The original by Joseph Wilton, (1722 - 1803)
The Harvard Corporation thanked Franklin in 1769 for sending
from London this “fine bust” .
At the time, Franklin was stationed in London as an agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly. (While there, he leveraged his connections and expertise to help procure a wide range of scientific instruments for Harvard, and ultimately played a vital role in building the college’s apparatus collection.) This donation—the bust of a British politician who advocated for peaceful relations with the colonies—harbored an obvious political charge in pre-Revolutionary Boston.
The Harvard Corporation acknowledged this significance
in a note f 12769 thanking the statesman and scientist “for his very acceptable present
of a fine bust of that great assertor of American liberties.”
Sizes - 68 x 42 x
19 cm (26 3/4 x 16 9/16 x 7 1/2 in.)
socle: 10.8 × 20.3 × 20.3 cm (4 1/4 × 8 × 8 in.)
Incised inscription on the back, Wm. Pitt / Earl of Chatham.
The Wilton ceramic or artificial stone bust here uses the squatter later Roubiliac type socle. This form of Socle appears on several other Coade or Coade Type busts including those of Caracalla, Milton and John Wesley.
It has been suggested that the bust is of Coade Stone - if
this is the case then it is one of the earliest documented pieces of Coade
stone but given the date that it was sent to Harvard I think this is unlikely - the Coade business commenced at Narrow Wall, Lambeth in 1769 having taken over the business of Daniel Pincot.
I suggest that it was probably cast by Pincot - he is known to have produced other pieces lter manufactured by Coade including the Borghese Vase and the Druid.
The Harvard website states -
"The team noted that Wilton’s father was a successful
architectural ornament manufacturer. Furthermore, when the Harvard bust’s
dimensions are compared with an identical marble bust of Pitt in the collection
of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, Harvard’s bust is an average
of 5 percent smaller. Because Coade stone’s reported shrinkage upon firing is
also approximately 5 percent, Sigel posited that Harvard’s bust was probably
formed in a mold made from the Fitzwilliam bust".
Alternatively I would suggest possibly cast from the terracotta or a plaster original.
"Materials such as crushed glass and quartz (sand)
grains are also evident in the clay" .-
Coades products have been subject to analysis and the mixture which was variable certainly included powdered glass.
It seems to have been widely known throughout the terracotta trade in the19th century.
In 1850, ten years after the closure of the Coade factory, Charles Fowler noted the generally used formula for the manufacture of artificial stone:
Civil Engineering and Architectural Journal - 1850 vol 13 p.
215/216
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.............
George Davy, Daniel Pincot (d.1797), Mr Smith and Mr Bridges of Knightsbridge.
These business were all subsumed by Messrs Coade of Lambeth.
George Davy, an artificial stone manufacturer, took over the premises in Goulston Square, Whitechapel, London, formerly occupied by Daniel Pincot, some time between February and October 1767, when he advertised ‘a large Quantity of Goods of near 100 different Subjects, such as Figures, Busts, Tablets, Friezes, Medalions, Vases, Capitals of Different Orders of various Sizes’ for sale at his warehouse at 18 Long Acre, near Covent Garden.
He claimed that these goods were ‘more durable and higher finished than natural stone’ and, furthermore, undertook to sell them at the same price or cheaper than any equivalent work available in plaster or wood (Daily Ad, 23 October 1767).
At the end of December 1767 there was a sale of artificial stone produced at Goulston Square over the last year, at Christie’s, perhaps including work by both Davy and Pincot. The catalogue survives in the Christie archive and shows that prices were considerably lower than those of comparable items listed in the catalogue of the Coade Factory of Lambeth, published in 1783.
In March 1768 Davy announced that a large quantity of his artificial stone had been sold by John Moreing at the Great Sale Room in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, adding ‘if due Encouragement is given to this Undertaking, the Proprietor intends to continue the Manufactory’ (Daily Ad, 23/24 March 1768). Further sales at Moreing’s auction house and then at Blyth’s sale room in Dean Street, Soho were advertised throughout 1768 and in 1770. The public response appears to have been less than enthusiastic for Davy commented, ‘the Proprietor has reason to think that many Gentlemen entertain a less opinion of Artificial Stone by the Reports of some whose Interest it may be to deprecate it’ (Daily Ad, 27 May 1768).
Davy’s last known advertisements appeared in April 1771 (Daily Ad, 29 April 1771) and by July 1773 he was financially ruined.
He wrote to his patron, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham requesting payment for four medallions of Alexander and Hercules explaining that they ‘were made by your particular Order and at the Sale I bought them for your Lordship but am now so poor that I cannot clare [sic] the lots therefore let me intreat your Lordship to be so kind as to advance me the money or else the goods will be resold and all the charges attending it will fall on me’. He also informed him that if he had any further orders he should approach a ‘Mr Smith at Nightsbridge’?? who had bought all his moulds (Rockingham Vouchers, Sheffield City Library, No 1, microfilm A314).
The Kedleston medallions (55cms) of Alfred and Ethelred were produced by the Coade Manufactory of
Lambeth, London. They are derived from moulds produced by 'Bridges of
Knightsbridge', an artificial stone manufacturer whose stock-in-trade was
auctioned by Christies on 26 May 1775. Lots 8 and 9 of that sale were a pair of
medallions of Alfred and Ethelred. (info National Trust - https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/109000.1)
The National Portrait Gallery, London, Marble Bust of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham.
by Joseph Wilton.
They say circa 1766 or after.
28 3/4 in. x 20 7/8 in. (730 mm x 530 mm) overall.
.......................
The Goverment Art Collection Bust Pitt the Elder
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https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/2116/william-pitt-1st-earl-chatham-1708-1778-
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