Sarah Siddons (1755 - 1831).
Self Portrait Bust.
Plaster.
55.2 cms.
Mrs Siddons was the subject of about 400 portraits.
Probably the most painted and engraved sitter of the late 18th century.
This post is about the three dimensional representations of Sarah Siddons and some of her female contemporaries.
Sarah Siddons, née Kemble, was born into a touring company of actors led by her father Roger Kemble. She and her brother, John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), became the leading stars of their generation.
Although Sarah’s debut on the London stage in 1775 was not a success, she was invited back to London after triumphant appearances at the Theatre Royal in Bath and became the talk of the town, much favoured by the royal family.
She was admired in her private life for her virtue as a wife and mother, and on stage she was acclaimed for her performances in tragedy.
Joshua Reynolds immortalised her as the tragic muse in his portrait of 1784. Shakespeare provided her with some of her greatest roles, notably Lady Macbeth, Hermione in The Winter’s Tale and Queen Katherine in Henry VIII.
Mrs Siddons was a friend of the sculptor Anne Seymour Damer, who produced a bust of Siddons as the Tragic Muse.
In 1790 Henry Siddons, the feckless husband of the famous actress, Sarah Siddons, wrote an unpleasant verse about Eliza Farren and Anne Damer: -
“Her little stock of private fame/Will fall awreck to public Clamour/ If Farren leagues with one whose Name/ Comes near—Aye very near—to Damn Her.” (Highfill, 5:172)
In Damer's studio at Strawberry
Hill, as Mrs Siddons mentions 'whenever she was with Mrs Damer they indulged in
their passion for Sculpture'.
Mrs Siddons began modelling in clay in 1789, assisted by her friend Anne Seymour Damer (T. Campbell, Life of Mrs Siddons, 1834, II, pp 166-7; R. Asleson ed., A Passion for Performance, Sarah Siddons and her Portraitists, exhibition catalogue, Getty Museum, 1999, p 28).
A medallion
portrait was engraved W. Ridley 1796 as after a Medallion modelled by Mrs
Siddons.
A Bust of Mrs Siddons by J. C. Rossi, was exhibited RA 1792 (744).
In 1794 a cast of a bust of Siddons by Anne Seymour Damer, as Melpomene, with vine leaves in her hair, exhibited RA 1795 (733). Terracotta version, dated 1794, private collection (illus. Hidden Treasures, Oxford, 1993, p 47).
A Bust by Thomas Banks, exhibited RA 1796 (873 Bust of
Melpomene) identified in the True Briton, 26 April 1796 (P. H. Highfill, K. A.
Burnim and E. A. Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary of Stage Personnel in
London, 1660-1800, Wal. Soc., XIV, p 66, no.362
A cast of a bust by Anne Seymour Damer, as Melpomene, with
vine leaves in her hair, exhibited RA 1795 (733). Terracotta version, dated
1794, private collection (illus. Hidden Treasures, Oxford, 1993, p 47)
A Bust by George Bullock, exhibited in the artist’s Birmingham
studio 1800, possibly a wax (C. Wainwright, George Bullock, 1988, pp 145-6,
no.73).
A Bust of Siddons by plaster caster Benjamin Papera supplied to Wedgwood (R. Reilly, Wedgwood, 1989, II, p 457).
A Colossal bust by George Bullock, exhibited RA 1808, no.916
(C. Wainwright, George Bullock, 1988, p 146, no.75).
see
An extract below
"In 1788, the potter Josiah Wedgwood introduced a radical new
sub-section under the banner of his popular Heads of Illustrious Moderns, from
Chaucer to the Present Time focused on historical and contemporary women and
entitled “Femmes Célèbres”. Wedgwood celebrated the lives and achievements of
twenty-eight elite, white women of immense privilege and beauty, but also
objectified and commodified them for his financial gain".
.....................
The 1999 Getty Exhibition Catalogue.
