Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/livesofbritishscOOchan_O IP THE LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS By the Same Author THE HISTORY OF THE SQUARES OF LONDON. Illus., 4to. j£i is. net. THE PRIVATE PALACES OF LONDON. Illus., ^to. £i is. net. KNIGHTSBRIDGE & BELGRAVIA. Illustrated, 4to. £i net. THE LIVES OF THE BRITISH ARCHITECTS. From William of Wykeham to Sir William Chambers. Illustrated, 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. WANDERINGS IN PICCADILLY & PALL MALL. Illus. ,sm.4to. 2s. 6d. net. WALKS AMONG LONDON’S PICTURES. Small 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. M ■ SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY THE LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS AND THOSE WHO HAVE WORKED IN ENGLAND FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS TO SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY BY E. BERESFORD CHANCELLOR M.A., F.R.Hist. Soc. LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN MCMXI Printed by BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS Tavistock Street Covent Garden London (tit library PREFACE An attempt is here made to give a concise account of the lives and works of the British sculptors, and of those foreigners whose labours are chiefly identified with this country. It is a rather remarkable fact that this has never been done before. True, Allan Cunningham, in his “ Lives of the Painters,” allocated one volume of that work to a consideration of a few of the better- known sculptors ; but his book was issued nearly a century ago, and, besides, it can hardly be said to be altogether satisfactory from various points of view. Very few, too, of the sculptors discussed in this book have been more particularly dealt with, and when I mention a belated, though excellent, little monograph on Grinling Gibbon, by M. Le Roy de Sainte-Croix ; an unimportant life of Banks ; a preposterous biography of Bacon, by Cecil ; J. T. Smith’s amusing but spiteful work entitled “ Nollekens and his Times ” ; the recent “ Life of Mrs. Darner,” by Mr. Percy Noble; and three works dealing with Chantrey, by George Jones, R.A., John Holland, and Mr. J. A. Raymond ; I have exhausted practically all that has been written specifically about the sculptors who have worked in this country. On the other hand, scraps of informa- tion concerning them are to be found in a large number of books, many often dealing with quite other subjects, and in various manuscript remains (Stone’s note-books in the Soane Museum being the most important in this respect) ; while evidences of their output are to be v VI PREFACE seen in numberless cathedrals and churches, private houses and public museums. With regard to the first and second sources of information, I have covered a fairly large ground of research. I need hardly say that I have not inspected all the statues, busts, and monu- ments mentioned in these pages, but I have done so in many cases, and the more I have done so the more inexplicable it seems to me that those responsible for these splendid works of art should have received so com- paratively small a share of attention. The works dealing with sculpture which are to be found in most large libraries are nearly all chiefly concerned with the achievements of the ancient Greeks or Romans, and it is, I venture to think, time that even so small an attempt as this should be made to tell people something about the lives and labours of those who may, for the most part, be regarded as British sculptors. In London alone we have on all sides a remarkable aggregation of such remains, either in our Abbey, Cathedral, and churches, or in our public open spaces, and it cannot but add to the interest one has in looking at these monuments to know something about the lives of the men who were responsible for them, and who worked, often with such conspicuous success and undaunted courage, to add to the artistic embellishment of the country where they were born, or in which they elected to live. Many of these men are unknown by name to the majority of people ; many have left little or nothing tangible behind them ; but there are even then sufficient to make an almost unbroken chain of artistic endeavour. The great Torrigiano and Hubert Le Soeur have indeed a wider claim to recognition than that which they gained in this country, but Nicholas Stone, Caius Gabriel Cibber, Grinling Gibbon, Francis Bird, Rysbrack and Roubiliac, PREFACE Vll Wilton and Banks, Nollekens and Bacon, all forged links, more or less strong and durable, in the chain which, for my purpose, ends here with the great Flaxman and the greater Chantrey. Since those days, without mentioning the splendid work done by living men, or by those who have but comparatively recently departed from among us, many fine sculptors have laboured in this country : the West- macotts, Foley and MacDowell, Gibson and Marochetti, Wyatt and Behner, Marshall and Weekes, Bell and Baily, Carew and Milnes, and, above all, the great Alfred Stevens, a man fitted to take his place by the side of Michael Angelo, will occur to the reader. But it seemed convenient, and almost natural, to make an end with Chantrey, who stands in the forefront of this splendid array, and with whom the art culminated in so notable a manner. E. B. C. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE PRECURSORS: PETER THE ROMAN, SUTTON, CUMMINGS, TORRIGIANO, STEVENS, ETC. i II. NICHOLAS STONE, HIS SONS AND HIS PUPILS, ETC. 20 III. HUBERT LE SCEUR, FANELLI, EDWARD PIERCE, AND OTHERS 47 IV. CIBBER AND GRINLING GIBBON 61 V. BUSHNELL, BIRD, RYSBRACK, SCHEEMAKERS, ROUBILIAC, AND OTHERS 89 VI. JOSEPH WILTON 129 VII. THOMAS BANKS 142 VIII. JOSEPH NOLLEKENS 160 IX. JOHN BACON 189 X. THOMAS PROCTOR, JOHN DEARE, AGOSTINO CARLINI, J. C. F. ROSSI, THEED, GIUSEPPE CERACCHI, MRS. DAMER 210 XI. FLAXMAN 231 XII. CHANTREY 260 INDEX 299 IX b LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS To face page SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY, AFTER THE PORTRAIT BY RAEBURN Frontispiece TOMB OF HENRY III. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY I TOMBS OF AYMER DE VALENCE AND EDMUND CROUCHBACK IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 5 TOMB OF MARGARET BEAUFORT, COUNTESS OF RICHMOND 13 PORTRAITS OF NICHOLAS STONE AND HIS SON 20 EFFIGY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, ON HER TOMB 23 PORTRAIT OF HUBERT LE SCEUR, AFTER VANDYCK 47 STATUE OF CHARLES I. AT CHARING CROSS, BY LE SCEUR 50 PORTRAIT OF CAIUS GABRIEL CIBBER, FROM A RARE ETCHING BY BANNERMAN 61 PORTRAIT OF GRINLING GIBBON, AFTER KNELLER 73 STATUE OF QUEEN ANNE, BY BIRD 89 PORTRAIT OF RYSBRACK, AFTER VANDERBANK 99 PORTRAIT OF SCHEEMAKERS, AFTER A UNIQUE ETCHING BY W. HOARE 106 MONUMENT TO SHAKESPEARE BY SCHEEMAKERS, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 109 PORTRAIT OF ROUBILIAC, AFTER CARPENTIERE 113 xi Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS To face page MONUMENT TO LADY ELIZABETH NIGHTINGALE, BY ROUBILIAC 119 PORTRAIT OF WILTON, AFTER DANCE 129 PORTRAIT OF BANKS, AFTER NORTHCOTE 142 PORTRAIT OF NOLLEKENS, AFTER ABBOTT 160 PORTRAIT OF BACON, AFTER DANCE 189 PORTRAIT OF MRS. DAMER, AFTER COSWAY 220 PORTRAIT OF FLAXMAN, AFTER JACKSON 231 MONUMENT TO LORD MANSFIELD, BY FLAXMAN 245 “ THE SLEEPING CHILDREN, 5 ’ BY CHANTREY, IN LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL 279 TOMB OF HENRY III. CHAPTER I THE PRECURSORS: PETER THE ROMAN, SUTTON, CUMMINGS, TORRIGIANO, STEVENS, ETC. The early history of sculpture in Great Britain is shrouded in more obscurity than is that of any other of the arts — not even excepting architecture, the origins of which, so far as native talent is concerned, are so difficult to trace with any degree of certainty. Indeed, until we come to the reign of James I., and with it the name of Nicholas Stone, there is hardly a single sculptor who stands out with any distinctness, and very few, excepting the great Torrigiano, who worked in this country in the reign of Henry VIII., who call for any special notice. This is the more curious because we have on all sides, in our cathedrals and even in many a country church which seems almost forgotten by Time, monumental remains affording striking proof that some master of the art must have passed that way and left evidences of his handiwork in the beautification of a tomb or the adornment of the fabric itself. We come upon these pearls enshrined in the oysters, as it were, of brick or stone, and we wonder what forgotten brain was responsible for them, what earnest, sometimes it would seem inspired, hand carved those reposeful features, what industrious fingers fashioned that lace-like scrollwork or those clustering soffits. Thus, when we see, to take but a single instance from among so many that might be named, the wonderful double tomb of the Alards in the Church of St. Thomas, at Winchelsea, we are not only filled with wonder at its astonishing beauty, but with something like amazement that the man who was responsible for it is as unknown as if he had worked on the Pyramids or helped to fashion the Sphinx. 2 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS It seems vain to hope that we shall now ever know the names, much less anything of the lives, of these forgotten artists, and all we can do is to marvel at what remains of their output. Not that we are without record, alto- gether, of sculptors who worked before the seventeenth century ; indeed, the names of many of these have been preserved ; but seldom are we able to connect any definite piece of sculpture with them, and, sadder still to our amour propre, many of them were but visitors to these shores, allured from their native lands by the patronage of British monarchs and the glitter of British gold. What, of course, accounts very largely for this, is the fact that, although so early as the thirteenth century the English carver had attained a high level of artistry, sculpture, whether as regards figures or decorative work, was practically subservient to architecture, as will be realised by those who are acquainted with the beautiful examples clustering about our great cathedrals and often to be seen in many of the innumerable smaller ecclesiastical buildings throughout the land. Indeed, at Wells and Exeter, to name but these, such a mass of splendidly vigorous, and often dramatic, carving is exhibited, that it is only when we remember that the names of the architects of these vast piles have not survived that we can, to some extent, realise why it is that the identities of the sculptors who graced and decorated their work are also forgotten. There is no doubt that the vast majority of those who triumphed in the arts during the early days of our history were not natives of our shores, but such as had been invited to this country, and had learned their great lessons in the schools of Italy and France. The first of these was that Peter the Roman Citizen whom Walpole and Vertue have sought to identify with Pietro Cavallini, who was born in 1259 and died in 1344.* It is difficult to agree * These dates are given in the “Nouvelle Biographie Generale,” published in 1855 ; but Gough, in his “ Sepulchral Monuments,” states that Cavallini was born in 1279 and died in 1364, and on this assumption contends that he could not be identical with Peter the Roman Citizen, who came to this country in 1279. In vol. i. of the “ Archaeologia ” there is a long discussion of the question by Vertue. Bryan’s “Dictionary of Painters ” favours 1364 as the date of Cavallini’s death. PETER THE ROMAN 3 with this; for if the dates given in the text or the footnote are correct, they would either make Cavallini a child on his arrival, or would put the possibility of his having come at all, out of the question. We shall, therefore, be on safer ground in regarding this pioneer simply as the man known as Peter the Roman Citizen. The most important work by which he is known is the shrine of Edward the Confessor raised by the piety of Henry III. or Abbot Richard de Ware, or probably the joint gift of both. In the year 1260 Richard de Ware, having just been elected Abbot of Westminster, set out for Rome to receive formal consecration at the hands of Pope Urban IV. At the same time he took the opportunity of engag- ing skilled artisans to work on the tomb which it was contemplated to raise to the Confessor’s memory ; and among those who came to England for this purpose was the Peter mentioned above. We have Weever’s authority for stating that Abbot de Ware brought back certain workmen with him from Rome, as well as a large quantity of porphyry for use on the tomb, a circumstance confirmed by the inscription formerly on Richard de Ware’s own monument (he died in 1283) in the Abbey : Abbas Richardus de Wara, qui requiescit Hie, portet lapides, quos hue portavit ab Urbe ; while the wording on the Confessor’s tomb preserves the name of the chief of those who came over to beautify it : Anno milleno Domini cum septuageno Et bis centeno, cum completo quasi deno, Hoc opus est factum, quod Petrus duxit in actum Romanus civis. According to Mr. Lethaby, in his “ Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen,” the shrine was originally decorated with eleven small images of kings and saints ; amongst them were St. Edmund with the church in one hand, St. Peter trampling on Nero, and a king, probably Henry III. himself, holding a model of the shrine ; besides these figures the shrine was decorated with a number of 4 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS jewels and cameos. At the sides, upon two pillars, were golden statues of St. Edward and St. John the Evangelist ; at the west end was an altar, which was destroyed at the dissolution, and afterwards replaced by a table used at the coronations called St. Edward’s altar, since succeeded by a permanent stone altar. In the lower parts were the recesses in which sick persons were often left during the night to be cured by the saint. Round the verge was an inscription “ formed of bars of blue glass set in gold mosaic.” The glass has long since disappeared, but traces of the lettering are decipherable under the plaster in places. Peter seems to have remained in this country,* for when Edward I. succeeded to the throne in 1272 he set about the construction of a fine tomb for his father, and the Roman sculptor is said to have beautified it with those “ diverse coloured marbles and glittering stones ” which the king had brought with him on his return from the Holy Land, and carved “ the twisted or serpentine columns of the same speckled marble ” with which we know, on the authority of Keepe, that it was adorned. Vertue supposed that Peter (or Cavallini, as he thought him to be) was responsible for those crosses which the affection of Edward I. caused to be erected in memory of his beloved wife Eleanor ; but at least one of these — that at Northampton — is said to have been executed by one, William of Ireland, in London, in the year 1290. It seems, however, not unreasonable to suppose that, given a skilled man — as Peter must have been to be entrusted with a royal tomb— remaining in this country, as one assumes he did, he would be commissioned to under- take any royal work of importance, and if William of Ireland was responsible for one of the crosses, there is no cause to doubt that Peter had a hand in, at least, some of the others. He may, conceivably, have furnished designs for them even if he did not actually carve them.f * The tomb of the Venerable Bede, at Durham, has been attributed to him. t Gough thinks that Peter came hither armed with original designs of Tassi and Gaddi, for the royal tombs. If so, he may have also brought with him some for the crosses, which it was then not unusual to erect. TOMBS OF AYMER DE VALENCE ANI) EDMUND CROUCHBACK PETER THE ROMAN 5 It is a curious fact that, although William of Wyke- ham erected Winchester Cathedral besides other notable buildings, in the reign of Edward III., a monarch who also showed his interest in architecture by engaging his favourite in the rebuilding of Windsor and other fortresses, no names of sculptors, or statuaries or carvers, as they used to be indifferently called, dating from this period, have come down to us. That such existed, however, goes without saying, for besides the decorative portions of the cathedrals, churches and castles which were then built, such examples of what may be termed the more purely sculptor’s work — as Wykeham’s own tomb and the bust of that prelate which may be seen to-day in one of the corbels of Winchester Cathedral — were executed ; while the busts of Henry I. and his Queen, which Dr. Thorpe discovered at the west end of Rochester Cathedral, probably date from about this period, although repre- senting royal personages of an earlier time. Fine examples, too, of the sculpture of this period may be seen in the tombs of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, Aveline, Countess of Lancaster, and Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, second son of Henry III., in the choir of Westminster Abbey, of which Flaxman thus speaks : “The monuments of Aymer de Valence and Edmund Crouchback are specimens of the magnificence of sculpture in the reigns of the first two Edwards. The loftiness of the work , the number of the arches and pinnacle j, the lightness of the spires , the richness and profusion of foliage and crockets , the solemn repose of the principal statue , the delicacy of thought in the group of angels bearing the soul , and the tender sentiment of concern variously expressed in the relations ranged in order round the basement , forcibly arrest the attention , and carry the thoughts not only to other ages , but to other states of existence .” There is so great a similarity between the two first tombs and that of Archbishop Peckham, at Canter- bury, that it has been reasonably conjectured that they are the work of one and the same man, and one Master Michael of Canterbury has been named as the probable 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS artist, while that of Crouchback is conjecturally assigned to Master Richard of Reading. In the tomb of Aveline, the figure of that noble lady- lies, the head being supported by angels. The Countess is robed in a long mantle, and wears the characteristic headdress of the period. In the front of the lower por- tion are six figures standing in arched niches. The pointed canopy is supported by buttresses, and traces of the whole having once been richly painted, are still discernible. Aymer de Valence’s tomb is equally elabo- rate, or rather was, for time has defaced the beauty of these splendid monuments. The Earl, in full armour, is finely executed. He lies with his feet resting on a lion couchant, and at his head two angels bear his soul, typified by a small figure wrapped in a mantle. On the base of the monument are beautifully carved little figures of his kinsmen, and over the whole, the Earl is again represented, on a richly carved canopy, armed ca'p-a-'pie and mounted on his charger. The monument to Crouchback is the most ambitious of the three. The Earl is represented lying dressed in chain armour, his hands folded in prayer, over which rises a triple canopy elaborately decorated. There are ten trefoil-arched niches on either side of the tomb, in which crowned figures are to be seen. For the tombs enriched with beautiful canopies which were such a feature at this period, the reader is referred to those of Edward II., at Gloucester, of the De Spencer family at Tewkesbury, and to the somewhat later one of Lady Eleanor de Percy, at Beverley. In Richard II. ’s # reign, a certain John Sutton , described merely as a carver, is known to have been employed by Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, to alter a statue of the famous and legendary Guy, Earl of Warwick, which is to be seen in Warwick Church, and also to carve upon * For the tomb which Richard had prepared for himself in the Abbey, two men, B. and Godfrey of Wood Street, “ made the moulds and cast the images of the king and queen.” They are, however, merely described as goldsmiths, but their work would seem to have approximated to that of the modern sculptor. SUTTON 7 it the armorial bearings of earlier members of this great family. Whether Sutton can properly be enrolled among British sculptors is a question, for such work as he is recorded as doing hardly required the talent, although it may to some extent have exercised the skill, of the sculptor, in the modern acceptation of the title ; but when we are groping in the dark the feeblest glimmer of light is acceptable, and has even a greater relative import- ance than the sun at mid-day, and so we will accept Sutton as at least a pioneer in the path we are setting out upon ; a pioneer that is who once spoke our own language and claimed a like nationality as ourselves. The reigns of Henry IV. and his successor were notable for things other than the development of the Fine Arts, and it is not, therefore, till after the accession of Henry VI. that we have any record of contemporary sculptors, and even then the two names that have come down to us are little more than names. The first is that of one Thomas Porchalion , which occurs in the testamentary directions of that magnificent lady Isabel, Countess of Warwick, the daughter of Thomas le Despenser, Earl of Gloucester, and widow of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. In the curious and highly interesting docu- ment in which Countess Isabel disposed of her worldly goods she gave directions that “ a statue of her should be made all naked with her hair cast backward, according to the design and model that one Thomas Porchalion had for that purpose .” * It seems not improbable that this sculptor was also employed on certain decorative portions of the tomb of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, which is one of the wonders still of the famous Beauchamp Chapel, at War- wick, although his name is not specifically mentioned in the deed t drawn up for its execution between the Earl’s executors and the artists employed. Among the artists there referred to, we find the names of John Essex, and John Bourde of Corfe Castle, both described as “ marblers,” which, as being somewhat cognate to our subject, deserve preservation here ; although I imagine * Gough’s “ Sepulchral Monuments.” f Preserved by Dugdale. 