First Draft.
I cannot claim any real expertise in European Ancient or Renaissance or Post Renaissance Bronze Sculpture - my expertise - such as it is - is English Sculpture of the 18th Century.
Any mistakes here are my own!
The Antique Laocoon Group in England in the Eighteenth Century.
and a brief survey of the reproduction of the Laocoon group.
An Eighteenth Century Lead Statuette of the Laocoon Group.
45cm wide, 51cm high
Mounted on a wooden base.
There appears to be remains of the original bronze finish.
Here suggested as cast by John Cheere (1709 - 1787) at Hyde Park Corner.
Sold by Lyon and Turnbull Auctione
ers.
https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/
Lot 3. The Bernard Kelly Collection.
https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auctions/bernard-kelly-collection-840/lot/3
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The Victoria and Albert Museum Bust of Laocoon by Joseph Wilton (1722 - 1802).
Height 61 Cms
Inscribed J Wilton Ft: 1758.
It has the oval plan/section socle most frequently and uniquely used by Wilton.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O127050/laocoon-bust-wilton-joseph-ra/
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The Original Antique Marble Group.
The Trojan priest Laocoön and his
sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.
Laocoön, a Trojan priest of Apollo,
and his sons struggle with two flesh-eating snakes, sent as a divine
punishment. The priest had warned the Trojans against accepting the wooden
horse sent by the Greeks and incurred the anger of Poseidon (some say Athena)
who was supporting the Greeks.
The Roman writer Pliny the elder (active in the AD 70s) ascribed the group to the sculptors Hagesandros, Athenodoros and Ploydoros, who worked in the later first century BC.
Pliny recorded the sculpture as being in the palace of Titus and described it as 'of all paintings and sculptures, the most worthy of admiration'.
Although it is debated to what extent it can be regarded as a Hellenistic
or Roman sculpture, the Vatican Laocoön is probably a version of a bronze
original.
The original group was unearthed 14 February 1506 in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis on the Oppian Hill - Pope Julius II, when informed sent for his court artists. Michelangelo to the site of the unearthing of the statue immediately after its discovery, along with the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and his eleven-year-old son Francesco da Sangallo, later a sculptor, who wrote an account over sixty years later.
"The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope
was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near
Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell
Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them. So he set off immediately. Since
Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having
summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my
father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we
went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said,
"That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions". Then they dug the hole
wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible
everyone started to draw ? (or "started to have lunch"),all the
while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in
Florence."
When the statue was first discovered, Laocoön’s right arm was missing, as was the younger son’s right arm, the older son’s right hand and some of the snake’s coils.
The base was added in 1511.
A restoration carried out by Montorsoli (one of
Michelangelo’s former assistants) in 1532.
It was set
up in the Vatican where it remains.
In 1906
Ludwig Pollak, the archaeologist, art dealer and director of the Museo
Barracco, discovered the fragment of a marble arm in a builder's yard in Rome,
close to where the group was found. Noting a stylistic similarity to the
Laocoön group he presented it to the Vatican Museums: where it remained in
their storerooms for half a century.
In 1957 the Vatican
museum decided that this arm – which had been bent behind the head, as
Michelangelo had suggested – had originally belonged to the Laocoön, and
replaced it.
There had always been questions as to how the original missing arm of Laocoon was positioned.
According to
Professor Paolo Liverani: "Remarkably, despite the lack of a critical
section, the join between the torso and the arm was guaranteed by a drill hole
on one piece which aligned perfectly with a corresponding hole on the other.
It is one of
the most frequently reproduced statues from classical antiquity in marble,
plaster and especially in bronze.
..................
The first mention of an English Cast is in the 1777 Catalogue of Charles Harris.
Charles
Harris, was at the Alfred's Head, 162 Strand, London, from 1776 formerly and briefly Parker and Harris.
Theodore Harris took over the Strand premises in in 1769.
Until the appearance of this lead group no known English cast in any material was known until the late 18th century when it appears on page 8 in the catalogue of Charles Harris Catalogue of 1777 (in French).
see - https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2016_01_01_archive.html
A Copy in French dated 1777 is at the Yale Centre for British Art. A cast Described as Laocoon et ses deux Fils, height 24” and priced at £5 5s.
Given the appearance of several other pieces in the catalogue known to have been cast by John Cheere it most likely that it is a version of a John Cheere cast.
