Anne Seymour Damer.
The Sculptures.
Some notes and images.
post in preparation.
..................
For an almost contemporary look at the life and work of Mrs Damer see - The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters and Sculptors by Allan Cunningham pub 1835. page 214... available online at -
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101073449207&seq=220&q1=Damer
James Smith. (1775–1815).
James (Joachim) Smith was an English sculptor. Sometime assistant to Mrs Damer.
After leaving the Academy, Smith worked first for J.C.F. Rossi, and then from 1805 was employed for eight years as an assistant to John Flaxman. He assisted in particular with the carving of the figure of Lord Mansfield on his tomb in Westminster Abbey.
Smith’s main achievement on his own account was the massive monument to Lord Nelson in the Guildhall, completed in 1810.
He also executed busts of Sarah Siddons (plaster version in the Royal Shakespeare Gallery, Stratford-upon-Avon), and Robert Southey (plaster version in private collection, London).
................
Horace Walpole "She has a singular talent for catching the characters of
animals. I have two dogs sleeping, by her (which she has since executed in
marble for her brother, the Duke of Richmond) that are perfection"
At Strawberry Hill he housed what was probably the largest collection of Anne Seymour Damer’s works ever formed. It comprised twelve sculptures, of which four were wax medallions – in the style of the feted wax modeller, Isaac Gosset – along with four heads and four sculpted animals.
Her
sculptures were mainly located in the House’s private rooms, in which Walpole
lived.
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The Shock Dog (a nickname for a dog of the Maltese breed).
White Marble.
Size 33.3 × 38 × 32.1 cm
Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Private Collection, London , Italy (until 2013; sold at 28th
Biennale Dell-Antiquariato, Florence, October 5–13, 2013, to Zietz); [ Rainer
Zietz Limited , London, 2013–14; sold to MMA ].
Incised on oval at rear, in Greek:
ΑΝΝΑ.ΣΕΙΜΟΡΙΣ.ΔΑΜΕΡ.ΕΠΟΙΕΙ. [made by Anne Seymour Damer].
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/642422
see -
https://www.journal18.org/nq/shock-dog-new-sculpture-at-the-met-by-paris-amanda-spies-gans/
Available as a reproduction see -
https://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/clt/d/brooklyn-metropolitan-museum-of-art-met/7810037333.html
From the website of the Met.
Although Percy Noble in Anne Seymour Damer, Woman of Art and Fashion, London, 1908 pieced together a relatively complete inventory of Damer's works in 1908, her dying wish to destroy all her personal documents has resulted in an academic void regarding the artist's life.
Of the six sculptures of dogs that Damer exhibited at the Royal Academy, three are known to have been terracottas, one the Goodwood group and another, a lost portrait of her whippet, Fidele.
This leaves one tantalisingly ambiguous entry from 1800 of A Lap-dog.
A second possibility lies in a reference Noble makes to another unaccounted for marble . He relates that Damer had presented Queen Charlotte with a marble dog, which, on her death passed into the collection of her eldest daughter Elizabeth.
After Elizabeth's death in 1840, her possessions were bequeathed to her siblings and friends in England.
The whereabouts of that dog also remain unknown.
......................................
The Christie's Marble Shock Dog.
Attributed to Mrs Damer.
Height 38.8 cm.
Christies Lot 245, 9 Dec 2004.
image below from
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4420030
...............................
Some more (perhaps) Damer Dogs.
Described as a Bichon Frise.
9 in. (22.9 cm.) high, 18 in. (45.7 cm.) wide, 6 ½ in. (16.5
cm.) deep.
Christie's, New York Lot 253, 22 October 2020.
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6255275?ldp_breadcrumb=back
12 in. (30.5 cm.) high, 13 ½ in. (34.3 cm.) wide, 7 ½ in.
(19 cm.) wide
Provenance an Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 24 September 1998, lot
4.
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Terracotta on marble base
21.5 x 42.7 x 34.4 cm
Signed: Anna Damer Londinensis fecit 1782.
1774, Description: Additions since the Appendix…In the Little
Parlour. Two sleeping dogs, the original model in terra-cotta, by the honorable
Mrs. Damer, which she afterwards executed in marble for the Duke of Richmond.
(149)
1842, Strawberry Hill Sale, day 16, lot 116, bt Earl of Derby £32.0.6 (“under a glass case”).
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Two Kittens.
Mrs Damer.
1785.
Private Collection.
image courtesy facebook.
1784 Green Closet Two kittens in marble, by Mrs. Damer.
https://libsvcs-1.its.yale.edu/strawberryhill/oneitem.asp?id=150
...............................
The Brocket Park Osprey.
Mrs Damer.
Terracotta
1787.
Disappeared.
