The Two Ponsonby/ Bessborough Monuments in Derby Cathedral.
The Rysbrack Monument to Caroline, Countess of Bessborough.
and the monument to William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Second Earl of Bessborough by Joseph Nollekens. from 1743 MP for Derby.
He became commissioner of the Admiralty and admiral of Munster, Lord
of the Treasury and from 1758, following his father’s death, joint
postmaster-general. Bessborough combined politics with artistic patronage
assembling a large and notable collection of antiquities and antique gems.
A brief look at the monuments to act as an aide memoire for a possble future post.
Church Monuments using earlier busts are unusual but as used here are not unique ref. Cirencester.
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Here we find the use of what I have characterised as the "late Roubiliac type socle" on two busts on the two Ponsonby / Bessborough monuments at Derby.
Many of the busts created by Roubiliac in the latter part of his career use variations on this type of socle.
see my posts for further examples -
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/marble-bust-of-laocoon.html
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-roubiliac-type-socle-some-mor.html
I have discovered at least 18 instances of Roubiliac's use of this type of socle.
I can only find two instances of the use of variations of this form of socle by Joseph Wilton.
Here we have the use of this type of socle on the busts on two monuments in Derby Cathedral.
The Monument to the Countess of Bessborough by Michael Rysbrack of post 1760 and the monument to her husband William Ponsonby 2nd Earl of Bessborough by Joseph Nollekens of post 1793.
Neither Rysbrack or Nollekens used this type of socle on their portrait busts as far as I am aware.
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William Ponsonby and a bust mentioned in correspondence with Mr Stanley in 1768.
To cloud the issue - there is a letter from William Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough dated 9 August 1768.
Presenting compliments to Mr. Stanley about a bust left at his house in London by Mr. Stanley.
https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/834
Is this the bust on the Derby Cathedral Ponsonby /Bessborough monument?
This reference cannot be to Charles (Simon Carl) Stanley the English/Danish sculptor who died in 1761 but is perhaps his son Carl Frederick Stanley (d. Rome 1805) who trahis studio.
The second marriage of Charles Stanley took place on 2 August 1737 to Magdalene Margrethe Lindemann, the sister of the German chaplain to the Court of St James. The couple had a son, Carl Frederick Stanley who trained as a sculptor with his father.
Carl Frederik Stanley became one of the first students to enter the new Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1755. That same year he won his first award and in 1758 he won the Academy's large gold medal for the sculpture Noah's Sacrifice.
see - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Frederik_Stanley
In the summer of 1746 he accepted an invitation from
Frederick V to return to Copenhagen as court sculptor, a post he held until his
death in 1761. He departed hastily for Denmark leaving his affairs in a confused state.
Letters to Leeke Okeover from Joseph Sanderson, who was responsible for
building work at Okeover, relate that Stanley left ‘without settling with
several of his acquaintances’ and that he had failed to show Sanderson a bust,
a chimneypiece (4, 6) and a gilt picture frame with ribbon and flowers, all
prepared for Okeover (Sanderson/Okeover, 25.10.1746). A later letter adopted a
more philosophical tone: ‘One thing we must allow him [Stanley], is your
ceiling is well done and cheap’ (Sanderson/Okeover, 9 December 1746).
After returning from England in 1746 Charles later had a successful career in Denmark, where he became a professor at the Copenhagen Academy.
Charles Stanley d.1761 in England.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2021/02/marble-bust-by-charles-stanley-of-mary.html
I have written a long essay on the Little Easton Church Monumentto the Maynards and the possible involvement of Roubiliac.
Given the date of the monument and the sudden rapid
departure of Stanley to Denmark in October 1746 - I suspect that the monument
might not have been finished and although there is no documentary evidence the
work might have been concluded by another sculptor.
The pair of lamps are similar to those used on several monuments by Henry Cheere.
The bust of Elizabeth Lady Maynard show the influence if not actually the hand of Louis Francois Roubiliac and the influence of Rysbrack and the Saxon deities at Stowe House Buckingham.
It uses the same form of dress as that used on a bust of Mary Okeover (suggested as by Stanley but I would suggest Roubilic!)
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-maynard-monuments-at-little-easton.html
For a potted history of Charles Stanley (d.1761) see -
https://gunnis.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/sculptor/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=2555
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This is dangerous territory but I suggest that this pair of busts busts had been made as a pair for display in a family homeand and added to the Derby Ponsonby Bessborough monuments by Rysbrack and Nollekens.
This is not impossible - the earlier Bathurst monument in Cirencester church by Nollekens utilises a pair of earlier busts. see my post on the earlier carreer busts by Nollekens which use a socle with the eared supports convex panel specific to him - developed by him whilst working in the Rome studio of Bartolemeo Cavaceppi who had also used a similar form of socle on his busts based on ancient antecedents.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/some-earlier-nollekens-busts.html
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Church of St John the Baptist, Cirencester - Nollekens Design for the monument to Earl and Countess Bathurst, c.1776.
Allen, 1st Earl Bathurst and Countess Bathurst (It is my belief that the busts
are almost certainly not by Nollekens).
I suspect that the bust of Allen Bathurst is by Peter
Scheemakers and is related to a missing bust of Bathurst from the Temple of Friendship at
Stowe.
The socles are typical of earlier works by Nollekens.
