The Twelve Busts by Roubiliac.
Bought
by Dr Matthew Maty at the Four Day posthumous auction sale 12 - 15 May 1762 of the contents of the studio of Louis Francois Roubiliac at 66 St Martins Lane, Westminster held by Messrs Langford's of the Piazza Covent Garden on the
premises at 66 St Martin's Lane and
presented to the British Museum in 1762.
Aileen Dawson has written extensively on the British Museum Collection of 18th, 19th and 20th century Portrait Busts - below is an attempt to update her information on the 12 portrait busts by Roubiliac bought by Matthew Maty and presented to the BM.
see - Dawson, Aileen, Portrait Sculpture, a catalogue of the British Museum collection, c. 1675-1975, London, BMP, 1999
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Isaac Barrow (1630 - 1677).
Isaac Barrow
(1630 -77), low fired clay, lot 79, Third day of the sale.
Images from British Museum.
Drawing of Isaac Barrow by David Loggan,1676.
Images British Museum.
For a brief but comprehensive biography see -
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Richard
Bentley FRS (1662 - 1742), as above low fired clay, lot 81 Third day.
Engraved By George Vertue after Thornhill. 1712.
Marble bust of Bentley by Roubiliac at Trinity College, Cambridge.
This photograph of this bust and the busts of Ray and Willoughby following from Trinity College, Library, Sculptured Busts', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Cambridge (London, 1959),
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King Charles I - (1600 - 49).
Terracotta - either lot 79, 2nd day or lot 74, third day.
King
Charles I - terracotta (1600 - 49) either lot 79 2nd day or lot 74 third day.
Unfinished engraving of c.1630 - 40 by Robert van Voerst after Dieussart (1595 -1661)
This unfinished working proof is the only impression that is known of the most ambitious engraving ever made of Charles I. Much confusion has been caused because it has traditionally been identified as being after the bust by Bernini that was destroyed in the Whitehall fire of 1698. This had been commissioned by Charles I who sent to Rome the triple portrait by van Dyck of 1635-6 (now in the Royal collection) for Bernini to work from. The bust was delivered to England in July 1637, the year after Voerst's death. This made the traditional attribution of this print to Voerst impossible.
The problem has been solved by the recent realisation that Bernini's portrait was quite different, and that this print is after another marble bust by François Dieussart (see M.Vickers, Apollo, CVII 1978, pp.161-9 and G.Raatschen, Burlington Magazine, CXXXVIII 1996, pp.813-6). Dieussart was a Fleming who worked in many northern European courts before arriving in England in 1636 (for an account of his career, see C.Avery in Victoria and Albert Museum Yearbook, IV 1974, pp.63-99). An early copy of the bust of Charles that Voerst engraved is now at Windsor Castle, while a different (but autograph) bust of Charles wearing armour dated 1636 is now at Arundel Castle.
The attribution of this print to Voerst seems sure. Stylistically it belongs to the first half of the seventeenth century; it is printed on paper of that period; and there was no-one else in England in the 1630s capable of engraving to this standard. If it is indeed by Voerst, the marble must have been made early in the year, and the plate was in the course of engraving when Voerst suddenly fell a victim to the plague. Whether it was commissioned by Charles or whether it was made by Voerst on his own account is unknown.
(Text from Antony Griffiths, 'The Print in Stuart Britain', BM 1998, cat.43)
Bust of Charles I at Arundel Castle attrib. Dieussart.
For another 18th Century bust of Charles I see -
The painting was sent to Rome in 1636 to be used as a reference work for the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini to create a marble bust of Charles I. Pope Urban VIII sent the bust to Charles's queen Henrietta Maria in 1638 in the hope of encouraging a reconciliation of the Roman Catholic church with the Church of England.[2] The bust was presented in 1637 and admired for its workmanship and likeness to the King. Charles rewarded Bernini with a valuable diamond ring. Queen Charlotte commissioned Bernini to make a companion bust of her, but the English Civil War intervened and it was never made. The bust of Charles was sold at the end of the English Civil War but recovered for the Royal Collection on the Restoration, only to be destroyed by a fire in Whitehall Palace in January 1698.
The painting remained in the possession of Bernini and his heirs in the Bernini Palace on the Via del Corso until c.1802, when it was sold to British art dealer William Buchanan and returned to England. It was exhibited at the British Gallery in 1821 and acquired for the Royal Collection in 1822, and is usually displayed at Windsor Castle.
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The Terracotta bust of Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658).
Right side of collar repaired, right side of face repaired, top right and left of cloak damaged and lower front part missing, numerous cracks, especially on the front. The surface coating has been almost completely removed. Restored in 1961 in the British Museum.
Height: 63.3 centimetres (max.)