Sarah Siddons and her Portraitists.
https://www.getty.edu/publications/resources/virtuallibrary/0892365579.pdf
A reference to a bust of Mrs. Siddons appears in a Flaxman
letter to Wedgwood, dated 5 February 1784:
"Since I repaired [improved or altered] the bust of Mrs. Siddons after moulding, a friend of mine, J. B. Burgess, Esq., of Bedford Square, has been very desirous to purchase it, to set it with the model of Mercury and several other models he has of mine. As you have the mould of the model, I think it cannot be of much use. To let Mr. Burgess have it will oblige him, and be of some advantage to me. You may depend on this, no other use will be made of it than being placed in his study, and if I have your permission to sell it to him, I shall take off half of my charge for it in your bill".
.....................................
Mrs Siddons
John Downman
c. 1787.
Lettered with title and "J.Downman delt / P.W.Tomkins
sculpt late pupil of F.Bartolozzi / Publd as the Act directs by M.Lawson No.168
Strand"
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1873-0712-753
The original drawing is with the NPG
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw05798/Sarah-Siddons-ne-Kemble
................................
Bust of Sarah Siddons.
by James (sometimes Joachim) Smith. (1775 - 1815).
Plaster.
H 72 x W 46 x D 26 cm
Inscribed J. Smith Fecit / Published Dec 10 1812.
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
Smith lived in the Marylebone, London. He was the son of James Smith, also a sculptor or stonemason.
From 1795 he attended the Royal Academy Schools. In 1797 he won their Gold Medal for "Venus Wounded by Diomede". After training he joined the studio of John Charles Felix Rossi.[2]
He also assisted Mrs Damer on several works.
In 1810 he was commissioned by the Common Council of Aldermen to create a cenotaph to Admiral Nelson for the Guildhall, London. This marble monument cost £4442 (£360,000 in 2021) and was won in competition against his mentor Charles Rossi and against the recommendation of the Royal Academy. The Aldermen however were very slow in paying his bill.
He died in London on 28 April 1815.
Princess Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, known as Caroline of Brunswick, was the third child of the seven children of Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Augusta of Great Britain the elder sister of King George Ill of England
Born in Brunswick Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel now in the German state of Lower Saxony, on May 17, 1768.
Signed and dated to the reverse P. Turnerelli
Sculp.t 1821.
Peter Turnerelli was an Irish born sculptor of Italian
origin who studied under Peter Francis Chenu and joined the Royal Academy
schools. From 1797 to 1800 he taught modelling to the daughters of George III
and was subsequently Sculptor-in-Ordinary to the Royal Family.
On the left is a bust of her father, the Duke of Brunswick,
which Caroline had herself sculpted.
The Princess had already been painted by Lawrence in 1798 (V & A Museum, reproduced Sir Walter Armstrong, Lawrence, 1913, plate IX and (in colour) Connoisseur, December 1912).
On 6 September 1804 Joseph Farington records Lawrence's immense popularity and the Princess's intention to sit again, for a half-length.
She sat for him in November in Greek Street (Farington, Diary, 17
November 1804) where the portrait remained until Lawrence's death and the sale
of his effects at Christie's in 1830-31 (Kenneth Garlick, ‘Catalogue of
Paintings, Drawings and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence’ in Walpole Society
Journal, XXXIX, 1964).
Lawrence's assistant Richard Evans wrote to the Director of the NPG in 1868, shortly after the portrait's acquisition: 'The Portrait of Queen Caroline was painted by Lawrence about the year 1804 and was in my painting room in his house during the time I was his pupil, when she was taking lessons in modelling from an Italian of the name of Turnerelli who lived a few doors below Lawrence's house in Greek St Soho.
At the death of the painter it was sent with the other of his effects to Christie & Manson's for sale and I purchased it from thence.
Lord Berwick coming frequently to my house at that
time saw the picture and nothing would do but that he must have it, so it was
sold to him about the year 34 or 35 … I may mention that William Lord Berwick
was Ambassador at Naples at the time the Queen returned from her foreign
travels. This may account for his wish to possess the picture' (letters from
Evans in NPG archive).
The portrait was acquired by the NPG from Berwick's nephew,
the 6th Baron, who sold part of the family collection at Christie's in 1864.
The modelling tool in her right hand indicates her known skill as a sculptor.
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