This post to be added to when I can find time.
I will look at the reclining statues and other statuary on the Church Monuments from the workshops of Henry Cheere in due course.
Part of the reason for collecting this information is to attempt to ascertain whether Henry Cheere was the actual sculptor or whether he used men within his workshop or hired sub contactors to create these statues.
It is also to attempt to map out the career of Louis Francois Roubiliac after his arrival in England in 1730.
This is probably a hopeless task given the lack of documentary evidence.
I may be doing him a dis service but my suspicion is that after about 1730 Henry Cheere no longer worked "on the tools". This supposition should not detract from his skills both as a designer and organiser of one of the most successful workshops in London in the mid 18th Century.
Until recently all the literature on 18th century sculpture / sculptors has suggested that Cheere was in the first rank of mid 18th century sculptors along with Rysbrack, Roubiliac, Scheemakers and Taylor.
But doubts have arisen (certainly in my mind) when researching various church monuments given to Cheere but with busts almost certainly by Roubiliac - the monuments at Racton and Crofton and Stubbington and the bust of Hawksmoor at All Souls College, Oxford are examples where in three busts the clothing follow a pattern used by Roubiliac.
It appears that Roubiliac used some sort of pointing machine to reproduce versions of his busts but replacing the head. This would appear to be a method used uniquely by Roubiliac - this might suggest that the marble statues of Sir George Cooke at the Ashmolean and Bowater Vernon at Hanbury Church Worcestershire were carved by Roubiliac The similarities are obvious (see photographs etc below).
The addition of these busts to Cheere's monuments suggest that Cheere was employing Roubiliac - probably from shortly after his arrival in England in around 1730. Roubiliac (spelt Rowtiliac) appears in (a copy of) a list (undated) of members of a Freemason's Lodge at the White Bear in King St, Golden Square -
Researches published by Malcolm Baker in Roubiliac and the Eighteenth Century Monument pub. Yale, 1995, the Grand Lodge of Freemasons called in the names of all members of regular lodges - this would suggest that there are other similar lists!
This list should be investigated thoroughly and not accepted as fact until the date is proven to be accurate!
For an early look and useful look at the subject see - Malcolm Baker, ‘Sir Henry Cheere and the Response to the Rococo in English Sculpture’, The Rococo in England, Georgian Group Symposium,1984, pp. 143–160.
Available on line at -
https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GGS_1984_11_Malcolm_Baker.pdf
If he didn't actually sculpt these statues then can we discover who was working for with him?
Certainly he had a large workshop(s) at Westminster. It is not clear to me where his workshops were located - he certainly resided at St Margaret's Lane by Old Palace Yard - but workshops at Millbank are also mentioned.
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The Robert Davies of Lannerch Monument at St Mary the Virgin, Mold, Flintshire.
Robert Davies (1684 -1728).
The Life size Marble Statue.
Post 1728 - the actual date of erection is not clear.
Photographs taken by the author March 2019.
I have written about this monument previously.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/07/henry-cheeres-monument-to-robert-davies.html
Robert Davies (1685/86 – 22 May 1728) was a Welsh antiquary
and son of fellow antiquary, Robert Davies of Llanerch (d. 1710).
Davies was born on 1685/6 the son of Robert Davies and his wife, Letitia (née Vaughan). Davies matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford University on 27 June 1702, aged 16. His father died on 8 July 1710, when his Llannerch and Gwysaney estates passed on to his son. The son of our Robert Davies another Robert became High Sheriff of Flintshire in 1744.
The Church continues in use as a place of worship by the Church in Wales.
The pose here of the standing cross legged figure leaning against an urn is that first used by the Italian Guelfi (working in England c1718 - 1734) on the influential monument in Westminster Abbey to James Craggs Secretary of State, put up c 1722 - designed by James Gibbs and superintended by Alexander Pope.
The pose of the Guelfi Craggs statue was very influential on
future monuments - the Westminster Abbey monument to Shakespeare by Scheemakers
of 1740 being the prime example.
It was used on the monument of 1746 to William and Elizabeth
Powlett at St George's Church West Grinstead by Rysbrack,.
The 1761 to Cholmley Turner, at St Cuthberts, Kirkleatham, Cleveland also by Henry Cheere.
The monument to Sir John Dutton at Sherborne, Glouc. by Rysbrack of 1749.
Duke of Somerset in the Senate House, Cambridge Rysbrack of 1756.
For more on Guelfi and the derivation and use of this pose see -
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Christopher Codrington (1668 - 1710).
In the Former Codrington Library at All Souls College, Oxford.
H. 182 cm.
Plinth: H 90 x W 87 x D 71 cm
The Statue of Sir George Cooke (1675 - 1740).
I am currently leaning towards Roubiliac.
Marble Statue. Circa 1749?
Photographs here taken by the author.
There are 58 separate components to this work.
see - https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GGS_1984_11_Malcolm_Baker.pdf
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As far as I know there is no documentary evidence.
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Provenance - The Cooke Estate at Belhackets, Middlesex (demolished), until 19th century
By descent to the Vernon family, Stoke Bruerne,
Northamptonshire.
Acquired by Sir Elton John.
Lot 223 - Sotheby's, London (December 12, 2003).
"The statue of George Cooke, the elder, made by Henry Cheere, is a complex and subtle work. It is, in the simplest terms, a commemorative statue. The initial function of the piece laid somewhere between that of a household bust, funerary monument and decorative garden statue.
