Marble Bust of Oliver Cromwell, Sotheby's Milan Sale -
The Collection of Giovanni Pratesi.
I suspect that this was an added lot.
Here attributed to the Danish sculptor Lawrence Anderson Holme (fl 1759 -1777).
Exhibited at the Society of Arts 1766 (Graves 1907).
I have already posted at great length a series of essays on the portrait busts of Oliver Cromwell.
To be sold Sotheby's Milan, Lot 117, 22 March 2023.
Sotheby's Catalogue say - Attributed to the workshop of Michael Rysbrack.
See my post for the Rysbrack unsigned or dated Littleton terracotta bust of Cromwell at the National Maritime Museum, the Queens House, Greenwich. This terracotta bust was presumably the bust Lot 61 sold in the Rysbrack sale of 14 Feb 1767 -
The Holme bust pictured below was previously offered for sale by Sotheby's New York in 2012. It failed to sell.
see my previous post -
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The bust of Cromwell
(once believed lost) by the Danish born sculptor Lawrence Anderson Holme (Holm) (fl.1759
- 74) is recorded as exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1766.
see - The Biographical Dictionary of English Sculptors....pub
Yale, 2009.
It is my firm belief that this bust is the missing bust of Cromwell by Lawrence Anderson Holme.
Marble, on a granite base.
There is no doubt that this bust is of Oliver Cromwell and similar in form to the busts by Michael Rysbrack - The Terracotta is in the Queen's House, Greenwich, and a Bronze in a private collection, but there are several variations. I suspect that Lawrence Anderson Holme was an assistant or subcontracted to Michael Rysbrack.
The socle is a replacement. The form of the current base/ socle is not a shape used by Rysbrack but is similar to those sometimes used in the 17th Century.
The deeply cut chiseled back is also very unusual in an English bust of the 18th Century.
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Oliver Cromwell.
Here attributed to Lawrence Anderson Holme (fl. 1759 - 1774).
see A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain pub Yale 2009.
Height 63.5 cms.
Probably sold by London dealer Cyril Humphris of Bond Street.
see - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014_08_29_archive.html
for the busts of Newton and Pope
A little soap and water was all that was needed to reinvigorate this bust.
Photographs Courtesy Sotheby's, New York.
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A marble bust of Cromwell formerly at Langley Park. Norfolk.
Whilst it is impossible to say for certain this definitely looks like the Holme bust of Cromwell.
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Lawrence Anderson Holme (fl. c. 1759 -74).
A few biographical details.
A catalogue of the pictures, sculptures, models, drawings,
prints, &c. : exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great Britain, at the
great room in Spring-Garden, Charing Cross, May the 9th, 1761, (being the
second year of their exhibition).
A bas - relievo - Aeneas carrying his father Anchises.
excerpt from the Catalogue -
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t49p5tz8t&seq=20
The ground taken jointly by Yonge and Selby was built up over a number of years, before Selby assigned his interest to Yonge in 1779, with stables and coach-houses in Stratford Mews and small houses on Marylebone Lane, including what became the Prince of Wales or Wigmore pub at the corner of the mews.
The builders here included William Arrow, carpenter, who set up his yard and workshop at the back of the houses.
Some remaining ground at the irregular north end of the estate, partly abutting Wigmore Street, was let by Stratford in 1775 to the Danish sculptor Lauritz or Lawrence Anderson Holm, then of Castle Street, for a house and workshop.
The rest was absorbed into the Wigmore Street plots off the estate developed by the Piccadilly violin-maker Thomas Smith, one at least also leased to Holm. Note 11.
Apart from the Lysters, Herring and Calze, the only builder definitely associated with developing Stratford Place is the mason John Devall II, to whom Sayre assigned his lease of the new house No. 1 in December 1773. Few of the surnames given in the surviving notes of Stratford’s transactions with Mayne’s bank in 1771–8 can be confidently linked to work at Stratford Place.
An exception is ‘Holm’ – Stratford’s lessee Lauritz Holm the sculptor. Payments to him between June 1774 and December 1777 amounted to £470.
Very few pieces by him are known, though he was a significant figure in hisday. That Stratford seems to have owned his masterpiece Sophonisba with the cup of poison (see below) could point to him as the author of some of the Stratford House chimneypieces and the carving in the pediment.
Among others, ‘Westmacott’ must be the sculptor Richard Westmacott I. He was paid £40 in February 1774: an early date, perhaps relating to 22 Stratford Place or 160 Oxford Street rather than Stratford House. ‘Wallis’, paid £334 4s in March 1775, may be the stone-carver John Wallis, while ‘Rhodes’, paid £100 in December 1774, may be the plasterer William Rhodes, a subscriber to George Richardson’s 1776 Book of Ceilings.
Art works included paintings attributed to Andrea del Sarto, Canaletto, Carracci, Rubens and Titian; bronzes; marble busts; and a marble nude statue of Sophonisba, ‘elaborate and singularly fine’.
This last was possibly the prize-winning work of 1767 by Lauritz Holm depicting the Carthaginian suicide, Holm being one of the most important craftsmen employed by Stratford. 57
Several chimneypieces at Stratford House have excellent carving, in particular that in the front drawing room with its figures of Fame and Mars, the supporters of the Stratford arms (Ill. 6.17). They appear too in the pediment over the entrance to the house, where their treatment is animated (Ill. 6.15). The library chimneypiece, with its frieze representing branches of art and science, is also of high quality (Ill. 6.18).