Width: 50.3 centimetres
Depth: 22 centimetres
Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon, where he was educated at the free school attached to the hospital of St John, later attending Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, before going to London to study law. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628, and later sat for Cambridge. On the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 he became captain of a cavalry troop in Essex's army and fought at Edgehill. He soon established a formidable military reputation and raised a regiment. In 1644 he was made a general. As one of Charles I's judges he signed his death warrant in 1649. He was installed as Lord Protector on 16 December 1653, when a new constitution began to be drawn up. Under the Commonwealth Cromwell fought for religious liberty for Protestants and Nonconformists. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his body was exhumed in January 1661 and hung on the gallows at Tyburn; the head was then set on a pole on top of Westminster Hall.
There are numerous portraits of Cromwell.(3) A marble bust by Edward Pearce in the Museum of London, which is dated 1672, is the earliest three-dimensional image. As Nicholas Penny has remarked,(4) busts of Cromwell were exceedingly popular in the eighteenth century and were carved by all the leading sculptors, such as Rysbrack, Wilton and Nollekens, as well as Roubiliac. No study has yet been made of who purchased these busts, but the memory of the Protector appears to have lived on without attracting the opprobrium which might have been expected. Grosley remarks, 'I was shown at court the grand daughter or great grand daughter of Cromwell, a connexion which is not much considered as a mark of infamy as it is of honour and distinction.'(5) A marble by Francis Harwood was sold on the London market in July 1986,(6) and another in July 1997.(7) Nicholas Penny suggests that Harwood's portraits are in turn based on a marble which he attributes to Nollekens, and which depicts the sitter in armour,(8) but this attribution has been questioned by Malcolm Baker, who believes it is after all by Harwood.(9) Roubiliac himself created more than one image of the Protector, as his sale lists both 'medals' and a 'basso relievo'.(10) A terracotta medallion of Cromwell now in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto is discussed by John Mallet,(11) who describes it as 'very closely based on the bust presented by Doctor Maty to the British Museum' and 'a work of considerable power' whose 'characterization of the Protector's face is more convincing than in the British Museum bust'. Esdaile(12) considered it 'iconographically the least satisfactory of the Museum busts, which bears no close resemblance to any of the famous pictures' of the Protector, but points to the sculptor's 'revaluing of the entire personality' of the sitter. Whinney describes the terracotta as 'alert and virile'.(13)
Like that of the terracotta of King Charles I (see registration no. 1762,0528.6), the surface coating on this bust has been almost completely removed in the course of time. Traces of a dark brown surface layer remain on the face and hair, which can also be discerned on the collar and right shoulder. The head is hollow, and was probably made separately, the hair and collar effectively disguising the join, as on other terracottas in the collection.
Notes:
(1) P. J. Grosley, Londres, 1770 edn, trans. Thomas Nugent as A Tour to London: or, New Observations on England and its Inhabitants, London, 1772, 2 vols (British Library pressmark 567 d 3), p. 216. Grosley's first visit to London was in 1765, but there appears to be no edition of his account of it earlier than 1770.
(2) For Scharf s drawing see fig. 7.
(3) D. Piper, 'The contemporary portraits of Oliver Cromwell', Walpole Society, XXXIV, 1952-4, pp. 27-41.
(4) N. Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum 1540 to the Present Day, III: British, Oxford, 1992, p. 142.
(5) Grosley, trans. Nugent, 1772, p. 66.
(6) Christie's, Important Marble Statuary, European Sculpture and Works of Art, 15 July 1986, lot 73, H. 62 cm, dated 1759, noted by Penny, 1992, p. 142.
(7) Sotheby's, European Sculpture and Works of Art, 2 July 1997, lot 264. A bust of Cromwell signed and dated F. Harwood Fecit 1759 was sold at Sotheby's New York, 10 January 1995, lot 66.
(8) Penny, 1992, no. 558.
(9) M. Baker, review of Penny, 1992, in Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXXVI, no. 1101, December 1994, p. 851.
(10) 'Lot 24 2nd day's sale 13 May 1762 - one of 4 "medals"; lot 25, one of 5 medals; lot 52, mould in same lot with Inigo Jones; lot 92, basso relievo of Inigo Jones and Oliver Cromwell; lot 33, 4th day's sale six medals of Pope, Inigo Jones, Mr Handell, Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Garrick, and O. Cromwell'; see D. Bindman and M. Baker, Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre, New Haven and London, 1995, Appendix B, pp. 362-9, for a transcription of Roubiliac's sale catalogues.
(11) J. V. G Mallet, 'Some portrait medallions by Roubiliac', Burlington Magazine, vol. CIV, no. 709, April 1962, p. 157, fig. 26.
(12) Esdaile, 1928, p. 104.
(13) Whinney, 1988, p. 224.
An old note by Hugh Tait records that the bust was seen by Vertue in 1738
Notes from British Museum Website see - http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=32188&partId=1&searchText=Bust+Oliver+Cromwell&page=2
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Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694 - 1773)
Plaster
Either lot 9 second day, or lot 18 third day or lot 20 fourth day.
There is another at the Paul Mellon Centre -Yale University.
Comparable examples: Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Centre for
British Art, USA, inv. no. B 1977.14.26, plaster, 71.1 by 53.3 cm, on shaped
plinth with coat of arms and motto, surrounded by the Order of the Garter.
