Post under construction.
Updated and edited 11 August 2025.
to be completed
This post was prompted by seeing the relief with London dealers Libson Yarker.
Oedipus before the Temple of Furies at Colonus.
The story from Sophocles.
Previously misidentified as a Relief with Diogenes.
by William Tyler RA. (1728 - 1801). London.
I cannot claim any responsibility for the excellent research into the Tyler terracotta.
See the instagram post from Libson Yarker -
https://www.instagram.com/p/C8ZjvtrIFAG/?img_index=1
I have posted the notes here in order to shed a little more light on the known assistants working with Louis Francois Roubiliac.
These men included possibly John Adkins, Flaxman the Elder, James Lambert.
......................
Christian Carlsen Seest (Siste) d. 1768 - from 1756 to 1759. a native of Denmark he was in Paris in 1742 his second visit to England? was Michaelmas 1750
The Danish national economist , Professor Martin Hübner, who met Seest in London 1754, found him "bien habil" , and George Vertue says of Seest that "he is an Ingenious man draws very well & models in good manner and Taste".
The bust of George Vertue mentioned in his journal (Vertue III -154) which is now missing was sculpted by Seest (Siste).
Vertue says a bust a modell done of my own portrait, a head only by one who was workman to Mr Rubillia. This man came from Denmark and had been some years in ... and Holland but first in England and lately has returned to England again. Now constantly works for Mr Rubilliac, his name is Siste. He is an ingenious man. draws very well and modells in good manner and taste.
Another Dane (he had English father and Danish Mother) who was working in London from 1727 until 1746.
The magnificent monument to Charles Lord Maynard of 1746 at little Easton Essex - a link to Roubiliac is the repetition on the dress on the bust of Elizabeth Lady Maynard and Mary Okeover currently I am unable to locate the bust of Mary Okeover but it also repeats the use of the late Roubiliac type socle)
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/03/maynard-monument-by-charles-stanley.html
......................
Nicholas Read from 1756 who took over Roubiliac's workshop and business in St Martins Lane after his death in 1762.
...................
Nathaniel Smith from 1755 - 61, (father of JT Smith the engraver and author of Nollekens and his Times, 1828).
At the Free Society exhibited 1763. Mr. Nathaniel Smith, his address was given as St. Martin's Lane.
210, A busto as large as the life. 211, A figure of
Time, imitating a
bronze.
..................
James Lambert exhibited a bust at the Society of Artists (untraced) in 1763, and was a member of the St Martin's Lane Academy (Pyne - 1 - 1823.)
.....................
William Tyler. RA (c1728 - 1801).
Tyler studied at Westminster School, adm. (aged 9). May 1737; BB 1741; left 1743;
A contemporary at Westminster of David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield) and appears to have commenced his working life as an assistant to Louis Francois Roubiliac at his studio workshop at St Martin's Lane.
It is not known when he left the Roubiliac studio.
The Terracotta Relief of Oedipus before the Temple.
Dated 1765.
Currently with London Dealers Libson Yarker.
https://www.libson-yarker.com/pictures/oedipus-before-the-temple-of-furies-at-colonus
Sold Sotheby's 5 July 2022. Lot 225.
.......
His sale, Sotheby's, New York, 10-11 January 1995, lot 74. as Diogenes.
English private collection, to 2023.
Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 4th July, 2023, lot 52 as Diogenes.
.........................
Oedipus before the
Temple of the Furies between his Daughters Antigone and Ismene.
Anton Raphael Mengs (1728 -79).
c. 1760 - 61.
Mengs was born in Bohemia the son of a Danish painter.
Mengs left Rome for Spain in 1763, returning to Rome in 1777.
Pen and wash over Graphite.
Sheet: 7 1/2 × 8 3/4 in. (19 × 22.3 cm)
Metropolitan Museum. New York.
According to an
inscription on the verso of Mengs’s drawing now in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York and identified here as being in the hand of the dealer Thomas
Jenkins, states that the drawing was specifically made: ‘as an imitation of the
antique in order to be engraved, Pichler accordingly copied it for me, who
procured the drawing of Mengs himself in 1763 upon a fine onyx. Ld Montagu has
its companion, Priam at Achilles’s feet, drawn by Mengs & engraved by
Pichler.’
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/625439
This drawing is based on a gem carved by Pichler.
Tyler was a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768. Though nominated to the Royal Academy as an architect, he was usually represented at its exhibitions by busts and low reliefs.
Tyler married in
1750, aged 22, and is said to have initially lived in Dean Street, Soho according to Nollekens.