Images from Google Street View.
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From Ancient Topography of London; containing not only views of buildings which in many instances no longer exist, and for the most part were never before published; but some account of places and customs either unknown, or overlooked by the London historians by Smith, John Thomas, 1766-1833.
The state Coach of Queen Anne. It was extremely heavy in its ornaments, but the pannels were beautifully painted by Sir James Thornhill. A friend of mine, Mr. Renton, is in possession of a part of one. The Earl of Carlisle, who did me the honour to shew me a representation of this coach, most excellently painted by Marco Ricci, has liberally given me permission to make an etching of it. This coach served Kings George the First and Second, and was used by our present King, when he first went to the House of Lords, and also on his marriage ; after which it was broken up; and Sir William Chambers recommended the late Joseph Wilton, Esq. R. A. and Mr. Pugello, to conduct the building of the present carriage, which was executed on the scite of the late Mr. Malone’s house in Queen Anne Street East, and is certainly in many parts highly deserving notice.
The model was made from Sir William’s design by Lawrence Anderson Holme, a Dane, who in 1765 gained a premium from the Society of Arts of 147/. for the best statue in marble.
The greatest part of the carving of the coach was executed by Nicholas Collett, a little man, and, from his superior abilities, was honoured by Mr. Waldron the actor, with the characteristic epithet of a “Garrick of a carver.” (Mr. Waldron was originally a wood-carver.)
Mr. Cipriani painted the pannels, and received the sum of 800/ for his performance. The bill for the coach was 9,000/., but it was taxed, and the real cost was 7,564/. 4v. 4 \d .; the odd pence arose from the ribbon-weaver’s bill. It was first used Nov. 15, 1762.
https://archive.org/details/b3045671x
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Cromwell after Samuel Cooper.
Engraved by George Vertue, 1732.
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Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper.
Unfinished portrait miniature of Oliver Cromwell, Lord
Protector of England (1599-1658), circa 1653, three-quarters sinister, wearing
a white lawn collar, brown background (unfinished), the reverse set with a
bloodstone plaque. On vellum oval, 3 1/8in. high. On view at Bowhill House,
Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust
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Oliver Cromwell (c.1650),
Samuel Cooper.
Miniature.
Image from the website of Apollo Magazine.
By kind permission
of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry KBE.
see -
https://www.apollo-magazine.com/cooper/
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Christian Richter. (after Samuel Cooper).
1708.
Painted on vellum - Image size: 10.5 x 8.5 cm.
Frame size: 15.6 x 14 cm.
Wallace Collection
This portrait derives from the portrait of Oliver Cromwell
in armour by Samuel Cooper, signed and dated 1656 (now in the National Portrait
Gallery; NPG 3065), which was in turn based on Cooper’s famous unfinished
portrait of Cromwell in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch. Cooper’s
miniatures of Cromwell were celebrated for their frank naturalism.
The miniature is attributed to the Swedish goldsmith and painter Christian Richter (1678-1732), who worked in England from 1702 until his death. In the first decade of the eighteenth century, Richter made a number of copies after Cooper’s portraits of Cromwell, particularly versions of the Buccleuch portrait.
The inscription ‘Sum possessor/C Richter 1708’ on the
reverse indicates that Richter owned one of Cooper’s versions of the portrait.
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For more on Samuel Cooper see -
https://philipmould.com/exhibitions/12-warts-and-all-the-portrait-miniatures-of-samuel-cooper/
Cromwell by Peter Lely (1618 - 80) after Samuel Cooper.
Mezzotint of Oliver Cromwell after Samuel Cooper by Peter Lely.
Mezzotint c. 1730
Pub. Joseph Sympson (d. 1736).
Previously in the collection of Joseph Gulston; prints
dispersed in 1786 sale.
https://www.rct.uk/collection/602227/oliver-cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
After Samuel Cooper.
Oil on canvas, feigned oval, based on a work of 1656.
29 3/4 in. x 24 3/4 in. (756 mm x 629 mm).
Purchased, 1879.
Primary Collection.
NPG 514.
see -
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01602/Oliver-Cromwell
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Gaspar van der Hagen d. 1769.
Ivory Relief.
image from the Paul Mellon photographic Archive.
see - V and A collection website.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O89694/oliver-cromwell-1599-1658-relief-van-der-hagen/
Almost certainly once fixed to a box, along with other ivory
reliefs. Brought in for opinion to the V&A in 1970. Sold at Sotheby's,
London, 8 December, 1988, lot 398. On loan to the Museum since 1992. Loan
transferred into gift and given to the museum by J. H. J. Lewis O.B.E. in 2016.
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Oliver Cromwell, Inigo Jones, John Milton and William
Shakespeare.
After Michael Rysbrack.
Four Ivory Reliefs.
Each 11.5cms high.
Sold Christies, London.
Lot 68 8th July 2010.
Three of the reliefs are after busts by Rysbrack while the
fourth - the bust of Shakespeare - is derived from the full-length marble executed by
Rysbrack's contemporary, Peter Scheemakers, for the playwright's monument in
Westminster Abbey.
Another set of four
oval ivory reliefs - portraits of Milton, King Alfred, Queen Elizabeth and
Cromwell were sold at Sotheby's London, 8 December 1988, lots 398-401.
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The Tangye Marble bust of Oliver Cromwell.
Now known not to be the bust by Lawrence Anderson Holme but a much inferior version of the Rysbrack bust.
