - see below).

"Scheemakers was a native of Antwerp, a disciple of old Delvaux, and I have frequently heard his pupil Mr, Nollekens relate the following recollections of his life. Scheemakers, when a young man, had so ardent a love for the art of Sculpture, that, notwithstanding his slender means, he was determined to quit Antwerp, and walk to Rome. He commenced his journey in the year 1728, but, before he had accomplished the task, his purse was so considerably reduced, that absolute necessity frequently obliged him to sell a shirt from his knapsack. 

During his stay in Italy he was much noticed and encouraged, exercising his talent with great avidity, in making numerous small models from most of the celebrated statues and groups in and about that city, which he brought to England".

See further extracts from Nollekens and his Times. pub. 1828 JT Smith below.

Sold by Lyon and Turnbull Auctioneers.

https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/

Lot 3. The Bernard Kelly Collection.

https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auctions/bernard-kelly-collection-840/lot/3

Peter Scheemakers and a Small Marble Statue of Laocoon and his Sons

JT Smith in Nollekens and his Times. pub. 1828  records -

"In 1756, Mr. Langford had two days' sale of Mr, Scheemakers's pictures, models, and marbles, at his rooms under the Piazza, Covent-garden, in which, Lot 15, of the first day, consisted of "two landscapes, with figures and cattle, by Old Nollekens."

 Mr. Langford followed this sale with another, which he advertised thus;

 "To be sold by Auction, by Mr. Langford, at his house in the Great Piazza, Covent-garden, on Wednesday and Thursday, the 18th and 19th inst. the remainder of the genuine and curious collection of marbles, models, and casts, in groups, figures, and busts, of Mr. Peter Scheemakers, statuary.

The said collection will be exhibited to public view, on Monday, the 16th inst., and every day after, till the time of Sale, which will begin each day punctually at twelve o'clock. 

Of Scheemakers's models I have frequently heard my father speak with considerable pleasure, when he used to state, that they were placed upon tables, stands, and shelves, covered with green baize, round the auction-room, and made a most beautiful appearance. One of them was a small copy of the Laocoon in marble, which was bought by the Earl of Lincoln. (this probably refers to Henry Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, 9th Earl of Lincoln and 2nd Duke of Newcastle.

After the sale, some of the purchasers gave the moulders leave to make casts of what they had bought, so that the students could procure them at a reasonable rate, and study from them in their own apartments.

I suspect that this is the origin of our Lead Laocoon - the cast probably by John Cheere either from the marble mentioned above or a terracotta made by Scheemakers whilst visiting Rome.

 

Vevini, (this almost certainly refers to Peter Vanina/ Vanini fl. 1753 -70 who cast objects in plaster for Rysbrack) was a plaster Figure-maker, then living in St. James's-Street, made a fine mould of the Laocoon, the very first cast of which is at present in the possession of Mr. John Taylor, of No. 12, Cirencester-place, who has been already frequently mentioned in this work: he is now in his 89th year, and is styled the "Father of the Painters;" having been a Pupil of Francis Hayman. 

Scheemakers, for some time, shared the patronage of the great and good with Roubiliac and Rysbrack; and not many require to be informed that the statue of Shakspeare in Westminster Abbey was carved by Scheemakers from the design of Kent the Architect; but very few persons appear to be aware, that the beautiful little bronze statue of King Edward VI. in the court-yard of St. Thomas's Hospital, is also by the hand of the same Sculptor. For my own part, I never go into the Borough without indulging myself with a sight of that truly elegant production of Art. 

Some other specimens of this Artist were in the collection at Wanstead House, and were sold on Friday, 21st June, 1822, in the tenth day's sale of that mansion, and were as follows: Lot 869, "a very splendid Medicean-shaped vase, four feet six inches high, of statuary marble, finely sculptured in high relief, representing a Sacrifice to Apollo, upon a stone pedestal, with carved heads and festoons." Lot 370, "A ditto, with the subject of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, upon a stone pedestal, same as the last."

Lot 47, Laocoon and his sons (group) in the sale of Peter Vanina (info from Getty Provenance)

the transcription of the Christie’s Sale of Peter Vanina - 5 April 1770.

 from the Getty Provenance’s website –

 https://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web

Tyley Colerne and Bristol - 18th / 19th Century Monumental Sculptors of Colerne and Bristol. Two Mural Monuments in West Littleton Church.

 

The Two Mural Monuments at St James's Church, West Littleton.

The present church dates from 1855 when it was largely rebuilt following damage by fire. Thomas Henry Wyatt, architect of the Salisbury diocese, who designed and restored churches on the Wiltshire border, e.g. Acton Turville 1853 and Shipton Moyne 1865, was responsible for the rebuilding which included the addition of the South porch and Vestry.

It is not known how much of the earlier church building survived the fire. The Chancel is slightly offset from the Nave. The barrel vaulting of the Chancel roof suggests an earlier style of architecture

https://stjamesmonuments.org/index.php

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The Frankcom Monument.

I suspect put up after 1787.

Inscribed Tyley, Colerne Fecit.

Tyley sometimes Tiley 

Colerne is a large village in Wiltshire on the Cotswolds and had oolitic limerstone quarries - now long defunct - it had strong links with the nearby limestone quarries at Box.

I have written at some length on the Ford family of stone and marble masons who originated in Colerne.