A
church monument, probably by Cheere, was set up to Cooke in Hayes church in
Middlesex. This statue, then, probably represents a second phase of
commemoration, closer to home. Payments to Cheere in the bank account of the
deceased’s son, George Cooke, the younger, dated 1744 and 1749 probably
represent these two commissions. As it
is likely that the church monument was erected first, this suggests that the
statue is to be dated, 1749'
English ancestral ‘images’ of the eighteenth century were seldom set up in gardens. They were very rarely full length portraits. Rather, they were generally bust images that were displayed inside the house. Such works preserved the Roman tradition of setting up shrines, containing images, in the halls of their homes. Occasionally, a Georgian connoisseur with a particular regard for the art of sculpture commissioned a full length tribute.
A fine example is Rysbrack’s statue of the attorney, Ralph Willet (c. 1758),
which stood at the base of the staircase of the now lost architectural gem,
Merely Court in Gloucestershire. The only other surviving example of a
commemorative statue erected in a garden of this era is Rysbrack’s impressive
figure of the first Earl Strafford which was set up within a sham medieval ruin
at Wentworth Castle in Yorkshire in 1741. The beautiful model for this figure
is in the Victoria and Albert Museum'.
'The Elizabethan resonances of the piece were probably intended to lend a political meaning. They refer to a noted contemporary cult of nostalgia for the days of that Queen; days when Britain was believed to be truly great, as it had ceased to be under a whig ministry of Robert Walpole and his successors the Pelham brothers.
George Cooke, the elder, and his son and namesake who commissioned this work, were politicians in opposition to the whig ministry. It was no coincidence that Cooke, snr, had purchased an estate next door to that of Lord Bolingbroke, at Dawley Farm, the latter being the greatest literary and philosophical proponent of the opposition.
The English
inscription to this piece includes a substantial, unacknowledged, quote from a
poem by Bolingbroke’s celebrated friend, Alexander Pope: in specific his
Epistle to Lord Burlington, On the Use and Abuse of Riches. Pope’s political
poem was intended to vaunt the ideal of the retired and modestly tasteful gentleman
who spent honestly acquired riches in an honest and discrete manner. This type
was intended to the ante-type of the government minister who made his fortune
from corruption and spent it upon vast tasteless projects'.
The Royal Infirmary was an important work by William Adam,
demolished in 1884. It was a U-plan building, fairly plain for the sake of
economy, but with a frontispiece comprising four engaged giant Ionic columns to
the 1st and 2nd floors, and a 3-bay attic storey with French roof, lantern, and
flanking bracket scrolls. This latter was the operating theatre, and the
lantern housed a winch for hoisting patients from floor to floor. Drummond
Scrolls comprises this attic storey, although it is unfortunately missing its
balustraded roof.
R.A. Macfie of Dreghorn house was a collector of architectural antiques, and bought most of the ornamental stonework from the Infirmary when it was demolished. The Drummond Scrolls were re-erected by Macfie on his stable block.
The niche in the NW elevation was originally at the centre of the 2nd floor of the infirmary, and held the lead statue of George II by John Cheere (1759).
The statue is currently at the present Royal Infirmary in Lauriston
Place.
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The Monument to Charles Polhill, Otford, Sevenoaks, Kent.
Henry Cheere.
The largest of the monuments in the chancel, to Charles Polhill, who died 1755, is by Sir Henry Cheere.
Charles was a merchant tailor at Smyrna and later a Commissioner of Excise in London. Charles is shown with his wife, Martha, above, flanked by Faith with a Bible and Hope with an anchor and posy. There are several other memorials to the family, in particular David Polhill the brother of Charles’ who was an MP. Both were great grandsons of Oliver Cromwell.
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The Monument to Cholmley Turner.
Turner Mausoleum, St Cuthberts Church, Kirkleatham, Redcar and Cleveland North Riding Yorkshire.
c. 1760.
Kirkleatham's mausoleum was originally built on to the earlier church in 1740, hence it is approached from the chancel through the only Gothic style doorway in the building. The builder was Cholmley Turner, great grand-son of the first John Turner and Elizabeth. His son Marwood died in 1739 at Lyons when he was only 21 in the course of a 'Grand Tour' of Europe. It was in memory of Marwood that Cholmley Turner had this fine mausoleum erected. It was designed by James Gibbs, architect of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. Externally the building is octagonal in plan with partially rusticated walls, angle buttresses and an octagonal pyramidal roof capped by a stone urn. Internally, the plan is circular, with four larger and four smaller niches. Three of the larger niches are occupied by statues.
Inscribed.
“Here lyeth the body of Charles Turner, of Kirkleatham, in
this county, Esq., who dyed the 2d day of August, 1719, in the 69th year of his
age. He was truly possessed of all the vertues that can adorn a private life.
His religion was sincere, his word inviolable. He married Margaret, the
daughter of Sir William Cholmeley, of Whitby, in this county, Bart., by whom he
had issue nine sons and five daughters, whereof only three sons and five
daughters were liveing at the time of his death.”
“Here lieth the body of Mrs. Margaret Turner, brought from
Crake Hall to Kirkleatham, by her own request, to be deposited besides her
husband, Charles Turner. She dyed the 13th of October, 1744, in the 84th year
of her age. Pious and religious, she gave a general encouragement to virtue,
and relief to the distressed in the several places which she inhabited. Being
averse to vice of all kinds, where her example could not prevail she wou’d
exert her utmost authority to discountenance it. Endow’d with extraordinary
talents of sense and understanding, which were indefatigably employed in the
service of her children, friends, and dependents. An excellent and plentiful
housekeeper; hospitable, with so much elegance as was agreeable to the most
delicate taste; with such economy as did honour, not a prejudice, to her
family. Cholmley Turner, Esq., her eldest surviving son, caus’d this stone to
be deposited in token of his affection, and in regard to the memory of his dear
mother.”
see - Friedman and Clifford 1974, no 51; Whinney 1988, 457
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/turner-cholmley-1685-1757
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Further reading -