His address is given as Vine Street from 1763 until 1784, Gower Street from 1784 when he took out an insurance policy with the Sun Insurance Co., and Caroline Street, Bedford Square until 1801where he died on 6 September. He was interred in the family vault at Tottenham.
Perhaps not coincidental Vine Street was also the address of the sculptor Peter Scheemakers d. 1781.
For my blog entry on Tyler and Oxford Sculpture see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/04/memorial-to-joseph-smith-by-william.html
......................
The Pichler Gem.
This plaster impression from -
Harvard Arts Museum.
4.1 x 4.5 x 1 cm (1 5/8 x 1 3/4 x 3/8 in.)
Inscriptions and
Marks -
Signed: lower edge:
[pi iota chi lambda epsilon rho] [=PICHLER]
inscription: lower
edge, relief, Greek, in artist's hand: [epsilon pi omicron iota epsilon iota]
[=made]
I have adjusted this image in photoshop in attempt to make it clearer.
Johann Anton Pichler. Gem-engraver, born at Brixen in Tyrol, on 12. April 1697, died at Rome, on 14. September 1779.
Cristiano Dehn (1696 - 1770) of the Via Condotti (his shop was later in the Via Babuino, then in the Corso in Rome) included an impression of the Pichler gem after Mengs’s design in a tray of impressions of antique gems and ‘antique’ designs.
As Steffi Roettgen has pointed out, the subject Mengs treats,
the blind Oedipus, led by his daughters to the temple of the Eumenides at
Colonus was iconographically unique; it appears to be the first time a modern
artist treated the subject of Sophocles’s play.
..........................
Tray J from a cased cabinet of 18 Drawers containing 1350 plaster casts of Antique gems by Cristiano Dehn.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1985-1004-1-j
........................
The drawing of the Pichler Gem by Angelica Kaufman.
Probably drawn in Rome - 1762 - 66.
From the collection of G. Vallardi, Contessa Imeretinsky, B. Ceccato, and Vit. Mandl.
One of a collection of 137 drawings most of which were likely given or sold by Kauffman to Giuseppe Vallardi in 1800, when the artist was living in Rome towards the end of her long and eventful life.
Vallardi, a print dealer in Milan who was an active patron of
neoclassical art, pasted the various sized drawings into a bound volume. After
passing through the collections of the Countess Imeretinsky, B. Ceccato, and
Vit. Mandl, the volume was sold to the Victoria and Albert Museum by F.R. Meatyard in 1927.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O760732/drawing-angelica-kauffman/
.........................................
For a good potted
biography of William Tyler by Greg Sullivan see -
Tyler was an
accomplished monumental sculptor and architect and a founder member of the
Royal Academy. From references in Joseph Farington’s Diary his date of birth
can be fixed as being between 1727 and 1729. Tyler’s family background is
obscure although he described himself as the ‘son and grandson of a citizen [of
London]’ (CLRO MSS 5.18 quoted in Roscoe 1997 (2), 181), and it is known that
his mother died, aged 88, in January 1795. His family must have been
well-to-do, as Tyler was sent to Westminster School, and was subsequently
placed with the leading sculptor of the day, Louis François Roubiliac, with
whom he studied for ‘many years’ (ibid).
Tyler married when he
was 22 and Joseph Nollekens RA later recalled that in about 1760 he ‘lived in
Dean Street nearly opposite Anne’s Church, where his wife kept a shop and sold
watch springs or something of the kind’ (Farington, vol 4, 1316). Tyler must
already have had an established business as a sculptor by this time for in the
early 1760s he applied for two of the most lucrative commissions of the day. In
1760, in competition with his former master, (Roubiliac) he submitted a design for the
monument in Westminster Abbey to General Wolfe (5) and in January 1762 he
offered himself as a candidate for the statue of George III in the Royal
Exchange. In both cases the commission went to Joseph Wilton RA.
Tyler played a role
in all the fledgling art institutions of the capital. In 1760 he was one of the sculptors involved in the programme of arts connected with the Foundling
Hospital, and he exhibited at the Society of Artists exhibitions from their
inception in 1760. In 1765 he became one of the Society’s directors, and in
December 1768 he was one of the 40 artists whose names appear on the
‘Instrument of Foundation’ of the Royal Academy. The only other sculptors to
achieve the latter distinction were Wilton and Agostino Carlini.