1784. In the Library: The fishing eagle, modelled in terra-cotta, the size of life. This bird was taken in Lord Melbourn's park at Brocket-hall, and in taking it one of the wings was almost cut off, and Mrs. Damer saw it in that momentary rage, which she remembered, and has executed exactly.
She has written her own name in Greek on the base, and Mr. W. added this line, Non me Praxiteles finxit, at Anna Damer, 1787.(94)
1842, May 16, Strawberry Hill Sale, Day 19, Lot 1 bought Sir Alexander Johnston, £7.7.0. A Model of an Eagle, in terra cotta, by Lady Damer, in a glass case, on stand.
The Stipple Engraving of 1790.
John Jones after James Roberts.
Inscription content: Lettered below the image with the
title, continuing: "taken in Lord Melbourne's Park, at Brocket Hall in
Hertfordshire in 1786/One of the Wings was almost cut off in seizing it:/ Mrs
Damer was present, and caught the idea in that moment of its rage", with
production detail: "James Roberts del. Portrait Painter to his Royal
Highness the Duke of Clarence", "John Jones sculp." and
publication line: "Publish'd as the Act directs, June 26, 1790, by James
Roberts, Hogarth's Passage Oxford;/and J. Jones, No. 75, Great Portland Street,
London"
Image courtesy British Museum website
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1917-1208-2898
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The Niobid.
Mrs Damer's first carved sculpture.
A Niobid, which was until recently thought to be lost, shown at the 2021 Exhibition at Strawberry Hill.
In Greek mythology, Niobid was one of Niobe’s daughters, who were slain by Apollo and Artemis after Niobe boasted of having more children than their mother, the goddess Leto.
In his Book of Visitors, Walpole reported this was the first marble bust ever sculpted by Damer: “Bust of Niobe in marble. Her first attempt”, which is confirmed by the inscription on the back of the bust, ‘Opus Primum’, first work.
................................
The Niobid Terracotta.
1780.
Signed and dated incised on back: “anne / damer / 1780 /
fecit”
H 43.8 x W 22.9 x D 21.6 cm
Yale Centre for British Art.
A marble version is in a private collection. (see Mrs D...... Webb ).
see the very poor image below.
Bequeathed by the artist, as part of her studio, in 1828 to
her cousin Louisa Campbell, daughter of Lord William Campbell and wife of Sir
Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of Ceylon(1775-1849);
By descent to Louisa Charlotte Campbell Johnston, who
married Sir William Trollope,10th.Bt., in 1894;
Thence by family descent to the owners - sold Sothebys - Lot 111 - 8 July 2011.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/bust-of-niobes-daughter-after-the-antique-337914
The Marble Niobid.
c. 1780.
The only mention of this bust is by Horace Walpole in the Strawberry Hill visitors book (date? Benforado)
Current location unknown.
The form of the socle and eared support should be noted.
It is a form often used by Nollekens from the commencement of his solo career in Rome after leaving his master Peter Scheemakers until the 1790's.
Nollekens use of this type of support which he developed hen working in Rome from 1761 - 1770 and is based on that first used by his Rome employer Bartolomeo Cavaceppi deriving from ancient precedents.
Nollekens socles and supports vary from Cavaceppi in that they were slightly serpentine.
The use of this socle with eared support would suggest that Mrs Damer was familiar with the busts of Nollekens and Cavaceppi.
see my recent post - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/some-earlier-nollekens-busts.html
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The Self Portraits.
The Uffizi Bust
.................................
The Mysterious Nollekens Marble Bust.
not dated.
It has been suggested on the RISDM website that it is perhaps a version of the missing marble bust of 1789 by Mrs Damer of Elizabeth Christiana Hervey, later Mrs Foster who became the Duchess of Devonshire after the death of Georgiana.
There is no record of a bust of Georgiana Spencer later Duchess of
Devonshire by Mrs Damer in the Biographical Dictionary... Yale 2009.
Payne Knight bust presented to the BM.
it was inscribed -
Hanc sui ipsius effigiem at vita veteris amici Richardi Payne Knight,
sua manu fecit Anna Seymour Damer.'
From a drawing by Courbald
Engraving by Major of 1827.
From, Anecdotes of Painting in England : with some account of the principal artists, and incidental notes .....
by Rev. James Dallaway 1827.
........................................
Elizabeth Lamb, née Milbanke, Lady Melbourn. (1751 - 1818).
Marble Bust.
Mrs Damer.
1784.
Exhibited at the Royal Academy 1784 - Cat No.499.
Currently the best photographs available.
The Bust is now in the Georgian Group Headquarters at Fitzroy Square, London.
