This post under construction.
Archbishop William Laud 1573 - 1645,
William Herbert, Earl of Pemboke,
A Pair of Terracotta Busts.
by or after Hubert le Sueur (fl. 1610 - 51)
and the Bodleian Library.
and related sculpture including the bronze bust of Laud at St John's College, Oxford.
and the two terracotta busts in Hawksmoor's Clarendon Building, formerly the printing house of Oxford University Press.
With a few notes on the Sculpture on the Clarendon Building and the Sheldonian Theatre.
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Archbishop William Laud.
Bodleian Library.
As far as I know currently in deep store - it was not possible to view this and the bust of Pembroke when I carried out my project to record the 17th and 18th century portrait sculpture in Oxford in 2018.
Terracotta.
H40 × W23 × D23 cm.
Probably that purchased in 1734.
This may be one of the 'two Bustos of Abp. Laud, £2.10' recorded in the Vice-chancellor's accounts for 1734.
A second bust, similar to this, terracotta painted brown (LP 103a), is in the Delegates' Room of the Clarendon Building (see below).
What happened to the second one?
A similar head, gilt bronze, by Le Sueur, is in the library of St John's College, Oxford, is inscribed with the date 1635.
Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
Terms of
use: CC-BY-NC 4.0.
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Archbishop Laud.
Library St John's College, Oxford.
Photographedby the Author.
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Archbishop William Laud.
Clarenden Building, Oxford.
The Clarendon Building Bust of Archbishop Laud.
Terracotta cast by Joseph Ransford, 1737.
It was impossible to inspect these busts closely in order to confirm the material and gauge the age of the paint with any certainty.
Ransford has proved difficult to trace - there is nothing in the Biographical Dictionary of British Sculptors ([pub Yale 2009).
A John Ransford, Carver is mentioned on Oxford city leases of 1685 and 1699/1700.
see - Oxford City Properties, Herbert Edward Salter. pub. 1926, Page 279.
John Ransford also appears in Early Science in Oxford RT Gunther Vol III, pub 1925 mentioned in the building accounts of the first Ashmolean Museum building as a Joyner in 1688.
Photograph above from artuk website.
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All the photographs here of the bust of Laud were taken by the author.
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Photographs above of the bust of Clarendon above from the artuk website.
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Photographs of the Clarendon bust below taken by the author
The building was funded largely from the proceeds of the book History of the Great Rebellion by the 1st Earl of
Clarendon.
The statue stood from 1721 until the 1940s in a niche on the
south side of the building (now a window).
Clarendon.
Engraving by R White after Peter Lely.
1700.
Image Courtesy the National Gallery of Scotland.
Clarendon.
Engraving by David Loggan.
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The Bodleian Library.
Hand-coloured aquatint.
from
Ackermann's History of the University of Oxford, 1814 (D74.1a/C73)
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Pub. 1836.
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John Fulleylove (1845 - 1908).
Watercolour.
1903.
Internet photograph
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Photographs by the author.
HANC
PATRUI SUI MAGNI EFFIGIEM
AD FORMAM QUAM TINXIT
PETRUS PAULUS RUBENS
AERE FUSO EXPRESSAM
ACADEMIAE OXONIENSI
D.D. [= dedit et dedicavit]
THOMAS PEMBROCHIAE ET MONTGOM.
COMES
HONORUM ET VIRTUTUM
HAERES
A.D. MDCCXXIII
Thomas, [8th] Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, inheritor of
his [the 3rd Earl's] titles and qualities, gave and dedicated to the University
of Oxford this statue of his great-uncle cast in bronze in the form that Peter
Paul Rubens had painted. A.D. 1723.
Overall: 27 1/2 x 24 x 12 inches (69.9 x 61 x 30.5 cm)
The Lead Statues on the Roof of the Clarendon Building, Oxford University.
According to an
entry in Hearne's 'diary, dated 12 Nov. 1717, 'Last week began to be put up
upon the new Printing House in Oxford, a Parcell of Heavy Leaden Statues call'd
the nine Muses. These leaden Statues had lain at ye Wharf above Two Years,
having been first of all refused. But Basket at last prevail'd with the
Delegates to take them, and by that means he hath got more Money from them,
these statues coming to about six hundred Pounds.' In fact the Vice-Chancellor's accounts show
that they cost the University only £300. Their place of origin is not
mentioned, but it is likely that it was John van Nost's leaden figure manufactory
in Piccadilly, for in March 1719–20.
Dr. Clarke and
Townesend went up to London in order to bespeak some 'Vases for the printing
house', and 'agreed with Mr. Noist for 80li for the three, to be delivered to
the Oxford barge'. These vases were intended to occupy vacant pedestals on the roof,
where they can be seen in Williams's view of 1732–3, but they have since
disappeared.
see - http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol3/pp54-55
Nine lead figures of the Muses by designed by Sir James Thornhill originally stood on top of the building. Thomas Hearne (Reliquiae, p. 380) says that they “were at first refused, and suffered to lie at the Wharf for above two years; they cost £600”.
Seven of the originals remain. (Euterpe and
Melpomene fell down and were flattened, one in 1810 and one a few years
earlier. They were replaced by fibre-glass replicas
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1857-0110-22
All of these images show the statue on the front of the Sheldonian Theatre.
Statues of Archbishop Sheldon, the Duke of Ormonde, and perhaps King Charles II.
were carved by Henry Cheere.
They were removed 1958-63 due to their
poor condition.
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In 1737 the beautification of the building was completed by the erection in the niches of the south front of two statues of Sheldon and Ormonde, carved out of white marble at a cost of £223 7s. by Henry Cheere of Westminster.
William Townesend, who put them in position, was also paid out of
the Theatre account a mysterious £42 18s. for 'other work'. Could this have
been for the statue of Charles II in classical armour, standing over the north
door and of which there is no direct mention?
Bird carved the cartouche of arms over the north door, and Mr.
Hussey suggests that he also carved the statue. For further information about
Bird, see Mrs. J. C. Cole's article in Oxoniensia, xiv, 63.
see - https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol3/pp50-54
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For the bust of Bodley and the Bodleian Library see -
