(Post under construction).
Christopher Hewetson, an Irish Sculptor in Rome (Part 2).
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An Anonymous Marble Bust inscribed Hewetson Fecit. and three further busts
Ardress House, County Armagh, National Trust, Norther Ireland.
website essay by Jeremy Warren.
https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/247725.4
This is one of a group of four busts which in the past were thought to represent the four seasons.
They were acquired in Italy in 1894.
Melpomene
Marble Bust
Unsigned.
This bust has been attributed to Hewetson
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625 x 410 x 240 mm.
Photographs at Ardress
House © National Trust / Bryan Rutledge.
The
sculpture is a copy of the head and bust section of a full-length sculpture of
Melpomene, the Greek and Roman Muse of Tragedy, in the Vatican Museums in Rome
(Inv. 299). The original was one of a group of sculptures discovered near Tivoli in
1774 which, after substantial restoration in some cases, was installed in 1784
in the Vatican in the Hall of the Muses. The nine Muses were female followers
of Apollo, god of the arts, each muse representing one branch of drama, music
or literature.
With her plump face and wreath of grapes and vine leaves, the bust of Melpomene quite closely resembles depictions of the god of wine Bacchus, who quite often is found in art as an allegory for the season of Autumn, hence the re-use of the sculpture here as a representation of that season. It is one of four busts of females at Ardress (NT 247725.1-4) set in niches on the Garden Front of the house, which was redesigned by the second George Ensor (1772-1845).
He may be
presumed to have acquired the busts and to have installed them as part of the
remodelling, but it is not known when and from where they came into his
possession. They have long been presented as allegories of the Seasons: Spring,
Summer, Autumn and Winter, and all four have hitherto been attributed to
Christopher Hewetson, although in fact only the sculpture described as ‘Autumn’
(NT.24775.4) is signed by him.
The Bust of Melpomene.
attributed to Christopher Hewetspn
Although it is unsigned, it is possible that the Melpomene is also a work of Hewetson’s studio. The inventory of the contents of the studio, drawn up following the sculptor’s death on 15 November 1798, included among a substantial number of copies after the Antique, a bust of Melpomene after the Vatican statue, described in detail: ‘A copy in marble of the head of Melpomene, copied from the statue of that subject in the Clementine Museum, without a pedestal and unfinished. Valued at 55 scudi’ (‘Una copia in marmo della testa di Melpomene copiata dà quella del Clementino Museo, senza pieduccio e non terminata. Si valuta scudi cinquantacinque.’).
The Melpomene is indeed mounted on a socle of quite different marble from the other busts at Ardress, which might suggest it was the copy made by Hewetson, as does also the rarity of copies of the head of the Vatican statue.
Described in the Hewetson inventory as unfinished, it would presumably have been completed by one of Hewetson’s assistants, perhaps Cristoforo Prosperi, who is known to have finished the portrait bust of Sir John Courtenay Throckmorton, 5th Bt (1754-1819) at Coughton Court (NT 135688).
Hewetson seems to have had a particular interest in the figure of Melpomene,
since the inventory also included a small-scale copy of the whole statue (Coen
2012, pp. 96-97; Suárez Huerta 2014, p. 14)
References -
Coen 2012:
Paolo Coen, ‘Christopher Hewetson: Nuovi documenti, nuove interpretazioni’,
Bollettino d’Arte, 7th.Series, no. 15 (2012), pp. 87-100, p. 97.
Suárez
Huerta 2014: Ana María Suárez Huerta, ‘Will and Inventory of Christopher
Hewetson (c1737–1798)’, The British Art Journal, 15, no. 2 (2014), pp. 3-17, P.
7
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An Anonymous female bust.
Christopher Hewetson.
Inscribed by Hewetson.
At the time of writing I think that this is perhaps either the bust of Hon. Sarah Archer (1762-1838), Countess of Plymouth & Countess Amherst of Arracan or of Lady Agnes Carnegie (1763-1860).
We know that busts of both of these women were in the studio of Hewetson when he died.
see -
(Sarah Archer was the daughter of Andrew Archer, 2nd Lord Archer, Baron of Umberslade and his wife, Sarah West.
She married her first cousin, Other Hickman Windsor, 5th Earl of Plymouth FRS (1751-1799) on 20 May 1778 and the couple had three children: Other Archer, 6th Earl of Plymouth (1789-1833), Maria (1790-1855) and Harriet (1797-1869).