For a closer look at this bust with some much better photographs and portraits of her and her family see my post
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/01/lady-melbournand-her-bust-by-anne.html
A terracotta was said to have been seen in the Collection of Earl Cowper at Panshanger
The bust of Peniston Lamb (1770-1805) (illustrated below) who was the eldest son of Elizabeth Milbanke and Sir Peniston Lamb, later Vicount and Vicountess Melbourne.
Erasmus Darwin wrote -
Long with soft touch shall Damer’s chisel charm,
With grace delight us, and with beauty warm;
foster’s fine form shall hearts unborn engage,
And MELBOURN’s smile enchant another age.
She was the youngest child and only daughter of Sir Ralph
Milbanke, 5th Baronet, and his wife, Elizabeth (née Hedworth). She had two
brothers, with the eldest being Ralph Noel—future Foxite Whig politician and
6th Baronet. The family resided at Halnaby Hall, Yorkshire.
Elizabeth Milbanke, Viscountess Melbourne, 1752 - 1818.
Wife
of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne.
Image below courtesy National Portrait Gallery of Scotland.
Finlayson after Joshua Reynolds.
1771.
................................
Caroline Campbell, Countess of Aylesbury.
Daughter of John, 4th Duke of Argyll and widow of Charles Bruce, 3rd Earl of Ailesbury.
Mother of Mrs Damer
Carved in 1789.
Inscribed:
On the front of the socle:
‘CAROLINA •/ CAMPBELL •/ ARGATHELLAE •/ DUCIS • FILIA •’
On the left-hand side of the socle:
‘ANNA •/ SEYMOUR • DAMER •/ FECIT •’
On the back of the bust:
‘ANNA/ ΣΕΙΜΟΡΙΣ/ ΔΑΜΕΡ/ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ/ ΦΙΛΗ ΜΗΤΗΡ/ ΑΥΤΗΣ’
Provenance.
Bequeathed by the artist to her cousin Lady Louisa Johnston;
Captain Frederick Campbell-Johnston (1812-1896), son of the
above;
By inheritance in the Campbell-Johnston family;
Campbell-Johnson sale, Sotheby’s London, 8th December, 2006,
lot.142;
Private collection Kagan, New York to 2022;
Previously on Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum, New York until 2021.
with London Dealers Libson Yarker, 2022.
https://www.libson-yarker.com/recent-sales/caroline-campbell-lady-ailesbury
Mrs Damer, portrays her mother, Caroline Campbell. The busts dual signatures in Latin and Greek reflect Damer’s erudite connection with the classical tradition. Damer’s personal dedication of the work to her, "friend and mother" is inscribed solely at the back.
Damer kept this bust throughout her life. She carved another version for her mother’s tomb in Saint Mary’s Church, Sundridge, Kent, where Damer is buried. She was daughter of Marshal Conway.
This veiled figure was intended to be viewed from below, it may well have been specifically designed for her mother’s tomb at St Mary’s, Sundridge in Kent. Lady Ailesbury had been born at Coombe Bank in Sundridge, which belonged successively to her father and brother, Lord Frederick Campbell. Damer made a second version of the bust which was eventually set-up in the chancel at St Mary’s, Sundridge
The most vivid accounts of Lady Ailesbury come from Horace Walpole: ‘Her face and person were charming, lively she was, almost to étourderie, and so agreeable she was that I never heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries who did not prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever saw.’
Lady Ailesbury was well-read, being particularly interested in Rousseau, for whom she secured a pension of £100 a year. Amongst her close circle were the historian, David Hume, the writers Gray, Thomson and Shenstone and the painters Reynolds and Angelica Kauffmann.
Lady Ailesbury was herself celebrated for the remarkable copies after old masters she rendered in embroidery.
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Engraved: by John Jones, ‘Caroline Campbell Countess of Ailesbury, from the original bust in marble executed by her daughter.
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Bus of Miss Farren as Thalia.
Elizabeth Farren, Countess of Derby.
Mrs Damer.
Marble.
Sizes 600 mm x 300 mm overall.
National Portrait Gallery.
Given by Rupert Gunnis, 1965.
Called the Queen of Comedy by Horace Walpole, Elizabeth Farren was the star of Drury Lane for 20 years until her marriage to the 12th Earl of Derby in 1797.
See Forgotten Encounters: The Legacy of Sculptresses and Female
Muses, Laura Engel. 2023
available online - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol13/iss1/4/?utm_source=digitalcommons.usf.edu%2Fabo%2Fvol13%2Fiss1%2F4&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Anne Seymour Damer and the bust of Elizabeth Farren as Thalia.
by John Dowman 1750 - 1824.
Private Coll.
https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/celebrating-sculptress-anne-seymour-damer/
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Mary Berry (1759 - 1829).
