Bust of Alexander Pope
bought by John Lane of the Bodley Head Publishers in 1919.
This little bust is cataloged as 59.2 Miniature Marble Bust similar to No 59.1 in the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath in the excellent The Portraits of Alexander Pope by William Kurtz Wimsatt published by Yale 1965.
Whilst hunting for references to the Bath Sculptor Prince Hoare (1711 - 69) for a future lecture I will be giving on Bath Sculptors I came across the letter published in the Spectator of 3rd January 1920 referring to the purchase of a miniature marble bust of Alexander Pope by John Lane (1854 - 1925) of the Bodley Head publishers of Vigo Street, London.
This letter is full of misinformation regarding the attribution of this bust to Prince Hoare and that it was one of the two busts of Pope and Newton in Wiltshire's Assembly Rooms mentioned in the Gentleman's Magazine of February 1741, given that research into portrait sculpture was very much in its infancy this is understandable. Wimsatt pulls most of this speculation apart (p.237 - 240, ref 59.2). According to Vertue writing in 1749/50 Hoare had just returned from his grand tour in Italy and I have written at length on the busts of Pope and Newton in Wiltshire's Rooms. The sole reason that it was ascribed to Hoare is that it had been found by Mr Lane in Bath.
see my blog entries -
I have closely examined and photographed this small bust - the attribution to Prince Hoare is untenable - there is no signature and the (oversize wooden) socle had the attribution to Hoare added to it by Reginald Wright after it had been presented to the Victoria Art Gallery by Mrs John Lane (letter dated 30 August 1925) after the death of John Lane.(see Wimsatt).
This little bust, although much smaller and lacking the subtle finishing is nearly identical in detail to the very fine signed and dated marble bust of Pope by Roubiliac formerly belonging to Lord Mansfield at Kenwood and now at Milton near Peterborough.
http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2014_01_15_archive.html
There is a plaster version at Hughenden (National Trust), although heavily over painted it appears to have been taken from the marble.
see -
http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-roubiliac-type-plaster-busts-of.html
Although it is possible that this little bust was copied from a plaster version of the Milton / Fitzwilliam /Mansfield marble bust, although it is remotely possible that this little bust is perhaps from the studio of Louis Francois Roubiliac.
I will publish photographs of this small bust in my next blog entry.
I have cut and pasted the full letter from the Spectator here -
To THE
EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
Sir, —1 have read with much interest the
correspondence on this subject and the article which inspired it, and I have
just discovered some contemporary references to Pope and Jervas by Walter
Harts, in a volume entitled Poems on Several Occasions (Bernard Lintot, 1727).
The poem is headed " An Essay on Painting " :—
"But ah! how long will nature ask to give A soul like his, and bid a wonder
live?
Rarely a
Titian or a Pope appears,
The
forming glory of a thousand years? "
"
Time was, when Pope for rhymes would knit his brow,
And
write as tasteless lines—as I do now."
There is
also a poem " To Mr. Pope," in which the following passage occurs :-
"So seems some Picture, where exact design,
And curious pains, and
strength and sweetness join :
Where the free thought its pleasing grace
bestows,
And each warm stroke with living colour glows;
Soft without weakness,
without labour fair;
Wrought up at once with happiness and care!"
Pope
must have been pleased with the poems, for in a long list of subscribers I
found the name of " Mr. Pope" for " four books."
There is
also a reference to Jervas :-
"Still in his right the graceful Jervas sways,
Sacred
to beauty, and the fair one's Praise, Whose breathing paint another life
supplies,
And
calls new wonders forth from Mordaunt's eyes."
Gay, in
"Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece," does not mention the paintings of
Pope, but the following line occurs :-
"Thee
Jervas hails, robust and debonair."
It would
appear that Pope became a pupil of Jervas towards the end of 1713, and remained
with him for eighteen months.