8 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS a marbler to have been one of those artificers who merely cut and placed the stone in position and were not em- ployed, probably they would have been unequal to the task, in modelling.* The other sculptor of this reign is even more illusive then Porchalion, for we have only his Christian name — Richard\ (of Reading), and besides the Crouchback monument in the Abbey (if it be his), the sole work he is known to have been engaged on were certain repairs which he carried out in conjunction with a monk named Rowsby in the Church of St. Mary at Stamford , X and which may conceivably have resolved themselves merely into the subsidiary decorations with which the artists of those early times so lovingly, and often quaintly, embellished sacred buildings. According to Harrod, who brought out a new edition of Peck’s work on Stamford in 1785, Rowsby “ attended the carver to direct him in making some image or ornament ; he was afterwards parson of St. Clements, and died in 14 66 ” ; and the same authority quotes, from the Cottonian MSS., certain expenses incurred on behalf of St. Mary’s Church, in 1427, among which I find these two entries : “ Victuals for Richard (the) carver and brother Rowsby £ o os. 5 d. “ Paid Richard (the) carver £1 ior. od .” In the following reign, but a single name appears — that of one Master Cummings , which Vertue discovered in the archives of the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol. As the entry really seems to indicate the execution of something approaching what we are, nowa- days, accustomed to regard as sculpture, it may be that Cummings has a better claim to be regarded as a native sculptor than any of those whom I have before mentioned. Here is the “ memorandum ” as given by Britton in his account of the church : “ That Master Cummings hath delivered the 4th day of July in the year of our Lord 1470 to Mr. Nicholas * William Austen was the founder and Thomas Stevyns the copper- smith, engaged on this work. f I assume he is identical with Richard of Reading. X Peck’s “ Antiquities of Stamford.” CUMMINGS 9 Bettes, vicar of Ratcliffe, Moses Conteryn, Philip ! Bartholomew, and John Brown, procurators of Ratcliffe beforesaid, a new sepulchre well-gilt and cover thereto, an image of God Almighty rysing out of the same sepulchre, with all the ordinance that longeth thereto ; that is to say, a lath made of timber and iron-work thereto ; “ Item, thereto longeth Heven , made of timber, and stained cloth ; “ Item, Hell, made of timber and iron work, with devils, the number, thirteen ; “ Item, Four Knights armed, keeping the sepulchre, with their weapons in their hands, that is to say, two spears, two axes, two paves ; “ Item, Four pair of angel’s wings, for four angels, made of timber and well painted ; “ Item, The fadre, the crown and visage, the hell with a cross upon it well-gilt with fine gold ; “ Item, The Holy Ghost coming out of heven into the : sepulchre ; “ Item, Longeth to the angels four chevelers.” * Much of this is, of course, mere carpenter’s work, but the sepulchre itself with its central figure of God, and the four armed knights guarding it, may be properly 1 regarded as one of the earliest pieces of church sculpture of which, together with the name of its carver, we have any definite record, and is thus of the highest importance in the history of the art as practised in this country. It is not till the reign of Henry VIII. that we come to a definite record of another sculptor, and when we do, we find him to have been a foreigner — and a famous one ; noTess a personage, indeed, than that Pietro Porrigiano , whose jealousy and ungovernable passion were responsible for the broken nose which Michael Angelo carried to his grave. There seems some doubt as to the exact year when Torrigiano, or Torisano, as the name is sometimes written, came to this country, for Vasari simply states that he was brought hither by some merchants who had * This was printed in the minutes of the Antiquarian Society in 173 6. A pave is a large buckler (from the French pavois) ; a cheveler is a peruke or headdress. 10 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS been attracted by his work, undertaken in competition with Michael Angelo, in Rome, and that he was taken into the king’s service and executed a large amount of work for his royal patron, for which he received noble rewards. The most important of these labours was that undertaken in connection with the gorgeous tomb which Henry VII. had begun as a resting-place for the bodies of himself and his family, and which was completed during the early years of his successor’s reign, by Henry’s exe- cutors according to the direction in his will. It was finished,* to be precise, in 1518, and according to Stowe, was made by one Peter, a painter of Florence, who received .£1500 for his labour and the material used. This Peter was no other than the famous Pietro Torri- giano ; and a proof that he was in this country in the year 1518, although it is more than probable that he was engaged on such an exacting piece of work much earlier still, is forthcoming in a record in the Court of Requests, published in 1592, in which he is given as one of the witnesses in a cause tried between two merchants of his country (probably those with whom he journeyed to England) named Pietro da Bardi and Bernardo Caval- canti. Henry VII.’s chapel, “ one of the stateliest in Europe ” Bacon called it, is such a beautiful example of the carving of this period, and exhibits so clearly the heights to which such a man as Torrigiano, and in a lesser degree those who worked under him, rose, when con- fronted with something which demanded the best they could do, that a few words about it will not be irrelevant here. It is dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, but is known as Henry VII.’s chapel, from the monarch who began it, and who expended on its beautification far more money than his parsimony ever permitted him to disburse on anything he could have enjoyed during his lifetime. You enter it by a flight of twelve steps beneath the Oratory of Henry V. The entrance gates are of oak, overlaid with brass, wrought with devices and arabesques ; among the former may be distinguished * The original contract for the tomb is preserved in the archives of Westminster Abbey. TORRIGIANO n the portcullis indicating the king’s descent from the Beaufort family, and the Crown and Tudor roses, typifying the union of the houses of York and Lancaster in his person. In the chapel is a central aisle, with two side aisles north and south, and there are five small chapels at the east end. It seems probable that this main fabric was completed in Henry VII. ’s lifetime, before Torrigiano came to this country, and that his work was confined to the altar tomb of Henry and his Queen which stands in the centre of the building, and which Lord Bacon called “ one of the stateliest and daintiest tombs in Europe.” The screen of richly gilt brass work which encloses this beautiful example of Torrigiano’s skill, is said to be the work of an English artist — probably Nicholas Ewer, coppersmith and gilder, who, together with Laurence Ymber, a wood-carver, Humphrey Walker, a founder, John Bell and John Maynard, painters, and Robert Vertue, Robert Jennings, and John Lebons, master-masons, worked under Torri- giano, on this tomb. The recumbent figures of Henry VII. and his Queen are executed in bronze, gilt over, and are characterised by a beautiful restraint and simplicity. The tomb, of black marble, is surrounded by a carved frieze and adorned with medallions in copper-gilt repre- senting the Virgin and certain saints — SS. Michael, George, Christopher, Edward the Confessor, and Barbara, among them. At the ends may be seen the king’s arms supported by cherubs executed in brass. The beautiful screen of bronze, a portion of which has disappeared, appears to have been executed by English workmen before Henry’s death, and on it the king’s badges are dis- tinguishable ; but the chief part of the work was un- doubtedly due to the genius of Torrigiano.* In the “ Archseologia ” (vol. xvi. p. 84) is preserved a draft of an indenture for also erecting a tomb for Henry VIII. and Queen Catherine, the place not being specified, at a cost of .£2000, between the king and Torrigiano. * It is said that Torrigiano asked the assistance of Cellini in his work at the Abbey, but the latter, having heard of his quarrel with Michael Angelo, refused to assist him. 12 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS It is dated 1518, and was found among Wolsey’s papers in the Chapter House at Westminster. The Abbey contains another, and earlier, specimen of the great Italian’s skill, in the tomb of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., the effigy on which is of brass gilded and enamelled. It represents her in old age, with her hands raised and pressed together in prayer. She is robed in widow’s dress, with a hood and long mantle, and her feet rest on a hind. The figure, which was originally coloured, reposes beneath a small canopy, and lies on a tomb of black marble, with bronze coats of arms surrounded by wreaths similar to those on the tomb of Henry VII. The railing which formerly guarded the figure has dis- appeared. But perhaps a still more interesting relic of Torrigiano’s work, although a far simpler one than these elaborate monuments, is the Tomb of Dr. Young, Master of the Rolls, in the Rolls Chapel, in Chancery Lane. The recumbent figure of Dr. Young is exquisitely modelled in terra-cotta, while at the back, above it, appears a head of Christ supported on each side by that of a cherub. The mention of terra-cotta reminds me of the beautiful medallions in that material, which may be seen at Hamp- ton Court, and which are almost undoubtedly the work of the same artist, whose royal undertakings would not at that period have been any bar to his working for the royal favourite. Indeed, there is a circular head of Henry VIII. at Hampton Court, which Walpole attributes to Torrigiano without any question ; while a model in stone of Henry VII. in his death agony, which was once at Strawberry Hill, was always regarded by Walpole as the work of the same hand ; being, as he himself expresses it, “ in the great style of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and worthy of either.” Whether Torrigiano did other work in this country, is uncertain, nor is it definitely known how long he re- mained here, but on leaving he settled in Spain, where his turbulent temper landed him in the Inquisition. Tried and condemned as a heretic (he had, in a fit of passion, broken a statue of the Virgin which he had himself TOMB OF MARGARET BEAUFORT, COUNTESS OF RICHMOND TORRIGIANO 13 carved) he was, by some powerful influence, respited ; but in a fit of melancholy — drastic treatment and starveling fare acting on a passionate nature probably — he com- mitted suicide, by refusing to eat the little that was allowed him, at Seville, in the year 1522, and when he was but forty-nine years of age.* Although the impetus given to the art of sculpture, in this country, by the great Italian, is too obvious to require insisting upon, it must also be remembered that before his advent some excellent work had, as we have seen, been done in this country ; and in this connection Dallaway’s remarks are worth quoting. Says he: “Although the mausoleum of Henry VII. be, in dimensions and magnifi- cence, a work worthy of all the admiration then bestowed upon it, the art of sculpture and casting in metal, as applied to sepulchral monuments, had previously attained to a positive degree of excellence in this kingdom. If we refer to the effigies of his predecessor, still extant, it will appear that sculpture had made nearly an equal progress with architecture during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies. Casting in metal succeeded to the art of plating with it upon wood. The faces were wrought from masques taken from the dead subject, and therefore the likeness was preserved entire, of which many curious and authentic specimens are given in Gough’s ‘ Sepulchral Monuments.’ “ They occur in the following monuments : “1272. Henry IILt Copper-gilt. Westminster Abbey. “ 1290. Queen Eleanor, f Bronze or latten (brass). Westminster Abbey. “ 1307. Edward I. (?) Copper-gilt. Westminster Abbey. ' “1327. Edward II. Alabaster. Gloucester Cathedral. “1377. Edward III. Copper-gilt. Westminster Abbey. * Cumberland, in his “Anecdotes of Spanish Painters,” 1 787, relates the story of the broken image at length, as does Condivi, and Duffa in his “ Life of Michael Angelo.” t These were both the work of William Torel, “ aurifaber,” as he was called, one of a famous family of goldsmiths who did much work of this kind at the period. He is known to have been paid ^113 6 s. Sd. for three bronze figures, including that of Queen Eleanor referred to above ; and his productions have been compared, for grace and beauty, even with those of the great Pisano. There is no figure on Edward I/s tomb. 14 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS “ 1369. Queen Philippa. Alabaster. Westminster Abbey. “1395. Richard II. and Queen Anne. Latten or mixed metal. Westminster Abbey. “1412. Henry IV. and his Queen. Alabaster. Can- terbury Cathedral. “ 1422. Henry V. Oak, plated with silver, and the head solid silver. Westminster Abbey.” “ Added to these are Aymer de Valence, 1246, of oak plated with copper, and John of Eltham, of alabaster, in Westminster Abbey; Edward, the Black Prince, in Canterbury, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in his chapel at Warwick, both of copper-gilt (made by William Austen, the first eminent English founder, con- temporary with Donatello and Ghiberti), and, says Flax- man, excelled by nothing done in Italy at this time. The existing contracts are made with English artists ; copper- smiths, chasers and gilders.” Henry III.’s tomb is of Italian design, and must have been executed by Italian artists ; although Dallaway is correct in stating that there were many men in this country who could, and did, produce excellent work, especially in metal: the Torels, Master Thomas of Lewes (who made the grille for this very tomb), are examples of this. The figure on Queen Eleanor’s tomb was certainly Torel’s work and is said to have been cast in a single piece. It is interesting to know that “ William Sprot and John de Ware furnished the metal and sundry gold florins for the gilding were brought from Lucca ” ; while one William de Hokyntone did the woodwork, and the carved iron grille, on the ambulatory side, was executed by Master Thomas of Leghtone. The beautiful alabaster figure of Queen Philippa, on her tomb, was the work of a Fleming, Hennequin de Liege, who worked in Paris under Pepin de Huy, and was once coloured. It appears that there were originally no fewer than seventy figures on this tomb ; “ divers images in the likeness of angels ” being made by John Orchard, bronze worker of London, who also erected the grille.* * “ Gleanings from Westminster Abbey,” edited by Parker. BENEDETTO DA ROVEZZANO 15 The elaborate tomb of Richard II. and his Queen, also contained a number of figures and coats of arms, and in connection with it the names of the master-masons, Henry Yevele and Stephen Lote, and the coppersmiths, Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest, citizens of London, have been preserved ; the indentures arranging that the work should be completed in 1397, and the cost to be £670, £270 of which was for the marble work. Yevele was for a number of years master-mason to the Abbey, and was responsible for the tombs of Edward III. and Arch- bishop Langham, as well as for the design of the new nave. Much of this work is, as will be seen, that of copper- smiths, and cannot perhaps be properly included in what we now associate with the labour of the sculptor. But in those days these arts overlapped very largely, and, therefore, some of the now forgotten names mentioned should rightly take their place among those of later men who were frankly sculptors and nothing else. A little later than Torrigiano’s stay in this country, in fact, just two years after his death, Wolsey began that magnificent monumental tomb at Windsor, which, according to Lord Herbert, exceeded in magnificence even that of Henry VII., at Westminster. The principal artist employed on this splendid work was Benedetto da Rovezzano , like Torrigiano, a Florentine sculptor, who, according to Vasari, not only worked for Wolsey but was also in the pay of Henry VIII., for whom he executed many works in marble and bronze, being, we are told, royally rewarded. He seems never to have completed Wolsey’s monument, or perhaps the fall of the prelate put an end to the undertaking, as it is recorded that in 1529 he received 4250 ducats for what he had finished up to that time, and we do not hear of any further payments, on this account, having been made to him. According to Fiddes, in his “ Life of Wolsey,” Benedetto sought leave from the Cardinal to return to his own country, as did other artificers employed on the tomb — Antony Cavallari, a gilder, among them — but he was, instead, taken into the king’s service as I have mentioned. 1 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS What were the works he executed for Henry, it is im- possible to say, but among them was probably that large statue of the king in metal, which Walpole speaks of as being in a cloister at Gorhambury, and which he describes as being “ not in a bad taste.” Wolsey’s tomb, after the fall of the Cardinal, was annexed by Henry, who proceeded to have it altered so as to form a monument for himself. Speed, in his “ History of Great Britain,” copies an MS. of Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald, entitled “ The Manner of the Tombe to be Made for the King’s Grace at Windsor,” and Dallaway, in a note to Walpole, gives details of its extraordinary size and magnificence. On it were to be “ the figures of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, c recumbent in their royal habits,’ not as death, but sleeping ; on both sides, and the size of a man and woman, with two angels at the head of each. Upon a high basement between them, upon which shall be the history of St. George embossed, shall stand, the king on horseback in full armour, of the stature of a goodly man and a large horse. Over all, ‘ the Image of God the Father, holding the king’s soul in his left hand, and his right hand ex- tended, in the act of benediction.’ 