Post under construction.
Revisiting and greatly expanding my previous post on the Maynard Monument.
The Monument was erected on the direction of Charles Maynard (c. 1690 – 30 June 1775), the third son of Banastre Maynard.
Charles Maynard, 1st Viscount Maynard, styled Charles Maynard between 1699 and 1745 and known as The Lord
Maynard between 1745 and 1766, was a British peer. He served as Lord-Lieutenant
of Suffolk between 1763 and 1769.
Charles Maynard was the son of Banastre Maynard, 3rd Baron Maynard, and Lady Elizabeth de Grey, daughter of Henry Grey, 10th Earl of Kent. He succeeded his elder brother in the barony in 1745.[1] In 1763 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Suffolk,[2] a post he held until 1769. In 1766 he was created Baron Maynard, of Much Easton in the County of Essex, and Viscount Maynard, of Easton Lodge in the County of Essex, with remainder to his kinsman, Sir Charles Maynard, 5th Baronet, of Walthamstow.
Lord Maynard died unmarried in June 1775. On his death the baronetcy of Eaton Parva and baronies of Maynard created in 1620 and 1628 became extinct. He was succeeded in the barony of 1766 and viscountcy according to the special remainder by his kinsman, Sir Charles Maynard, 5th Baronet.
The Monument - Dramatis Personae.
The Portrait Relief of William, Lord Maynard d. 1698 is at the apex of the obelisk.
The Full Length statue of William Maynard leaning against the urn with a relief of his wife Dorothy
To his left is the relief of his daughter Elizabeth.
The Busts of his son Banastre Maynard and wife Elizabeth (nee Grey) Maynard are either side of the full length statue of William Maynard.
The Portrait Reliefs of Grey (d.1745) and Henry are on the left and right side of the relief of Faith, Charity, Justice and Hope.
The three sons of Banastre - Henry (died 1743), Grey (died 1745) and Charles
(died 1775) — why they remained unmarried is unclear.
The last in the line, Charles, drew up complex
arrangements in October 1766 for the continuation of his title. Knowing that he
would die without heir, he lobbied for and obtained the secondary title of
Baron Maynard of Much Easton. This title he invested on his third cousin, Sir
William Maynard, and his heirs in perpetuity. It was Sir William's
The monument is inscribed by the Danish Sculptor Charles (Simon Carl) Stanley (1703 - 61).
but there is evidence of the hand of at least one other sculptor here suggested as Louis Francois Roubiliac (1703 - 62).
Stanley worked in England from 1727 until 1746.
1746.
The vault beneath has an inscribed date of 1746 and has room for 38 coffins.
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.
This idiosyncratic monument is very much a favourite of mine and shows the influences of the best sculptors working in London in the mid 18th century, the pose is similar to that on the Craggs Monument by Guelfi at Westminster Abbey with the central figure of Henry leaning on an urn with the relief representing his wife but without the crossed legs. 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.
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I first approached the subject in March of 2019, but my recent visit to the church on 8th May 2025 in order to photograph this magnificent and fascinating monument has given me the opportunity to assess it and the English career of Charles Stanley more fully.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2019/03/maynard-monument-by-charles-stanley.html
In the essay I will attempt to put a little more flesh on the bones of Charles Stanley.
I was slightly hampered by the quantity of heavy furniture particularly for any photography of the base and inscription, but hopefully the publication of this essay will give some publicity to this remarkable 18th Century monument a magnificent although perhaps flawed work of art.
The 1746 monument for the Maynard family is inscribed by the Danish sculptor Charles Stanley, who was working in England from 1727, until his sudden departure in 1746.
Stanley worked briefly with Peter Scheemakers (1691 - 1781) and Laurent Delvaux at their workshop at Millbank, Westminster until they left to go to Rome in 1728.
It was commissioned by Charles Maynard, 1st Viscount Maynard (1690-1775), and erected in the Bouchier - Maynard South Chapel of the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Little Easton, Essex, England.
'Within this vault lies the bodies of his worthy ancestors,
parents, brothers and sisters by whose care and through whose hands the houses
and estates of the family, after splendid, hospitable and charitable use of
them, have been transmitted to him, the Right Hon. Charles Lord Maynard, in
testimony of his piety, love and gratitude.'
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The dress and hair on the full length statue is very idiosyncratic.
He appears to be wearing the dress of an Ancient Briton rather than that of an ancient Roman.
I can think of no immediate parallels but the dress slightly resembles that on the Saxon deities of Rysbrack of c. 1730 at Stowe, and here his own hair is worn long rather than close cropped, and instead of the short Roman sword he bears the long sword with lions head pommel.
He leans on an urn decorated with the relief of his wife Dorothy.
Banastre Maynard was the second eldest son of William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard of Estaines and his first wife Dorothy Banastre, daughter of Sir Robert Banastre of Passenham, Northamptonshire.