Ther Fords were important monumental masons, builders and developers working in Bath for or alongside the Woods in the 18th century.

see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/01/some-more-random-notes-regarding-ford.html

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/10/monuments-by-ford-of-bath-bath-abbey.html

see - for Tyley and Lancashire etc

https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2018/07/parsons-and-greenway-sculptors-of-bath.html

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The Hillier Monument

Inscribed Tyley, Bristol

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The Tyley Family of Monumental Masons

James and Thomas & Sons, of Bristol     

A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851 lists 138 monument by the Tyley family including the later West Littleton Monument but neglects to mention earlier monument inscribed Tyley of Colarne pictured above

https://gunnis.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/sculptor/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=2765

      

Thomas Tyley I c1788 after 1881

James Tyley c1792 -

Jabez Tyley c1824 -

Thomas Tyley II c1826 -

Henry Tyley c1845 -

William Tyley active c1834

The Tyley family maintained their business as monumental masons in Bristol over more than a century. Thomas Tyley I was born in Bath and married Eliza (born c1809), perhaps as his second wife. In 1881 (aged 93) he was living (as he seems to have done through most of his life), at Under Bank tenement in the parish of St Augustine, Bristol. 

Pigot’s Directory for Bristol, 1830, lists Tyley & Son (not Sons), stone and marble masons, at this address. Thomas I had at least three sons, Jabez, Thomas II and Henry, all marble masons living in the vicinity of St Augustine’s. Jabez is credited with the tympanum sculpture on the principal front of the Victoria Rooms, Bristol (now part of the university), c1841, which has a relief of Dawn in a chariot, with floating genii in attendance (138). In 1881 he described himself as a ‘retired sculptor’.

The Bristol sculptor James Harvard Thomas (1854-1921) was trained in the workshop. J H Thomas’s obituary notes that he once said ‘To learn marble carving I went to Thomas Tyley’s in St Augustine’s, who was then a very old man and had been a pupil of Bacon Jnr [John Bacon II] and retained many of the traditions of the English eighteenth century sculpture’ (letter, Bristol City Archives, inf. Douglas Merritt). James Tyley was probably the brother of Thomas I. 

There were other Tyley marble masons: James, born c1819 and Thomas, c1820, both spent their mature years in London.

A Thomas Tyley, whose kinship to the above listed family members is unclear, ventured out of the monumental field. He won a Silver Isis Medal in 1811 from the Society of Arts for a group entitled Christ healing the sick, at which date he lived at 23 Upper Marylebone, London (133). In 1830 he carved the dove on the pediment of Holy Trinity, Clifton (137) and in 1839 carved a statue of Sir Charles Wetherell (134). Another member of this generation was James Tyley II, who was apprenticed to John Dunn on 14 March 1807.

The firm was still active in 1864, for in that year it received a commission for a proposed sculpture gallery of British worthies (135, 136). On 22 October 1864 the Builder carried a report of the venture (p 783): ‘In accordance with a proposition in the Builder that busts or portraits of local worthies might usefully be placed in the respective public buildings of the localities in which they lived, it has been proposed by Mr. R. A. Kinglake to form a sculpture gallery of Somerset worthies in the Shire-hall. He has commissioned Messrs. Tyley of Bristol to execute a memorial bust of “Good Bishop Ken” well remembered in the diocese of Bath and Wells. The Marquis of Bath permitted Messrs. Tyeley to make a photograph of the portrait of Ken in the portrait-gallery at Longleat; and Scheffer’s painting of Ken in the Palace, Wells, was also copied for the same purpose, by favour of Lord Auckland. Another subject of sculpture is a memorial bust of the celebrated loyalist, the Rev. Henry Byam, D. D., Rector of Luccombe, Somerset, and chaplain to Charles II. in his exile’.

There are many monuments executed by the Tyleys in the West Country and the list below is not comprehensive. They are by no means all stock compositions. Gunnis considered the best to be the Gore, which has a medallion portrait between two figures of officers in full regimentals (24). Potterton notes of the Stock that it ‘has a figure of a mourning Religion kneeling at an altar, but bored by mourning alone, she is now engrossed in the book which is her attribute’ (22). The Worrall, a tablet to a four-year old child, has a relief of the sleeping child above a touching poem, the whole encased in a black frame (60). Penny illustrates the Rogers, which has a conventional, but crisply carved, broken Ionic column from which sprouts a luxuriant willow tree (75). The Lawless is a cartouche supported by a kangaroo and what may be an ostrich (123).

Literary References: Census returns 1841, 1861, 1881; Potterton 1975, 85; Penny 1977 (1), 29, 31, 119; Read 1982, 220

For Tyleys of Box and Colerne see

http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/stone-portraits.html

A Marble Bust by I van Loghteren

 

A Carved White Marble Bust of Mercury,

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/09/terracotta-busts-by-jan-van-logteren.html

https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2018/09/van-logteren.html

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Mercury.

Ignatius van Logteren (Loghteren) (1685-1732).

Sotheby's Paris, France  9 November, 2010

A  Dutch marble bust of Mercury, late 17th/early 18th century, by Ignatius van Logteren (1685-1732), 

Inscribed with the initials IVL on the back. He wears his winged helmet over his curly hair, with flowing fabric draped over his shoulders. Signed with the initials IVL on the back. White marble. Height: 73 cm; Width: 65 cm (28 3/4 in); Width: 25 1/2 in.

Provenance Château du Plessis-Fortia in Huisseau-en-Beauce (Loir-et-Cher), France.

Literature P. M. Fischer, Ignatius en Jan van Logteren. Beeldhouwers en Stuckunstenaars in het Amsterdam van de 18de eeuw, Utrecht,

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https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Apollo--5237e103fbd4c78a5760e14975d86c1e?tab=catalogue