13 prophets and 4 saints, all five feet high, and between each, pillars of serpentine marble. The amount of carvings, 133 statues, and 44 stones or bas-reliefs.” This was at a later date sold to the Parliamentary Commissioners for £ 600 , and destroyed by order of the Parliament, during the Civil Wars, so that nothing of Benedetto’s extensive work there has survived. Another carver who “ made an admirable model of wood with figures of wax ”* for the tomb was Baccio Bandinelli , but capable artist as he was, his work, which was probably merely executed as a specimen, does not seem to have found favour in Wolsey’s eyes, for we hear nothing more of him as being employed on the monument, which may thus be regarded as solely the work of Benedetto da Rovezzano and the artisans employed under him. Under the spacious reign of Elizabeth, a time when literature, and to some extent painting, emerged gloriously * Walpole, STEVENS 17 from the more or less feeble beginnings of earlier times,* we might have expected to find something more definite with regard to sculpture ; but, as in the case of archi- tecture, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, the names of contemporary architects, there is little if any- thing of importance to record, and a reign which in literature could boast of Shakespeare and the extra- ordinary constellation of writers only less remarkable — Webster and Ford and Dekker and the rest — and in painting of such pre-eminent artists as Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver and the Bettes, merely to mention British talent, produced but two or three unimportant architects with the exception of the illusive Thorpe, and but two sculptors whom to dignify with this title is perhaps to do them too much honour. For, in truth, they were of little importance ; the first one, Tyrrell being merely mentioned in contemporary records as a carver in wood, without anything of his handiwork being recorded ; and Richard Stevens , a Dutchman, who was paid .£292 odd, for executing and setting up the figures on the tomb of Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who left no less than .£1500 for this purpose, in Boreham Church, Suffolk, but whose name, so far as I can gather, is not connected with any other existing monument. Dalla- way surmises that he was extensively employed, however, and that many of the monuments of this period, chiefly to be seen in Westminster Abbey, composed of alabaster and various marbles, were finished or con- tracted for by Stevens. He is also known to have been largely employed on those magnificent chimney-pieces which have a similarity to sepulchral monuments in size, composition and embellishment, and of which examples exist at Audley End, Burghley, Hatfield, and elsewhere. ' Stevens is also known, perhaps even better known, as a portrait painter and a medallist, than as a sculptor ; indeed, so excellent was he in the former branch of art, that so good a judge as Jervas thought that many portraits attributed to Holbein were really the work of Stevens ; * I need hardly point out the exceptions — Chaucer, Gower, and the rest. B 18 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS while his medals of Lord Leicester, Lord Pembroke and Sir Thomas Bodley, are sufficient to prove his mastery in this direction.* This is a meagre record indeed, but the fact is that in these early days, sculpture and archi- tecture were so closely allied, as for that matter certain phases of both arts must to some extent always be, that, at this distance of time, it is difficult, if not well- nigh impossible, to differentiate between the actual output of the so-called architect, carver, mason, and sculptor. Much of the beautiful work we see around us, frequently mutilated as it is by the action of time and the unbalanced zeal of sectarianism, proves that there lived and worked in these times men whose right to be regarded as sculptors, and fine sculptors, is incontestable ; but as we have seen, only very slight records exist con- cerning a relatively few of them ; and those whose names are most conspicuous, are those who had already made a reputation abroad and were invited to this country to put the finishing touches to some spendid monument, or to execute some gorgeous tomb for a royal or noble patron. The saying that a prophet is without honour in his own country, is nowhere more forcibly exemplified than in the fact that of all those who worked in this direction in England from the time of Henry III. to that of James I., of whom, too, so many remarkable evidences still remain, no record was kept, and apparently little or no consideration was given. Under Elizabeth, however, a new method of construct- ing monuments to the illustrious dead came into fashion, which is thus described by Dallaway, and will help to approximately define the work of this period, if it is power- less to indicate the actual designers or contrivers : “ Upon a large altar-tomb of marble was erected an open arcade, having a very rich and complicated en- * There was another Stevens, not improbably a relation, who was an eminent sculptor of Delft, celebrated for carving vases in precious materials, who was invited to this country by James I. He lived here for some time, during which period a son, Palamedes Stevens, was born to him in 1607. Shortly afterwards, however, he returned to his native land. The son seems to have followed in his father’s footsteps as a carver, but he never practised in this country, and died when but thirty-one. STEVENS 19 tablature. The columns were marble shafts with capitals, white or black, of the Doric or Corinthian order. Small pyramidal figures, the sides of which were richly veneered with variously coloured pieces, disposed in ornamented squares or circles, supporting globes or balls. Armorial bearings were emblazoned, and the effigies painted and gilt in exact resemblance to the armour or robes in which the noble deceased were invested during life. When these monuments were placed against a wall, which was more commonly done, the plan was accommodated to it, and the alcove, with its columns, universally re- tained.” Many works in Westminster Abbey and else- where exemplify this. CHAPTER II NICHOLAS STONE, HIS SONS AND HIS PUPILS, ETC. During the twenty-two years of James I.’s reign, the arts in England made a very distinct and significant advance. This could hardly be said to be due to any enlightened patronage which the monarch bestowed upon them. His tastes took quite a different direction, as students of his times know well enough, and in a curious olla podrida of polemical discussion and con- troversial ingenuity allied to a strangely infantile love of idle and useless pleasures, whether intellectual or material, he found his chief diversion ; his delight lay as much in arbitrating between ecclesiastical opponents as in penning advice on all things and sundry: the incontrovertible truth of Divine Right as well as the filthy habit of tobacco-smoking; and when tired of such mental exer- cises, the pleasures of the chase or the attractions of the table were sufficient to fill up his leisure hours. But if not much was to be hoped, so far as the advancement of art was concerned, from such a mind, it so happened that a taste was being spread about for such things by many of those who in virtue of their position and wealth were best able to patronise and nourish the fine arts. It nearly always happens that after a period of storm and stress, a period of military and naval activity, a period, as it were, of preparation for the mental and intellectual advancement of a people, a time succeeds in which that advancement actually begins and proceeds up to a certain point, until another upheaval brings about a change, to be again followed by a fresh development of the securer arts. The reign of James, as well as the earlier years of that of his successor, is a case in point ; and if 66 King ” Elizabeth was succeeded by “ Queen ” 20 NICHOLAS STONE AND HIS SON STONE 21 James, at least under the latter sprang forth those victories of peace which inevitably follow the more striking glories of war. In such cases, some outstanding personalities nearly always shine forth as protagonists in the new movement, and in the reign of James I. such was forthcoming in the person of the splendid George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. To no figure in the annals of this country can the description of the Latin writer — that he was alieni appe- tens , sui profusus — be so well applied as to the magnificent dandy who was at the same time the chief, though hardly the most enlightened, art-patron of the age in which he lived. There is no occasion here to discuss the complex character of Buckingham. Such an incursion into the realms of history is alien to my purpose. But there is little doubt that it was his love of display and of magnificence in all the outward formulae of life, which gave to the art of this country its motive power during the reigns of the first two Stuarts. As an influence, however, in this direction, the existence of Buckingham was important far beyond what he himself actually desired to accomplish or succeeded in effecting. It was, in fact, his influence over the essentially plastic mind of Charles, Prince of Wales, that had the more significant and far-reaching results. Here, to his hand, was a young prince, studious, cultivated, loving the fine arts so far as he had been able to understand them, in the gross and material atmosphere of his father’s court. Such a character only required directing in order to emerge from the chrysalis state of desire into the full butterfly beauty of matured recognition of such things as help to decorate and make life lovely. Buckingham may not have understood or desired such things for themselves ; he may have regarded them merely as concomitants to his splendour ; and when his henchman, Sir Balthazar Gerbier, or any other of his agents, sent him home treasures they had secured from the Continent, that then recked not of what it was losing, he may rather have regarded his acquisitions as further proofs of his power and glory than as things to be loved and studied fof 22 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS themselves. But Charles was of a different calibre ; caring little for outward display, his joy was in a statue or a picture or a medal because the medal, the picture, or the statue was in itself a thing of beauty, some- thing that had emerged glorious from the artist’s hand ; something that had become sanctified by age or genius. Even that hasty, ill-advised, secret journey to Spain, if politically a faux pas , at least had its importance in this connection, and in touch with the kindred spirit of Philip IV., and under the influence of Velasquez’s splendid powers, the latent artistry in Charles’s nature burst forth never again to be subdued, till his head fell from his body before the fragment of that palace which Inigo Jones had raised, and which, under happier auspices, would have proved one of the glories of his reign. It may, therefore, he asserted that the real beginnings of art in England, the first steps, as it were, in the direction that has had such a splendid continuation, were to some extent due to the brilliant Buckingham whose influence enabled the reticent, tentative spirit of a young prince to emerge into the able, critical, and sound judgment of the first and last really artistically minded ruler of this country.* Here, of course, we are only dealing with one phase of the art movement of this period : painting and archi- tecture ; the production of medals or the weaving of tapestries do not concern us ; and if the sculptors who flourished during the reign of James I., with whom we here have to do, can hardly compare, in importance or power, with those who came later, they are at least less shadowy than were, as we have seen, the personalities of their predecessors ; and at least one of them stands forth in a far more clear and decisive manner than does any other sculptor before his day. This was Nicholas Stone ; but before dealing with him and his sons who followed, though with less success, in his footsteps, I will * I do not overlook the splendid patronage and refined taste of Lord Arundel ; but it was Buckingham’s influence over Charles that proved really most beneficial to the arts in this country. EFFIGY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH, ON HER TOMB STONE 23 clear the ground by saying what little there is to be said about one or two other statuaries who worked in England during the reign of James. The first of these was Maximilian Colte,* son of one Maximilian Poutrain, otherwise Colte, a foreigner domiciled in this country and living in St. Bartholomew’s Close. What little we know of him is gained from such data as Vertue was able to gather together. These unfortunately neither include the date of his birth nor of his death, nor, for the matter of that, any mention of his handiwork, with the exception of the monument, which we can all still see for ourselves, to Queen Elizabeth, in Westminster Abbey, and that in St. Bartholomew’s Church executed by him in memory of his daughter, Abigail, + who died, at the age of sixteen, on March 29, 1629. Colte seems, how- ever, notwithstanding our dearth of knowledge of him, to have been favourably known as a sculptor at this period, and indeed, to have been later, actually in the service of the Crown, in Charles’s reign, for there is a record of his receiving from the royal treasury, a salary of £ 8 a year ; the particular entry, which Walpole gives from an office book of the Board of Works, being dated 1633. Colte not only resided in the parish of St. Bartholomew, in the church of which his wife was buried in 1645, as is recorded in the registers, but of his two sons, Alexander and John, the latter — who is described merely as a stone- cutter and cannot therefore be admitted among the sculptors — also lived in this parish and was interred in the church here together with his wife and family. Another sculptor, whom a contemporary called a “ most exquisite artist,” and of whom Dallaway says that he “ affords the * This Maximilian Poutrain or Powtrain, as it is sometimes spelt, was associated with one John de Critz in the splendid monument to Queen Elizabeth erected by James I. in Westminster Abbey, which was completed in 1606, at a cost of .£765. The recumbent figure of the queen is a fine piece of work, but the crown and other ornaments have disappeared. The tomb of Mary Queen of Scots, in the Abbey, was the work of Corne- lius Cure, and in 1607 a royal warrant ordered payment of .£825 ior. and “ all further sums as the marble shall amount to 99 to him. The whole cost of the tomb was to be no less than £ 2000 . t It seems not improbable that Colte executed the altar tomb of the Mildmays in the same church. 24 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS first instance of an English sculptor,” but concerning whose personality we know too little, was Efiphanius Evesham. The single example of his work which has been identified is the monument to Owen, whose “ Epigrams ” were printed by John Penkethman, in 1624; and it is solely because their translator remarks, in the course of the work, “ Give me leave to insert his (Owen’s) epitaph, which is engraved in a plate of brass, and fixed under his monumental image, formed and erected by that most exquisite artist, Mr. Epiphanius Evesham, in the Cathedral of St. Paul,” that we have even this item of information concerning one who in his day must have done far more than this to earn such high praise. The name of Gerard Christmas , which is sometimes included among the architects of this country,* should perhaps be placed with as good a reason with the sculptors. For although he seems to have been an architect, there is no doubt that he was also a statuary, or at least a carver. His best known work in this direction was the frieze over the chief entrance of old Northumberland House, in which certain letters introduced after the fashion of those days, have been read to indicate that Christmas built the main front ; in any case he may with probability be regarded as the carver of the stonework. If this kind of achievement can hardly be said to raise Christmas to the level of a sculptor as we understand the term, it is at least sufficient to base his claim as a statuary upon. Christmas was famous, too, for “ bringing pageants and figures to such great perfection both in symmetry and substance, being before but misshapen monsters made only of slight wicker and paper ” ; t and a copy of verses, of which Vertue is said to have possessed one, was circulated in praise of his success in this field of activity. He had two sons, John and Mathias Christmas, who were also sculptors and carvers, and who, among other works, executed the tomb of Sir H. Calthorpe, at Ampton, in Suffolk, and the busts of Ralph Hawtrey and his wife in white marble on their joint tomb in Ruislip Church, | and also did the * I deal with him in this capacity in my “ Lives of the British Architects.” t Gough’s “ Topography.” X See Lysons’s “ Middlesex.” STONE 25 carving on the large vessel which Peter Pett built, at Woolwich, in 1637. Bernard Jansen , who is generally regarded as the prin- cipal architect of Northumberland House, on the frieze of which Christmas worked, seems also to have added to his labours, as an architect, those of a sculptor — that is, if the agreement, found by Vertue among the Harleian MSS.,* “ between Paul Dewes Esq., and Jan Jansen, stone- cutter, for setting up a tomb in the Church of Stowlang- toft,” which agreement is dated June 25, 1624, refers to Bernard. None of these sculptors was, however, of particular importance, and it is to Nicholas Stone that we must look for the man who was to represent adequately this branch of the art at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Nicholas Stone f was born at Woodbury, near Exeter, in the year 1586, and was the son of a quarryman. He passed his youth in his native village ; but the attractions of London proved, later, irresistible, and, coming up to the Metropolis, he lived for a time with one Isaac James. We know nothing of this James, but it is probable that he was one of those lesser statuaries who did so much journeyman work, at this period, in connection with the embellishment of the great houses that then began to arise not only in London but also in the country. Stone was articled to Isaac James for two years, and remained with him one year longer, as a journeyman, as we learn from an entry in his note-books ; but subsequently left him, and went to Holland, where he worked in the atelier of Peter de Keyser, the son of Hendrik de Keyser, the well- known sculptor, whose daughter he afterwards married. It seems probable that this Peter de Keyser was of the same family as Thomas de Keyser, the famous portrait- painter, but in what degree of relationship they stood it is neither easy, nor, perhaps, important here to determine. What does seem satisfactorily established, however, is that * No. 8, Art. 15. f See an interesting account of Stone, by Mr. A. E. Bullock, in which are reproduced many of Stone’s known works and various ones attributed to him. 2 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Stone had so improved upon the native talent which he undoubtedly possessed, by his studies and labours under the eyes of both Isaac James and Peter de Keyser (he is said to have designed and built the porch of the Wester- kerk at Amsterdam, and so gained his master’s consent to his union with his daughter, and thus to have come into a share in certain stone quarries in the Isle of Portland, in which de Keyser had an interest), that, when he returned to England, in 1614, he was at once, to use Walpole’s words, “ employed in making monuments for persons of the first distinction.” The chief source of information we have for following the details of Stone’s career, are his pocket-books, in which he kept an account of the work he executed, of the amounts he received for these labours, and of those for whom the works were carried out. These pocket-books are preserved in the Soane Museum, whence the various extracts here given are taken. It would appear that these valuable and particularly interesting relics once belonged to Hawksmoor, the architect, and they after- wards came into the possession of Vertue, who purchased them at the sale of the library of James Paine, the archi- tect. They were copied more than once, however, for Walpole tells us that Captain Winde, who built Bucking- ham House among other things, possessed a copy, while another was discovered by Vertue, from which Walpole gave some extracts in his “ Anecdotes of Painting. ” * The first entry dates from 1614, the year when, as we have seen, Stone returned from Holland, and set up for him- self as a sculptor in London. But curiously enough his earliest undertaking, in these new conditions, was not in England at all, but in Ireland. Here is Stone’s record of it : “ In June, 1614, I bargained with Sir Walter Butler for to make a tomb for the Earl of Ormon(de), and to set it up in Iarland ; for the wich I had well paid me .