From 1763 to 1784
Tyler had premises in Vine Street, Piccadilly. His earliest known work is a
very competent multi-figured relief of Diogenes, carved in several gradations
(72). He appears to have specialised in monuments of a modest size, sometimes
working in collaboration with the architects Robert Adam (10) and Henry Keene
(27, 41). Working to Keene’s design he carved the remarkable rococo monument to
the 3rd Earl of Lichfield which has two urns in a recessed oval niche, set in a
convex frame of yellow marble and surmounted by a white marble oak tree (27).
Several of his earliest known monuments have expressive portrait busts in the manner of Roubiliac, for instance the memorials to Joseph Smith, Samuel Vassall and Thomas Jones (2, 12, 18). His use of multi-coloured marbles and lively putti suggests he was also influenced by Sir Henry Cheere and Sir Robert Taylor.
Elements in Tyler’s compositions were sometimes repeated: cherubs decorating an
urn with garlands appear on the monuments to the 4th Earl of Lichfield and the
2nd Viscount Ashbrook (41, 50) and were later used by Nollekens. The detailing
and finish of Tyler’s monuments is always of a very high standard.
He also sent out
chimneypieces, including one to a design by Sir William Chambers for Milton
Hall, 1772 (67). At this time Tyler’s business must have been in difficulties,
for Chambers wrote to Lord Fitzwilliam enclosing Tyler’s bill and adding ‘If it
is convenient to your Lordship, Mr. Tyler will, I believe, be very thankful for
the money as he told me in confidence he was as poor as could be’ (Chambers’s
Letter-Books, BL Add MS 41133).
In another letter
Chambers passed on Tyler’s thanks to Lord Fitzwilliam for looking after Tyler’s
man, who had fallen sick when working at Milton (ibid). In about 1773 Tyler
embarked on a tour of Derbyshire and Yorkshire with the painter Francis Cotes
and the author Theodosius Forrest. An anonymous account of the tour records
that Tyler used the trip to find business, securing a commission for a
chimneypiece from Lady Rockingham at Wentworth Woodhouse (68).
Some time after 1779
he appears to have gone into partnership with his former pupil, Robert Ashton
I, with whom he signed several monuments (47, 48, 56, 57). Their greatest
achievement together is the monument to Dr Martin Folkes (56), which has a
full-size seated statue of the dignified scholar leaning on his publications.
In the 1780s Tyler practised increasingly as an architect, designing the Villa Maria at Kensington for the Duchess of Gloucester (now demolished), and making alterations to a house in Hampton Court for the Duke, for whom he also acted as an ‘agent’ (Farington, vol 3, 796, 14 March 1797).
He worked on two gaols, Maidstone and Dorchester, and designed the town hall in Bridport. Colvin believed his finest work as an architect was the Ordnance Office in Westminster, 1779-80, which was demolished in 1805.
Tyler may also have worked on a project in Derby, where he travelled
with Sir John Soane in 1796. Nollekens told Joseph Farington that Tyler was
appointed mason or bricklayer to the Board of Ordnance by Lord Amherst
(Farington vol 4, 1316), for whose family Tyler also produced two church
monuments (51, 58).
Tyler was a prominent member of the Royal Academy in the 1790s, despite suffering from fevers, rheumatism and diabetes. He played a role in the attempted removal of Sir Joshua Reynolds as president in 1790 and contributed many reminiscences to Farington’s projected history of the progress of the arts in England.
In 1796
he and his friend George Dance (whose portrait of Tyler hangs in Burlington
House) became the Academy’s first auditors. They put the financial affairs of
the Academy onto a more professional footing and several of their reforms are
still in force. In 1799 Tyler was presented with a silver cup for his efforts.
He wrote a short account of his own life for the first volume of Dance’s
Portraits of Academicians in 1798.
Tyler died in his
house in Caroline Street, Bedford Square, on 6 September, 1801. In his will he
requested to be buried in the family vault in the churchyard of Tottenham High
Cross. He left £1,000 in shares to pay for the apprenticeship of his son William
Jackson, who was then ten years old and lived with his mother Mary Jackson at
Overton, near Ellesmere, Salop.
Despite early
financial difficulties, Tyler’s practice in sculpture and architecture had
ultimately been profitable: he left property in Upper Seymour Street, Portman
Square, Gower Street and Bedford Square, and a sum of £2,450 in named and
numbered gifts, including £100 to Robert Ashton II. He also left provision for
his sister, Mary.
On seeing the press
report of the death of his ‘worthy friend,’ Farington, wrote a brief tribute in
his diary to a ‘cheerful’ and ‘good-humoured’ man whose ‘convivial and social
turn of mind’ had done much to bring harmony to an often factious Royal Academy
(Farington, vol 5, 1618).