He travelled abroad in France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands from 1660 to 1662. In 1663 he was elected Member of Parliament for Essex in a by-election to the Cavalier Parliament.
He was commissioner for assessment for Essex from 1663 to 1680 and commissioner for recusants in 1675. He was a J.P. from April 1688 to his death and was commissioner for assessment for Essex again from 1689 to 1690.
He succeeded to
the peerage as Baron Maynard on the death of his father on 3 February 1699.
Maynard married Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Henry Grey,
10th Earl of Kent and had eight sons and three daughters. Their surviving children
included:
Grey Maynard, 5th Baron Maynard (1679–1745).
Charles Maynard, 1st Viscount Maynard (c. 1690–1775).
Annabella Maynard (d. 1734) who married Sir William Lowther,
1st Baronet.
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The Missing Bust of Mary Okeover.
Here attributed to Louis Francois Roubiliac (1703 - 1762).
and Leake Okeover by Joseph Wilton.
The pair of busts of Leake and Mary Okeover were still at Okeover Hall, Staffs (built 1745 - 6) in 1964 and were last seen at the Treasure Houses of Great Britain Exhibition of 1985 - the Catalogue entry was written by Malcolm Baker who made the assertion that it was carved by Stanley on the basis that the dresses on the two busts followed the same pattern - the busts have disappeared.
We now know that Louis Francois Roubiliac (probably) uniquely used some sort of pointing device to duplicate the lower halves (the clothing and possibly in this case the hair as well) of some of his busts in order to streamline production of some of his portrait sculpture.
Examples of Roubiliac's duplication of the dress are the busts of Matthew Lee at Christchurch and Belchier at the Royal College of Surgeons, and the busts of Henry Streatfield at Chiddington Mausoleum the busts of Jonathan Tyers (terracotta at the V and A) and the marble at Birmingham Museum and the various busts of John Ray (Terracotta in the British Museum and Marble at the Wren Library Trinity College, Cambridge etc).
I have also recently discovered that the clothing on the bust of James Lawes on his monument in the Church at Halfway Tree, Kingston, Jamaica - inscribed by John Cheere 1737, matches that on the anonymous very fine lead bust in the V and A. this again suggests the involvement of Roubiliac (in the Westminster workshop of the Cheeres).
The bust of Mary Okeover is Illustrated in the Exhibition Catalogue: The Treasure Houses
of Great Britain, 500 Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting, 1985 (see the image below).
The entry for the bust was written by Malcolm Baker and makes the assertion that this bust was carved by Anglo/Danish Sculptor Charles Stanley with the socle carved by Joseph Wilton to make it match the bust of Leake Okeover by Wilton (below) signed by Wilton and dated 1762 given the identical clothing but this was written before any serious consideration was given to the repetition of clothing on various busts by Roubiliac.
I have only examined the Maynard bust but the treatment of the back surfaces of these busts might also support the theory.
My belief is that the socle of the later bust by Joseph Wilton of Leake Okeover was carved to match that on the earlier bust of Mary Okeover.
I have so far been unable to locate the bust of Mary Okeover (or that of her husband Leake Okeover by Joseph Wilton (inscribed Wilton and dated 1762).
I have contacted Okeover Hall, Staffordshire but without success - they have no knowledge of their current whereabouts.
I might be in error here but as far as I am aware if the bust of Elizabeth Lady Maynard was carved by Stanley (and I am now very doubtful) this is the only the second case of a sculptor using the same drapery on busts of different sitters, the first being several examples by Roubiliac. Matthew Lee at Christchurch, Oxford and John Belchier in the Royal College of Surgeons) is one example another is the busts of John Ray (at the B.M. and Wren Library etc), Jonathan Tyers and Henry Streatfield.
Suggesting that Roubiliac and Stanley either used similar methods of reproducing their busts with some sort of pointing machine or that Roubiliac was somehow involved with the sculpture on the Maynard Monument.
It is possible that the bust of Elizabeth Lady Maynard was made as a portrait for the Maynard home and later placed on the church monument.
This all begs the question - what was the connection (if any?) between Stanley and Roubiliac or is it just coincidence that they used similar methods to reproduce their busts.
Was Charles Stanley working with Roubiliac perhaps with Henry Cheere in the 1730's and latterly in the Roubiliac workshop in St Martin's Lane in the 1740's before his return to Denmark in 1746?
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The Okeover / Stanley Connection.
Just to complicate matters!
Correspondence between Leake Okeover and his architect John
Sanderson for works at Okeover Hall, between 1745 and 1746 states that Charles
Stanley had been engaged by Sanderson for works on the interior.
I have written in some detail regarding Stanley and his sculpture and plasterwork at Langley Park, Norfolk in my blog post -
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Images below from the Conway Library Photographic Archive.