£100 in hand, and .£130 when the work was set up at Killkenny in Iarland.” * The extracts given by Walpole do not always tally with those in the original MS., from which I have taken my references direct. STONE 27 We shall observe here and in the other extracts from Stone’s note-books, that the prices he received for his work were, considering the times, extraordinarily high. This, to some extent, indicates the important position already attained by him in this kind of work, of which he seems to have had almost a monopoly ; bat, at the same time, it must be remembered that such sums as were paid him, included not merely the cost of material — no small item when we know that alabaster and frequently rare marbles figured in the tombs of this period, many of which were also emblazoned with the armorial bearings of the deceased person — but also the incidental expenses of carriage, setting up, and, in many cases, the necessary brick foundations for the monuments. The next work on which Stone was engaged was the tomb of Henry Howard, Lord Northampton, in Dover Castle, since removed: “ 1615. Agreed with Mr. Grefen for to mak a Tomb for my lord of Northampton and to set it in dover castell for the wich I had £ 500 well payed. I mad master Isak James a partner with me in courtisy, becas he was my master 3 years, that was, 2 years of my prentes (prentice) and on year journiman.” This refer- ence to his old master, James, shows that Stone’s con- nection with him must have been a friendly and satis- factory one, and also indicates that the pupil retained a kindly feeling for one whom he had distanced in the race for fame and wealth. Besides this tomb in Dover Castle, Stone was occupied during the year on two other works of considerable importance : one being the tomb of Bodley at Oxford ; the other the splendid monument which he set up to Sutton’s memory in the chapel of the Charterhouse. The references to these two undertakings in the sculptor’s note-books run thus : “ In May 1615, I did set up a tombe for Ser Thomas Bodly in Oxford, for wich Mr. Hacwell of lencons end (Lincoln’s Inn) payed me .£100 good money.” “ In November 1615 Mr. Janson in Southwork and I did set up a tombe for Mr. Sottone (Sutton) at Charter- 28 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS hous, for the wich we had .£400, well payed, but the letell (little) monement of Mr. Lawes was included, the wich I mad and all the carven work of Mr. Sutton’s tombe.” Jansen, whom we have before met with, here probably designed the general outlines of the monument — the architectual portion of the work, in short — while Stone did the actual sculpture with which it is so richly embellished. Other works dating from this year were the tombs of Lady Bennet in York Minster ; of Sir Thomas Campbell, in the Old Jewry ; of Sir Thomas Selby (spelt by Stone, Sellbee) and his wife at Newcastle, executed in Caen stone and costing £ 600 ; and a tomb and chimney-piece for Sir Henry Bellasys (Bellasess) at York. In the following year Stone produced a tomb for Sir Roger Wilbraham, at Hadley, near Barnet, and at this time we first find the sculptor employed on a royal commission. “ In July, 1616,” says he, “was I sent into Scotland at Edenborrowe, whar I undertook to do work in the king’s chapel and for the king’s closet, and the organ, so much as cam to .£450 of weniscot-work, the wich I parformed and had my mony well payed, and £50 was geven to drenk, wharof I had £20 geven me by the king’s comand.” It is not specifically stated in which of the royal palaces this work was done ; but I think it likely that it was at Holyrood. The .£50 “ to drink,” as Stone quaintly puts it, may be regarded as an honorarium over and above the stipulated price of the work, bestowed on Stone and those employed under him, as a mark of the royal satis- faction with the undertaking. In the same year Stone was employed to execute a monument for that famous Lucy Harrington, wife of Edward, Earl of Bedford, whom Donne celebrates, and to whom May dedicated his translation of Lucan’s “ Pharsalia,” and who was the great patroness of learning in her time, appreciating the value of wit far more than she did the value of money. The tomb executed for her is thus referred to by Stone : STONE 29 “ 1616. A bargen mad with Mr. Chambers for the ues (use) i.e. on behalf, of the Right Honourerablle Luce Contes of Bedford, for on (one) far (fair) and statly tombe of Touch (touchstone) and whit marbell for har father and mother and brother and sister, for the wich I was to have .£1020, and my lady was to stand at all charges for caregs, (carriage) and Iron and setting up. 55 By this we see that this very large sum of money was paid to Stone simply for his carving of the tomb and the actual material used by him in this portion of it. So far as I can learn he never received anything like such an amount for a tomb on any other occasion, and that he did so, in this instance, forms a significant commentary on what we know of the light-hearted extravagance of the noble lady for whom he undertook it, and of whom Wal- pole says that, notwithstanding she was a great heiress, she dissipated both her own and her husband’s fortune ; not in riotous living, but in the splendid rewards it pleased her to bestow on the talent, whether in literature or the fine arts, of her day. No one who cares for either will be very ready, I think, to blame this princely though improvident largesse. The year 1617 seems to have been a busy one for Stone, for he records in his note-book tombs to the following, as being executed at this time : notably to Sir Thomas Hayes, in Aldermanbury ; Sir Robert Drury, in Hawsted Church ; Alderman Anguish at Norwich (spelt Nor- wedge) ; Sir Thomas Hewar, at Emneth, Norfolk ; Mr. James Palmer, at Enfield ; and Alderman Stilles, in Lothbury. The next important entry in the note-books is dated 1619, and refers to “ A Bargen made with Ser Charles Morison of Cassebery (Cashiobury) in Harford Shear (Hertfordshire) for to mak a fare tomb of Alabaster and touchstone onely.” Included in this commission was what Stone describes as “ one pictor of whit marbell,” by which he indicates a bust, for Sir Charles Morison’s father, and one for his sister, Bridget Morison, the wife of Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, “ as great as the life, 30 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS of Alabaster, for the wich I had well payed £ 260 , and four peces geven me to drenk.” In the same year we find the sculptor employed by the king on that magnificent Banqueting Hall which Inigo Jones had designed, and which formed merely a frag- ment (but what a lovely one !) of the splendid palace which the great architect had conceived.* The entry in Stone’s note-books referring to this undertaking, and to some other work carried out for the king, reads as follows : “ 1619, I was sent for to the ofisers of his maties, workes to undertake the charge of the plas of mstr mason for the new Banking Hows (Banqueting House) at Whithall, wharin I was inployed 2 years, and I had payed me 4 ,s. 10 d. the day, and I contened (continued) forth the plase the 3 year and 3 s. lod. the day : And in that year I made the diall at Sent (St.) James, the king finding ston and work- manshept ondly, and I had for it £6 13J. 4 d. And I took down the fontayn at Thebelles (Theobald’s), and set it up agean, and the fontayn at Nonsuch, and I was payd for both ^48.” Stone also made a tomb for Sir Thomas Cornwallis at Portchester, near Portsmouth, and that of Dr. Wright, at Sonning-on-Thames, during 1619. The following year was a full one for the sculptor, for besides the private work mentioned, he was engaged on carving the ornamental portions of the Banqueting Hall as well as superintending, in his capacity of master-mason, the building operations. Of these private commissions, no fewer than five were for monuments which were ordered to be erected in Westminster Abbey. The first entry for this year, however, refers to monuments he made in various country churches, thus : “ 1620. In Sufolke I mad a tombe for Ser Edmond Bacon’s lady, and in the sam chearch (church) of Redgrave I mad onother for his sister Lady Gady (Gawdy) and was very well payed for thim, and in the sam plas I mad 2 pecttors (pictures) of whit marbell for Ser Nicholas Bakon and his * See the author’s “ Lives of the British Architects ” for details of Inigo Jones’s proposed palace. STONE 31 lady, and the(y) war layed upon the tombe that Barnard Janson had mad thar, for the which I was payd by Ser Edmond Bacon .£200.” The monuments in the Abbey which are due to Stone’s handiwork are those to Edmund Spenser, the poet (1616) ; to Francis Holies, son of Lord Clare (1622) ; to Sir George Holies (1626), brother of the same peer, who was well known for his share in the wars of the Netherlands, and who is depicted riding, in complete armour, with Pallas on one side and Bellona on the other ; to Sir Richard Coxe (although this was only an “ inscription ”) (1624) ; to Isaac Casaubon; to Sir George Villiers and his second wife, Mary Beaumont ; and to Dudley Carleton and his first wife, Anne Garrod. The monuments to Francis Holies and to Sir George Holies were erected by the Earl of Clare. The former commemorates Lord Clare’s son who died at the age of eighteen in 1622, and who is represented as a Roman seated on a pedestal and clothed in armour ; Stone was paid £50 for it. According to Dean Stanley the memorial to Sir George Holies, which stands on the site of the altar once dedicated to the Confessor’s favourite saint, is “ the first in the Abbey that stands erect ; the first that wears not the costume of the time, but that of a Roman General ; the first monument which, in its sculpture, reproduces the events in which the hero was engaged.” It is of alabaster and cost .£100. Its proxi- mity to the famous Vere monument, and a rather cryptic entry in Stone’s note-book, have led to the conclusion that Stone was responsible for the latter work ; but there is no evidence of this being the case. Stone received £ 200 for executing the monument to Dudley Carleton and his wife, and also had given him, for the sake, I suppose, of the materials, “ an old mone- ment that stood in the same places befor set up for his (Sir D. Carleton’s) lady som 8 years befor.” The Villiers monument is the most considerable of Stone’s work in the Abbey. It was erected in 1631 by the Mary Beaumont, wife of Sir George Villiers and afterwards created Countess of Buckingham, who also 32 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS lies beneath it. It is of white marble, and represents the husband and wife lying side by side, dressed in the cos- tume of the period. It cost .£560, and is alone sufficient to prove Stone’s great capability for this particular kind of work : elaborate but at the same time well balanced, and exhibiting a very genuine conception of what a sepulchral monument should be. The monument to Sir Richard Coxe was erected in 1624, at a cost of .£30, while double that amount was paid for the Casaubon, set up, at the expense of the Bishop of Durham, in 1634. As Stone’s ipissima verba are of particular interest, I will also give the entries from his note-books which refer to the above works. “ I allso mad a monement for Mr. Spencer {sic) the pouett, and set it up at Westmiester, for the which the Contes of Dorsete payed me .£40.” “ And on othar thar for Mr. Frances Holies, the yongest sonne of the Earle of Clare, for the wich the sayed Earell payed me for it £50.” Referring to this monument Vertue conjectures that as the figure “ is of most antique sim- plicity and beauty,” the design was certainly given to Stone by the Earl ; the implication being that the patron had seen something similar abroad and had engaged the sculptor to copy it. Vertue assumes this because, he says, Stone, “ when left to himself had no idea of grace, as appears by the tomb of the Lytteltons at Oxford” — a tomb erected, as we shall see, in 1635. On the other hand, it seems to me that Stone was not by any means deficient in grace, and if the Lyttelton tomb may not be an example of it, those to Sutton and others certainly are. Stone’s next entry runs : “ My Lord of Clare also agreed with me for a monument for his brother Sir George Holies, the which I made and sett up in the chappell at Westminster where Sir Francis Vere # lyeth buried, for the which I was payed from the hands of the said Earl of Clare .£100.” “ And in the same church I made an inscription for Sir Richard Cox for the which I * From, a misreading of this entry, it has sometimes been erroneously thought that Stone executed the Vere monument, as I have before remarked. STONE 33 had £ 30.” “ And another fast by for Monsieur Casabon, the Lord Bishop of Durham payed for it £60” Although these entries immediately succeed one dated 1620, these tombs were not all produced in this year. As we have seen, in fact, by a subsequent entry, it would seem that their execution extended over two or three years ; but during that time Stone was occupied on other work ; notably, in 1622 on the “ great Diall ” which he made for the Privy Garden, at Whitehall, and for which he received £\6 ; the “ diall 55 he carved for Lord Brooke’s garden in Holborn,* the payment of which was, however, only £8 ioj., so that it was apparently but a small thing ; the “ two statues of an old man and a woman and a diall ” which he executed for Sir John Davies of Chelsea, at a cost of £y apiece ; and the tomb of Mrs. Donne, wife of the famous Dr. Donne, and the heroine, if she may be so called, of the well-known ghost story which will be for ever as much connected with the Doctor’s name as will his poetical excursions. This monument was erected in the church of St. Cle- ment’s Danes, and Stone tells us that he received for it “ fifteen pieces.” It may be assumed that these labours represented, together with his work at Whitehall, the bulk of his activity from 1620 to 1625. In the latter year we find him employed by the Corporation in beautifying the old Exchange (the predecessor of Jarman’s Royal Exchange) with certain royal statues. “ About this time (1625),” he writes, “ I mad for the old Exchange in London 4 status, the one Edward the 5, Richard the 3, and Henry the 7 ; for these 3 I had £25 a pecs (piece), and on for Queenne Elizabeth, which was taken don and set up agean wha now it standeth at Guildhall gat, for the which I had The accession of Charles I., a prince so enlightened in all that concerned the fine arts, gave a fresh impetus to Stone’s activity so far as concerned his connection with the royal works, and under date of April 21, 1626, the * See account of Brooke House in the author’s “Private Palaces of London.” 34 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS following “ grant of the office of master-mason and architect,” was made to him. I give the instrument in its entirety, as it appears in Rymer’s “ Fcedera.” * “ Charles, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith &c. To all whom these presents shall come, greeting. “ Know yee that wee, of our especiill grace, certaine knowledge and meere motion, and for divers other good causes and considerations us at this present moveing, have given and graunted and, by these presents, for us our heirs and successors, doe give and graunte to our trusty and wel-beloved servaunt Nicholas Stone the office and place of our Master Mason and Architect for all our buildings and reparations within our hous and castle of Windsor, and him the said Nicholas Stone, our said Master Mason and Architect for all our said buildings and reparations within our hous and castle of Windsor afore- said, wee doe make, ordaine constitute and appoint by these presents. To have hold execute and enjoy the said office and place of our Master Mason and Architect for all our buildings and reparations within our hous or castle of Windsor aforesaid, to the said Nicholas Stone, by himself, or his sufficient deputy and deputies, for and dureing the terme of his natural! life. And further, of our more ample grace, certaine knowledge and mere motion, wee have given and graunted, and by these presents, for us our heirs and successors, we doe give and graunt to the said Nicholas Stone for the executing of the said office and place, the wages and fee of twelve pence of lawfull money of England by the day, in as large and ample manner as William Suthis + or any other person or persons heretofore, having executed and enjoyed the said office and place, hath had or ought to have had and enjoyed ; to have and yearely to receive the said wages and fee of twelve pence by the daye, to the said Nicholas * Vol. xviii. p. 675. •j* Suthis had been master-mason of Windsor Castle. He was a citizen and goldsmith of London, and is buried (having died October 5, 1625) at Lambeth. His epitaph, put up by his wife, is given in Aubrey’s “ History of Surrey,” vol. v. p. 248. STONE 35 Stone and his assignes, from the day of the date of these presents, for and dureing the naturall life of him the said Nicholas Stone, out of the treasure of us our heirs and successors, by the hands of the treasorer and chamberlains of us our heires and successors there for the time being, at the fower usuall feasts at termes of the yeare, that is to say, at the feasts of the Nativitie, of Saint John Baptist, Saint Michael the Archangell, the Birth of our Lord God, and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by even and equall portions yearlie to be paid, together with all other profitts commodities and allowances to the same office and place due, incident or in anie wise appertayne- ing, in as lardge and ample manner as the said William Suthis or any other person or persons heretofore haveing executed and enjoyed the said office hath had, or ought to have had and enjoyed. “ In witnesse whereof &c. “ Witnesse our selfe at Westminster, the one and twen- tieth daye of Aprill.” As we have no record of any particular work undertaken by Stone for his royal patron, it seems probable that such as he may have been engaged on at Windsor Castle was only in the nature of such necessary repairs and renovations as would be necessary for the proper upkeep of such a vast pile. Indeed, the remaining entries in the sculptor’s note- books are solely concerned with what he did for private people. Thus, we learn that, in 1629, he made a tomb for Lady Paston of Norfolk, “ and set it up at Paston, and was very extraordinarily entertained there, and payed for it £340 ” ; and in the same year carved the piers, “ of good Portland stone to hang a pair of great wooden gates,” of the famous gates at Holland House which had been designed by Inigo Jones, and which may still be seen there. For these Stone received .£100. * Two years later he completed the splendid monument, for the Countess of Buckingham in Westminster Abbey, to which I have before referred. * There is, however, no record of this payment in the note-books. 