Bath, Art and Architecture: Thomas Winnington - the Roubiliac Bust at Stanford on Teme.

Saturday, 16 November 2024

Thomas Winnington - the Roubiliac Bust at Stanford on Teme.

The Marble bust of Thomas Winnington (1696 - 1746).

Louis Francois Roubiliac.

On the Monument in St Mary's Church at Stanford on Teme, Worcestershire.

All photographs here taken by the author under difficult circumstances.

The light was very low and the bust is high up on the monument.

The Monument is attributed to the Westminster workshop of John Cheere, and the bust carved by Roubiliac.

The Bust of Thomas Winnington has the same drapery as that on Roubiliac's busts of Sir Andrew Fountaine, and the bust on the monument to John Bamber at Barking. The busts of Andrew Fountaine the Terracotta now in Norwich castle Museum, the Marble on the monument at Narford church, Norfolk another marble at Wilton House, a plaster bust at Yale Centre for British Art, and another plaster in a private collection in Cambridge are by Roubiliac and it can be convincingly argued that the remarkably realistic bust of John Bamber as an elderly man is also by him.

Malcolm Baker has suggested that the monument possibly by Benjamin Palmer, but this is contradicted by the letter below.

see Church Monuments Society Journal, Vol X, 1995.

Malcolm Baker also points out the similarities of the feet supporting the sarcophagus to those on the monument to John Merrick in Norwood Church - it should also be pointed out that they are also very close to those on the very fine monument of John Bamber in St Margaret's Church, Barking (see photograph below) on which is the excellent bust of Dr John Bamber which can be convincingly ascribed to Roubiliac, given the use of the same drapery as that on the several busts of Andrew Fountaine and Thomas Winnington at Stanford on Teme.

Again this suggests a possible close collaboration between Henry Cheere and Roubiliac.

and see my later post - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019_04_05_archive.html

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A Letter from Henry Fox to Charles Hanbury Williams.

A letter of the 22 February 1749/50 in the Lewis Walpole Library which was discovered by Todd Longstaff Gowan, from Henry Fox to Charles Hanbury Williams who had the monument erected.

This letter requests that Hanbury Williams retainer Richard Evans should:

...."write a line to Mr Eckar (John Giles Eccardt - see image below) to deliver your picture of Mr Winnington done by Vanlo to my order. from that and Goussets (Isaac Gossett) Bas Relive of him Rouvilliac is to make a bust which may be plac'd upon a monument something like that set up to the primate Boulter (by Henry Cheere) in Westminster Abbey. You please to write in verse or prose or both shall be there inscribed, and I beg you will intend to do it now whilst You are at Colbrook".

This confirms that Roubiliac sculpted this bust using the portrait and a wax relief by Isaac Gosset.

This wax relief appears to have remained with Roubiliac and was put up for auction (Mr Winnington in Wax) at the posthumous sale of Roubiliac First day, Lot 68.

Although by no means clear this suggests that there was a definite link between Henry Cheere and Roubiliac as contractor and sub contractor.

Information above from the Roubiliac and Cheere in the 1730's and 40's Collaboration and subcontracting in 18th Century English Sculptors' Workshops by Malcolm Baker in the Church Monuments Society Journal Vol X. 1995.

Thomas Winnington.

by John Giles Eccardt (1720 -79).

after the original by van Loo.

70 x 60 cms.

Oil on canvas.

On loan to the National Trust at Lyme Park, Cheshire from Mr N Hanbury - Williams.

Image here courtesy Art UK website.

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/thomas-winnington-16961746-132574

"Stanford – a parish in the hundred of Doddingtree, upper division, 8 ½ miles W.S.W. from Stourport, and 122 from London. The church, which was erected in the year 1768, is a handsome Gothic structure, with an elegant tower built of stone dug out of a quarry close by, which was discovered just as the foundation of the church had been laid; the interior is neatly fitted up, and contains several monuments of the Winnington family, one of which is ornamented with a bust of the Right Hon. Thomas Winnington, formerly M.P. for Winchester, Lord of the Admiralty, and paymaster-general of the forces, &c. He died in 1746".

The living is a rectory, in the diocese of Hereford and archdeaconry of Salop; Rev. Edward Winnington Ingram, incumbent; instituted 1807; patron, Sir Thomas Winnington, Bart. Population, 1801, 140 – 1811, 122 – 1821, 194.

From - Worcestershire Delineated by C. and J. Greenwood pub.1822.

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The Paw on the Bamber Monument, Barking, Essex for comparison.

For many more detailed photographs etc of the Bamber Monument see -

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019_04_05_archive.html

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The Marble Bust of Dr John Bamber (1667 - 1753).

Louis Francois Roubiliac.

The body of the monument perhaps from the workshop of Henry Cheere

On the Monument in the North Aisle in St Margaret of Antioch Church, Barking, Essex.

A sadly neglected masterpiece of sculpture which deserves to be much better known.

It shows the mastery of Roubiliac and his sensitive honest portrayal of an old man.

John Bamber, M.D., was a native of Kent, practised as a surgeon. When of mature age, he withdrew from that department of practice, devoted himself to physic, and, having produced letters dismissory from the company of Barbers and Surgeons, dated 16th July, 1724, disfranchising him from that company, he was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians 5th October, 1724.

On the 12th April, 1725, he was created doctor of medicine at Cambridge, per literas Regias, as a member of Emmanuel college; and coming again before the Censors for examination, was admitted a Candidate 18th October, 1725; and a Fellow 30th September, 1726.