The Earl of Chesterfield was born in London and educated at
Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He made the Grand Tour and subsequently became Member
of Parliament for St Germains, Cornwall from 1716 until he succeeded to the
earldom in 1726. In 1730 he was made Knight Companion of the Order of the
Garter, and married about a year later the illegitimate daughter of King George
I. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in July 1745, after
fulfilling a diplomatic mission in The Hague between January
and late May that year, suggesting that sittings for the bust took place in
London in the intervening period. After a difference of opinion with the Duke
of Newcastle over foreign policy, in 1748 he resigned his post as Secretary of
State for the Northern Department, to which he had been appointed in 1746, and
left public life. He furnished his houses in South Audley Street, London and
Blackheath in some style in the late 1740s and early 1750s but then retired
from society in 1752 when he became deaf. He is best known for his letters to
his illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope, who died in Dresden in 1768, and to his
godson, also called Philip Stanhope.
Marble of Lord Chesterfield by Roubiliac,
NPG.
Chesterfield had many connections with the Huguenot
community of which Roubiliac was a part. He was educated by M. Jounneau, a
minister of the Huguenot church in Berwick Street, Soho and was a close friend
of Dr Maty, who edited his letters and compiled his biography.(1) He was Grand
Master of the Masonic Grand Lodge and so had contact with scholars and
antiquarians such as Martin Folkes (see registration no. 1762,0528.12), who is
likely to have known Roubiliac from meetings at Slaughter's Coffee House.(2) As
Tessa Murdoch has pointed out,(3) the sitter may have employed the sculptor on
some of the decorative sculpture for Chesterfield House, London.
A marble bust of Chesterfield from life, 58 cm in height, which was sold on the
London market(4) is dated 1745. Now in the National Portrait Gallery(5) it corresponds
with the British Museum plaster; it belonged to George Edward Stanhope Molyneux
Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, until 1918 when it was sold at Christie's. It
is likely to have passed into the Carnarvon's possession via Lady Evelyn
Stanhope, the sister and heiress of the 7th Earl of Chesterfield, who married
the 4th Earl of Carnarvon in 1861.
This bust is highly classicizing in style, an effect heightened by the complete
lack of any drapery, although the incised pupils and turn of the head slightly
to the left give the portrait a lifelike quality. Most of the artist's other
portrait busts are of the same general form, but here the deep chest, which
rests on a squared off support, enhances the sitter's serious and weighty air,
although he was small in stature. Both this bust and Wilton's marble of 1757
(see registration no. 1777,0620.1) are essays in classicism. The sitter reveals
his taste for antiquities in a letter to Dayrolles of 27 April 1750 (OS)
published by Dr Maty(6) when he asks Dayrolles to act for him at a forthcoming
sale: 'Count Obdam's sale, I suppose, draws near, at which, pray, buy me such
bustoes and vases as you shall find are universally allowed to be both antique
and fine, at such rates as you shall think reasonable; in the whole, you may go
as far as two hundred pounds, if the objects are curious and worth it.' A
further letter of 25 May(7) lists four lots and two other pieces in which he is
particularly interested.
This cream-coloured plaster, the surface of which was
apparently once covered with a darker wash, may have been a version made by the
sculptor for sale but still in his studio at his death. It is cast from the
original mould. Alternatively, it may have been made by his assistant, Nicholas
Read, after the sculptor's death in an attempt to keep his workshop going.(8)
Two further plasters of Chesterfield and two terracottas were sold at
Roubiliac's sale.(9) The present whereabouts of only one of these is known. A
bronze cast of the bust is in the Victoria and Albert Museum;(10) another,
signed and dated 1746, is in lin Castle, and a third was offered at Christie's
in 1991.(11)
It seems likely that the multiplicity of versions of this bust owe their
existence to the sitter's vanity, although in a letter to Madame du Boccage of
14 June 1750 (OS)(12) he writes:
'What an honour it would be for me, if my bust deserved the place you offer it!
But how mortifying, should you be called upon to prove the qualifications of
the new comer! Believe me, madam, let us both keep out of the scrape, and
remain on the safe side. I will send you two busts, which 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, be it ever so good; besides they have already got their vouchers and
their patents, countersigned by your own hand. I shall send them as soon as
they are done.'
He must have relented, for on 7 November 1751 (OS)(13) he
wrote:
'You talk to me, madam, of my bust; yes, make it speak as you have made the
four others speak,(14) which I sent you, and it shall sail for Dieppe by the
first fair wind. Upon such a recommendation, I should be sure of meeting with a
gracious reception from those illustrious dead, except Pope, who unfortunately
has been too well acquainted with me to be imposed upon; though perhaps as a
friend he would not betray me . . .'.
Notes:
(1) M. Maty, The 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 to illustrate
the civil, literary and political history of his time, 3 vols, Dublin, 1777.