3 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS But a still better-known example of Stone’s work was executed in the same year (1631). This was that re- markable and curious monument to Dr. Donne which stood, and still stands, though much dilapidated, in St. Paul’s, and whose outlines we know from the print of it which forms the frontispiece to Donne’s “ Sermons.” It represents Dr. Donne, as he appeared in his winding- sheet, and is one of the few monuments which escaped destruction during the Great Fire. Walton, in his life of Donne, thus refers to the statue : “ A monument being resolved upon, Dr. Donne sent for a carver to make for him in wood the figure of an urn, giving him directions for the compass and height of it ; and to bring with it a board, of the just height of his body. These being got, then without delay a choice painter was got to be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken as followeth : Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study, he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand, and having put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tied with knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed as dead bodies are usually fitted, to be shrouded and put into their coffin, or grave. Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might show his lean, pale, and death-like face. ... In this posture he was drawn up his just height ; and when the picture was fully finished, he caused it to be set by his bed-side, where it continued, and became his hourly object till his death, and was then given to his dearest friend and executor, Dr. Henry King, then chief residentiary of St. Paul’s, who caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white marble, as it now stands in that church.” The entry in Stone’s note-books, referring to this work, runs thus : “ In 1631, I mad a tomb for Dr. Done, and sett it up in St. Palles London, for the which I was payed by Dr. Montford the sum of £ 120 . I tooke £ 60 in platt, in partt of payement.” The last remark — that Stone took plate in part pay- STONE 37 ment for the tomb — seems to indicate that he was now a well-to-do man, who could, on occasion, dispense with a monetary return for his labours. We have seen Stone engaged on the tomb of Lady Paston in 1629, and in 1632 we again find him doing a large amount of work for this family — once a famous one in Norfolk, but now, as it has been for long, extinct. The sculptor thus notices this fresh commis- sion : “ 1632. I mad a chemny-pece for Mr. Paston, set up at Oxnete in Norfolk, and for the which I had .£80, and on statue of Venee (Venus) and Cupet (Cupid), and had .£30 for it ; and 1 statue of Jupeter £25, and the 3-headed dog Serbros (Cerberus) with a petestall .£14, and Senes (Ceres), on Harcules and Marcury £50, and a tomb for my lady Ketren (Catherine) his dear wife £ 200 , and a letell chemny-pecce in a banking-hows .£30, and on Ranes marbell tabellwith a foot £15, and divres other things sent don to him from time to time, as paintings, arms, &c. And in May, 1641 sent to him 3 statues, the on Appollow (sic), Deano (Diana), and Juno. Agreed for £25 a pacs (piece), with petestalls.” From this we see that Mr. Paston was one of Stone’s most consistent patrons, for if the individual prices mentioned are not particularly munificent, at the same time Paston ordered many more works from the sculptor than did any one else, so far, at least, as we can gather from Stone’s own records, which ought to be conclusive. Walpole states that the statues of Hercules and Mercury, mentioned above, were, on the death of the last member of the house of Paston, sold to the Earl of Buckingham- shire, and were in his (Walpole’s) day at Blickling, where it is probable they still are. Two years after he had set up these various statues and chimney-pieces, at Oxnete, i.e. in 1634, Stone exe- cuted a chimney-piece for Sir John Holland, of Quidenham (which the sculptor gives as Godnon), in Norfolk, for which he received £ 200 ; and in the following year he produced the not very successful tomb for the two sons of Sir Thomas Lyttelton. These brothers were drowned at 38 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Oxford, and the monument was set up in Magdalen College, where they were undergraduates. The price paid for the work was only .£30. I may mention here that Stone executed some other work in the University. Thus he built the great gate of St. Mary’s Church, with its beautiful twisted columns, * as well as the stone piers at the entrance to the Physic Garden + which had been designed by Inigo Jones ; and were a commission to Stone from the Earl of Danby, for whom he acted as architect on other occasions ; while the tomb of Dr. Barker, in New College, which cost £50, also came from his hand. Walpole gives a resume of some of the other work for which Stone was responsible, and as this not only shows the extent of his labours, but also the large area over which many of them are scattered, I will give the list, together with the prices received for each commission, although some of the work has been referred to before : “ For Lady Bennet at York, .£35. Sir Roger Wil- braham at Hadley, by Barnet, .£80. Sir Thomas Hayes in Aldermanbury, £ 100 . Sir Robert Drury at Hasteed (Hawstead) by Bury, .£140. Alderman Anguish at Nor- wich ^20. Sir Thomas Ewer at Lynn, £95. Lady Cary, mother of Lord Danvers, at Stow, Northamptonshire, £220. Mr. Molesworth at Croyland, £23. Mrs. Palmer at Enfield, £16. Sir Thomas Cornwallis, groom-porter, at Portchester, .£18. Mr. Cornwallis of Suffolk, £16. Sir Thomas Monson’s father and mother, set up two miles beyond Lincoln. For Sir Edmund Paston, £100. Sir Charles Morrison and his Lady in the Chancel at Watford, .£400. Sir George Copen at St. Martin’s, .£40. Lord Knevett at Stanwall, Middlesex, .£215. Sir Adam Niton (Newton) at Charlton by Greenwich, £180. Sir Hum- * I cannot agree with Dallaway, who says he introduced this sort of pillar (said to have been brought from Jerusalem to Rome) with the worst effect, at St. Mary’s. f “ In 1631. Agreed wh. the Right Hon. Lord Earell of Danby for to mak 3 ston gattes in to the phiseck garden Oxford and to desine a new Hows for him at Corenbury,” is Stone’s record of this work ; the reference to Cornbury indicates that he also occasionally fulfilled the functions of an architect to private people as well as to the Crown. STONE 39 phrey Lee at Acton-Bromwell, £ 66 . Sir Thomas Palmer at Winam, Kent, £100. Sir Thomas Mearyat Waltham- stow, .£50. Sir William Stonehouse at Radley, Oxford- shire, £120. Sir Richard and Lady Verney at Compton Verney, £ 90 . Mr. Cook and his wife at Brampton, Suffolk, £130. Sir Julius Caesar in St. Helen’s, London, .£110. Lord and Lady Spencer at Althorp, £600 (executed in 1638). Lord Chief Justice Coke, at Tittleshall, £400. Sir Thomas Puckering, at Warwick, £ 200 . Judge Hatton at St. Dunston’s by Temple Bar, .£40. Sir J. Worsnom at Stanmore, £200 ; and a porch to the new church there, £30.” Although this is a considerable list, it does not exhaust Stone’s activity in this phase of his work, and there are many other monuments of lesser account and of less notable people which we know, by his own record, that he executed, although he has not troubled to give the places where they were set up. I have mentioned that Stone acted as a practical archi- tect to Lord Danby, and we find the fruits of this excur- sion into an alien although an allied art in the house at Cornbury, which he designed, in 1631, for the Earl, for which work, as well as the directing of the necessary labour, which extended over two years, he received .£1000. In 1638, he also designed Tart Hall, which stood rather to the south of the present Buckingham Palace, for the Countess of Arundel, and various entries notifying receipts of money to pay the workmen, are included in the note- book. His last undertakings in pure sculpture, as they may be termed, included the tomb he erected for Viscount Dorchester, in Westminster Abbey, in 1640, where he had set up a memorial to Lady Dorchester some years before ; a monument to Judge Hutton in St. Dunstan’s, and one to Sir John Worsnom in Stanmore Church. A nephew of Stone’s, one Charles Stoakes, cast up the complete amounts which the sculptor received for his monumental work, and the total reached the very respectable sum of .£10,889. Besides the perennial work going on at Windsor, Stone seems to have been employed at other of the royal palaces, 40 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS and the figure of the Nile on the steps at Somerset House was executed by him — (its companion being the work of one of his pupils, who became his son-in-law, one Kerne, or Kearne, a German) — while he also did certain subsidiary work at Richmond. S t one died in Long Acre,* on August 24, 1647, aged sixty- one, and was buried, four days later, in the Church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, on the north wall of which was the following epitaph, surmounted by his head in pro- file : “ To the lasting memory of Nicholas Stone, Esq., Master Mason to his Majesty, in his life-time esteemed for his knowledge in sculpture and architecture, which his works in many parts do testify, and, though made for others, prove monuments of his fame. He departed this life on the 24th of August 1647, aged sixty-one, and lyeth buried near the pulpit in this church. Mary his wife and Nicholas his son, lye also buried in the same grave. She died November 19th, and he on the 17th of September 1647. H(enry) S(tone), posuit.” “ We owe,” says Dallaway, “ to Nicholas Stone, the full praise of having deviated with more success than his immediate predecessors, from the stiff and Gothic style, yet his approaches towards classic grace were distant. During the time of his practice, the French, Flemings, or Italians brought to England, sometimes the manner of Gougeon or Pilon, sometimes a de- based imitation of John of Bologna, and sometimes the taste of Bernini, but never a pure style nor sound principles.” i The force of heredity is well exemplified in the case of Nicholas Stone and his children ; for his three sons Henry, Nicholas, and John all followed in their father’s * There is extant a deed, dated June 5, 1636, being a conveyance of a piece of ground from Francis, Earl of Bedford, to “ Nicholas Stone, Esq., of the Parish of St. Martins in the Fields ; Master Mason to the King.” This land is described as being part of Covent Garden and Long Acre, and extended back to a piece of ground in the tenancy of the Countess of Anglesey and a piece of ground occupied by the Earl of Pembroke’s stables . — Notes and Queries , 5th series. J I may mention that Stone published his “Enchiridion of Fortifica- tion ” in 1645, a further exemplification of his versatility. STONE 41 footsteps as sculptors, although the youngest had been originally intended for the Church. Henry Stone , who erected the monument to his father, mother, and brother, as we have seen, carried on the statuary’s business with John, although it is as a painter, and particularly as a copyist of Vandyck, and others, that he is best known : such works by “ Old Stone,” as he was called, probably, as Walpole conjectures, to distin- guish him from his brother John, being regarded as excellent in technique and verisimilitude.* But Henry does not seem to have allowed his penchant for painting to interfere with the conduct of what had been, in his father’s hands, an art, but can only, perhaps, be described, as carried on by him and his brother, as a lucrative business. In imitation of their father’s custom, the brothers kept a record of work done by them ; and, although such work did not, of course, approach the elder man’s output in importance or extent, we gather from these notes, that as statuaries, Henry and John were not unsuccessful. One of these entries reads thus : “ In the year of Our Lord 1653, my brother and I made a tomb for the Lord Ashley, for which we had £60.” But that this was not their first excursion into the sculptor’s business on their own account, is proved by another entry, in which John says : “ Formerly I made a little tomb of white marble, being an eagle with an escutcheon upon his breast, sett up at Sunning in Berkshire, for t This is not dated, but a somewhat similar undertaking in London is, for we read : “ In Ano. 1656 I sett up a little tomb in the Temple Church for Sir John Williams, and had for it .£10. It was an eagle of white marble.” Beyond these entries only fifteen other monuments are recorded, and for the most important of these not more than £100 was paid, and generallythe prices ranged, as in the extracts I have given, at very insignificant amounts. Among the works executed by the brothers, but chiefly * In the National Portrait Gallery are copies by him of Vandyck’s por- traits of Charles I., Inigo Jones, Laud, and Lord Northumberland, t This was to the memory of Mrs. Clarke. 42 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS by John, who kept a diary like his father, I find a little monument for Sir F. Mansell in St. Gregory by St. Paul’s, for which he received £20 ; tombs for Sir Edward Skewer at Brington, near Althorp ; Mrs. Blosse at Bel- stead, [near Norwich; Sir John Bankes at Christ Church, Oxford ; Mr. Martyn at Putney ; Sir John Higham at Barrow, Suffolk ; Mr. Baron at Heisett, Suffolk ; Col. Osborn at Campton, Beds ; and Mr. Creswell in Newbattle Church, Northamptonshire. It is obvious, did we require such evidence, that the work of the sons was in no way comparable to that of the father. Indeed, as I have said, Henry Stone’s heart was in painting rather than in sculpture. The house, with its garden and yard, situated in Long Acre, which had been originally in the occupation of Nicholas Stone, was continued on by his sons, and they paid .£10 per annum rent to the Crown in respect of it, as appears, according to Vertue, by the survey made by the Commissioners in 1650. Henry Stone’s* death occurred on August 24, 1653. He was buried near his father in St. Martin’s Church, on August 27, where a monument was erected to his memory by his brother John, who apparently wrote the long rhyming inscription which commemorated the dead man’s qualities and gifts ; perhaps the concluding lines, which run : Thy names a monument that will surpass The Parian marble or Corinthian brass, indicate that the former outweighed the latter con- siderably.f John Stone , who erected this memorial, “ to perfect his fraternal relations,” as is stated on the stone, hardly requires a more extended notice. He was originally intended for the Church, but on the outbreak of the Civil Wars took arms on the king’s side, and even published a work on fortification, in which the illustrations were etched by himself. It seems probable that he was en- gaged later, although it must have been in a subsidiary * There is a book of sketches by him in the Soane Museum, f His portrait was painted by Lely. STONE 43 way, in the sculptor’s business ; but he never made any individual mark in it, and he died while yet a relatively young man. He had gone to Breda to petition Charles II. for the post of master-mason or surveyor to the Crown, but was seized with an illness, from which he eventually succumbed, at Holy Cross Hospital, Win- chester, in September 1667. On the other hand, Nicholas , the second son, showed more promise in this direction, and might, had he lived, have successfully carried on the work of his father ; for we are told that in Italy, whither he was sent in his youth with his brother Henry, in 1638 to be precise, he modelled after the antiques so well that his works were sometimes mistaken for those of the best Italian sculptors ; * * * § a “ Laocoon,” once in the possession of Bird, the sculptor, and a copy of Bernini’s (he worked for a time under the great man) “ Apollo and Daphne,” being particularly successful. Death, however, cut short his activity, for, having returned to this country in 1642, he died five years later — in the same year, indeed, as his father. Nicholas Stone, junr., kept a diary, f during the residence of his brother and himself in Italy, and in it he speaks of being employed, while at Rome, on a monu- ment of Lady Berkeley. This work, described by LysonsJ as “ the figure of the lady in a shroud, well executed in alto relievo , in white marble,” is at Cranford, where Lady Berkeley was buried, and is supposed to have been the sculptor’s earliest performance in Bernini’s school. Two other entries from Stone’s diary are so interest- ing as throwing light on his connection with Bernini that I will transcribe them here.§ They are as follows : “ Oct. 26, 1638. Arrived at Rome, waited, on Car. Bernini at St. Peters. He favoured me so far as to show me the statue he had under hand, in the Church, and told me, that for a while, he should be busy there, but * Walpole. t An abstract of this is in the Soane Museum. t “ Middlesex Parishes,” p. 25. § Harleian MSS. (No. 4049). 44 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS when he had done, and that he was at his house, I should be welcome to spend my time with other of his disciples.”^ “ Dec. 1638. I went to Saint Peters, and with me Car. Bernini from the church to his home ; and I showed him some drawings that I had copyed after Raphael’s, with three or foure of architecture of my own capriccio — he was very well pleased to see them, and told me that in 15 dayes time he should have finished the statue then under hand, and then if I would come to him he would have practise upon some things that he had, and I should see his manner of working, and then worke, myselfe : in the mean time, he says, 4 1 would advise you, as you have begun, to continue to draw with chalke, which is very necessary.’ ” # When, in 1699, Charles Stoakes, a kinsman of the Stones, repaired their respective monuments in St. Martin’s Church, he caused the following inscription to be set up beneath them : Four rare Stones are gone, The Father and three sons ; which shows, if nothing else, at least that Stoakes’s feeling of kinship was stronger than his feeling for rhyme, f Nicholas Stone, the elder, had several workmen, or pupils, of whom John Schurman and Andrew Kearne, about whom I must say something, were the best ; such men as John Hargrave , who is recorded by Stone himself, as having made a statue of Sir Edward Coke for .£15, and the statue for the monument of Lord Spencer ; Richard White , who executed the statue of Lady Spencer for the same tomb ; and Humphrey Mayor , who “ finisht the statue for Dr. Donne’s monument,” for which he received £ 8 , being merely journeymen statuaries who worked under Stone, but who do not seem to have caught anything of his ability ; at least we hear nothing more of them after the death of their master. We know little enough of Andrew Kearne , or Kerne , except that he was the brother-in-law of Nicholas Stone, * A volume of sketches by Nicholas is preserved in the Soane Museum, •j* Portraits of the Stones are in Walpole’s “Anecdotes,” ed. 1798. STONE 45 the elder, and that he worked for that sculptor. The best part of what he did is thus incorporated in the output of the more illustrious man. But Vertue has luckily been able to record one or two monuments as well as certain other work which Kearne produced alone. Thus we learn that the River God which formed a com- panion to the figure of Nile, executed by Stone, for Somerset House stairs, was carved by Kearne, who also produced the lioness on the top of the famous York Water-Gate designed by Inigo Jones for the Duke of Buckingham. Kearne also made a Venus and Apollo, in Portland stone, each six feet high, for the Countess of Mulgrave, but as he only received seven pounds apiece for these statues, it is evident that his reputation as a sculptor did not stand very high. One other under- taking is recorded by him, notably a series of statues which he carved as decorations for Lamport Hall, near Northampton, belonging to Sir Justinian Isham, the Royalist and cultivated patron of art, who died in 1674. Even the date of Kearne’s death is unknown, but this occurred in England, where he left a son who, according to Walpole, was living in the beginning of the eighteenth century.