Jervas
was no mean painter. When a writer like Mr. II. C. Collins Baker devotes his
attention, as I understand he is doing, to our eighteenth-century
portrait-painters, the works of the Richardson, Hudson, Ramsey, Hayman,
Knapton, and Jervas, and a host of other portrait-painters, will prove to be a
revelation.
Some
time ago I heard a rumour that a book was being written on Jervas. Should this
letter meet the eye of the author of it, I should be pleased if he would
communicate with me.
Perhaps,
in connection with Pope, it may interest your readers to know that some eighteen
months ago I picked up in Bath a bust of Pope in marble by Prince Hoare, a name
new in the annals of plastic art; indeed, his name does not occur in any
Dictionary of Artists nor any Catalogue known to me, nor is it mentioned by Mr.
Beresford Chancellor in his Lives of the English Sculptors. There is, however,
reference to him in the current Bath Guide (1919) as having made the statue
in marble of Beau Nash now in the Pump Room. The statue is at present "
skied" in a niche—indeed quite near the ceiling, where it looks
hideous—instead of being placed on the line. This statue gave rise to the
following epigram, attributed to Lord Chesterfield :--
"Immortal
Newton never spoke More truth than here you'll find; Nor Pope himself e'er
pen'd a joke Severer on Mankind.
This
picture placed these busts between, Gives satire its full strength; Wisdom and
wit are little seen, But Folly at full length."
Recently
in Bath I discovered, thanks to the accomplished Mr. Reginald Wright, Curator
of the Victoria Art Gallery, that Prince Hoare also made a bas-relief of Pope
put up by Bishop Warburton in 1761 in Twickenham Church, where it still
remains, but the sculptor's name was not attached to it, nor does it appear to have
been known before. '
I also
found a noble marble bust of Ralph Allen in the Mineral Water Hospital, signed
by the sculptor, and a plaster bust of Jerry Pierce, by the same hand. Prince
Hoare was one of the constant visitors, with his brother William Hoare, ILA.,
Pope, and Fielding, at Prior Park. He died November ath. 1769, and was buried
at Walcot Church, Bath, where his brother William was also" interred.
There are certainly two monumental portraits in bas-relief by him of Jerry
Pierce and Paul Bertrand in the church, and I think there are three or four
other monuments without portraits; but there must be a great deal of his work
to be found in the Western Counties. It has occurred to me that some of the
famous collection of statuary that is, or at any rate was, at Stourhead may
have been designed by him, and probably he was instrumental in forming the
collection, as his niece, the daughter of William Hoare, married Henry, brother
of Sir Richard Hoare of Stourhead, but I cannot trace that they were connected
in any other way. Although Prince Hoare died in 1769, he may have designed for
Mr. Henry Hoare the famous Tower at Stourton in memory of King Alfred,
completed in 1772. Perhaps some of your readers can confirm this.
It is
not known where William and Prince Hoare were born, but the D.N.B. gives their
probable birthplace as Eye in Suffolk, but the name does not occur in the
church register of the place, so probably they were born in some neighbouring
parish. It would be interesting to verify this, and to have any further
information regarding the sculptor's life and the whereabouts of his works,
particularly of any at Stourhead.
I feel
that I must thank the writer of the original article on the paintings of Pope,
for it has given me a new interest
in his poems.—I
am, Sir, &c., John LANE. The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, W.
to be continued .............
![Portrait of Francis Bacon, half length in an oval, wearing hat, ruff, robes, and ribbon; hand resting on purse with a coat of arms; frontispiece to Francis Bacon's 'The History of the Reign of Henry VII [...]' (London: 1676). Etching](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uOTY87B1Tr-PPNGUOw1u86Ir1i8fnOKne-wJ1kaN1tO-2xOycGiAAmlKBfIyMIHXvauO59dBeEy4PcmWJmxjbXDd7JeqmbP9wZ1Cpiz_SjRyZM1IckoDrDm_ZzqaKOJSW9y26T3nxYIWECV7XJ=s0-d)