(2) D. Bindman and M. Baker, Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-century Monument:
Sculpture as Theatre, New Haven and London, 1995, pp. 64-5.
(3) T. Murdoch, 'Louis François Roubiliac and his Huguenot connections',
Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, vol. XXIV, no. 1, 1983, pp. 26-45, p. 39.
Malcolm Baker in discussion with the writer in February 1998 stated that this
view is no longer current.
(4) Christie's, European Sculpture and Works of Art, 3 April 1985, lot 70.
(5) National Portrait Gallery, inv. 5829, see Illustrated Report and List of
Acquisitions 1985-6, p. 12, illus. inside front cover.
(6) Maty, Miscellaneous Works, III, p. 219.
(7) Ibid., p. 221.
(8) See registration nos 1762,0528.9-10 (Milton and Pope).
(9) Bindman and Baker, 1995, p. 364, lot 9, plaster; lot 75, terracotta in
second day's sale, 13 May 1762; lot 83, terracotta, 14 May 1762; lot 20,
plaster, 15 May 1762.
(10) Inv. no. A. 17-1959; see Whinney, 1971, pp. 86-8, illus.
(11) Christie's, Important European Sculpture and Works of Art, 16 April 1991,
lot 45. All three bronzes are discussed in Baker, 1996, p. 153; the bronze now
in a private collection is illus. p. 15a, fig. 10. It is no doubt the same
object as was sold at Sotheby's European Sculpture and Works of Art, 16
December 1998, lot 150.
(12) Maty, Miscellaneous Works, III, Letter LXXXV.
(13) Ibid., Letter XCIV.
(14) We can infer from a letter from Chesterfield to Madame du Boccage of 20
May 1751 (OS) (Maty, Miscellaneous Works, Letter XCIII) that he sent busts of
Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope in return for her present of letters of La
Rochefoucault, Madame de Lafayette and Madame de Coulanges, although the word
busts is not actually used.
Information Shamelessly lifted from -
Lord Chesterfield after William Hoare. NPG.
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Lord Chesterfield by Alan Ramsay.
NPG.
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Mezzotint John Simon after William Hoare c. 1740.
NPG.
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Martin Folkes (1690 - 1754).
Antiquary and natural philosopher; born in London, Queen Street, Lincoln Inn's Fields, studied firstly at the University of Saumur and later from 1706 at Clare Hall, Cambridge. Elected member of the Royal Society, named Vice-President of this institute in 1723 and became President (after Hans Sloane) from 1741 to 1753. President of the Society of Antiquarie in 1749-50. Travelled to Italy from 1733-5 and then to France. He had an extensive collection of books, paintings, engraved gems and coins as well as many prints and a few drawings.
Martin
Folkes FRS, PSA ( 1690 -1754), Plaster, lot 10, 4th day.
The marble version of this bust is at Wilton House, Wilton, Wiltshire.
Antiquary and man of science; vice-president, 1723, and president, 1741-53, of the Royal Society, he succeeded Sir Isaac Newton; president of the Society of Antiquaries, 1750-54; published Tables of English Gold Coins, 1736, and Tables of English Silver Coins, 1745.
Martin Folkes, Medallion by Jaques - Antoine Dassier (1715 -59).
Diameter: 5.2 cm
The Vand A say this medal was one in a series of 13 celebrating famous contemporaries living in England (others included Alexander Pope, Robert Walpole and Sir Hans Sloane), executed by the Swiss artist Jacques-Antoine Dassier during his stay in England between 1740 and 1745. These medals were sold at 7s 6d each.). They were struck in Geneva from dies made in England, according to the contemporary commentator George Vertue, either because the necessary equipment was not available in England, or because it was cheaper.
Another version in gilt bronze (below) see -
Martin Folkes - medal attributed to Ottone Hamerani
Silver medal Bust of Martin Folkes, right, hair short, no drapery.
(reverse) A Sphinx, right, with crescent on its side; behind, the pyramidical tomb of Caius Sestius within the walls of Rome: above, the meridian sun. 36 mm diam
Bronze Medals as above.
.
Made in Rome, and, tradition says, by especial command of the Pope, unknown to Folkes, whom it was intended to surprise during his visit to that city. Freemasonry was originally named "Lux", and is said to have existed from the creation. The date of this medal, supposing the s to be a blunder for 5, is the year of the world or of Masonry 5742. The Masons considered the creation to have been 4000, or 4004 years anterior to the Christian era: the date of the medal may be therefore 1738 or 1742. Either date is inconsistent with the story, as Folkes' visit to Rome took place in 1733. It is much more probable that the medal was struck at Rome to show the high esteem in which Folkes was held in the city of antiquities, and about the time that he was elected a member of the French Academy. There is in the British Museum an early proof of this medal struck before the legends were added or the type of the reverse finished. (See also Medallic Illustrations 2 p558.185 (registration no. M.8450).)