* John Schurman , another of Stone’s pupils, is almost as illusive as Kearne, but we do know that he was born at Embden, although the date of that event has not been preserved, and that after working for Stone, he set up on his own account, and, from certain facts that are recorded, was apparently not unsuccessful. At least I think this may be assumed from the record of work he did, and his patrons, although neither were, it seems, very numerous. Anyhow he received encouragement, and what was better, commissions, from Sir John Basker- ville, and he is recorded as having executed “ two shep- herds sitting, for Sir John Danvers of Chelsea.” More interesting, however, is it to know that he made a marble statue of Sir Thomas Lucy, for his tomb at Charlcote, for which he received .£18, with an additional 5 or. for polishing and glazing the work. Just as Kearne’s prices * For Kearne, see Vertue’s MS., Brit. Mus. ; Add. MSS. 23069. \6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS seem to have been about £y for a carved figure, so Schurman’s ranged apparently from about £16 to .£18, which, if such prices indicate anything, would seem to point to the latter as being the more successful artist. I suppose this to have been the recognised rate of pay- ment, as Schurman received £18 for a statue on the tomb of Douglas, Lord Belhaven, in Holyrood House Chapel, for which he also carved the figure of a little boy ; while for a statue, representing Hercules and Antaeus, for Sir John Danvers, he was paid “ at the rate of £16” With a pair of sphinxes, probably for the tops of stone or brick gate-posts, which he carved for the same patron, we exhaust what little we know of Schurman’s productions. Although Nicholas Stone, with his sons and his pupils, seems to have enjoyed the chief patronage of the reigns of James I. and Charles I., there were several other sculptors who will have to be mentioned in the following chapter, one of whom at least — Hubert Le Soeur — was a man of consummate ability far in advance of any- body who appeared, whether native or foreign, in this country during that time. That there must have been many other men who worked conscientiously and well during this period, is proved by the number of elaborate monuments, and mural tablets (many of which are not without charm and distinction), which may be seen in the churches throughout the land. Certain of these can be identified as being the work of Stone and his assistants, through the good thought of the sculptor in keeping a systematic record of his productions ; but by far the larger number can never be allocated to any particular artist (for the fashion of carving the name of the sculptor on the monu- ment had not then come into fashion), and we can only admire these, frequently defaced, remains, and regret our ignorance of the hand that produced them. HUBERT LE SCEUR CHAPTER III HUBERT LE SCEUR, FANELLI, EDWARD PIERCE, AND OTHERS Notwithstanding the impetus given to the fine arts in this country by Charles I., and in a lesser degree by such munificent patrons as the Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Buckingham, it is a sad fact that the chief sculptor of this reign was a foreigner who, although he was domiciled in this country, can after all only be regarded as one of its acquired glories. It is also curious that of the work done by this fine sculptor, only a rela- tively few specimens exist, or at least have been identified as his ; and his name is only generally known in connec- tion with the beautiful statue of Charles I., which stands facing Whitehall. As, however, this remarkable piece of work may, I think, without fear of contradiction be regarded as the finest statue we possess in London (although, considering some of those which we see around us, this does not suggest so much as one could wish), it is alone sufficient to prove that in Le Soeur we had a man who may be termed in the best sense of the word, a classic artist ; one, head and shoulders above his con- temporaries, and fitted to take his stand on an equality with most of the great sculptors of modern times. Hubert Le Soeur was born in 1595 at Paris. We know next to nothing about him until he became a pupil of the famous John of Bologna,* and proved, by his subse- quent work, that he was a worthy disciple of the great sculptor whose “ David with the Head of Goliath ” may be regarded as one of the masterpieces in this art, which have come down to us. It is rather uncertain when Le Soeur came to England, * Born 1524, died 1608. 47 48 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS but it is probable that it was about 1628 ; certainly he was in this country in 1630 ; attracted hither, we may suppose, by the knowledge that a monarch at last sat on the throne of Great Britain, who understood art and loved it for its own sake, and who had set a fashion which his court, and to some extent his people, were anxious to follow. It seems therefore appropriate that one of Le Sceur’s first undertakings, after his arrival here, was the execution of the equestrian statue of the king himself. This statue, in which, as Walpole remarks, “ the commanding grace of the figure and exquisite form of the horse are striking to the most unpractised eye,” is known to have been cast in 1633, on a piece of ground close to the spot where the church of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, now stands. It will be remembered that it was about the same time that Inigo Jones was commissioned by the Earl of Bedford to erect this place of worship for the use of the tenants on his estate ; and it is interesting to think that the greatest architect of the day was superintending the building of what he called “ the handsomest barn in England,” while, close by, one of the finest sculptors of the time was putting the finishing touches to the statue that was to stand as such a memorable monument of his achievement. It has been generally supposed that Le Soeur’s work was a commission from Lord Arundel. This supposition has been fostered by Walpole, who states that the Earl’s family possessed receipts showing by whom and for whom it was cast. But, as a matter of fact, it was the Lord Treasurer Weston, afterwards Earl of Cranfield, who ordered the statue, and who intended it as a decora- tion for his garden at Roehampton. The agreement* between Weston and the sculptor, dated January 16, 1630, provided for “ the casting of a horse in brasse, bigger than a great horse by a foot ; and the figure of His Ma y King Charles proportionable, full six foot.” Further it was agreed that Le Soeur should discuss the question of the horse with “ His Majesty’s riders of great horses,” which proves that the sculptor took every care * The agreement is given in full by Dallaway in his edition of Walpole. HUBERT LE SCEUR 49 to make the work complete and lifelike. The price agreed to be paid was £ 6 oo, which incidentally shows how great was Le Sceur’s reputation at this time, for the sum was, for those days, a very handsome one ; although it included everything connected with the work : “ for the full finishing the same in copper, and setting it in the place where it is to stand.” The time given for its completion was eighteen months.* Le Soeur’s name and the date, 1633, are inscribed on the near forefoot of the horse, which proves that the work was completed by that year. This being so, it is curious that it had not been erected when the Civil War broke out, as it indicates that it had remained on the sculptor’s hands for some nine or ten years. No adequate reason has ever been forthcoming to account for this delay in setting it up in Weston’s grounds at Roehampton. Perhaps it did not please him, but if so he must have been more dead to artistic merit than one would have supposed possible ; or some disagreement may have occurred between him and the sculptor. Whatever was the reason — and there seems little chance of now discovering what it was — the statue was not erected, and, having been annexed by the Parliament — though on what pretext, it would be interesting to know, as it was not a Crown possession — it was sold, as so much material, to one John Rivett, or Rivet, a brazier living at The Dial, near Holborn Conduit. We do not know how much Rivett gave for the master- piece, but we do know that it was disposed of to him on the strict condition that it was to be broken up. Rivett is certainly known to have sold a large number of fragments of brass, ostensibly portions of the statue, to those who wished for some memento of fallen royalty, but when the Restoration was an accomplished fact, the horse and rider emerged intact from the brazier’s * There is an apocryphal story told to the effect that the sculptor, on the completion of the work, challenged any one to find a blemish in it, and that, upon its being pointed out that there were no saddle-girths, Le Sceur was so overcome by mortification that he committed suicide. But the saddle-girths are there, although they are certainly not very notice- able except on a close inspection. So LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS cellars, where they had been carefully hidden during the Commonwealth. Kennett, who, in his Register for 1660, mentions the reappearance of the statue, states that the Earl of Portland, the son of Lord Treasurer Weston, made a formal application for its restitution to him, which shows, at least, that his father had duly paid Le Sceur for the work. This application was granted, but Rivett not unnaturally opposed it, showing that he had pur- chased the work from Parliament. The matter remained sub judice till 1674, when an arrangement was come to, by which Rivett gave up the statue, probably for some consideration ; and Lord Portland must also have waived his claim to it, for instead of being handed over to him, it was placed in its present position — a position selected as having been that on which Queen Eleanor’s Cross originally stood, and where, but a few years before the statue’s erection here, Harrison and other regicides had been executed. The statue, although practically remaining as it left Le Soeur’s hands, has lost one or two of its minor features : thus the George which hung round the king’s neck has disappeared, the hole from which it was suspended being still visible ; while the sword with its buckles and straps was stolen in 1810, and if, as seems probable, they were recovered and re-fixed, they disappeared again, this time finally, in 1844, on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s State visit to the City, to open the Royal Exchange. It has been sometimes stated that Grinling Gibbon carved the beautiful stone pedestal on which the statue stands, but it was really the work of Joshua Marshall, Master Mason to the Crown, who also executed the decorations on Temple Bar. Marshall may thus be regarded in the light of a sculptor, but it is not, of course, improbable that Gibbon may have contributed the design, which certainly is worthy of him, especially as Marshall is not (with the exception stated) otherwise known as being anything beyond an official craftsman. It is interesting to remember that Sir Christopher Wren STATUE OF CHARLES I, By Le Sceur HUBERT LE SCEUR 51 also made a design for the base, not dissimilar from that used by Marshall, and that the great architect super- intended the erection of the statue. I have spoken rather in detail about this fine work, because one can hardly know too much concerning a statue which is one of the few really classical monu- ments (did not one remember that of James II. by Grinling Gibbon, one might even say, the only one) to be seen in the streets of London. The beauty and grace of its proportions ; the dignity of the figure, the accuracy and knowledge with which the horse is modelled, added, of course, to the fascinating personality which, with all his faults and shortcomings, the monarch possessed, as Comely and calm he rides Hard by his own Whitehall, will combine to make this beautiful work of art one of the most attractive and interesting memorials in London. Only relatively few examples of Le Soeur’s consummate art are known in this country : for instance, the statue in brass of William, Earl of Pembroke, at Oxford, pre- sented to the University by one of his descendants ; the monument, in black marble, with a fine bronze bust, to Sir Thomas Richardson, the judge, in West- minster Abbey, which is inscribed “ Hubert Le Soeur Regis Sculptor faciebat, 1635 ” ? and the bust in bronze of Lady Cottington, set up on Fanelli’s tomb of Francis, Lord Cottington, in St. Paul’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey ; but Vertue speaks of certain other works by the master, which have, however, disappeared. Of these was a bronze bust of James I., larger than life, which was copied from a portrait of the monarch, and placed over the chief entrance to the Banqueting House at Whitehall ; a bust of Charles I. in brass, with a helmet surmounted by a dragon, the whole three feet high and mounted on a pedestal of black marble, which Walpole thought he had identified in a similar bust then in the collection of Mr. Hoare, at Stourhead ; and the figure of Sir George Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham ; while the monument to James River 52 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS in St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, can only conjecturally be attributed to Le Sceur. The sculptor is also known to have executed a fountain surrounded by several figures, once at Somerset House, as well as six statues in brass as adornments to the gardens of St. James’s Palace. Concerning these figures, Peacham, in his “ Compleat Gentleman,” makes the following reference : “ In the garden at St. James’s, there are also half a dozen brasse statues, rare ones, cast by Hubert Le Sueur, his Majesties Servant, now dwelling in St. Bartholo- mew’s, London ; the most industrious and excellent statuary in all materials that ever this country enjoyed. The best of them is the Gladiator,* molded from that in Cardinal Borghese’s villa, by the procurement and industry of ingenious Master Gage. And at this present the said Master Sueur hath divers other admirable molds to caste in brasse for his Majesty ; and among the rest, that famous Diana of Ephesus, before named. But the great horse with his majesty upon it, twice as great as life, and now well nigh finished, will compare with that of the new Bridge at Paris, or those others at Florence, and Madrid, though made by Sueur his master, John de Bolonia, that rare workman, who not long since lived at Florence.” The two following documents, incidentally reveal certain other works by Le Sceur, to which I have not already referred. The first is dated June 17, 1638, and reads as follows : “ I, Hubert Le Sueur sculptor have bargained with the King’s Matie of Great Britaine to cast in brasse two statues of five footes and 8 inches high. One that representeth our late Souveraine Lord King James and the other our Souveraine Lord Kinge Charles for the summe of 340 Li of good and lawfull money of England to be paid in this manner viz t ijo u before hand and the other iyo Li when the work shall be finished * “ The Gladiator ” used to stand at the east end of the ornamental water in St. James’s Park, where it may be seen in old prints ; it was subsequently removed to Hampton Court. HUBERT LE SCEUR S3 and delivered to the surveyor of his Ma ties works in March ensuinge, and the said Hubert Le Sueur is to receive the aforesaid summes w th out paying any Fees for the Receipt thereof. “ Huber Le Sueur. “ I was present and wittness to the bargain. “ Inigo Jones.” The other document is as follows : “ Your Royall Ma tie is most humbly besought gratiously to give orders for the payment of one hundred pounds for a mercury delivered for her Ma ties Fountain. “ 30 Li item for yo r Ma ties Pourtraite w th the Im- periall Crowne, wholly gilt (which price if it should be rejected or neglected would turn to your poor pet rs great confusion) what your Ma tie shall please. “ Item for Three Patternes two of Venus and one of Bacchus (alle of Waxe) each for 3 Li faiet 9 Li . “ All which pieces have been delivered by 66 Your Ma ties most humble obedient and unworthy Praxiteles “ Le Sueur.” The “ Pourtraite ” mentioned above is evidently a bust ; while the “ Patternes ” are, of course, models, such as that for the equestrian statue at Charing Cross, which is recorded in Vanderdort’s catalogue of King Charles’s art treasures as “ a model, in small.” # Like Single-Speech Hamilton, however, Le Soeur, as far as this country is concerned, will live by his one superb achievement which stands, in the sight of all men, on the spot where, as Dr. Johnson once said, you can see “ the full tide of humanity sweep by ” in never- ending flood. One little item of knowledge concerning Le Soeur’s private life exists in the fact that he lived in Bartholomew * Walpole was informed that the statue of the Duchy of Lennox, existing in his day, was by Le Scour, but he was never quite satisfactorily persuaded of the truth of this assertion. 54 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Close, and that he had a son, Isaac, who was buried in the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, on November 29, 1630, just twenty years before he himself died. Besides Le Soeur, at least two other foreign sculptors were working in this country, about this period, but, although they are said to have produced certain sepulchral monuments here, these ha\re never been identified. The first of these men was Francis Anguier , and what little we know of him is gleaned from D’Argenville’s “ Vie des Fameux Sculpteurs.” Thus we learn that he was born at Eu, in Normandy, in 1604, and came to this country early in his career. It would appear that his success here was in no sense equivocal, for he gained sufficient money to enable him to travel in Italy. Sub- sequently he returned to his native land and there enhanced his reputation, producing various large and important monuments, notably those to the De Thon family, to Henri de Conde, Bignon, and the Longueville family * in Paris. His death took place in 1699. The other French sculptor who sojourned in England for a time was Ambrose Du V al, who was born at Mans, although the date of this event has not, I believe, been preserved. Coming, like Augnier, at an early age to this country, he seems to have been widely patronised ; and it is likely that many of the fine tombs extant in England, to which no name can be with certainty allocated, may have emanated from him. He afterwards returned to France at the desire of Colbert, who was at this time engaged in adorning Paris and other centres with monumental works of art and records of the prowess of his royal master, Louis XIV. Among other things which Du Val executed, was the monument of Henri de Bourbon-Conde, which had been designed by Perrault, and was set up in 1663. * There appears to be no record of the date of Du Val’s death, or indeed of anything further regarding him or his work. Whether such men as Enoch Wyat , who is known to have carved two figures on the water-gate of Somerset House, and a statue of Jupiter, and who, to quote * Le Noir, “ Monumens Frai^ais FANELLI 55 Walpole, “ altered and covered the King’s statues, which during the Civil troubles were thrust into White- hall Gardens, and which, it seems, were too heathenishly naked to be exposed to the inflammeable eyes of that devout generation ” ; or Zachary Taylor, surveyor and carver to the king, and who produced some subsidiary work both at Somerset House and Wilton ; or Captain Bowden , of the trained bands, who also did some carving at Wilton ; or John Osborn , whose only known production was a head of Frederic Henry, Prince of Orange, executed in relief on tortoiseshell, in 1626, can be properly regarded as coming under the head of sculptors, is a question. Rather, I think, are they to be regarded as journeymen carvers who produced work based on designs either given them by their patrons, who probably picked them up on their travels in France or Italy, or who, if they ventured into originality, never succeeded in making a mark or in executing work that can differentiate them very much from numbers of other statuaries whose names are lost in oblivion. Fanelli, who was working in this country at this time, as well as Edward Pierce, the younger, may, however, be better regarded in the light of successful and by no means contemptible sculptors. Francis Fanelli was one of the numerous band of artists who made a home and a living in this country, during the seventeenth century, attracted hither by the patronage of Charles I. and his court. He was a Florentine, and principally occupied himself in metal work. Vanderdort, who calls him “ the one-eyed Italian,” tells us that there was a small figure of Cupid seated on a running horse, executed by Fanelli, in the king’s collection ; while better known are the statues of Charles and Henrietta Maria, in niches in the quadrangle of St. John’s College, Oxford, which were also designed and cast by him.