The Four Lead Sphinx.
John Cheere.
One of a set of four.
All four sphinx were cast from the same moulds.
There are remains of a white paint in the crevices which suggests that they were originally painted to appear like marble.
The tails are not handed but sweep across the backs in the same direction,
Photographed by the author July 2025.
It should be noted that these are not from the same model as the pair now at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge.
Sir Hugh Fortescue (created Lord Clinton in 1721 and Earl of
Clinton and Lord Fortescue in 1746), a leading Whig politician, inherited
Castle Hill in 1719.
A programme of improvement, with a concentrated period of
activity in the early 1730s coinciding with his resignation from political
office included the remodelling of both house and grounds.
A new Palladian mansion was designed by Lord Burlington (1694-1753) with advice from the ninth Earl of Pembroke (1693-1749).
The extent
of Earl Clinton's landscape is recorded on field surveys (1763 and 1765), and
views by John Wootton (about 1735-1740) and John Lange (1741).
Another Pair of lead shinx at Saltram - Sizes -1210 x 560 mm; 900 mm.
Two Sphinx supplied along with 2 gladiators for £45 3shilllings to Newhailes in 1740 (Newhailes Archives, Davis 1991). Stolen in 1949.
It should be noted that several Chimneypieces at Newhailes appear to have been supplied by Henry Cheere.
see -
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The Chiswick House Lead Sphinx.
There appears to have been five sphinx at Chiswick - the pair on the gate piers at the front and three in the garden.
In 1749, two decades later, a lead sphinx cast after Guelphi’s model was produced by John Cheere (1709-87), England’s leading manufacturer of sculpture in lead (Davis 1991, pp. 95-101; Barnard and Clark 1995, p. 110). The Burlington accounts record a payment to Cheere in February 1749 for ‘a sphynx in Lead’, the cast installed in the gardens of Chiswick House with its stone counterparts by 1753 (they appear in ‘A View of the Back Front of the House and part of the Garden of the Earl of Burlington at Chiswick’ after John Donowell, etching, first issued 1753, re-issued 1760-66, RCIN 701784.g, Royal Collection Trust). All three remain at Chiswick to this day.
By 1742, Burlington had these Sphinxes moved onto pedestals
and positioned on the North lawn near to the Exedra, and he commissioned a pair
of lead ones for the forecourt gates from John Cheere. Seven years later Cheere
produced a third lead Sphinx for the lawn to go next to the stone pair.
Casts of this sphinx were taken by Messrs Rupert Harris to replace the sphinx originally on the gate piers and removed to Green Park in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
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There is another pair of these Sphinx on the gate piers at Temple Newsam House.
The gates are below the stable block are copies of those designed by Lord Burlington for Chiswick, The gates were cast in 1768, and cost £47 and 5 shillings.
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The Arundel /Easton Neston/ Ashmolean Sphinx.
Ancient Modern.
65 x 115 x 40 cm
Images courtesy Ashmolean Image Library.
https://images.ashmolean.org/search/?searchQuery=%20sphinx
The Peter Tillemans (1684 - 1734) The Drawing of the Sphinx at Easton Neston, 1719.
Northamptonshire in the Early Eighteenth Century: The
Drawings of Peter Tillemans and others.
From the Journal of Northamptonshire Record Society.
For the two years ended 31 Dec.1994.
https://www.northamptonshirerecordsociety.org.uk/pdf/volume-39/vol-39-tillemans.pdf
The following paragraphs lifted from the NRS Journal
A Fabulous resource of early 18th century topographical drawings of Northamptonshire (highly recommended).
No titles on the drawings, but there are notes on the reverse of some. They all form part of a series of consecutive drawings of statuary of which the title-page bears the heading: Boughton near Kettering D. of Montagus Draught of the Bustos. In fact, only one sheet Plate 24 relates to Boughton (see ).
Date: July 1719 (see Notes below).
The sheets in this series of drawings are numbered 1 to 47, although 35 is missing. The last sheet, no. 47 is that referred to above, showing busts under the arcade at Boughton House. The rest clearly show statuary which decorated the house and garden at Easton Neston.
Several drawings show plinths carved with a coronet and linked Ls, denoting the tide of the owner of Easton Neston, Lord Lempster.
This collection of statuary has an interesting history. It originated with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who, in 1613, accompanied by his wife and the architect Inigo Jones, spent some eighteen months touring northern Italy. In Rome and elsewhere he acquired many of the items portrayed in these drawings.
Jones was the designer of a covered gallery for Arundel House in the Strand about 1615 to house the collection. Items were added until the middle of the century when it contained several hundred pieces.
Lord Arundel's later years were beset by problems and he retired abroad, dying in Italy in 1646.
After the Civil War Arundel's grandson, who had no interest in the sculptures, was prevailed upon by the diarist John Evelyn to present the inscriptions to the University of Oxford in 1667.
The items portrayed here remained in the gardens of Arundel House till 1691 when, for the price of £300, Sir Williarn Fermor purchased them.
In 1692 they were taken to Easton Neston and there set up as decorations for the house and garden. In 1721 a note in Bridges' MSS records a visit on 18 July where he met "an Italian employed by the present Lord L in making perfect the statues maimed". This is a reference to Giovanni Battista Guelfi, a protege of the Earl of Burlington, who had brought him from Italy in 1718.
The results of Guelfi's restoration of heads, arms and other appendages were not admired and George Dallaway, in his Anecdotes of the Arts 1800 describes them as "misconceived" and that he had "ruined the greater number of those he was permitted to touch".
George Vertue, an important antiquary of the arts in 18th century England, compiled in 1734 a Description of Easton Neston, which was published in 1758, and records the disposition of the sculptures.
By the time George Venue visited the gardens, Easton Neston had descended to Lord Lempster's son, Thomas, who was created Earl of Pomfret in 1721. When he died in 1753 his son George, who was encumbered by debts, decided to sell the sculptures.
With great foresight, his mother, Henrietta, Countess Pomfret, bought them in at the sale and in 1755 presented them to the University of Oxford, and they were- once more reunited with the marbles which had come to the University in 1667.
In the 1880s the whole collection was rehoused in the new galleries of what we know as the Ashmolean Museum. Guelfi's unfortunate restorations were removed, and there they remain to this day, variously known as "The Arundel Marbles" or "The Pomfret Marbles". In 1882 Adolf Michaelis' Ancient Marbles in Great Britain appeared and is still cited as the main authority for the Marbles.
The Peter Tillemans drawing of the Marble Sphinx at Easton Neston
Dated July 1719.
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The Pair of Lead Sphinx at West Wycombe.
765 x 590 mm; 1200 mm.
John Cheere.
Unfortunately there is no record of their purchase
The Design of these Sphinx are derived from the Sphinx illustrated above but are much finer and more neo classical in their detailing.
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