The Terracotta Bust.
Dated 1793.
Mrs Damer.
Ex Chillington Hall. Staffordshire Home of the Giffard Family since 1178.
Mary Berry and her sister Agnes were introduced to Mrs Damer by her second cousin Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill on 20 March 1789.
Mary Berry who bequeathed her his books and manuscripts, and the house next door at Strawberry Hill.
Berry became known for her writings, including 'Social Life in
England and France from the French Revolution' in 1831, and the posthumously
published 'Journals and Correspondence' in 1865.
The paragraph below from https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/anne-damer-with-dr-caroline-gonda/
Dr Caroline Gonda: "Some of Damer’s letters to Mary Berry survive, because Berry couldn’t bring herself to destroy the evidence of having been the object of such faithful devotion. But most of Damer’s papers are lost.
Her four notebooks, at the Lewis Walpole Library, are full of extracts from Mary Berry’s loving letters to her, and (particularly in the first notebook) classical quotations from the literature both women loved.
The record Damer chooses to preserve in these notebooks is an intense and intimate one, of a relationship often seen as a likeness of souls. It’s a relationship of care, sharing confidences and small everyday details as well as comments on reading and study. It’s not always an easy relationship, particularly given the pressures of social expectation, but it is a strong and loving one".
As Clare Barlow, curator of the Tate exhibition Queer British Art 1861–1967 (2017), says, the history of queer lives is a history 'punctuated by dustbins and bonfires'.
Berry kept some of Damer's letters
nevertheless, saying she couldn't quite bring herself to destroy the evidence of such
devoted affection; the letters that survive in the British Library.
Traces of Damer and Berry's relationship can also be found in Damer's
notebooks, now in the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University. These four small
notebooks are made up of extracts from Berry's loving letters to Damer,
alongside quotations from the classical Greek and Latin authors they both
loved.
........
An undated excerpt from Mary Berry's letters to Anne Seymour Damer, as recorded in Damer's notebook -
"You need hardly have told me (tho' I like to hear it) that
your soul when unconfined flys to me, for I have felt it hovering about me a
hundred times here, in all my walks alone, whenever contemplating your
favourite seat, always when going to bed at night (my constant opportunity of
reading over your letters)".
The image below from the Paul Mellon Centre Photographic Archive.
Although it describes the bust illustrated as bronze it appears to be the terracotta.
............
Mary Berry.
Mrs Damer.
The NPG Bronze Bust.
Size 455 mm x 200 mm.
Inscribed on socle: ANNA.SEYMOUR.DAMER/FECIT.; the upper
hair band inscribed in Greek letters: MARIA BERRY ANNA SEYMOUR DAMER EP.
[epoiese].
Purchased 1997.
Provenance
A ‘Lady of title’; Christie’s, 10 December 1991, lot 91,
bought Eric Clapton; Christie’s, 1 July 1997, lot 85, bought Hazlitt, Gooden
& Fox for the NPG.
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw09879/Mary-Berry
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitExtended/mw09879/Mary-Berry
This bronze is a cast of the terracotta portrait bust made
for Horace Walpole and was originally at his house at Strawberry Hill.
The NPG say - NPG 6395 clearly derives from the terracotta bust on a square base, dated 1793, now in a private collection. Illus. The Grace of Friendship, ed. V. Surtees, 1995, f.p.148
Horace Walpole had a terracotta at Strawberry Hill which he first mentioned in 1795 - 22 August 1795; he told Mary Berry that he had breakfasted ‘in the closet where your bust is’ (Wal. Corr., XII, p 144).
It was several times listed as 'a bust in terra cotta of Miss Mary Berry by Mrs Damer 1794’, See Wal. Corr., XLIII, p 155 (the comment made in Walpole’s extra-illustrated Description of Strawberry Hill 1784 now in the Lewis-Walpole Library, Farmington).
and a ‘Bust of Miss Mary Berry, in terra-cotta, most [?]beautiful, 1795’. In his ‘Book of Visitors at Strawberry Hill 1784-1796’ (Wal. Corr., XII, p 274).
This was presumably the ‘bronzed bust of Mary Berry, by Mrs Damer’, in the Strawberry Hill sale, 22nd day, 19 May 1842, lot 22? [8]
Meanwhile in 1840 Greatbach had engraved a similar looking bust (with the square socle) from the collection of Sir Alexander Johnston (see the illustration below)
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Of tangential interest -
Mary and Agnes Berry The (undated) Wax Portraits by Sam. Percy (1750 - 1820).
Victoria and Albert Museum.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O97074/mary-berry-wax-relief-percy-samuel/
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O97073/agnes-berry-relief-percy-samuel/#object-details
...................
