Slight return.
This post is inspired by conversations with Lars Tharp curator and Museum Director of the Foundling Hospital Museum.
It is a very much a work in progress - a series of notes and images.
https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/
I have written about the busts of Caracalla previously - in relation to both the Foundling plaster version and a slightly later version manufactured by Messrs Coade of Lambeth.
For the Coade busts and its antecedants see -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2026/01/coadestone-bust-of-caracalla-indented.html
For the Foundling Hospital Bust see
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/plaster-busts-at-foundling-hospital.html
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A Coade Stone bust of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
known as Caracalla, Emperor 211- 217. AD.
If the Coade version was taken from a plaster - either from
the Roubiliac sale version or a cast by Charles Harris - then it follows that
the sculptor for the final finishing of the Coade bust was probably by, or supervised by John
Bacon I.
The Plaster Busts of Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius.
in The Court Room at the Foundling Hospital Museum.
This attribution was first suggested by Mrs Katherine Esdaile in her monograph -
Life and Works of Louis Francois Roubiliac, published Oxford 1928. Page 141 and
note 3.
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The Roubiliac Sale of 12 May 1762 and the next three days -
I discovered this catalogue in a Collection in the Cottonian Library at Plymouth - there is another (not available on line in the Finberg Collection in the Print Room in the British Museum.
Mrs Esdaile states that a number of Artists at a meeting at the Turks Head on 7 December 1760, had agreed to appear on the 5 November in the following year ...........among those signing the paper recording the promise were Reynolds, Wilson and Roubiliac.
She goes on to say that the busts were presented on the same day and that they bore his signature and the date 7 November 1760. She had contacted the secretary Mr RW Nichols who had had the busts taken down and inspected but stated that any inscription had been obscured by the repeated coats of paint - (not unusual given that it was much easier to repaint this type of object rather than laboriously clean them - a fate of many plaster objects and their surroundings from the 18th century). My Italics.
In the ambiguous footnote she says " I have most
unfortunately omitted to give my authority - an 18th century one - for my note:
Foundling Hospital. Plaster Busts of M Aurelius and Caracalla L.F.R. Dec 7th
1760.
The Court Room at the Foundling was the most elaborate interior in the Hospital and was used for meetings of the court of governors.
It is
richly decorated in an amalgam of the Palladian and the Rococo: almost all the
wall decorations including the marble fireplace and over mantle frame, the
picture frames and adjacent plaster decoration are in the Palladian style with
occasional rococo detailing, while the plasterwork ceiling, given by William
Wilton, (father of the sculptor Joseph Wilton) is in a much more free-flowing rococo.
Hallett was a very significant figure in the cabinet-making
world and had built up sufficient funds to make purchases at the demolition
sale of the Duke of Chandos's great Edgware mansion of Canons in 1747 and then
construct himself a new house on the site.
William Hallett's charges included £3.15s on 12 November 1745 for 'an Oval Glass in a Carv'd Frame' (presumably the frame between the windows in the Court Room, with an egg-and-dart cabochon moulding surrounded by scrolling foliage and rocaille work), £5.10s on 16 December 1746 for 'Carving 4 Frees's over Doors' (the oak-leaf-and-acorn door friezes, tied with ribbons)
and £3.10s in March 1747 for '2 Carved Bracketts to set Bustoes on' (now
supporting busts of Caracalla and Marcus Aurelius). He also charged £11.4s on
15 November 1746 for '8 Carved Oval Frames for Pictures'.
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Laurent Delvaux (1696 - 1778) and the Bust of Caracalla at Woburn Abbey.
Inscribed L DELVAUX sculpsit Romae 1732.
I don't think the Foundling Caracalla was modelled from this bust but was taken from the Cavaceppi Caracalla purchased in Rome for Lord Leicester by Matthew Brettingham.
Lord and Lady Leicester both sat to Roubiliac for their portrait busts.
The Holkham Hall Marble Bust of Caracalla by Bartolemeo Cavaceppi.
There is a bust of Caracalla at Woburn by Laurent Delvaux
Bartolomeo Cavaceppi and Caracalla.