See Snelling, Thomas, ‘Thirty-nine Plates of English Medals’, London, 1766, xxxiii. 5; Kluyskens, Hippolyte, ‘Des Hommes célèbres dans les Sciences et les Arts, et des Médailles qui consacrent leur souvenir’, 2 vols. Gand, 1859, Vol. I. p. 308.
British Museum
Martin Folkes, Mezzotint by James McArdell after Thomas Hudson.
Lettered below the image with the title, continuing "President of the Royal Society.", and "Thos. Hudson Pinxt. / Jas. McArdell Fecit / Price 2 Shillings". 357 x 253 mm British Museum.
Engraverd by John Faber after William Hogarth.
"Wm. Hogarth pinxt. 1741.", "J. Faber fecit 1742" and "Sold by Faber at the Golden Head in Bloomsbury Square." 327 x 223 mm. British Museum.
Mezzotint by John Smith after Jonathan Richardson.
Lettered with title, "Societatis/Regiæ Socius" and production detail, below image: "J. Richardson Pinx. 1718" and "J. Smith Fec. 1719"
339 x 247 mm. British Museum.
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Martin Folkes - John Faber after John Vanderbank -
Lettered below the image with the title, and "J. Vanderbank pinxt. 1736, / I. Faber Fecit 1737, / Sold by I Faber at the Golden Head in Bloomsbury Square". 355 x 253 mm. British Museum.
NB Bust of Isaac Newton on the wall Bracket behind.
In the Catalogue of the Welcome Library of the sale of the collection of Martin Folkes by Langfords of the Piazza Covent Garden 7 and 8th May 1755, under Plaister figures 7th May lot 4 a large bust of the earl of Pembroke, on a painted deal term, lot 5 ditto of Sir Isaac Newton on a ditto.
If this plaster bust is the same one as in the engraving and is by Roubiliac which is the most likely then it is the earliest representation of the Roubiliac busts of Newton and probably the earliest illustration of a Roubiliac bust.
There is a marble bust of the 9th Earl of Pembroke by Roubiliac at Wilton and there was a also a plaster bust of Newton now missing.
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Martin Folkes by Jonathan Richardson, Graphite on Velum.
Verso: dated by the artist in graphite: "18 Dec.1735.", inscribed "Martin Folkes Esqr" and by Jonathan Richardson II in graphite: "Aft.[erwards] Presidt of the Royal Society". Inscribed on Richardson's mount in pen, and on backing sheet by Horace Walpole, with the identification of the sitter. 179 x134 mm. - British Museum.
Martin Folkes was the eldest son of Martin Folkes and his wife Dorothy, second daughter of Sir William Hovell of Hillington Hall, near King's Lynn, Norfolk. He was born in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. In 1706-7 he attended the University of Saumur, France, and graduated Master of Arts from Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1717. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of twenty-three, he became its Vice-President in 1722-3 and was chosen in November 1741 as its President on the retirement of Sir Hans Sloane. His papers were mainly on astronomy and metrology. Folkes bequeathed to the Society his portrait by Hogarth,(1) two hundred pounds and a cornelian seal ring engraved with the Society's arms. He wrote about Roman antiquities and coins for the Society of Antiquaries of which he was elected a Fellow in February 1719/20. He was its President from 1749/50 until his death. He lived in Italy from 1733 for over two years, and visited Paris in 1739. He was a friend of Sir Isaac Newton, a patron of the naturalist George Edwards and one of the trustees of Sir Hans Sloane's will. Folkes was buried in Hillington Church, Norfolk. He was a collector of books, prints, drawings, pictures, coins and gems, and one of the sales after his death lasted fifty-six days. Folkes' principal publications are A Table of English Gold Coins, 1736, and A Table of English Silver Coins, 1745.
Folkes, who held Masonic offices and was, like Roubiliac, part of the St Martin's Lane circle, was a patron of the sculptor, and was involved with the monuments to the Duke and Duchess of Montagu and possibly the Kerridge monument in Framlingham, Suffolk, signed by Roubiliac and erected by William Folkes, Martin's younger brother.(2) The monument to Folkes' daughter, Lucretia (d. 1758), at St George, Wrotham, Kent, erected by her husband Richard Betenson is attributed to Roubiliac.(3)
This plaster bust is related to the marble made for the 9th Earl of Pembroke and dated 1749, for which there is a receipt for £35 at Wilton.(4) It was much admired by George Vertue before it went to Wilton, as well as by other writers in the 1760s.(5) Unlike the marble, the eyes are incised, a feature presumably cast from the lost terracotta. Malcolm Baker(6) believes that the Museum bust may perhaps be an 'original plaster', cast using a 'waste-mould' technique from the original clay which was lost in the process. A 'cast' of the bust is recorded 'at the Royal Society's Rooms' by Mrs Esdaile.(7)
The existence of this bust needs to be investigated and confirmed. In Proceedings of the Royal Society vol 20 for 23 Nov 1871. It notes the acceptance of busts of Folkes and Ben.Franklin long in the family of Earl Stanhope.