Mary Berry’s Sketch Book by Wilmarth S. Lewis
from Lewis, Wilmarth S. Rescuing Horace Walpole. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978.
For Agnes Damer sketchbooks and a miniature of Mary Berry see
https://campuspress.yale.edu/walpole300/tag/agnes-berry/
This website contains a link to the Damer /Berry letters -
https://search.library.yale.edu/catalog/8127054
Manuscript, in a single hand, of a collection of excerpts of letters, in four volumes, from Mary Berry to Damer, transcribed and edited by Damer.
The notes refer primarily to their passionate friendship and confidence in each other; their ill health, both mental and physical; and introspective commentary upon the reasons for their melancholy moods.
Few of the entries are dated, and mutual acquaintances are left unnamed or else mentioned by initials only. Berry describes their friendship as having "become such a part of myself, or rather of something much dearer than myself, that I can neither live without it, nor dissatisfied with it, nor with the idea of ever being deprived of it."
In Vol. 2, she mentions she has waited all day for her correspondent to visit her, having hoped that each carriage passing by will stop at her door. Elsewhere, she complains that her friend is leaving for Tours without her and of feeling "continual pains in my head, restless nights & miserable feels of weakness & langour."
Other excerpts address
Berry's thoughts on William Fawkener, Damer's suitor; Damer's persecution by
the press; a crisis in their friendship at the end of July 1794 resulting in
Berry's desire to distance herself from Damer socially, and then her decision
to weather out the public attacks on their relationship; and Berry's secret
courtship by General Charles O'Hara and its disintegration.
..................
Mary Berry.
George Perfect Harding. after the original by Anne Mee (née Foldsone) (1760 - 1851).
Drawn after a miniature by Anne Mee that was commissioned by
Horace Walpole in 1790.
Mounted on page 35 in Anne Damer's extra-illustrated copy
of: Walpole, H. A description of the villa of Mr. Horace Walpole ... Strawberry
Hill : Printed by Thomas Kirgate, MDCCLXXXIV [1784]. See Hazen, A.T.
Bibliography of the Strawberry Hill Press (1973 ed.), no. 30, copy 33.
Provenance
Given by Mrs. Anne Damer to Sir Wathen Waller. Later owned by John Hely-Hutchinson, with his bookplate on verso of first flyleaf of volume.
Sold Sotheby's, 14 March 1956 (Hely-Hutchinson Sale), lot 584, to Maggs
for W.S. Lewis
Lewis Walpole Library.
https://digital.library.yale.edu/catalog/16704454
Mary Berry.
Stipple Engraving by Henry Adlard, published by Longman & Co,
after the original by Anne
Mee (née Foldsone) (1760 - 1851).
stipple engraving, (1790)
225 mm x 153 mm
NPG
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw69245/Mary-Berry
Letter 12 Feb 1791 from Horace Walpole to the Berrys who were in Paris complaining that Miss Foldsone had not delivered the miniatures of the Berry sisters. On 11 March he makes the same complaint.
see -
https://www.themorgan.org/literary-historical/331408
https://www.themorgan.org/literary-historical/331519
......................
Elizabeth (née Farren), Countess of Derby; Thomas King as Lady Emily and Sir Clement in Burgoyne's 'The Heiress'.
NPG.
Elizabeth (née Farren), Countess of Derby.
by Francesco Bartolozzi, published by Bull & Jeffryes,
after Sir Thomas Lawrence.
Stipple engraving, published 1 January 1792.
by Henry Adlard, published by Longman & Co, after Anne
Mee (née Foldsone).
stipple engraving, mid 19th century.
(222 mm x 143 mm).
...........................
Bust Portrait Of Prince Henry Lubomirski In The Character Of
Bacchus.
Mrs Damer.
HH Prince Henryk Ludwik Lubomirski (Równe, September 15,
1777- Dresden, October 20, 1850.)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1789.
https://www.boywiki.org/fr/Henryk_Lubomirski
Isabella Elizabeth Helene Anne Czartoriska (1736-1816) who was from one of the leading families of Vienna, married Stanislas, Prince Lubomirski (1722-83), the Grand Marshall of Poland, in 1753.
The Princess is
known to have been in London with Lady Pembroke in 1787, and breakfasted at
Strawberry Hill with Horace Walpole on 25th July 1787.
..............
Lubomerski.
by Richard Cosway engraved by Bartolozzi.
1787.
...................................
Peniston Lamb.
as Mercury.
535 × mm
Inscribe on the verso of the socle: ‘ANNE SEYMOUR DAMER FECIT’
and on the verso of the helmet: ‘ANNA ΔAMEP ΛONA ININA
EΠOIEI’
Provenance -
Elizabeth Lamb, Lady Melbourne (1751-1818);
By descent in the family;
Sotheby's, London, July 9, 2008, lot 166;
Private collection, UK to 2024
Exhibitions
London, Royal Academy, 1787, cat. no. 625 ‘Portrait of a boy
in the character of Mercury, a head in marble’.