After Lord Plymouth's death, Sarah married William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst of Arracan (1773-1857) and son of Lt.Gen. William Amherst and Elizabeth Paterson, on 24 July 1800 at St. George's Church, Hanover Square in London.
The couple had four children: Sarah Elizabeth (1801-1876),
Jeffrey (1802-1826), William, 2nd Earl Amherst (1805-1886) and Frederick
Campbell (1807-1829). Sarah died aged 75 at 66 Grosvenor Street, London and was
buried on 5 June 1838 at Riverhead, Sevenoaks in Kent).
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https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auctions/scottish-paintings-and-sculpture-643/lot/106
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Photographs above - Ardress House © National Trust / Bryan Rutledge.
The Anonymous Female Bust.
Christopher Hewetson.
https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/247725.4
National Trust.
Ardress House County, Armagh.
The website essay
The sculpture is one of four busts of females at Ardress (NT 247725.1-4) set in niches on the Garden Front of the house, which was redesigned by the second George Ensor (1772-1845). He may be presumed to have acquired the busts and to have installed them as part of the remodelling, but it is not known when and from where they came into his possession.
They have long been presented as
allegories of the Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and all four have
hitherto been attributed to Christopher Hewetson, although in fact only the
present sculpture is signed by him.
This beautiful sculpture clearly originated as a portrait of an unknown woman and, as such, has nothing to do with the season of Spring. Appreciation of its qualities has hitherto been obscured by its being considered a generalised allegorical work, lumped together with three other quite different sculptures.
It is tempting to try to identify this strongly characterised individual with one of the portrait busts of female sitters that Hewetson is known to have made in the course of his career.
His portraits of women are much rarer than those of men. They include unlocated and undescribed portraits of Emma, Lady Hamilton (1765-1815; Breffny 1986, no. 12), which it is known had not been paid for at the time of Hewetson’s death, and one of the painter Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807; Breffny 1986, no. 14).
Neither of these well-known females would seem to be the sitter in the marble bust.
After his death on 15 November 1798, an inventory was made of the contents of Hewetson’s workshop, including a number of portrait busts, mostly of British sitters, in various stages of completion.
The two female sitters within this group were, firstly, 'Lady Carneghi’, presumably Agnes Murray Elliot (1763-1860), wife of the Scottish politician Sir David Carnegie (1753-1805) (Coen 2012, p. 97; Suárez Huerta 2014, p. 8, no. 3),
Secondly ‘Miledy Plymouth’, the bust described as finished (‘compito’. Coen 2012, p. 98; Suárez Huerta 2014, p. 10, no. 14). This must have been Sarah Windsor, Countess of Plymouth (1762–1838), the botanist and naturalist who became Countess Amhurst through her second marriage. Both women would have been in the their mid-thirties when they were being modelled by Christopher Hewetson, which would seem to correspond to the age of the sitter in the Ardress bust.
All fourteen of the modern busts listed in the inventory had already been paid for, so it might seem improbable that they were not all sent to the person who had commissioned them, as indeed happened with the bust of Sir John Throckmorton, discussed below.
However, an argument for the possible identification of the Ardress portrait as one of the busts in Hewetson’s studio at the time of his death is the form of the signature, ‘HEWETSON FECIT’ ('Hewetson made this’). Hewetson invariably included some form of his first name Christopher in his other recorded signatures, so this might imply the signature was added after the sculptor’s death, by a member of his workshop.
Christopher Hewetson’s principal assistant at the time of his death was the sculptor Cristoforo Prosperi, also named by Hewetson as the main beneficiary of his will.
The portrait bust of Sir John Courtenay Throckmorton, 5th Bt (1754-1819) at Coughton Court (NT 135688) is also among the fourteen modern portrait busts in the inventory (Coen 2012, p. 97; Suárez Huerta 2014, p. 8, no. 2), described as two thirds completed , the inscription applied to the bust in 1800 confirming that it was finished by Prosperi.
It is on an identical entablature and socle
to the portrait of a woman at Ardress. It is also possible that another of the
busts at Ardress, the ‘allegory of Autumn’, in fact a copy after a figure of
the Muse Melpemone (NT 247725.2) was also in Hewetson’s workshop at the time of
his death.
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The Third Bust at Ardress - certainly not by Hewetson.
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