* As these figures were the gift of Laud to his old college, that famous Churchman is to be numbered among Fanelli’s patrons. Another of these was William, Duke * It is probable that they would not have escaped destruction during the Civil War had they not been buried at that time. 56 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS of Newcastle, who commissioned or otherwise purchased several of the sculptor’s works, among them being a head in brass of Charles, Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles II.), dated 1640, and signed “ Fra. Fanellius, Florentinus, sculptor, magn. Brit, regis.” Walpole records also “ several figures in small brass,” as being the sculptor’s work, belonging to the Duke of Newcastle ; notably a St. George and the Dragon dead ; another depicting the combat ; two horses grazing ; four others in different attitudes ; a Cupid and a Turk, both on horseback ; and a Centaur with a woman ; while he also attributes to him or Le Soeur a bronze head of Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and two of Lady Venetia Digby, the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby. One of these is notable for the excellence with which a lace handkerchief is rendered, and because of the Latin line which was written behind it : Uxorem vivam amare voluptas, defunctam religio. It is known that Sir Kenelm erected a black marble monument to his wife in Christ Church, Newgate Street, and that this memorial was destroyed in the Great Fire, and it has been surmised that one of these busts formerly decorated the tomb and was saved from the disaster. In Walpole’s day there were two copper busts of Lady Venetia “ at Mr. Wright’s at Gothurst in Buckinghamshire,” and these may possibly have been replicas of those referred to. In addition to these, a few other busts have been, with all probability, traced to Fanelli ; of these are the monument to Lord Cottington, in the Abbey ; the monumental bust of Sir Robert Ayton, in the Abbey ; another of Sir Robert Stapylton ; one of Penelope Noel, in white marble, erected in 1633, at Campden, in Gloucestershire ; and two of Charles I., one of which, in the Bodleian, represents the king in armour, with lions’ heads on the shoulders, falling collar, and sash (Dallaway) ; while the full-length effigies of Abraham Blackleech and his wife, in Gloucester Cathedral, and that of Mrs. Delves, at Horsham, are also by Fanelli. PIERCE 57 The latter, a most beautiful and wholly unmutilated piece of sculpture, is probably the most perfect thing of its kind ever produced at this period. No record appears of any other work by Fanelli,* but he is known to have published two books of designs for fountains, vases, and even more ambitious erections. One of these was published, in Paris, by Van Merle, in 1661, the illustrations to it being thought by Vertue to be the work of the great Faithorne. Nothing more is known of Fanelli, for neither the place of his death nor its date seems to have been preserved ; but it is interesting to know that he had at least one pupil, an Englishman named John Bank, who was living at the beginning of the eighteenth century, although he never made any name for himself. Dallaway, summing up the little that is known of this sculptor, and comparing his work with that of Le Soeur, says that it exhibits a higher degree of finish, but less boldness of design than that of the greater man, and he adds : “ Fanelli had a more delicate chisel in marking out the lace and drapery of Vandyck’s portraits, which were his models ; the design being merely that of a portrait in marble ; and, as substituting form for colour, partakes in every instance more of Gothic stiffness than of classical life and ease. His busts, indeed, have a Roman air, acquired probably in the school of Bernini, or others of his countrymen. 55 The Edward Pierce , or Pearce , whom I have mentioned before, was the son of Edward Pierce, a painter of some merit in the reign of Charles I., who died in 1698. The younger Pierce had therefore an artistic environment from the first, and showing a special aptitude for sculp- ture, was placed as a pupil, with Francis Bird,t the sculptor who, in the reign of Anne, became the chief * It seems probable, in view of bis known work for Sir Kenelm Digby, that Fanelli executed the interesting tomb in Chilham Church, close to Chilham Castle, Digby’s country seat, erected by Sir Anthony Palmer to his wife, Margaret, a sister of Sir Kenelm, who died at Putney in 1619. t Not Edward Bird, as stated in the “ Dictionary of National Bio- graphy,” who was a painter and whose dates are 1772-1819. 58 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS exponent of this branch of art. Like so many sculp- tors and statuaries at this time, before professions were delineated with the precision they are now, Pierce was also an architect, and one of sufficient standing to become an assistant of Wren. In this capacity he rebuilt the church of St. Clement Danes in 1680, after the design of his illustrious master ; for which undertaking the original contract is still in existence ; * and he is known to have helped Sir Christopher in the carrying out of many others of his works, and, perhaps, here and there with a suggestion. Among his achievements in sculpture, pure and simple, were the statues of Edward III. and Sir Thomas Gresham, which he carved for the adorn- ment of the Royal Exchange, and that of Sir William Walworth, which was erected in Fishmongers’ Hall. He also produced a bust of Thomas Evans, Master of the Painters’ Company, in 1687, for the hall of that guild ; of Wren and Newton for the Bodleian Library, at Oxford; and a head of the poet Milton. But perhaps his best known and most successful bust was that of Oliver Cromwell. It is not stated for whom he executed this fine head ; but there is a record that it was sold by auction in 1714, and it is now in a private collection, a terra-cotta replica of it being in the National Portrait Gallery. Among other work which has been traced to Pierce are the four dragons on the Monument, for which he was paid the handsome sum of .£50 each. It seems highly probable that Pierce also executed the bas-relief at the base of the column, although in the accounts for the work (which show that the whole thing cost .£8000) this portion of it is not specifically mentioned. Another work which Pierce produced was a fine marble vase at Hampton Court ; and in another direction the splendid monument to Sir William Maynard, in Little Easton Church, Essex, his largest and, in some respects, his most notable achievement. This important example of the monumental sculpture of this period was erected to the memory of Sir William, * In the British Museum, Additional MSS. Chart 1605. In this, by- the-bye, the name is spelt Pearce. PIERCE 59 first Baron Maynard, and his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir Antony Everard, on the west wall of the Maynard Chapel. It consists of a pedestal swelling out in the centre, upon which is the inscription. On the centre of the pedestal is a large vase. The figure of Lord Maynard, dressed as an ancient Roman commander, is placed on the dexter side of the monument, and on the sinister side, the figure of Lady Maynard, garbed as an ancient Roman matron. The wall behind these figures and vase is lined with slabs of marble, and the whole surmounted by a broken pediment with a shield in the centre, from which hang two wreaths of flowers. The whole is executed in veined marble, except the figures, which are in statuary marble. The curious inscription, translated, runs as follows : “ Sacred to the memory of the Right Honorable William Lord Maynard, Baron of Estaines in the County of Essex and of Wicklow in Ireland, who for many years executed the office of Lord Lieutenant of the Counties of Essex and Cambridge under King Charles the First, with the great approbation both of the king and people and with a conscience beyond the blame of either. “ In every respect indeed he was a man well calculated to supply the place of a Prince, the Defender of the Peace, the laws, and the Anglo-Catholic Faith. But when the madness of fanatics daily increased, when even religion itself was banished, then he bid adieu to a restless, rebellious, and ungrateful country, which was so unworthy of such a pattern of true Christian love, both towards God and his neighbour, that he at length happily changed it for a better, namely a heavenly, on the 18th Dec., 1640, in the 55th year of his age. “ Near him lies Anne, his right honourable wife, descended from the ancient family of the Everards of Langleys, in this County of Essex ; who, after she had seen an only son and five excellent daughters adorned with their parents’ virtues, which they so excelled in as to excite the envy of mankind, followed her husband 6o LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS to heaven, there to enjoy again his amiable and most happy company among the saints, on the 5th of August, in the year of our Lord 1647.” Edward Pierce lived in a house at the corner of Surrey Street, Strand, and here he died in 1698, being buried in the Savoy Chapel near by. CAIUS GABRIEL CIBBER CHAPTER IV CIBBER AND GRINLING GIBBON Caius Gabriel Cibber may be regarded, in some respects, as the first of those sculptors, domiciled in England, who wrought in this branch of art in the way we under- stand sculpture to-day ; that is, as a carver of figures rather than as one who adorned buildings with sculptured friezes and arabesques ; in a word, as an artist without the additional labour of an artisan ; for although in his earlier days he not improbably united, as was then the fashion, the functions of the sculptor, architect, and mason, when he came to his own he almost entirely restricted himself to the production of statues and busts, and thus, it may be said, pioneered in this country the way for the fine succession of sculptors which followed him. We are accustomed nowadays to associate the name of Cibber with the actor-dramatist and wit of Georgian days — the author of “The Careless Husband” and “The Apology for His Own Life ” — the Colley Cibber whose name is almost as well known as are those of Garrick and Kean. Colley Cibber was, indeed, the son of Caius Gabriel, and in his “ Apology ” might have been expected to throw some light on his parentage, and incidentally on his father’s career. But, unfortunately, we find nothing whatever, and our rather scanty information about the elder man’s early years is restricted to the fact that he was the son of a cabinet-maker living at Flensburg, in Holstein, in which town Caius Gabriel was born in 1630. No records of his early years are in existence, or at any rate none have been discovered, and the first indication we have of the direction in which his talent showed itself, is the fact that having exhibited 61 62 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS a marked ability for carving, which somehow attracted the attention of the King of Denmark, that monarch sent him, at his own charge, to study in Rome — the Mecca then, as now, of the art student. How long he remained in the Eternal City, or under whom he studied (although it is not improbable that he came under the influence of the great Bernini) is unknown. At the expiration of his sojourn in Italy, however, he came to England, probably actuated in this step by the growing patronage of the fine arts in this country, and perhaps induced to do so by such English friends as he may have made in Rome. As, indeed, we learn that, on his arrival here, he found employment with the Stones, it seems probable that the brothers came across him during their travels in Italy and persuaded him to try his fortune in their native land. How long he remained with the Stones is uncertain, but we know that he achieved the position of foreman to them, and that when John was seized with palsy during his stay at Breda,* he was sent out to bring him home. John died in 1667, and that date therefore possibly marks the period when Cibber set up for himself. That he had already become favourably known to the art patrons of this country, is proved by the fact that, on the death of John Stone, he was able to remove to a large house in Southampton Street, and was soon as fully occupied with commissions as he wished to be ; his chief patron being the first Duke of Devonshire. This was the period when a love of classical deities induced the owners of great country mansions to fill their grounds with heathen gods and goddesses. To this phase of work Cibber seems to have first turned his attention, and, as Cunningham says, “ he performed for the vista and the grove what Thornhill and Laguerre did for the ceilings and the walls.” The mythology was ransacked for appropriate adornments to the gardens of great nobles, and the spacious grounds of Chatsworth, which Talman was erecting for the Duke, afforded a splendid dumping-ground for Cibber’s excursions into * See ante , p. 43. CIBBER 63 classical sculpture. The combination of rocks and groves, the river flowing through the estate, the forest of verdure rising above the splendid mansion, all helped to give appropriateness to the spot as a setting for temples and statues ; and Cibber, with an open-handed and opulent patron at his back, was able to give full scope to his imagination, and to people with stone images and classic buildings the natural resting-places which he found made to his hand. Cunningham tells us something of what the sculptor did to improve, as was then supposed, the beauties of nature. “ He built a little temple, half seen, half hid in the grove, introduced a fountain, which, on touching a spring, spouted an inundation from column and floor, that, uniting into one stream, went rolling over an enormous flight of steps, and flowed within a quoit- cast of the mansion, when it sank and disappeared in a concealed channel. Among these groves and temples and fountains were scattered plentifully the deities and demi-deities of Cibber, all cut in free-stone, a material in which he delighted, as it yielded readily to the chisel, and enabled him to keep pace with the impatience of his customers. Much of this is mutilated now or destroyed ; but the whole was once reckoned beautiful, and over the mystery of its fountains, and the classic elegance of its groves and goddesses, both learned and noble have Wondered with a foolish face of praise.” It would appear that Cibber was employed at Chats- worth from 1688 till 1690, and that he had received down to the December of the latter year a sum of .£310 for work done ; not a very extravagant remuneration it must be confessed. Some details of particular pay- ments are to be found in a volume of the artist’s receipts now at Hardwicke Hall. Thus we read that “ For two figures in the pediment (of Chatsworth), each of them four tons of stone, £140 for both ” ; “ For two dogs, £8 each ” ; “ For twelve Caesars’ heads, .£5 a piece ” ; to which is added : “ My Lord Kingston did after this 64 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS pay for board and wine for me and my man.” “ For two statues as big as life I had .£35 a piece, and all charges borne ” ; and he adds : “ At this rate I shall endeavour to serve a nobleman in free-stone.” Cunningham, commenting on the lowness of the prices named, remarks that the sculptor appears, however, even more than satisfied, and adds : “ It is probable that the figures were wrought without models. To make an exact copy of a statue was in those days rendered laborious from the inferiority of the instruments by which the model was imitated in stone or marble.” It is impossible to say, now, what was the extent of Cibber’s work in the direction of classical adornments to the houses and gardens of this period. The taste for such things was beginning to take a firm hold and was very widely spread, and the sculptor, whose novitiate had been passed, as we have seen, in Rome, seems to have partly led and partly followed the prevailing fashion — a fashion which, if it did not afford him very large opportunities for exhibiting originality, at least helped to fill his pockets in a way sufficient, apparently, for his satisfaction. I cannot but think that he must have enjoyed a very extensive practice in such things alone, for the prices he received (from the Duke of Devonshire, for instance) were anything but princely, and he must have required a great number of such commissions to have enabled him to keep a large house in London, as well as to marry twice, as we know he did. His first wife died young, and Cibber had, apparently, no children by her, but as he married again, a lady of the ancient family of Colley, in Rutlandshire, and with her had a dowry of £ 6000 , his income from this source may at that time have sufficed to make him largely independent, though hardly to such an extent as to enable him to dispense with as much as he could gain from his art. It is interest- ing to know that by this alliance his children became kinsmen of William of Wykeham, and according to the provisions of the founder’s will (which had force till they were ruthlessly abrogated at the instance of Mr. CIBBER 65 Gladstone) one of Cibber’s sons was admitted to the foundation, on which occasion his father executed and presented to Winchester the statue of Wykeham, which now stands over the doorway of the large schoolroom. I may here state that this son became subsequently a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and that his better- known brother, Colley, was born in 1671. If our knowledge of Cibber’s personal life is of the scantiest, we are at least able to identify much of his work, and this is here more to our purpose. By common consent the most important of his carvings are the two figures, representing “ Melancholy and Madness,” which he executed for the entrance to Bethlehem Hospital. I say by common consent, because they have always appealed to the public, and, after all, this is no bad test of an artist’s success. On the other hand, there has been no lack of detractors, from Pope, whose lines will be familiar to many : Where o’er the gates, by his famed father’s hand, Great Cibber’s brazen brainless brothers stand, to Flaxman, who once dismissed them, in one of his Lectures, simply as “ the mad figures on the piers of Bedlam gates,” which is the kind of negative criticism of which the inference is not difficult to perceive. Those, too, who are for ever seeking an earlier inspiration for any work of art will be pleased to find Dallaway remark- ing that “ The Dying Gladiator ” “ suggested the design of those two figures of maniacs as far as attitude — or perhaps the Slaves of Michael Angelo, or the Torso and Hercules Farnese, for a general idea of muscular expression. The position of the figures is evidently borrowed from that of the Duke Giuliano de’ Medici at Florence, by Michael Angelo, personifying Day and Night.” This accusation of plagiarism is such an easy one to make — indeed it has been brought against most men who have been notable in all sorts of ways — that it need not concern us any more than t concerned Moliere, whose “ Je reprends mon bien ou je le trouve ” has E 66 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS become famous. The fact is that it requires an originally artistic mind to know what to copy, and as Cunningham has very pertinently remarked, Cibber needed but to take one of the unhappy inmates of the asylum as a model without imitating what Michael Angelo had already produced. The important point is that these two figures initiated that natural spirit in sculpture which was, before their day, almost wholly absent from such plastic work as was produced in this country. They strike the beholder with a sort of fascination ; looking at