As yet we don’t know whether Charles Harris obtained his moulds from John Cheere or whether the statuettes were pirated. I suspect that by 1777 John Cheere was seriously winding down his business – fashions had changed – he had no children to pass on the business to and his nephew Charles (d. 1799) had little interest, and the moulds were probably sold to Charles Harris or his predecessor Theodore Parker.
Currently we know very little about Theodore Parker but it is not improbable that he had worked for John Cheere along with James Hoskins (d.1791) apprenticed to Cheere in 1747 who became foreman by 1751 (London Evening Post December 1751). and Benjamin Grant both of whom had set up independently in about 1770 and had joined forces by 1775
Theodore Parker, father of Richard Parker supplied Wedgwood in 1769 with a figure of Shakespeare.
Later in 1769 Theodore Parker supplied Wedgwood with
Flora, Seres, Spencer, Hercules, Seres Large Juno, Prudence, Milton and
Shakespeare (Wedgwood/Parker L1/73, Theodore Parker acct Sept 1769 – 18 Dec
1769.
Shout of Holborn included a version in their early 19th century catalogue under the heading Groups.
.................................
Hogarth - John Cheere's Yard and the Laocoon.
Analysis of Beauty.
The statue is shown in reverse.
We can be sure that a version was cast in London in the mid 18th century given its appearance in Hogarth’s engraving Analysis of Beauty plate 1, published in 1753 showing the Yard of a Statuary at stone Bridge, Hyde Park Corner.
It has always been assumed that this engraving shows the premises of John Cheere. If it is a representation of Cheere's Yard it follows that it is also shown in reverse.
Hogarth
states in his work the Analysis of Beauty pub. 1758.
“There is no
object composed of straight lines, that has so much variety, with so few parts,
as the pyramid: and it is its constantly varying from its base gradually
upwards in every situation of the eye, (without giving the idea of sameness, as
the eye moves round it) that has made it been esteem'd in all ages, in
preference to the cone, which in all views appears nearly the same, being
varied only by light and shade.
Steeples,
monuments, and most compositions in painting and sculpture, are kept within the
form of the cone or pyramid, as the most eligible boundary on account of their
simplicity and variety. For the same reason equestrian statues please more than
the single figures.
The authors
(for there were three concern'd in the work) of as fine a group of figures in
sculpture, as ever was made, either by ancients or moderns, (I mean Laocoon and
his two sons) chose to be guilty of the absurdity of making the sons of half
the father's size, tho'[Pg 22] they have every other mark of being design'd for
men, rather than not bring their composition within the boundary of a pyramid”.
The two
engravings were published separately.
..................
The intention here is to give a brief overview of the reproductions of the Laocoon group available in bronze available in England from which the lead version illustrated here might have been derived.
The lead statuette was possibly taken from an original bronze but it is quite possible that a pointing machine was used to reproduce an original bronze in wax or plaster from which the lead was cast.
...................
The Two Princeton University Terracotta Laocoon Groups.
Height. 82 cm (maximum) plinth: 52 x 24.5 cm.
(Height. 32 5/16 in. x 20 1/2 x 9 5/8 in.).
Gifts of Elias Wolf, Class of 1920, and Mrs. Wolf.
Both from the Collection of Ludwig Pollack (who has discovered the missing arm in 1905).
They say Italian 17th century.
The colour of the terracotta might suggest Coade Stone (see 1784 Catalogue below) -
The sizes need to be confirmed.
I have not yet come across a version of the Laocoon in Coade Stone.
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/30786
Journal Article - Two Terra-Cotta Replicas of the Laocoon Group by John Rupert Martin
Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, Vol. 27, No.
2, Notes on Recent Acquisitions (1968), pp. 68-71 (4 pages).
...........
The Second Princeton Terracotta Laocoon.
Height 68 cms
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/30736
......................
The Laocoon in the Coade Catalogue of 1784.
The Plinth 14" x 8"
https://collections.soane.org/b9139
and another in the INHA , Paris.
...................
Copper engraving of group by Giovanni Antonio da Brescia.
British Museum, inventory 1845-8-25-707.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1845-0825-707
This is one of several views dating to soon after the excavation which confirms the separation of the elder son from the other two figures at the time of their discovery. Pinelli notes that "the frontal arrangement of the group is thus a sixteenth-century reconstruction that perhaps has nothing to do with the original composition of the Rhodian work." Seymour Howard ("On the Reconstruction of the Vatican Laocoon Group," American Journal of Archaeology 63 (1959) 365–369) made a similar point on the basis of autopsy of the marble.