The sitter is depicted in a bonnet and, like other contemporaries of the sculptor, is without wig. The soft folds of his bonnet and open shirt and the long fur collar of his gown betray once more Roubiliac's skill in rendering textiles and fur. The form of the body does not differ greatly from that of Richard Bentleywhilst the fur-lined robe and the bonnet are both remarkably similar to those in the marble portrait by Roubiliac of Dean Swift in Trinity College, Dublin.(8) In 1928 Mrs Esdaile wrote, 'Of the plaster model of Martin Folkes it is enough to say that it is perhaps the finest in the Museum.'(9) It is doubtful that posterity would quibble with her judgement. She particularly remarked on the breadth and dignity of Roubiliac's undress portraits (i.e. those in which the sitter did not wear a wig, hat or other costume fitting to his rank) and his ability to face physical ugliness and wrest from it a powerful portrait.(10) Whinney(11) drew attention to 'the heavy features, the obstinate mouth, firmly closed with protruding under-lip', and considered it 'a most impressive character study'. The plaster was even more revealing, in her opinion, of the 'alert intelligence' in the sitter's face. It is impossible not to believe, as she did, that the portrait was not done from life, such is its power.
For portraits of Folkes, see Kerslake, 1977, pp. 76-8. A drawing on vellum by Jonathan Richardson inscribed on the back with the sitter's name and dated 8 December 1735 is in the British Museum.(see above )(12) A medallic portrait of Folkes was struck by Jacques Antoine Dassier in 1740;(13) a medal attributed to Ottone Hamerani, probably struck in Rome in 1738,(14) bears a sphinx, a sun and the pyramid tomb of Caius Cestus, and is said(15) to suggest a strong connection with Folkes' associate membership of the Egyptian Club, founded by gentlemen who had visited Egypt, even though Folkes himself never ventured that far.
Notes:
(1) See Andrew Moore, 'Norfolk and the Grand Tour', Norfolk Museums Service, 1985, no. 13.
(2) D. Bindman and M. Baker, Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre, New Haven and London, 1995, p. 375, n. 12 and cat. 22.
(3) Ibid, and cat. 39; John Physick considers that the Lucretia Betenson monument is more likely to be by Nicholas Read.
(4) See M. I. Webb, 'Roubiliac busts at Wilton', Country Life, 19 April 1956, p. 804, illus. The payment appears in Roubiliac's bank account on 16 November 1749. It seems unlikely that this was the full amount charged for the bust. The marble was exhibited in 'Rococo Art and Design in Hogarth's England', Victoria and Albert Museum, May-September, 1984, no. S11, still in the possession of the Earl of Pembroke, also illus. Whinney, 1988, p. 217, fig. 152 and Bindman and Baker, 1995, pp. 64-5.
(5) See Esdaile, 1928, pp.90-91. Vertue in August 1749 wrote that it was 'a most real likeness of him - his features strong and musculous, with a Natural and Just air of likeness - as much as any work of that kind ever seen - equal to any present or former ages' (quoted Webb, 1956, p. 804).
(6) Baker discusses Roubiliac's techniques in 'Roubiliac's models and eighteenth-century sculptors' working practices', in P.Volk (ed.), Entwurf und Ausführung in der europäischen Barockplastik, Munich, 1986, pp. 59-83; 'Terracotta and plaster multiples in eighteenth and early nineteenth century France', in A. Radcliffe, M. Baker, M. Mack Gerard, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. Renaissance and later sculpture, London, 1992, pp. 36-41; and 'From model to marble', in Bindman and Baker, 1995, pp. 246-55.
(7) Esdaile, 1922, XIII, p. 450.
(8) Dawson is grateful to Tessa Murdoch for the use of a photograph of the marble of Swift.
(9) Esdaile, 1928, p. 105.
(10) Ibid., p. 111.
(11) Whinney, 1988, pp. 217-18.
(12) Registration no. P&D 1902,0822.15.
(13) British Museum, registration no. C&M M.8450, purchased from Edward Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations, II, pp. 558-9, no. 185; for contemporary sources see Vertue Note Books, vol. III, Walpole Society, XXII, 1933-4, pp. 101-2, 104. A bronze example in the Victoria and Albert Museum is discussed in Rococo, 1984, S18.
(14) There are three examples of it in the Museum: a) silver, registration no. C&M M.8468; b) registration no. C&M M.8466; c) bronze, registration no. C&M M.8467. Dawson is grateful to her colleague Luke Syson for this information, and for information on medals of Folkes in general.
(15) Moore, 'Norfolk and the Grand Tour', p. 92. Moore suggested a date of 1742 for the Hamerani medal, but see Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations, II, p. 571, no. 206 and J. Montagu, Gold, Silver and Bronze: metal sculpture of the Roman Baroque, New Haven and London, 1996, p. 89, figs 137-8.
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Dr
Richard Mead MD (1673 -1754).
Plaster
Either lot 11, 2nd day or lot 13, 3rd day.