Having recently made a fairly thorough investigation of the use of the socle type as seen on the bust of Mary Okeover, I now consider that the bust of Mary Okeover was most likely to have been carved by Roubiliac and that the style of the socle of the 1756 bust of Leake Okeover by Joseph Wilton was adapted and carved in order to match the bust of his wife Mary.
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Charles Stanley in England 1727 - 1746.
The Following text adapted from Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain by Geoffrey Beard pub. Routledge. 2015 Edition .
Barnsley Park was built in 1720-1 for Henry Perrot, a Member of Parliament for Oxford, and a frequenter of the circle of friends surrounding James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. The house seems to have been complete by 1731 and was possibly designed by John Price (?-1736), an obscure, almost legendary, architect-builder employed by the Duke of Chandos. In 1714-15 the duke had employed many stuccoists at Cannons, his house in Middlesex, but he knew Bagutti and Artari well.
This is not a good basis on which to attribute the work at Barnsley Park, but it is all we have—again no contemporary documents appear to have survived. There were, however, few stuccoists in England at this period other than the Italians skilled enough to produce the convincing decorations to be seen at Barnsley Park, and Rudder's attribution of the work to them seems to be near to the truth.
Nevertheless it has been suggested that Charles Stanley, the Danish-born stuccoist, could be responsible.
His work has long been known, but is masked by an atmosphere of riddles and unanswered questions.
Simon Carl Stanley was born in Copenhagen of an English father and a Danish mother on 12 December 1703. Recent researches by a Danish scholar, noted at the end of this book, have done much to chart his career there.
In 1718 he was apprenticed to the stuccoist J.C. Sturmberg and in 1721-2 assisted him on ceilings which still survive at Fredensborg Castle. Here he was also working in the company of Italian stuccoists, particularly the talented Carlo Enrico Brenno (1688-1745).
The style of Brenno's work at Clausholm and Fredensborg tempts one to believe that he also worked with Stanley in England, but there is no evidence of this, and a careful study of the Fredensborg ceilings does not help to identify Stanley's later work.
What evidence does survive indicates that, after further study in Amsterdam under Jan van Logteren, Stanley left in 1727 for England and was soon working with the sculptors Peter Scheemakers and Laurent Delvaux.
Later, instead of leaving for Italy with his two friends and the painter Pieter Angelis, he stayed to work at Eastbourne, and it is here that the story becomes a little more involved.
English houses, as the illustrations in this book show, are rich in plaster decoration, but few can surpass Compton Place, built for Lord Wilmington at Eastbourne. The State Bedroom ceiling in particular is one of the most opulent examples in England.
In a Danish biography of Charles Stanley, written by A.F. Busching in 1757, it is stated that he worked in England for almost twenty years (1727-46)
'and ... with fame for My lord Willnington in Eastbourne, Sussex, and for My lord Maynard in Essex
Since Stanley signed the monuments to Thomas Maynard at Hoxne, Suffolk, and to the Maynard family at Little Easton, Essex, Katharine Esdaile assumed in 1937 that Stanley must have executed 'sculptures' for Lord Wilmington. Finding no relevant monument or portrait bust she thought that Stanley was responsible for the elaborate plaster ceilings at Compton Place, which indeed in terms of relief are almost 'sculptured'.
However, the evidence now available I believe warrants more caution in attributing the work to Stanley alone.
The main ceiling at Compton Place (Plate 68) commemorates in bold relief, after Titian, the amours of Venus and Adonis, and two small reliefs show Paris and Helen and Diana with Endymion. In the border, with its sphinx-like figures, modelled putti and elaborate shells and foliage, richness abounds, but the dominant impression is left by the centre panel. Venus has alighted from a shell-like coach drawn by fluttering birds. All around are the swirling modelled clouds, which Mrs Esdaile suggested were Stanley's most recognizable characteristic, but which appear in work by most of the Italian stuccatori.
A re examination of the account-book, which mentions the 'plasterers' collectively, and of a vast amount of correspondence and vouchers has revealed, however, that Stanley was not solely responsible for the plasterwork.
On several occasions Lord Wilmington's gardener, William Stuart, and his agent, Thomas Willard, are explicit in their letters about the progress of work. The main building, designed by Colin Campbell, was built by John Lane, and he expected to finish his work by 1 May 1728.
A few weeks earlier, on 8 April John Hughes, the competent London plasterer who had worked for Lord Burlington, visited the house and the gardener reported that Hughes 'thinks of sending some of his men shortly to worke
The vouchers for the years 1723-7 preserved at Compton Place make it clear, however, that Hughes had already been employed to work on the old house. John Burnett, 'Hewe's man', had been paid for a visit he made to the house 'with Mr Campbell' on 19 November 1726.