.............
The Laocoon soon after the discovery
Marco Dente (da Ravenna).
Prior to the rstoration program of 1520.
Image Courtesy V and A.
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1029993/the-laocoon-before-restoration-print-dente-marco-da/
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The Foggini (attributed) Laocoon.
Sizes 56 × 44 × 21.9 cm.
(22 1/16 × 17 5/16 × 8 5/8 in.).
The base here differs from the original marble, bronze reproductions and the lead
Getty Museum.
Text below from the Getty Museum website.
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RQQ
After training in Florence, Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652 - 1725) was
sent to Rome in 1673 by Cosimo III de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, to attend
the new Accademia Fiorentina. He returned home in 1676 with the characteristic
Baroque, painterly style he kept for life. Foggini's reliefs often display
contrasting diagonals and skies with mythological or Christian figures amid
clouds and shafts of light. Drapery is characterized by a rippling pattern,
which Foggini contrasts with smoothly modeled, highly polished areas of naked
flesh.
After Fernando Tacca's death in 1687, Foggini was appointed
grand ducal sculptor and within the decade became the court architect as well.
His position with the Medici was all-powerful and secure. In addition to busts
of Florentine luminaries and the Medici, Foggini's major works include reliefs
made for various chapels in Florence. His many pupils prolonged his style well
past the middle of the eighteenth century, until the advent of Neoclassicism.
.................
The British Museum Wax Statuette of the Laocoon Group.
The position of the snakes head behind the flank of Laocoon is different from the so called Foggini and the Tomasso Bronze versions.
Width 30 cms.
This is a very finely modelled wax .
The group is attached to a ? wood support inscribed in gold
on the back 'PRESENTED BY THOMAS HOLLIS, ESQ./on 5th MAY 1758/ (Donations Book
in Director's Office).
Hollis was in Italy 1748 - 9 [dep. London 19 Jul. 1748] Genoa, Milan [England 3 Dec. 1749]
and again 1750 - 3 Venice (8 Dec. 1750 - 28 Feb. 1751), Rome (by Apr. 1752), Naples (Apr. - 22 Sep.) with visit to Sicily and Malta (Aug.), Rome (late Sep.), Verona, Milan, Genoa (Dec.).
see - https://www.grandtour.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Detail/hollis-thomas/22270201
Around 1510, Donato Bramante held a contest, inviting a group of sculptors in Rome to create a wax replica of the Laocoön in order to decide how Laocoon's missing arm should be replaced
Raphael judged this contest and declared the winner the Florentine Jacopo Sansovino, whose model was subsequently Cast in bronze and presented to Cardinal Domenico Grimani.
This eventually ended up in France, having been presented to the Cardinal of Lorraine in 1534. By 1523 Bandinelli had made a full-size marble copy which was to be a present for François I from Pope Leo X but ended up in the Uffizi and a bronze copy was made for Fontainebleau.
See the bronze Sansovino statuette in the Victoria and Albert Museum (image below).
The version below is in the Palazzo Grimani in Venice
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1758-0505-1
At first glance this group is very similar to the lead group above but close inspection reveals differences in the position of the snakes head at the back of the flank of Laocoon and it has a very different base and support. The base is much closer to the Getty Foggini bronze statuette with vegetation.
A point of interest is that it was in England by the late 1750's.
670 mm x 490 mm.
The 'liberty' cap and 'Brutus' daggers emblems on the plinth
were repeatedly used by Hollis to represent resistance to tyranny
The Gallery acquired the portrait for the nation, following
a loan period from a private collection, for £293,157 having received £100,000
towards its purchase from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) and
£57,000 from the Art Fund.
It was displayed in the Houghton Library at Harvard during the 1990s.
It was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, London, next to
a portrait of John Wilkes, whose treatment by the government Hollis opposed and
whose cause against the tyranny of government Hollis had championed.
Hollis left his estate to his friend, Thomas Brand, who
afterwards changed his name to Brand-Hollis, and it was in the latter’s home,
The Hyde at Ingatestone, Essex, that is found the first recorded reference to
Wilton’s bust of Thomas Hollis. In his diary entry of 24 July, 1786, John
Adams, at that time United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James and
later Vice-President and President of the United States of America, recorded a
visit to The Hyde (originally called ‘The Hide’). He noted that it was “the
Residence of an Antiquarian”, all the rooms being decorated with large numbers
of antiquities, many of which had been given, or bequeathed, by Hollis to
Brand, and continued:
“I will perhaps take a list of all antiques in this Hall.