Literature -
Percy Noble, Anne Seymour Damer: A Woman of Art and Fashion
1748-1828, London, 1908, p.82;
Ed. W. S. Lewis, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s
Correspondence, New Haven and London, 1944, vol.XII, p.272 (‘Bust… Large as
life – of Lady Melbourne’s son as infant Mercury…in marble 1785’);
Ingrid Roscoe, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in
Britain 1660-1851, New Haven and London, 2009, p.336;
Jonathan David Gross, The Life of Anne Damer: Portrait of a
Regency Artist, Maryland, 2014, pp.174, 185 and 202
https://libson-yarker.com/recent-sales/peniston-lamb-as-mercury
1789 Royal Academy -The society newspaper The World,
Fashionable Advertiser had little doubt that Anne Seymour Damer was the star of
the sculpture displays that year. She was the only sculptor, in fact, whose
works they noticed in their review of the Royal Academy Exhibition:
MRS DAMER is in high luck of late. The Arts are all her own. In this exhibition, she has three works—a Dog in terra cotta [Fig. 1]—A Head of a Child in the character of Paris [lost]—and a boy as Bacchus [Fig. 2], both marble. The last appears to have much of the CAMPBELL character both as to sweet serenity and features—Of this Head and the Dog, who can look on, unmoved? The statuary may say, “With envy, I”
The Engraving.
By John Jones, ‘Mercury form the original bust of the Honble
Penisten Lambe executed in Marble by the Honble Anne Damer’, stipple engraving,
published by James Roberts, June 26, 1790.’
....................................
Joseph Banks.
Mrs Damer.
c.1800.
British Museum.
Presented to the BM by the artist 1814; exhibited RA 1813 (912). Probably from the terracotta that was exhibited RA 1806 (838).
Plaster casts in the Natural History Museum and the British Library.
She began to work in bronze around 1800 and this portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, botanist, President of the Royal Society and
one of the Museum's greatest Trustees and patrons, may be based on the terra-cotta model exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806, now lost.
There are also busts of Banks by Turnerelli (NMM Greenwich 1814) and Chantry (1822 British Museum)
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1814-0312-1
Image of a wax relief attributed to Mrs Damer at the Art institute of Chicago.
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Terracotta Bozzetto of a seated woman.
English, late 18th/ early 19th century.
Together with a Verona marble portrait relief of Lady
Aylesbury, mounted on red velvet in an oval ebonised wood frame
Provenance -
Bequeathed by the artist, as part of her studio, in 1828 to
her cousin Louisa Campbell, daughter of Lord William Campbell and wife of Sir
Alexander Johnston, Chief Justice of Ceylon(1775-1849);
By descent to Louisa Charlotte Campbell Johnston, who
married Sir William Trollope,10th.Bt., in 1894;
Thence by family descent to the present owners.
..............................
The Statue of Apollo on the Roof of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. London.
Attributed to Mrs Damer.
see - https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol35/pp40-70
"The lofty attic stage of the theatre shell was uniformly arcaded, with eleven equally spaced arches on the north and south sides, and five on the west and east. Every arch framed a large window, recessed within a marginal surround, and the unmoulded arches rested on wide piers with plain imposts, and had keystones rising to meet the crowning cornice. This was surmounted by an open balustrade broken by wide pedestals containing the chimneys.
From the leaded flat roof at the west end rose the octagonal lantern, a veritable Tower of the Winds, surmounted by the statue of Apollo, 10 feet in height, "designed and made by Anne Seymour Damer".
There is still some dispute regarding the authorship of this statue.
..............
See - Authentic account of the Fire which reduced that extensive
building of the Theatre-Royal, Drury Lane, to a pile of ruins, on the evening
of the 24th of February 1809; to which is added a chronological list all the
places of public amusement, destroyed by Fire, in England (London: printed by
W. Glendinning for T. Broom, 1809): “Within a few minutes after it was first
observed, the flames burst out at the roof, and encircled the statue of Apollo.
About a quarter before twelve, the statue, and part of the roof on which it
stood, fell in with a terrible crash. This figure was made of wood, was
seventeen feet high clear of the pedestal, and was strongly fortified with
iron…”
If Damer was not the eventual sculptress, at least she intended to realize a statue for the theatre.