By June 1728 Hughes had four men at work on the new house, and on 14 July Stuart, the observant gardener, informed his master 'The German plasterers say they have almost don here'. We do not know if Stanley was one of the German plasterers in Hughes's service. On 28 July 1728 Stuart reported to his master that the joiners and carvers were at work in the Gallery, the carpenters and painters likewise, but that 'the German plasterers are gon from Bourn today, to coll Fains [Colonel Fane's] ..
By 11 August 'Mr Hughes's men (the plasterers), are all gon'.
It is brief mentions of this kind in correspondence which extend the sketchy evidence on which the attribution of plasterwork is based. Colonel John Fane, later 7th Earl of Westmorland, was continuing the decoration of his house at Mereworth, Kent, which Colin Campbell had designed for him in 1722. Although the stucco-work at Mereworth is by Bagutti, as Campbell records in Vitruvius Britannicus, the Germans from Compton Place probably provided enrichments to Francesco Sleter's decorative paintings in the Long Gallery.
Documents in the Dashwood collections at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, however, show that Sleter was still working, under Leoni's supervision, at Mereworth as late as 1739.
The problem remains, but meanwhile the following conclusions can be drawn from the Compton Place documents and Busching's biography of Stanley:
I. No payment to Stanley occurs throughout Lord Wilmington's personal account-book in which payments to the woodcarver (James Richards) and other craftsmen appear.
2. If Stanley did work there he would have to be one of the 'German' plasterers working under Hughes and in consequence cannot be given sole credit for the plasterwork.
3. Some connection, as yet untraced, existed between Lord Wilmington and Stanley (as the Danish biography records) because it was in Eastbourne that Stanley married on 21 May 1730.
Busching recorded that Lord Wilmington paid Stanley so well for his work that he was able to marry his Eastbourne landlady's daughter, Anne Allen.
What Stanley did at Eastbourne, apart from getting married, is open to some doubt, and the rest of his work in England is not well documented. He is said to have worked at Barnsley Park, Gloucestershire (Plates 58-60), at Hall Place, Maidenhead, at Honington Hall, Warwickshire (Plate 69), at Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, and at Stratton Park, Hampshire (the work of this date being destroyed in 1790). It should be said that all these are attributions.
He certainly worked at Okeover, Staffordshire (Plate 74) and with Thomas Roberts at the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford. It is of course likely that during a residence of twenty years in England, out of which came only two monuments known from his hand, stucco-work, possibly at many of the houses noted above, would form his chief occupation.
There is a more precise reference in Volume III of Neale's Seats - Saloon Alto Relievo in Stucco, Stanley which suggests that Stanley did the plasterwork at Langley Park, Norfolk (Plate 75) in the 1740s.
But by October 1746, as the correspondence preserved at Okeover Hall between the architect and owner of Okeover, Joseph Sanderson and Leak Okeover respectively, makes clear, Stanley had dashed back to Denmark 'without any formal leave of his friends
At Okeover he had provided a stucco ceiling of Bacchus and Ariadne as well as marble chimneypieces and the gilding of a picture frame.
Stanley's connections with John Sanderson180 are still obscure, but it is obvious that the relationship was one of active business. One of Sanderson's letters, dated 16 October 1746, indicates that Stanley had passed over some money, ca large sum due to him for Mr Barrington'. This may mean that Stanley had been workingfor Lord Barrington at Beckett Park, Berkshire, as there is no monument by him in the church at nearby Shrivenham.
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and his second wife Anne daughter of Anthony Everard of Langleys and Much
Waltham.
Dorothy Banastre
married William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard, son of William Maynard, 1st Baron
Maynard and Anne Everard, circa 1641. She died on 30 October 1649.
For the biog. of Sir William Maynard see -
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/maynard-sir-william-1586-1640
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In 1590, Queen Elizabeth I granted the manor of Estaines to
Henry Maynard. He built Easton Lodge.
The 17th-century marble tomb chest and wall memorial to Sir Henry Maynard (d.1610) and Susan Pierson, his wife, a daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Pierson, Esq., in the Bouchier-Maynard South Chapel
Arms: Maynard (Argent, a
chevron (azure) between three sinister hands couped at the wrist gules) (of 4
quarters) impaling Pierson of Hitchin, Hertfordshire (Argent, two chevrons
sable on a canton of the last an eagle displayed of the first) (Burke, Sir
Bernard, The General Armory, London, 1884, p.802).
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul' Hoxne, Suffolk.
Thomas Maynard was the eldest son of William Maynard [the 2nd son of the 2nd Baron Maynard] of Bury St Edmund’s and his second wife Susan Evans, the daughter of Thomas Evan also a merchant from Bow, Middlesex.
Designed and erected by John Sanderson (active 1730 - 1774).