The reactions of
other contemporaries were less generous, for Tyler’s artistic abilities were
not felt to be equal to his status as an Academician. Nathaniel Marchant said
he ‘was no artist,’ whilst King George III, in conversation with Benjamin West
after Tyler’s death, was baffled as to how such ‘an odd man’ came to be an
Academician at all (Farington, vol 3, 827; vol 6, 2214).
The short notice of
Tyler in the DNB (1885-1900) dismissed him as a sculptor of little ability, and
Whinney has subsequently called him ‘relatively unimportant’ (Whinney 1988,
269).
Gunnis however felt
that Tyler’s busts were ‘extremely well modelled’ and that his monuments had
‘great charm’ (Gunnis 1968, 404).
More recently Malcolm Baker
has provided a new biography for the ODNB and he concludes that Tyler’s
monuments are stylistically progressive? and show a high quality of execution,
whilst Tyler himself deserves recognition for his role in the institutions
which shaped sculptural practice in the late-18th century. (Inf. Roger Smith).
MGS
Archival References:
Forrest’s Tours, fols 22-56.
Miscellaneous
Drawings: Denison of Ossington Papers, Notts Univ library, MSS and Special
Colls, De 2 P/14-16, proposed designs for the monument to William Denison with
an estimate of £412 (unexecuted).
For his Will: PROB
11/1363/619, 19 September 1801.
..................
Tyler Exhibited at the Society of Artists.
1760. 99 A Design for General Wolfe's Monument.
1761.
164 A bust.
165 Ditto. Vine Street, Piccadilly, 1764. 159 A model; a basso-relievo, the story of Narcissus.
1765.
181 A monumental medallion; a
model.
182. A tablet, Bacchus sleeping; This could conceivably have been the Relief from Catherine Malones Monument in Bath Abbey - removed in the 19th Century and discovered by archaeologists beneath the Abbey Floor in 2020
ditto. 183. A ditto; a lion couchant;
ditto. 1766. 218 A model of the Thames, with his commercial attributes.
1767. 213 A bust of a gentleman.
.................................
William Tyler.
Portrait Drawing by George Dance.
24.7 x 219.7 cms
1796.
Christie's. London Lot 127 7 Dec 2016. Sold along with portraits of Joseph Wilton and Thomas Hardwick
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6045015
In 1795 Tyler and Dance were appointed to examine the accounts of the Royal Academy following the resignation of Sir William Chambers (1723-1796). The subsequent year Tyler and Dance were appointed the Academy's first auditors, with the aim of setting up firm financial policies for the Institution. For these Tyler was presented with a silver cup in 1799.
....................
William Tyler.
Drawing by George Dance.
1796.
Royal Academy.
by Charles (Cantelowe, Cantlo) Bestland, after Henry Singleton
Stipple engraving,
published 1802 (1795).
11 1/2 in. x 15 in.
(292 mm x 381 mm) plate size; 13 1/2 in. x 19 1/2 in. (343 mm x 494 mm) paper
size.
..............
There is a portrait drawing by William Daniel in the British Museum (not digitalised).
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1925-0511-26-131
...................................
A List of Monumental Sculptural Works by William Tyler.
This needs to be updated.
The Memorial with bust to
Joseph Smith at Queen's College, Oxford (1756).
.................................
The Monument to Thomas Spencer at Guisborough, Cleveland
1759.
.........................
Monument to Francis Gastrell in Oxford Cathedral
1761.
...........................
Monument to Ann
Wyndham in Earsham (1762).
Monument to Thomas
Crosfield in Northallerton (1765).
......................................
Memorial with bust to Samuel Vassall in King's Chapel, Boston, USA.
1766.
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~nyterry/genealogy/vasall/vassallnotes.html
There is also an interesting Mural Monument of 1754 to Frances Shirley including a portrait bust by Peter Scheemakers in the same building.
.....................................
Memorial with bust to
Thomas Marriott in Finchingfield (1766).
...............................
Memorial to Thomas
Carew in Crowcombe (1766).
.............................
Memorial to Richard
Smith in Chichester Cathedral (1767).
..........................
Monument to actor Charles
Holland in St Nicholas, Chiswick Parish Church (1769).
Image courtesy the website of Bob Speel.
http://www.speel.me.uk/chlondon/chiswickch.htm
..........................
Monument to Sir John Cust, 3rd Baronet in St Peter and St Paul, Belton, Lincolnshire (1770).
