John Cheere - Hoskins (Hoskings) and Oliver

 

This post came about by reearches into the business of Benjamin Rackstrow and his partner the midwife  Catherine Clarke

at Fleet Street

 Kenwood House and Hoskins and Oliver.

 The antechamber outside the library at Kenwood originally contained three plaster sculptures in the three niches. The sculptures were made for Lord Mansfield by James Hoskins (d. 1791) and Samuel Oliver (fl. 1769-74.

THey had set up business together running a plaster shop between c.1770, until 1774. 

Hoskin had been apprenticed to John Cheere (1709-87) in 1747 and held the post of 'moulder and caster in plaster' to the Royal Academy.18 

Their original invoice of 25 November 1771 states -

To three Large Antyke Figures Vizt Flora Teis [Thetis] and a Muse  -£50. 8. 0.

To selves and Assistants going with them to Kenwood £1. 1. 0.

Total £51. 9. 0.

..........................

William Wynn.

                                                           

The trade card in Banks Collection (Banks,106.33) which advertises "William Wynn Statuary... Late Apprentice to Mr. Rackstrow. Takes off Gentlemen & Ladies Faces from the Life, with the greatest ease & safety & forms them into Busts, to an exact Likeness. Likewise makes all sorts of Figures, Busts, Vases, &c. for Halls, Stair Cases, Dining Rooms, &c. in Plaister [sic] of Paris, to represent either Marble, Stone, or Bronzes &c. Likewise Mends, Gilds, Paints & Bronzes Old figures &c. N.B. Leaden figures, Vases &c. for Gardens made & mended."

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Banks-106-33

*Benjamin Rackstrow, ‘The Crown and Looking-Glass’, the lower end of the paved stones, St Martin’s Lane, London ?1720s-1737?, ‘Sir Isaac Newton’s Head’, the corner of Crane Court in Fleet St 1738-1748 or later, 197 Fleet St by 1768-1772. Cabinet maker, sculptor, picture framemaker, figure caster etc.

 

Benjamin Rackstrow (d.1772) led a varied career, from picture frame making to sculpture and to opening a museum of waxwork figures. He is presumably the Benjamin Rackstrow who married Hannah Bonruc or Bourne at St Luke Old Street, in 1733, and who had a son William by Sarah (his second wife?) in 1737, baptised at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet St, and three further children between 1740 and 1744. He was made free of the Joiners’ Company in July 1737 (information from Robert B. Barker, quoting Guildhall Library MS 8051/4, f.56 verso), probably to meet requirements for working within the bounds of the City at his new premises in Fleet St.

 

Rackstrow issued his first trade card, perhaps in the 1720s, from St Martin’s Lane, advertising ‘all sorts of Cabinet Work, Looking-Glasses, Coach-glasses, Window Blinds, Picture-frames &c. after the newest fashion and at the most Reasonable Rates. He likewise cleans and repairs all sorts of Cabinet work, Exchanges New Glasses for Old ones and makes Old ones fashionable, NB. He also cleans Pictures in the best manner and takes off Busto’s, Basso Reliev’s, and Figures of any Size in Wax, Metal, or Plaister of Paris’ (repr. Heal 1972 p.153). He issued a further impressive trade card, dated 1738 and engraved by Henry Copland, from the corner of Crane Court in Fleet St, calling himself a cabinet and picture framemaker, and advertising a very similar range of services to before, also offering to hang bells after the new manner (repr. Heal 1972 p.154). In a publication of 1748 he described himself as a ‘figure maker and statuary’ (Miscellaneous observations, together with a collection of experiments on electricity).

 

As a picture framemaker, we know very little of his activity. As a sculptor we know a little more, including the supply of a figure of the piping Faunus to Lady Luxborough in 1742, ‘three bustos and a group’ in 1748 for Arbury in Warwickshire, a statue of George II for Weaver’s Hall, Dublin, in 1749-50, and two busts in 1752 and a figure of Edward VI to the Ironmongers’ Company (Gunnis 1968 p.314; Roscoe 2009). From a court case in 1759, we learn that Rackstrow stocked a little figure of Shakespeare, about 12 ins high, which he sold for about 12s (Proceedings of the Old Bailey). He exhibited a coloured plaster figure and busts at the Free Society of Artists in 1763. His former apprentice, William Wynn, statuary, advertised from Shakespeare’s Head, Henrietta St, Covent Garden, in 1758 (Public Advertiser 31 May 1758; see also trade card, Banks coll., 106.33).

 

In later life, Rackstrow was known for his museum of waxwork figures and other curiosities which he maintained on his premises in Fleet St; these exhibits included life-size anatomical models (see Richard Altick, The Shows of London, 1978, pp.55-6; see also Matthew Craske, ‘ “Unwholesome” and “pornographic”: a reassessment of the place of Rackstrow’s Museum in the story of 18th-century anatomical collection and exhibition’, Journal of the History of Collections, vol.23, 2011, pp.75-99).

 

In his will, made 14 October 1769 and proved 1 June 1772, Benjamin Rackstrow, of St Dunstan-in-the-West, Temple Bar, left much of his estate to Catherine Clarke, including his busts, skeletons and moulds. His moulds, casts, figures and busts, from the antique, were sold shortly thereafterwards (Daily Advertiser 25 September 1772).

 

Sources: Information kindly provided by Robert B. Barker, 2011, on Rackstrow’s freedom and posthumous sale, and on William Wynn’s advertisement.