In the early 18th Century Caracalla's likeness was known from a bust in the Farnese collection in Rome and then Naples, believed to date from the 200s.
The Sculptor Bartolomeo Cavaceppi drew on this famous prototype for his marble bust of Caracalla. Carved during a period in which collectors bought sculptures all'antica, this bust was probably intended for an English collector's Neoclassical gallery.
https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RSX
Cavaceppi was an excellent self publicist and it seems odd that the bust of Caracalla was not mentioned or illustrated in the 3 Volume overview of his restorations of Antique statues - Raccolta d'antiche statue, busti, bassirilievi ed altre sculture :restaurate da Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, scultore romano.
This 3 Volume work was Published between 1768 and 1777.
Available on line at -
This bust of Caracalla and the Marcus Aurelius are almost certainly a product of the Cavaceppi wokshop although they lacks the eared support on the socle frequently used by him.
The Caracalla Bought in Rome by Matthew Brettingham and sold to Lord Leicester for £30 in 1749.
His account book notes carriage and custom house fees for a "modern coppye of ye" bust of Caracalla in November 1747.
Brettingham, who kept an account book when he was in Rome, listing thirteen statues and twenty-one busts sent to Holkham
see - “Matthew Brettingham’s Rome Account Book 1747-1754,” Walpole Society 49 (1983):
The Marble of Caesar Marcus Aurelius (161–180 AD) was also purchased in Rome in early 1754 by Matthew Brettingham for 10 crowns.
During his seven-year sojourn in Rome (1747-54) Matthew Brettingham not only dealt in casts and antiquities - he provided the Earl of Leicester, with casts and marble statues for Holkham Hall - but also commissioned actual moulds to be taken from famous Roman antiquities.
The idea was that casts could then be made to order when he returned to London.
He commissioned moulds for sixty busts, divided between Greek and Roman subjects, and twelve moulds of full-size statues.
This was something of a speculation and probably not a financial success.
His casts went, chiefly, to houses at which his father was architect. Apart from Holkham, Richmond House and Kedleston, it is known only that he sold plaster busts to Lord Egremont, and a few of them survive at Petworth.
Very likely, his moulds passed to John Cheere soon after 1760, for during the next decade we find Cheere supplying plaster and lead statues from Brettingham's rather distinctive repertory to Croome Court and Stourhead, while undocumented examples areseen in other houses such as Syon.
Some of these plasters are at Holkham and a group of these busts are also at Keddleston,
Many casts provided by Brettingham were in Charles Lennox, the 3rd Duke of Richmond's Gallery at Richmond House, Westminster which opened in 1758 - the gallery building was dismantled in 1778 - 82 during remodelling and later destroyed by fire in 1791, though the collection of casts was saved and later sold by Christie's.
See the article in the British Art Journal (Vol. 10, Issue 1) by John Kenworthy Brown.
In the Petworth Archives (Bundle 626) there are receipts for eight plaster busts dated 24 June and 19 Sept 1759. Also, in 1759, the elder Brettingham sold 'two plaster bustos from Italy to the Earl of Buckinghamshire for his house in Dover St
Goodwood Archives, Box 36/20. Brettingham's receipt, dated 13 Nov. 1756, is for the following casts: Petus and Arria , £30; Dying Gladiator , £20; Meleager , £20; Apollo Belvedere , £20; Flora , £20; St Susanna , £18; Callipygian Venus , £12; Apollino , £8; Camillus from Wilton survive, but only for smaller objects
I would like to suggest that Cavaceppi Caracalla is the bust of Caracalla which Louis Francois Roubiliac used as the model for his bust of Caracalla - Roubiliac made busts of various classical luminaries including Marcus Auelius (see the 1762 sale catalogue below)
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The Charles Harris of the Strand Catalogue of 17
Page 12 Busts - Large as Life - 2 Guineas each.
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A plaster version of a bust in marble by Louis François
Roubiliac of the prominent Palladian architect Isaac Ware is at Kenwood House. Two marble versions
are known in the National Portrait Gallery, London and the Detroit Institute of
Art. A mould for Ware’s bust was recorded in a sale held after Roubiliac's
death, suggesting the production of a plaster cast like that at Kenwood.