Literature: E. Beresford Chancellor, The Lives of the
British Sculptors, and those who have worked in England from the earliest days
to Sir Francis Chantrey, London, 1911, pp. 123-4; K. A. Esdaile, 'Studies of
the English sculptors from Pierce to Chantrey. XIII. Louis François Roubiliac
(1695-1762) continued', Architect, 16 June 1922, p. 450; K. A. Esdaile, The
Life and Works of Louis François Roubiliac, Oxford and London, 1928, pp. 103-5,
111-12, 120, 177, 184, pl. XXXIIa; J. Kerslake, National Portrait Gallery,
Early Georgian Portraits, London, 1977, p. 185.
Dr Richard Mead was born in Stepney, London, the son of a
Nonconformist minister. He was educated at Eton and went to Holland when his
father fled to avoid religious persecution. He attended the universities of
Utrecht (where he studied under Graevius) and Leyden, then he travelled to
Italy, graduating MD from Padua in 1695. He practised in Stepney from 1696. In
1703, after the publication of his highly acclaimed Mechanical Account of
Poisons, he was appointed physician and lecturer in anatomy to St Thomas's
Hospital and Fellow of the Royal Society. Admitted a Fellow of the College of
Physicians in 1716, he was elected its President in 1744. In 1715 he moved to
Dr John Radcliffe's house in Bloomsbury Square, and succeeded to much of
Radcliffe's practice. Alexander Pope (see registration no. 1762,0528.10)
consulted him, as did Queen Anne, King George I, King George II, Sir Isaac
Newton (see registration nos 1765,0629.1, SLMisc.1984 and SLMisc.1985) and Sir
Robert Walpole. His collection of books, manuscripts, statuary, coins, gems and
drawings was one of the largest formed in his time,(1) and he allowed anyone
who wished to do so to examine his books, medals and sculpture in his
purpose-built gallery at his later residence in Great Ormond Street. As Malcolm
Baker has remarked, Mead used busts to furnish his library.(2) A monument to Dr
Mead by Scheemakers is in Westminster Abbey.(3) Dr Maty's biography of Dr Mead
was published in 1755.(4)
The marble bust of Mead by Roubiliac was given to the Royal
College of Physicians in 1756 by Dr Anthony Askew (1722-74), who had
commissioned it after Mead's death. Esdaile(5) claimed that Roubiliac had
agreed to sculpt the bust for £50, but when Askew, who was pleased with the
result, offered £100 for it, he sent him a bill for £108-2s, which he duly
paid.
George Edwardes remarked on the physical resemblance of the bust to the
sitter.(6) It seems possible that Roubiliac used as his source a portrait of
Mead by Arthur Pond, engraved by Pond, which Mead himself disliked. This
appears to correspond with two portraits, one of about 1739, the other dated
1743, both showing him without wig.(7) The main difference between the
Roubiliac bust and the Pond portraits is that the sculptor has substituted a
classical style drapery for the loose shirt and dark coat, trimmed with gold
embroidery in the 1743 version.
A pencil drawing in the Harris Museum, Preston, inscribed Roubiliac and Dr.
Mead/508 and Dr. Mead on the mount at the left (see Dawson 1999, p. 142, fig.
38), shows the sitter in the same drapery, without wig, on a shaped pedestal.
The drawing is attributed to Nollekens, and, as Malcolm Baker has stated, it
was 'done either in Roubiliac's studio or, most likely, at the time of the
[sculptor's] sale'.(8)
Mead was also portrayed by the painters Allan Ramsay(9) and Jonathan
Richardson,(10) as well as in wax and ivory by the carver Silvanus Bevan
(1691-1765)(11) and in jasper by Josiah Wedgwood around 1778-9.(12)
The significance of the incised number 21 is unknown.
At least two coatings have been applied to the sandy yellowish-colour plaster,
which is visible under the truncation at the left where the coating has been
lost.
The sitter is shown in classical guise, his head turned slightly to proper
left. Like other contemporaries of the sculptor, Mead is shown without wig. He
is bald except for scanty hair at the sides, which is longer at the back. His
robe leaves his neck and part of his chest bare, and is draped in folds over
his left shoulder. The pupils of the small eyes are lightly indicated, and the
lids shown. The modelling of the fleshy face and rather pendulous chin, as well
as numerous wrinkles around the eyes, is meticulous, but it is the mouth which
is most expressive, conjuring up both the sitter's determination and his
humour.
Notes:
(1) Mead's pictures were sold at Langford's, 20-22 March 1754; further sales
took place on 7 April, 7 May and 15 December 1754.
(2) M. Baker, 'The portrait sculpture', in D. McKitterick (ed.), The Making of
the Wren Library, Cambridge, 1995, p. 114, n. 20.
(3) Described and discussed by I. Roscoe, 'Peter Scheemakers', Walpole Society,
vol. 61, 1999, pp. 233-4.
(4) Matthew Maty, Authentic Memoirs of the Life of R. Mead, London, 1755.
(5) Esdaile, 1928, p. 112 (no source given).
(6) Esdaile, 1928, p. 111-12, and see G. Wolstenholme (ed.) and D. Piper, The
Royal College of Physicians of London Portraits, London, 1964, p. 290, no. 6
(of six portraits of Mead).
(7) Wolstenholme (ed.) and Piper, Royal College, pp. 284-7, nos 2 and 3.
(8) M. Baker, 'The making of portrait busts in the mid-eighteenth century:
Roubiliac, Scheemakers and Trinity College, Dublin', Burlington Magazine, vol.
CXXXVII, no. 1113, December 1995, p. 824.
(9) Portrait in Foundling Hospital, London, signed and dated 1747, and a
possible studio copy in the National Portrait Gallery, Kerslake, 1977, p. 184.
(10) Ibid., pp. 183-4. There is a drawing in the British Museum by the same
artist related to the oil portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.
(11) The wax and the ivory are in the Dept of Medieval and Later Antiquities,
British Museum, reg. nos MLA 1957,1206.1 and 1957,1207.1; for a discussion of
these portraits see H. Tait, 'Wedgwood, Flaxman and an English
eighteenth-century portrait carver, Silvanus Bevan', Proc. Wedg. Soc, III,
1959, pp. 126-32.
(12) R.Reilly and G. Savage, Wedgwood: the portrait medallions, London, 1973,
pp. 236-7.
Richard Mead by Allan Ramsey, Foundling Hospital.
Richard Mead by Jonathan Richardson NPG.
Richard Mead, Royal College of Physicians, c.1740.
Richard Mead, St Thomas Hospital.
Richard Mead, Etching by Arthur Pond
Richard Mead Mezzotint after Arthur Pond
Dr Richard Mead Medal by Lewis Pingo.
English medallist. His father, Thomas Pingo (1692–1776), was an Italian medallist and die engraver who settled in London in the 1740s, and his brother, John Pingo (fl 1786–7), was also a medallist. Lewis Pingo’s earliest known medal, of Richard Mead (silver and bronze; see Hawkins, Franks and Grueber, ii, no. 388), dates from 1754. Between 1756 and 1764 he won many prizes from the Society of Arts, London, for drawings, medallions, ornamental designs.
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John
Milton (1608 -74) Plaster, lot 16 second day.
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Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744).
Plaster Bust
Alexander Pope (1688 -1744) Plaster Bust, either lot 9, First Day, lot 3 or 14 second day or lot 2 third day.
Size - 62 x 42 x 21 cms.
Images from British Museum.
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Bust of John Ray
(1627 - 1705), Terracotta, lot 177 third day.
Marble in the Wren Library Trinity
College Cambridge, dated 1751, a terracotta in Safron Walden Museum, another
on the art market London, November 1970 and later plaster in the Vand A. The drapery
similar to the Roubiliac bust of Tyers in Birmingham.
John Ray National Portrait Gallery
Engraving - John Ray by William Faithorne.
Frontispiece of the Wisdom of God by John Ray FRS.
Published in 1717 with an engraving by George Vertue after William Faithorne.
Marble bust of Ray at Trinity College, Cambridge.
A plaster bust of Ray at Braintree Museum.
Provenance and details yet to be determined.
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William
Shakespeare, (1564 -1616) Terracotta, lot 73 or lot 83 2nd day or lot 86 third
day. Another Terracotta is in the Garrick club, a plaster in the Shakespeare
memorial Library in Stratford on Avon
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Francis
Willoughby FRS (1635 - 72), terracotta, Lot 78 third day.
Francis Willoughby of Middleton Hall, Warwickshire, was admitted Bachelor of Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1656, and Master of Arts in 1659. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1663 after accompanying his tutor John Ray (see registration no. 1762,0528.14) on a botanical journey through the Midlands and North Wales the previous year. He travelled with Ray and other companions to Europe in 1663-6, ending his tour alone with a visit to Spain. His 'Account of Francis Willoughby Esq., his voyage through a great part of Spain' was published in 1673; 'Ornithologiae libri tres' and 'De Historia Piscium' appeared in 1676 and 1686 respectively, all edited, as were other works by him, by John Ray.
This fine terracotta, which was much admired by Mrs Esdaile, is the model for a marble in the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge. Signed and dated 1751, this was the gift of Edmund Garforth. Garforth, an undergraduate at Trinity from 1720 and Fellow of the college from 1726, who then moved to a living in York, married Elizabeth Willoughby, a descendant of the naturalist, in 1750.(3) In general type the bust is similar to that of Barrow (registration no. 1762,0528.16). The slight turn of the head to the proper right is typical of Roubiliac; the parted lips emphasize the realism of the portrait, in which the sitter is shown with his own, rather straggly, hair. The high collar and long hair hide the join of the head, which is hollow, to the body. Like the bust of John Ray (registration no. 1762,0528.14), this bust retains some traces of a grey surface coating, perhaps originally disguising the barely distinguishable brushmarks in the terracotta.
This information and photographs from the British Museum website -