In my opinion there is a sort of uniformity almost blandness in Scheemakers depictions of male subjects but his female busts are usually much more realistic.
see - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2024/11/scheemakers-at-kintbury.html
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/04/anonymous-bust-at-lady-lever-art.html
William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough PC PC (Ire) (1704 – 11 March 1793) was an Anglo-Irish politician.
He was an Irish and English peer and member of the House of Lords (styled Hon. William Ponsonby from 1723 to 1739 and Viscount Duncannon from 1739 to 1758).
He served in both the Irish and the British House of Commons, before entering the House of Lords, and held office as a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, and as Postmaster General of the United Kingdom.
He was also a Privy Counsellor, Chief Secretary for Ireland and Earl of Bessborough.
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The Ponsonby/ Bessborough Monuments in Derby Cathedral.
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The Thomas Missing Monument of 1738.
With the Marble Bust on the Monument by Roubiliac.
at Holy Rood Church, Crofton and Stubbington, Hampshire.
Formerly Crofton.
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The Rysbrack Monument to Caroline, Countess of Bessborough.
Born 22, May 1719 - Death: January 20, 1760 aged 40.
Derby Cathedral , Derbyshire, England.
The bust on the monument which utilises the "late period Roubiliac type socle" is perhaps an earlier bust the pair to the bust of Lord Bessborough on his monument in the same church.
Daughter of William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire and
Catherine Hoskins, Duchess of Devonshire.
Wife of William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough - married 5 Jul 1739 aged 20.
Mother of Catharine Beauclerk, Duchess of St. Albans
(Ponsonby); Charlotte FitzWilliam and Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of
Bessborough
Sister of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Prime
Minister; Lord George Augustus Cavendish; Lady Elizabeth Ponsonby; Rachel
Walpole, Countess of Orford; Lord Frederick Cavendish (British Army officer)
and 1 other.
She had 8 children.
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Caroline, Countess of Bessborough.
A pastel? portrait currently housed in the Stansted Park
Home Gallery.
By Jean Etienne Liotard.
William Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough.
By Jeremiah Davidson.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/william-ponsonby-17041793-2nd-earl-of-bessborough-172335
entered the collection in 1873
Ponsonby first encountered Liotard at Rome in 1738 and took him as his draughtsman to Constantinople, where the artist’s independent career began. He remained a loyal friend and patron, eventually owning some 70 works by Liotard.
This portrait was presumably made during one of Liotard’s two
sojourns in London. It is one of Liotard’s rare excursions into Neoclassicism,
and presents the sitter as a trompe l’oeil Roman shell cameo.
Commissioned by the sitter;
Princess Amelia (1711-1786) daughter of George III, a gift from the sitter;
William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland,
bequeathed by the above, 1786 (inscribed on a label on the original backboard,
now lost: When H.R.H. The Princess Amelia Dyes, this Picture is to be given to
the Duke of Portland);
By descent at Welbeck Abbey to 2017.
His skill in carving lead the German medalist Johann Lorenz Natter to Switzerland, Venice, Florence, England, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Russia, where he died.
William Ponsonby (1704–1793), an influential parliamentary politician, was an original member of the band of aesthetes known as the Dilettanti Society.
Natter presented him here with
cropped hair, in the neo-Roman style of budding Neoclassicism. The ground
stratum is carved so thin as to be transparent, allowing a delicate play of
light. A companion cameo dated 1750 of Ponsonby’s wife, Lady Caroline, née
Cavendish, was auctioned at Christie’s in London in 1923 but has since disappeared.
The Paragraphs below adapted from - https://www.libson-yarker.com/pictures/william-ponsonby-2nd-earl-of-bessborough
Bessborough’s interest in antique gems possibly stemmed from his relationship with the Dukes of Devonshires. The 3rd Duke’s father, William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire was a hugely celebrated collector of gems and the 3rd Duke showed evident interest in the collection.
Around 1754 Bessborough acquired sixty gems from Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, who had, in turn, been bequeathed them by his brother John Stanhope. This group contained some very considerable gems, including a remarkable intaglio depicting Sirius now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At the same date Bessborough is recorded acquiring gems from the collections of the physician Richard Mead, including a large cameo of the head of Medusa (collection: National Museums, Liverpool) and George Montagu, 2nd Earl of Halifax.
Bessborough had also become acquainted with the gem engraver and
antiquarian Lorenz Natter who compiled a catalogue of both the Devonshire
collection of gems at Chatsworth and Bessborough’s collection, which was
eventually published in 1761. Bessborough sold his gems shortly afterwards
to George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough for the considerable sum of £5,000.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/198376
for an excellent and informative article on Natter see - https://britishartjournal.co.uk/lorenz-natter-1705-1763/
Signed: l.r.: J. S. Copley RA/ 1790.
inscription: on verso: Earl of Bessborough
Provenance - Claude A. C. Ponsonby, presumably by descent; sold at
Christie's sale of Ponsonby Heirlooms to Sabin, March 28, 1908; purchased
through Martin Birnbaum by Grenville L. Winthrop, November 1941; his bequest to
the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.
The portrait survived the fire of 1923 at Bessborough House, County Kilkenny
There are two other versions of this portrait - Lord Clanbrassil and Admiral Caldewell.
The creation of the mezzotint was the subject of some controversy
Robert Dunkarton,
after John Singleton Copley, Portrait of William Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough
(1794), mezzotint, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum
