Monday, 21 September 2026

Busts on Chimneypieces from Drawing Matters website.

 



Two interesting drawing from the Drawings Matter website.

attributed to Joseph Sanderson.

https://drawingmattercollections.com/asset/9222

An interesting website but gives no hint as to the source of these two drawings.

Almost certainly from the group of drawings from the Shoppee Collection sold by Christie's (disassembled) on 19 December 1989, lots 37 to 53.

Charles John Shoppee collected between 1850 and 1880,  Many drawings are by Joseph Sanderson 

Joseph Sanderson  - A Brief Biog from the V and A website and other sources -

John Sanderson, who died in 1774, and Joseph Sanderson, who died in 1747, were sometime partners in building. John may have been the dominant partner, having designed a grand Palladian house for the third Duke of Bedford at Stratton Park, Hampshire, as early as 1731.2 

As for the family relationship, Joseph referred to 'my cozen' John in 1745, and bequeathed to him 'my gold ring of Inigo Jones's head and a small book of my own drawings of the five Orders ... as a token of our former friend.

Joseph Sanderson and his cousin, John Sanderson (d. 1774) were partners in building, and there is a possible connection between the designs and Barrington Hall, Essex where they worked. 

John Shales Barrington, who succeeded to the Barrington estate in 1734, soon afterwards built a new Barrington Hall, 1 km. north of the church, and enclosed it in a park. 

It is probable that the architect was John Sanderson (d. 1774), and the builder his cousin Joseph Sanderson (d. 1747). The main three-storeyed block of the house measured 110 ft. by 60 ft. and had a principal front to the south of nine bays, with a Corinthian portico from which a perron staircase descended on each side to the basement floor. The walls were of red brick, the architraves and embellishments of limestone ashlar. The ancillary buildings were concentrated in a lower wing on the east side of the house. 

The interior was fitted with carved fireplaces of stone and marble, one of which is said to have cost £700, richly moulded plasterwork, and mahogany doors. Henry Cheere, the sculptor, provided a stone staircase and a for both of which ironwork was supplied by John Wagg, the black smith.

The Shoppee album contained elevations for Barrington Hall by Joseph Sanderson. The house was built for J. S. Barrington about 1740 and subsequently abandoned. Much of the furniture ended up with an unrelated family at Bradfield Hall, Berkshire. 

Amongst the furniture sold from Bradfield was a pair of giltwood pier glasses, now at the Treasurer's House, York. The pair of pier glasses is somewhat comparable to the designs.

John Harris notes in his article, the connection between John Linnell and John Sanderson 'an architect whose practice extends from 1731 to 1770, when he finished the Radcliffe Infirmary after he death of Seth Leadbetter in 1766.'

Chimneypiece with bust.

They say Chimneypiece with a bust of Pope - this is definitely not a bust of Pope!

Interestingly it has the socle with convex panel typical of the works of John Cheere.




The Chimneypiece with bust of Rubens by Michael Rysbrack.

Drawing attributed to Joseph Sanderson.

Here the bust is stated as Shakespeare but it much more closely resembles the Bust of Rubens by Rysbrack.

The terracotta is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, the Marble is at Hagley Hall.
As far as I know there are no plaster versions.

See my post -





Bust of Peter Paul Rubens.

Michael Rysbrack.
 
Terracotta.

1743.

National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.

The Marble is at Hagley Hall paired with a bust of Van Dyck.




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Drawings of Pier Glasses by Joseph Sanderson (c.1690-1747) at the V & A.


This group of ten designs for pier glasses was formerly contained in a bound album of drawings, by different designers, assembled by Charles John Shoppee (1823 - 1898), the architect, between 1850 and 1880. 

It had been disbound and the drawings separated and sold previously by Christie's on 19 December 1989, lots 37 to 53. The frames lots 43 and 44.

Sold again by Christie's 10 March 2005.

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4448936


A group of ten designs for pedimented Pier-Glasses

seven signed with initials 'J.S.' (lower left)

five pencil, pen and grey ink with brown wash, three pencil, pen and grey ink and grey wash, one with fragmented watermark


https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O125046/design-sanderson-joseph/


See - Harris, John. A Digression on John Sanderson and the Rococo. Furniture History. 1990, 26, pp.101-113.













































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Joseph Sanderson at Garendon Park. Leicestershire. 

Info below from


The follies at Garendon Park, hide behind a blanket of unknowns, and what information that does exist is thin on the ground. 

From letters to Leak Okeover (of Okeover Hall in Staffs) it appears that in 1745 Joseph Sanderson (a carpenter and joiner by trade) was working at Garendon Park, and a design for a triumphal arch that may be connected with the one there was among drawings sold at Christie's in December 1989.  It is generally accepted that it was designed by the owner of Garendon himself, Ambrose Phillips, along with several other buildings on the estate.

Philips travelled extensively in Italy, making drawings of Roman antiquities, and was one of the original members of the Society of Dilettanti. 

The Triumphal Arch is modelled on the Arch of Titus in Rome, of which only the central portion then remained, embedded in mediæval fortifications.

Philips, therefore, was a serious student of Roman architecture as the Garendon arch is effectively an essay in archæological reconstruction, presumably built sometime between 1729 and his death in 1739.

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Two further Chimneypieces from an Album in the V and A.

attributed to John Linnell













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