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The Plaster Busts and Moulds at the Roubiliac Sale of May 1762.
Published here to show the extent of the Roubiliac Plaster Replica business.
Plaster Busts of Handel in The Harris Correspondence of the 1740's.
Handel's friend James Harris (1709-80), who seems to have been involved in procuring from Roubiliac plaster busts of Handel for the Countess of Shaftesbury (Lord Shaftesbury, another friend of Handel, was Harris's cousin); for Charles Jennens, the wealthy patron of the arts, librettist for four of Handel's oratorios (including Messiah), and the composer's friend; and possibly for Harris himself.
It is not known whether these busts were plaster versions of the rediscovered Sotheby's bare headed bust (which would therefore date it to 1741 at the latest) or of another bust of Handel by Roubiliac, such as that now in the Royal Collection (the latter dated 1739) the one with the hat.
The letters (from which extracts are quoted
below, as they are written, but with the addition of punctuation) are included
in the James Harris archive, which itself is part of the wider Malmesbury
collection at the Hampshire Records Office. (96) Some of the letters are from
Roubiliac to Harris, and some are between Harris relatives and refer to the
plaster busts of Handel by Roubiliac.
Roubiliac Plaster Busts of Handel in the Harris
Correspondence from Music and Theatre in Handel’s World by Donald Burrows.
16. April 1741, Louis Francois Roubiliac (London). To James
Harris. Salusbury G565/1.
“According to your order I have got a busto of Mr Handel
ready to send you. I desire you would be pleased to let me know where I must
direct it to and if it be necessary I put a colour on it or leave it white”.
In 1741 James Harris was involved with the purchase of busts of Handel (presumably in plaster from the sculptor Roubiliac subsequent letters show that he purchased one for the Countess of Shaftsbury, one for Charles Jennens and probably one for himself.
21 April, 1741. Thomas Harris, Lincolns Inn (London). To James Harris Salisbury
“Roubiliac I will call on this evening or in a day or two.
Rawlins will make all the haste he can”.
P.S. I have seen Handel’s bust at Roubiliacs, and like it
very well. What he meant by colouring was only making the whole of a light dun
colour as the original you saw is: and what he says will keep clean better and
I think it looks handsomer. If therefore you approve of that, write him word
that you will have it coloured as the original is, and he says he will do it
immediately”
18th June 1741.Thomas Harris, Lincolns Inn, (London) to James Harris. Salisbury
P.S. I called at Roubilliacs today about the bust for Lady Shaftsbury but found it was not coloured yet so it cant be sent till the carrier sets out next week.
27 June 1742. 4th Countess of Shaftsbury (St Giles) to James
Harris Salisbury. Thursday I received the bust of Handel and am very thankful
to my cousin Thomas Harris for negotiating this affair for me. I have disposed
of it in a place of highest eminence in my room and please myself in thinking
you will approve of it. I hope soon to have an opportunity of reimbursing my
cousin T Harris for this and the expenses attending its coming down…….
10 July 1741. Louis Francois Roubiliac (London) to James
Harris Salisbury.
I have reciev’d your obliging letter and in answer I shall
acquaint you that Mr Hendels busto shall be near ready tomorrow so I hope you
will be pleased to send how to direct. You know I have Mr Popes busto which I
have likewise made after life. I also have Milton’s and Newton’s so in case any
of your friends should want you will be pleased to recommend them; but bustos
being works by which there is little to be got but reputation, I desire that
you will let your friends know that my chief talent is marble work, such as
monuments, chimneys, tables, all of which I will hope to do to the satisfaction
of those that will do me the honour to employ me.
24 July 1741. Lord Guernsey, Powderham, Devon to James
Harris, Salisbury.
A Bill for
a Plaster Bust of Handel 1753.
A bill for a plaster bust of Handel and a plaster bust of Newton sent by Roubiliac to Baptist Noel, Lord Gainsborough of Exton Leicestershire (d.1751), paid in 1753, exists see - (DE3214 box 67/3 Leicestershire Records Offic
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A List of Some Further Roubiliac Plaster Busts -
By no means Exhaustive!