The most interesting to me is the bust of my friend, as well as Mr Brand’s
friend, the late Thomas Hollis Esq. …in beautiful white marble.”
Currently L230 THOMAS HOLLIS, libertarian, writer,
bibliophile and patron of the arts,
marble bust by Joseph Wilton, 1758-1766/7
Purchase from David Wilson, price to be agreed (subject to
private treaty sale application
and final negotiations with vendor), approved.
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
.jpg)
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2021/01/henry-herbert-9th-earl-of-pembroke.html
https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2019/01/bust-of-roubiliac-or-not.html
His Diary records several meetings with Sir Henry Cheere and with Michael Spang. On 10 May 1762 he viewed the models of Roubiliac, who had recently died, and on 3 August that year he went to the studio of Scheemakers to view the statue of Admiral Watson (Westminster Abbey) on which the sculptor was working, to a design of Stuart.
Hollis's knowledge of the arts by some of the great figures of the day, such as Reynolds who had served with Hollis on several committees of the Society of Arts, notably that which in January and February 1759 had judged drawings submitted in competition,52 Hollis not only collaborated with members of the artistic community on artistic projects, but was frequently consulted them for advice. Hollis's diary records that on 17 July 1761 he attended Joseph Nollekens' studio 'to view a model of a basso relievo, which he designs to execute for a Premium given out by the Society', and on 24 July 1761 he added, At Mr.Nollekens to assist him what little matter I may be able about his intended Basso relievo for the Premium of the Soc.'
The Diary for29 July 1761 records: 'To Mr Nollekens to assist him farther in the composition of his Basso relievo.' Hollis also met Nollekens on no fewer than six further occasions between 11 August 1761 and 8 May 1762.
These Diary entries by Hollis are important because they clearly establish an important part of the chronology of Nollekens' career, contrary to the assertions of Nollekens' biographer, JT Smith. The latter (whose record has often been shown to be unreliable) was accordingly much mistaken when he stated that Nollekens moved to Rome in 1760, and from there consigned works to London to be entered in competitions for Premiums of the Society of Arts, statements that have frequently been relied upon by many writers since.53
Nollekens actually arrived in Rome after May 1762: not only is this established by Hollis's Diary; but the records of the Society of Arts actually show that Nollekens was present (Hollis was not) at the meeting of the Committee on Polite Arts when it awarded him the premium for his 'Basso relievo'.5
............................
The Sotheby's Bronze Group of Laocoon,
Described as after Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725) - probably French
57.5 by 44cm.
(22⅝ by 17¼in).
Sotheby's Lot 14 10 December, 2020.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/treasures-2/laocooen-and-his-sons
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The Felbrigg Bronze Laocoon.
Felbrigg House Norfolk.
National Trust.
840 x 600 x 320 mm.
https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1399562
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A Bronze reduction of the original Laocoon.
This version with Messrs Tomasso Brothers in 2019.
Height 52 cms x Width 39 cms.
https://issuu.com/artsolution/docs/v0829_tomasso_scultura_iv_cvr
A Note in the Tomasso Catalogue Entry.
Around 1510, Donato Bramante held a contest, inviting a group of sculptors in Rome to create a wax replica of the Laocoön in order to decide how Laocoon's missing arm should be replaced
Raphael judged this contest and declared the winner the Florentine Jacopo Sansovino, whose model was subsequently Cast in bronze and presented to Cardinal Domenico Grimani.
This eventually ended up in France, having been presented to
the Cardinal of Lorraine in 1534. By 1523 Bandinelli had made a full-size
marble copy which was to be a present for François I from Pope Leo X but ended
up in the Uffizi and a bronze copy was made for Fontainebleau.
See the bronze Sansovino statuette in the Victoria and Albert Museum (image below).
................................
Two marble groups are known to have been sent to France in the 16th century, and a version was executed by Tuby for Versailles in the late 17th century, as were bronze versions under the direction of Girardon (Haskell and Penny),
The original marble statue remains in the Vatican Museum.
.............................
Copies and casts can be found in various European Institutions etc - this list is by no means definitive.
.....................................
The Primaticco Bronze Laocoon at Fontainbleau.
Francesco Primaticcio, known as Le Primatice (Bologna, 1504
– Paris, 1570) assisted by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola, known as Vignole (Vignola, 1507 – Rome, 1573).
1543
Bronze.