Another cartoon, Hobby Horses,
published in 1797, shows a sculptress, again probably Damer, working on a
colossal erect statue, saying: “I intend it my dear for the top of Drury Lane
Theatre for I cannot tell whether the one that is there be Man, Woman or
Child.” Mary Dorothy George and Frederic George Stephens, Catalogue of Personal
and Political Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the
British Museum, vol. 6, 1784–92
For much more on the architecture and the statuary at the theatre see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-lead-statue-of-shakespeare-and-its.html
Satyrical Engraving
Woodward.
Pub. Forres 1797.
British Museum.
https://issuu.com/burlington/docs/1282burlingtonjan2010
.......................
Two Reliefs for Boydells Shakespeare Gallery, Pall Mall.
Damer created two bas reliefs for the Boydell Shakespeare
Gallery of scenes from Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra.
for an excellent overview of Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery see -
https://www.whatjanesaw.org/1796/about.php#prettyPhoto
_(14760066661).jpg)
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Bartholemew Papera (d. 1815).
In 1802, Wedgwood purchased busts of Siddons, Lord Nelson
and the Hon. Mrs. Damer, from B. Papera, see Reilly Wedgwood, 2:457.
Bartholomew Papera was said to have been a lapsed Roman Catholic clergyman of Italian birth, if Richard Beamish’s account in the Phrenological Journal of the life of James Philip Papera can be credited.
He is also said to have helped Anne Seymour Damer to escape Paris
after the Peace of Amiens and to have numbered Sir Thomas Lawrence among his
acquaintances.
The first record of Papera’s activities dates from 1790, when he was listed in Wakefield’s London Directory at Marylebone Street, Golden Square.
In the Petworth House archives is a receipt dated 29 January 1801 from ‘B Papera’ for several models which included a ‘3 foot figure’ at £3 12s’ a ‘Gladeator’ and ‘Hercules’ at 16 shillings each, and a ‘Laying Venus’ which cost 8 shillings (1).
The following year Wedgwood paid him for three busts and ‘one vase with lamp’ (Wedgwood MSS L108/20403, Papera acct, 12 June 1802) and in 1806, as ‘Mr Papera figure-maker’, he supplied busts to Lord Bridport (Soane, Abstract of Bills 3, fol 118) (5).
An advertisement in The Times of 23 November 1805, announced that casts after the bust of Nelson by Anne Seymour Damer could be had at his shop (4) and his trade card of 1806 describes him as ‘B. PAPERA Figure Maker TO HER MAJESTY No16 Marylebone St, Golden Square’ (BM, Banks Collection 106.22).
Papera later sold a figure of Hercules to the clock
and decorative metalwork manufacturer, Benjamin Vulliamy (2). A modified
version of this figure, modelled by James Smith, was used for several sets of
candelabra produced by the firm. The earliest examples were two pairs supplied
to Thomas, Viscount Anson for Shugborough, Staffs, in 1812 and the model was
still in use as late as 1821. In his will, which gives his christian name as
Bartholomew, Papera left all his property to his wife Susannah. It mentioned
his daughter Louisa Papera and a son called James, who may well have been James
Philip Papera.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 289; Clifford 1992, 61;
Yarrington 1997, 41, 43 n76; Murdoch 2004, 98-9
Archival References: GPC
Wills and Administrations: ‘Bartholomew Papera, Figure Maker of st James, Westminster’PROB 11/1572 (8 August 1815)
For a more in depth look at the Papera family see -
Trade Card of Papera - British Museum
.................................
From the Diary of John Cam Hobhouse (1786 - 1869) --- available online
Wednesday December 20th 1820: Matthews – walking or riding, &c. – dined with Mrs Damer at York House in Twickenham, where Queen Anne was born.
That singular man Sir W. Waller there – how such a man should have had the choice between two widows, Lady Sligo and Lady Howe, is unaccountable.
Mrs Damer is a fine old lady for seventy upwards – her teeth good – she is a great Queenite – [she] was at Brandenburgh House on Monday. She still works at her sculpture.
She had Strawberry Hill for her life, but left it – she did not like to live in a place where all the furniture was ticketed.
Height 55 cm, Width 38 cm.
Châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau,
Mrs Damer became a keen supporter of Fox, and of the Foxite Whigs
who tended to oppose the war with France and to support American Independence.
Fox agreed to sit for her after she and Georgiana had campaigned for him in an
election.
On a visit to France in 1803 she met Madame de Stael, Mademe
Recamier, Napoleon's mother, the Empress Josephine (whom she had met
previously) and at last, to her great delight, Napoleon himself.
Having waited for some time to present her bust of Charles James Fox to Napoleon, she seized the opportunity after his flight from Elba. The fact that England and France were technically at war did not stop her. So this indefatigable lady of some 66 years delivered the bust to Napoleon at the Elysee Palace on May 1st 1815, not long before Waterloo. The bust had been promised to him at the time of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. It is now in the British Museum
According to a notice that appeared in the Times, Napoleon
told her that if Fox had lived there would have been peace, that the debt of
England would have been less than a million, and that many thousands of men
would still be alive.