This excellent monument repeats the basic design of the monument to Andrew Fountaine in the Church at Narford, Norfolk
Image above from -
http://www.churchmonumentsgazetteer.co.uk/Lincolnshire-1.html
The Drawing for the Cust monument in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Pen and Wash.
35.7 x 26.4 cm
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1293851/drawing-tyler-william-ra/
.............................
Memorial to Robert
Dinwiddie in Clifton Parish Church (1770).
Memorial to Thomas
Jones (1729-1762) in Southwark Cathedral (1770).
Monument to Francis
Colman in St Mary Abbots in Kensington (1771).
............................
Monument to George Lee, 3rd Earl of Lichfield
in All Saints, Spelsbury Parish Church, Oxfordshire
(1772).
For a series of photographs of the Spelsbury Monuments see -
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amthomson/albums/72157653055725329/
Detail of the monument to the 3rd Earl Lichfield, Sir George
Henry Lee (d.1772), and his wife Diana (d.1779). A superb piece of sculpture
designed by Henry Keene and carved by William Tyler. The central recess
containing funerary urns is a most unusual feature.
......................................
Monument to the actor
Barton Booth in Westminster Abbey (1772).
https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/barton-booth/
.......................
Memorial to Mrs
Thomas in Bletchingley (1772).
Monument to Lady Cust
in Belton Church (1772).
Memorial to the
Countess of Rochford in St Osyth, Essex (1773).
...............................
Monument to Anne Jemima Yorke in Marchwiel Church (1773).
.......................
Memorial to Dr
Zachary Pearce in Westminster Abbey (1774).
The bust on the monument was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1777, no 351.
...............................
Memorial to General
Stringer Lawrence in Westminster Abbey (1775).
..............................
Memorial to General
Stringer Lawrence in Dunchideock Church (1775).
There is a life-size marble statue at the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office London, sculpted in 1764 by Peter Scheemakers showing Major General
Stringer Lawrence "father of the Indian army" dressed as a Roman
general. It was commissioned by the East India Company in 1760 and is inscribed
on the front: "Major General Stringer Lawrence. A.D. 1764"
Another Statue by Peter Scheemakers, standing in the centre of the ground floor of the triangular Lawrence
Tower www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/tvDUdU on the Haldon Estate.
.............................
Memorial to Bishop
Smyth in Lincoln Cathedral (1775).
Monument to William
Pym in Sandy, Bedfordshire (1775).
Monument to[Richard
Astell in Everton, Bedfordshire (1775).
................................
Memorial to the
Robert Lee, 4th Earl of Lichfield at Spelsbury (1776) to a design by Henry
Keene.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amthomson/albums/72157653055725329/with/17515224743
................................
Monument to John
Harris at St George's Church, Georgeham in Devon (1776).
Monument to Sarah
Boteler in Eastry, Kent (1777).
Monument to Thomas
Lewis in Old Radnor.
........................
Monument to Charles
and Mary Long in Saxmundham (1778).
..........................
Monument to George
Perrott in Laleham (1780).
Memorial to General
William Amherst in Sevenoaks, Kent (1781).
...........................
The much reduced monument to John Storr (1709 - 1783).
Westminster Abbey.
In the chapel of St John the Evangelist in Westminster Abbey
is a marble tablet and bust to Rear Admiral John Storr. He is buried in the
north transept and his monument used to be near his grave, beside that to Sir
Peter Warren, but was reduced in size and moved to the side chapel in the late
19th century. The bust shows the admiral in naval uniform but the naval
trophies no longer exist. The sculptor was William Tyler. The inscription
reads:
To the memory of John Storr Esqr. of Hilston in the county
of York, Rear Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Majesty's fleet. In his
profession a brave & gallant officer, in private life a tender husband, an
honest man & a sincere friend. He was born August 18th 1709, died January
10th 1783 & interr'd near this place.
..............................
Monument to Beeston
Long in Saxmundham (1785).
..........................
Memorial to General Lord Jeffery Amherst in Sevenoaks, Kent (1797).
...........................
The Drawings of Monuments by William Tyler in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A Project for a monument within a Gothic Surround.
35 x 25.4 cms
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O194731/drawing-tyler-william-ra/
.....................
Project for a monument
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1293861/drawing-tyler-william-ra/
........................
Another Project for a Monument.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1293860/drawing-tyler-william-ra/
...........................
Annoyingly I missed the Sotheby's sale - mid Covid - I was involved in a serious house restoration project.
but I will catch up here and in my next post.
Lot 232 was a very interesting terracotta maquette.