H. 191 cm; L. 168 cm;
Primaticcio made casts of the famous marbles of Antiquity exhibited in the papal palace of the Vatican, in the Belvedere Courtyard. The artist travelled to Rome twice, in 1540 and again in 1545, to complete the commission.
The large bronzes of Fontainebleau were therefore made
from the molds brought back to France, in a dedicated workshop on site, near
the château. Primaticcio was then assisted by Vignola.
..............................
The Marble Version at Versailles by Jean Baptiste Tuby (1629 - 1700)..
Executed by Jean-Baptiste Tuby, assisted by Philibert Vigier (1636 - 1719) and Jean Rousselet (1656 - 1693) who each sculpted a child.
The participation of Vigier who
"made one of the children of Laocon [ sic ]" is attested by Louvois'
list of January 31, 1687.
Right arm and right shoulder of Laocoon remaining to be
retouched in November 1694.
Noted in 1698 by Martin Lister in Tuby's workshop at the
Gobelins.
Installed in 1701 in the gardens of Trianon, "in the
small garden at the end of Trianon-sous-Bois", the carpenter François
Dumagny having been paid on March 27 and August 2, 1701 for "the transport
of the Laocoön group from the Gobelins to Trianon".
Payments mentioned by accounting sources to Jean-Baptiste
Tuby, for the “marble group of Laocoon
”, from April 1684 to September 1696 (work explicitly mentioned in
progress from April 1685 to September 1696).
Report closed on March 17, 1693; full payment not yet made
in November 1694, date at which some adjustments to the group remained to be
made.
Payment of 125 livres to Nicolas Coustou, “for the work he
did on the marble Laocoon in the Trianon garden”, probably minor interventions
related to the transport of the work, on April 17, 1701.
Commissioned by Louvois, based on a plaster model provided by Jean-Baptiste Tuby on January 21, 1684.
https://sculptures-jardins.chateauversailles.fr/notice/notice.php?id=229
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The Houghton Laocoon Group.
A bronze copy from a marble version by
Jean-Baptiste Tuby of 1696 in Versailles was made by Balthazar Kellers under
François Girardon's direction and was acquired by Sir Robert Walpole's son,
Robert for Houghton Hall, Norfolk.
........................
Victoria & Albert Museum (perhaps a small bronze copy by Sansovino, with Laocoön’s right arm correctly restored as Michelangelo had suggested). The base and square column is also quite different to the original.
Height: 30.5cm Width: 27.2cm Depth: 12.5cm
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O106691/laocoon-and-his-sons-group-unknown/
...............................
Manchester City Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester
(small bronze version).
.................................
Ashmolean Cast Gallery, Oxford (plaster cast).
https://www.ashmolean.org/laocoon-group
Cast from marble original - Height 238 cm.
Acquired from the British Museum, 1933.
....................
The Royal Academy Cast.
Crawford Cast Gallery, Cork, Ireland (the full size plaster cast, has recently been restored).
There is a plaster cast in the Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen, and another in the Tsvetaev Cast Collection, Pushkin Museum, Moscow.
..........................
Laocoon.
Lot 214
...........................
A preparation by Josef Hyrtl anatomist created ca. 1850.
It was destroyed by a fire after the Allied bombing of the
city in 1945.
12 August 1930.
Reference: WT/D/1/20/1/10/16
Part of: Wellcome Trust Corporate Archive
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/bhg2vatp/items.
..........................
https://harvardartmuseums.org/index.php/collections/object/56526
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Bibliography - not exhaustive.
For an excellent introduction to the subject of Lead Sculpture in England in the Eighteenth Century.
see John Davis, Antique Garden Ornament pub. Antique Collectors Club, 1991.
..............
Francis Haskell & Nicholas Penny, Taste & the
Antique (Yale University Press, 1981).
see also Terry Friedman and Timothy Clifford, The Man at Hyde Park Corner: Sculpture by John Cheere, 1709-1787, exh. cat., Leeds, 1974;
Clifford 1992 pp.50-1;
Moira Fulton, 'John Cheere, the Eminent Statuary, his workshop and practice, 1737-1787', Sculpture Journal, vol.10, 2003, pp.21-39;
Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors ..... Roscoe, et al pub Yale 2009.
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Websites.
http://www.digitalsculpture.org/laocoon/chronology/
http://www.digitalsculpture.org/laocoon/volpe_parisi/index.html
For the Tuby Marble version see -
https://sculptures-jardins.chateauversailles.fr/notice/notice.php?id=229