Her gesture was evidently not universally popular. In the
same edition of the Times, the Moniteur reported that some idiotical English
woman presented to the Corsican the Bust of Charles James Fox.
In return Napoleon 1 May 1815 presented her with an enamelled snuff box, with his
portrait on the lid, set in a circle of 27 diamonds.
Napoleon arrived in England before Mrs Damer got back -
although of course he was not allowed to land. Her friend, Miss Berry wrote
somewhat disapprovingly to her on July 23 1815:
You little thought that your friend at Paris would be in
England before yourself, and that your bust may return to that country it never
ought to have left, without going out of the possession of the person to whom
you gave it.
A Snuffbox was presented by Napoleon on 1st May 1815 to the Hon. Anne Seymour Damer, sculptress, on receiving from her a bust of Charles James Fox, promised to him at the time of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. - British Museum.
As a friend of Sir William and Lady Hamilton, she probably met Nelson in Naples in 1798, afterwards offering a bust of the Hero to the City of London.
On his return to London in 1800, Nelson gave Damer a sitting during
which he presented her with his uniform coat worn at the Battle of the Nile.
.....................
The Paragraphs below adapted from - https://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn08/the-invisible-sculpteuse-sculptures-by-women-in-the-nineteenth-century-urban-public-spacelondon-paris-brussels
In January 1799, Damer offered a plaster cast of her bust of Nelson in modern dress to the City of London Court of Common Council.
The marble version, which followed later—it was only finished in 1803 and publicly exhibited the year after—was initially put in the Common Council Room, then in the dining room of the Guildhall when Nelson’s death was announced, and finally in the present Guildhall Art Gallery.
Damer knew that
donating portraits, especially celebrity-portraits, could be a clever strategy
to further her career, and she employed that strategy frequently.
Immediately after Nelson’s death in 1805, Damer attempted to secure a commission for a public monument in his honor for the Guildhall.
The
London Common Council read a letter during its meeting of November 26, 1805 in
which Damer nominated herself for the execution of a monument for Nelson:
"My Lord, understanding that a statue or monument is to be decreed to the memory of Lord Nelson, I take the liberty most respectfully to offer my services to the City of London on this occasion, encouraged by the honor they have already done me in their acceptance of my bust of that immortal hero.
Should I be so highly flattered by the City of London to succeed in my request, no pains nor exertion on my part to the utmost of my power will be spared on the execution of this grand object and every attention will be paid to the orders I may receive on the subject and to the taste of those who shall do me the honor to employ me.
Proper models will be made for their inspection and approbation and as no emolument will be required by me, the whole of the sum destined to this work may be employed in the materials to the surplus disposed of as they may decide hereafter…"
In response to her request, the Council members assured Damer that “they have felt flattered by your very generous and patriotic offer,” but, in the same letter, they informed her that it was decided to hold an anonymous contest. Damer participated, but James Smith won.
It was probably an exceptional triumph for Smith; he had
sculpted many of Damer’s plaster casts into marble for her, and had publicly
vented his anger over the fact that she did not mention his contribution.
Cunningham, “Anne Seymour Damer,” 220, 234–35.
Copy of an original by Anne Seymour Damer which she is thought to have made in Naples towards the end of 1798, where Nelson stayed for a period to recover from injuries after the Battle of the Nile in September 1798.
It has been suggested that this plaster copy was made by the sculptor
Bartholomew Papera (d 1815) who by 1805 was advertising the sale of casts after
Damer's bust at his shop in London, and in 1802 made a similar painted plaster
bust for Wedgewood.
Advertised by B. Papera in the Oracle and Daily Advertiser - 11 December 1805.
On the back is impressed, ‘Anna S. Damer Fecit’ and ‘Pub. As the
Act Dir’.
Incised on back of shoulders: ΑΝΝΑ ΣΕΙΜΟΡΙΣ Sculpt.
H 50.6 x W 27 x D 20.5 cm
1813.
The Life of Anne Damer: Portrait of a Regency Artist, by Jonathan David Gross pub 2014 - available in severely filleted version on Google books. The cheapest version that I can currently find on line is $56 which is excessive. I have therefor only accessed the truncated version!
I have a copy of Mrs D The Life of Anne Damer (1748 - 1828) by Richard Webb 2013 - which has been very useful.
Another useful jumping off point Anne Seymour Damer - A Woman of Art and Fashion.... by Percy Noble. pub. 1908, available on line at -
https://archive.org/details/anneseymourdamer00noblrich/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater
