Comparison Photographs of the Gloucester Cathedral Plaster and the Sotheby's Marble busts of Handel.

 

Comparison Photographs of the Gloucester Cathedral Plaster and the Sotheby's Marble busts of Handel.

Also illustrated: The Grimsthorpe Terracotta, the Haendl Haus Plaster and the Royal Collection MarbleBusts.

This Post updated 20 October 2020.

 

Gloucester Cathedral Plaster - Sotheby's / Morrison marble bust.

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Grimsthorpe Terracotta - Sotheby's Marble

Handel Haus Museum (probably a Micheli cast or later copyof the Micheli Bust  - Gloucester Cathedral

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The Royal Collection Marble Bust of Handel.

71.0 x 58.0 x 26.0 cm (whole object).

The socle is unlikely to be original unless this bust is a copy - it appears that some of the busts in the Royal Collection had new turned socles to replace the originals

Handel's most important patron was George III, who placed this bust of his favourite composer in a position of honour in Buckingham House, on top of the organ in Queen Charlotte’s Breakfast Room.

Provenance:

Possibly acquired by George III ????

Photograph Courtesey the Royal Collection website.

https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/27/collection/11909/george-frederick-handel

The Royal Collection Marble Bust of Handel

Barehead version - 

The bust with soft hat which has a firmer provenance is not illustrated here

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More recent photographs of The Grimsthorpe Castle Terracotta Bust of Handel from their website

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The Aurelio Micheli Plaster Bust of Handel c. 1870.

Height 72 cms.

Gipsformerei (Plaster Workshop), Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

Copies available to order priced at a very (un)reasonable 3216.81 euros

It is a slightly truncated version of the Grimsthorpe terracotta 

- it has been slightly shortened at the bottom.

Image courtesey:

https://www.gipsformerei-katalog.de/sammlungsgebiete/19.-jahrhundert/2126/georg-friedrich-haendel

This was the master from which the bust at the Handel Haus Museum in Halle Germany was cast from (see above). It was made for Handel-Haus in 1997 by the Gipsformerei (plaster workshop) of the Stiftung Preutgischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, and that plaster was cast after a bust in their collection bearing the signature of the German sculptor, Aurelio (Mark Aurelius) Micheli (1834-1908, fl 1860-70), who specialised in portraits of notable Germans, many of them composers, and whose works appear to have been issued in multiples produced by the plaster workshop of the Micheli Brothers in Berlin.

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