them the horror and the pathos of madness (in earlier days never properly realised ; e.g ., the delight, in the sixteenth century, for instance, at the sight of “ simples ” and “ idiots,” as shown in Shakespeare) are brought home to the beholder in a quite forcible manner. Cunningham gives us a proof of this, in a personal experience. “ I remember,” says he, “ when an utter stranger in London, I found myself in the presence of those statues, then occupying the entrance to Moorfields. Sculpture was to me at that time an art unknown, and it had to force its excellence upon my mind, without the advantage of any preparation either through drawings or descriptions. But I per- ceived the meaning of those statues at once, felt the pathetic truth of the delineation, and congratulated myself on having discovered a new source of enjoyment. The impression which they made upon me induced me to expect too much from the rest of our sculpture. In St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey, I found much finer work, but less fervour of poetic sentiment, than what Cibber had stamped upon those rough stones, which he is said to have cut at once from the block without the aid of models.” * To which I may add the fact that the great Roubiliac so greatly admired these figures that he never visited London without making a special journey to Moor- fields to look at and study those masterpieces of his great predecessor. The figures were carved in Portland stone, which was afterwards covered with a composition * This fact is stated by J. T. Smith in his “ Nollekens and his Times.” CIBBER 67 of white lead ! Having become somewhat affected by exposure to the air, they were submitted to the younger Bacon, who restored their surfaces at the time when the new Bethlehem Hospital was erected in St. George’s Fields, in 1812, # after which they were placed in the Hall of the new buildings. They are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Perhaps Cibber’s next best production was the fountain which formerly stood in the middle of the garden of Soho Square. In the centre of this fountain rose a stone statue of Charles II. in armour, on a pedestal enriched with crowns and foliage. The elaborate base consisted of four emblematical figures representing the Thames, the Severn, the Tyne, and the Humber ; the whole work exhibiting great freedom and originality of conception, and substantiating Cibber’s claim to be considered the forerunner in this country of poetic sculpture. Another example of Cibber’s work was one of the elaborate vases in the gardens of Hampton Court. A companion vase was carved by a Frenchman, Valadier, and Cibber is said to have undertaken his work in competition with the foreigner. It seems more likely, however, that both sculptors were in the pay of the Government (we certainly know Cibber to have been so), and that to each was allocated one of these commissions. It has never been satisfactorily ascer- tained which of the vases was the work of our sculptor, although there have not been wanting experts who have endeavoured to clear up the point. Like so many other sculptors of the seventeenth century, Cibber was employed in decorating the Royal Exchange with figures, and, according to Walpole, “ he carved most of the statues of kings, as far as King Charles ” ; while that of Sir Thomas Gresham, placed in the piazza beneath, was also from his hand. They cannot, however, be regarded as important contributions to his achievement, for they were in the nature of official commissions, and were, no doubt, executed rather as * There is a tradition that one of the statues was modelled from Oliver Cromwell’s giant porter, then an inmate of the hospital. 68 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS adjuncts to the building in which they were placed, than as works of art fer se. It is known that, at a later date, Cibber came under the notice of Sir Christopher Wren, and it was due to this circumstance that he was employed not only to carve the bas-relief on the west side of the base of the monument,* but also to execute the more ambitious Phoenix above the south door of St. Paul’s Cathedral ; receiving for the latter work, which is in bold relief, 1 8 ft. long and 9 ft. wide, the sum of £100. Cibber enjoyed royal patronage, and received the appointment of Carver to the King, and much of his time was probably employed in helping to decorate the royal palaces and in other cognate work, which may account for the relatively few examples of his skill known to have been executed. It seems probable, however, that he must have pro- duced a considerable number of those sepulchral monu- ments, dating from this period, which are found in abundance in the churches throughout the country. One of these can certainly be traced to him in the ambitious monument in the Sackville Chapel in Buck- hurst Church. The contract for this is dated 1677, and the price paid was .£350.+ This tomb stands near the centre of the chapel, and is of an altar shape. It was erected in memory of Thomas Sackville, youngest son of Richard, fifth Earl of Dorset, and Frances Cran- field, his wife. A reclining effigy of Thomas Sackville surmounts the memorial, on the sides of which are the figures of the father and mother on the one hand, and of their six sons and six daughters on the other. Although the tomb was chiefly commemorative of Thomas Sackville, the memory of other members of the family who had predeceased him, or who died subsequently, is also perpetuated. Thus one of the * In the Domestic State Papers are recorded payments to Cibber for carving “hieroglyphic figures on the monument,” under date of November 27, 1674. ■f “ Short History of Withyam and Buckhurst,” by the Rev. C. N. Sutton, rector, 1893. CIBBER 69 bas-reliefs represents, as an infant, holding a skull and a palm branch, the Hon. Lionel Sackville, who died in 1646 ; another, also a Lionel, whose death, at the age of two years and six months, occurred in 1659 ; st ^ another, Cranfield, who died in 1660 ; while the Hon. Edward Sackville, who must have departed this life while the tomb was in progress (he died in 1678, aged thirty-seven), and Charles, sixth Earl of Dorset, are also commemorated in bold relief. On the south side are the effigies of six daughters, three of whom died before the tomb was commenced ; while on the east side is the following inscription : “ This monument was designed to be erected before the decease of ye Rt. Hon. Richard, Earl of Dorset, Father of the youth, who departed this life ye 27: Aug. in the year of our God 1677, and in ye 55 th year of his age, and ye Rt. Hon. Frances, Countess Dowager of Dorset, Relict of ye said Father, and Mother of the said youth, erected the same to perpetuate ye memory of Her Husband and Son, in the year of our Lord, 1678.” Nothing further is forthcoming concerning Cibber’s life or his works, except that he is said to have built the Danish Church, in Wellclose Square, where his second wife was buried in 1696, the year in which it was com- pleted, and where he himself was laid to rest four years later. Monuments to both were erected in the building. It would seem that two portraits were painted of Cibber ; one by Marcellus Laroon, showing him holding a medal, was in the possession of his son, Colley ; another, a miniature in water-colours, depicting him with a pair of compasses in his hand, was executed by Christian Richter, probably copied, with variations, from Laroon’s picture, and once belonged to Horace Walpole.* Although Caius Gabriel Cibber made a name for himself and laboured, not unsuccessfully, to free the art of sculpture from the convention which had characterised it, in this country, during his early days, he can hardly be said to have exercised any very dominating influence * It was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale for thirty shillings. 70 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS or to have founded an y school ; * indeed, no pupil of his — and he must have at least had assistants, although their names are not forthcoming — is known ; and the original genius whose personality, in this direction of art, has made illustrious the reign of Charles II., Grinling Gibbon, cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be connected with the methods of his contemporary. Nor can the unimportant men who carried on the art (perhaps the word business would in this case be more appropriate) be linked in any very direct way with Cibber, except in so far as they happened to work during his lifetime and in his adopted country. Five names are, indeed, given by Walpole, but the information which he and the industrious Vertue were able to glean about them is of the scantiest, and would be insufficient to detain us, were it not that by setting it down, one is able to clear the ground before dealing with the great name of Grinling Gibbon. 1 Thomas Burman is the first of the quintette to be mentioned, and his importance, if it can be termed im- portance, is solely a reflected one, for he was the master of Bushnell, to whom we shall come later on. We do happen to know one piece of work on which he was employed, the tomb to Mr. and Mrs. Beale at Walton- on-Thames, because an entry in their son Charles Beale’s (the portrait painter) diary records the payment to the sculptor thus : “ 18 May, 1672. Pd. Mr. Thos. Burman in part, due for my honoured father and mother’s monument set up for them at Walton in Bucks, at the expence of my brother Henry Beale and myself, the whole cost paid in full .£45 ” ; while the bust of Bishop Duppa, in Westminster Abbey, is signed by him. Burman lived in London, and was buried in the church- yard of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, where his epitaph tells us all the rest we are ever now likely to know of him. Thus it runs : “ Here lyes interred Thomas Burman, sculptor, of the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields, who departed this life March 17, 1673-4, aged 56 years.” * The Abbe Le Blanc criticises him adversely in his “ Letters on the English and French Nations,” 1747. LATHAM 71 One Bowden , whom I have already incidentally referred to as having been a captain of the trained bands, seems to have executed what little work he ever did, at Wilton, where he was employed together with another obscure sculptor named Latham. The latter, however, is at least recorded as doing work outside this local milieu , for, in conjunction with one Boune , he executed the monument in white marble, to Archbishop Sheldon who died in 1667, in Croydon Church. Dallaway speaks of this work as being finished “ with great truth to nature and character, 55 and mentions that the bas-reliefs on the sides depicted a charnel-house. There is an engraving of it in Lyson’s “ Environs, 55 taken from a drawing made by Sir Thomas Lawrence. The Archbishop is represented lying at full length, leaning on his left hand, while with his right he grasps the episcopal staff. The work is said to be “ by Latham, the City architect, and Boune. 55 * The head, crowned with a mitre, is reported to have been finished by an Italian artist. Another work with which Latham’s name is associated was the head fixed to the statue of John Sobieski, brought unfinished to this country by Sir Robert Vyner, and placed in the Stocks Market. This head was that of Charles II., which, considering that the figure was repre- sented trampling on a Turk, was a curiously infelicitous addition ! A portrait of Latham, who is shown leaning on a bust, was painted by Isaac Fuller, who also drew the head of Pierce, the sculptor, once in the possession of Horace Walpole.f William Emmett is only known as the predecessor of Grinling Gibbon, in the office of Sculptor to the Crown, in which position he had succeeded his uncle, one Philip. Art had sunk so low at this period that such an appoint- ment by no means necessarily indicated particular talent, and like, on occasion, the fillers of the post of Poet Laureate, such royal servants had little to recommend them except some mysterious influence which would * Walpole’s “Anecdotes of Painting.” t ^ was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale to J. Dent for three guineas. 72 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Unlike Latham, who did get some one else to perpetuate his features, Emmett had not even this claim to remembrance, and so he executed, Walpole tells us, a poor mezzotint of himself ! The last of these very feeble artisans was a foreigner — Francis Du Sart , who would probably have been long since forgotten, had not De Bie in his “ Golden Cabinet,” mentioned the fact that he was employed by “ the king of England ” to adorn his palace with works in marble and models in clay, and that he died in London in i66i. # Walpole questions whether this king was Charles I. or Charles II., but it seems more than likely that it was the former, for even had Charles II. been anxious to adorn anything but his mistresses, it is not probable that Du Sart could have produced much in the short time between the Restoration and the year in which he is said to have died. The next really great sculptor we come to is Grinling Gibbon , f who, as Walpole says, “ gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements, with a free disorder natural to each species.” At one time there was much divergence of opinion concerning his nationality and parentage, Murray the painter having told Vertue that he was born in Holland of English parents, while Stoakes assured the same authority that he was the son of a Dutchman domiciled in London, and that he was in fact born in Spur Alley, in the Strand. It has now, however, been conclusively proved that Gibbon was born in Rotterdam on April 4, 1648, and, having regard to his very English name, there seems little doubt that his father was a Briton,! even if his mother, which is not * “ Anecdotes of Painting.” f The sculptor invariably wrote his name Gibbon, and as such it should be spelt, although “ Gibbons ” is more frequently used now. Indeed in the registers of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, the two names are thus variously spelt : Grimlin, Grinling, Grinlim ; and Gibbon, Gibon, Gibons, and Gybbon, but never Gibbons. X It has been thought that Simon Gibbon, a carpenter who worked for Inigo Jones, may have been his father, but this has not been proved. r j GRINLING GIBBON GRINLING GIBBON 73 unlikely — as Grinling seems to be a Dutch name and may indeed have been the surname of her family — was a native of Holland.* It appears probable, although there is no certain record of the fact, that young Gibbon came over to this country during the year after the Great Fire, when he was just nineteen, a period when the sudden chance of employ- ment on rebuilding and decoration gave an impetus to that immigration of foreign artists which then took place. We know nothing of Gibbon’s training in the art of carving ; indeed, he seems to have been one of those natural geniuses who can dispense with the usual curri- culum, for when he arrived in this country and took lodgings in Bell Sauvage Court, Ludgate Hill, he executed a pot of flowers with such dexterity and skill that, it is said, the leaves shook as coaches passed by the house, by which I think it probable that the sculptor produced the work and placed it on a window-sill as a sign, and specimen of his powers. If this be so, it is pleasant to think that the handsome actor, Betterton, passing by, may have been attracted by it, for we are told that one of the earliest of Gibbon’s employments was the carving of certain of the decorations (cornices and capitals of pillars, See.) in the theatre in Dorset Square, which Betterton was at this time erecting.f How long Gibbon stayed in Ludgate Hill is uncertain, and it was while living subsequently at Deptford that he first attracted the attention of John Evelyn, in the year 1670, as the latter was one day walking “ near a poor solitary thatched house, in a field in our parish, near Say’s Court.” The diarist’s record of the circum- stance is dated January 18, 1671, the day on which he first introduced his frotege to the king. “ I found him,” proceeds Evelyn, “ shut in, but looking in at the window, I perceived him carving that large cartoon of Tintoret, * See Ashmole MSS. at Oxford, Black’s Catalogue, Coll. 209, where there is a letter from Gibbon to Ashmole, dated October 12, 1682, enclosing one from his sister giving an account of his birth. f The theatre was not completed at the time of Davenant’s death in 1668, being opened three years later. 74 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS a copy of which I had myself e brought from Venice, where the original painting remains. I asked if I might enter, he opened the door civilly to me, and I saw him about such a work, as for curiositie of handlinge, drawing and studious exactness, I had never before seene in all my travels. I questioned him why he worked in such an obscure and lonesome place : he told me, it was that he might apply himself to his profession, without in- terruption, and wondered not a little how I had found him out. I asked him if he was unwilling to be made known to some greate man, for that I believed it might turn to his profit : he answered, that he was but as yet a beginner, but would not be sorry to sell off that piece ; on de- manding his price, he said .£100. In good earnest, the very frame was worth the money, there being in nature nothing so tender and delicate as the flowers and festoons about it, and yet the work was very strong ; in the piece were more than ioo figures of men, &c. I found he was likewise musical, and very civil, sober and discreete in his discourse. There was only an old woman in his house. So desiring leave to visit him sometimes, I went my way.” So great an impression did the carving on which Evelyn found Gibbon engaged, make on the Diarist, that he does not seem to have rested till he was able to bring the sculptor to the most distinguished notice. The first step towards this was his introduction of Gibbon to Sir Peter Lely, Hugh and Baptist May, the now little remembered architects, and, most important of all, to Sir Christopher (then Mr.) Wren. I imagine that Evelyn wished to have some expert opinion on the work which had so greatly impressed him, before seeking permission to present Gibbon at Court. If this was so, the verdict of the eminent men mentioned was conclusive that Evelyn had found a prodigy of art, and on January 18, 1671, as I have said, the Diarist introduced the sculptor to the king at Whitehall, having previously, as he tells us, acquainted his Majesty about the young artist and his manner of finding him, “ and begged that he would give me leave to bring him and his worke to Whitehall, for that I would adventure my reputation with his GRINLING GIBBON 75 Majesty, that he had never seen any thing approach it ; and that he would be exceedingly pleased, and employ him. The King said he would himselfe go to see him. This was the first notice he had of Mr. Gibbon. 55 Charles II., who, whatever his faults, was possessed of admirable tact and good breeding, never indicated it better than when he made known his intention of himself going to see Gibbon instead of ordering him to come to the palace ; but, as we know, the sculptor’s home was hardly one in which to receive so illustrious a visitor, and it was arranged, Evelyn superintending, that Gibbon should go to Whitehall. A second interview with the king took place on March 1,* so that little time was lost, and is thus recorded by Evelyn : “ I caused Mr. Gibbon to bring to Whitehall his excellent piece of carving, where being come I advertis’d his Majestie, who asked me where it was ; I told him in Sir Richard Browne’s (my father-in-law) chamber, and that if it pleas’d his Majesty to appoint whither it should be brought, being large and tho’ of wood heavy, I would take care of it ; c No,’ says the King, c shew me the way, I’ll go to Sir Richard’s chamber,’ which he immediately did, walking along the entries after me ; as far as the ewrie , till he came up into the roome where I also lay. No sooner was he enter’d and cast his eye on the work but he was astonish’d at the curiositie of it, and having consider’d it a long time and discoursed with Mr. Gibbon, whom I brought to kisse his hand, he commanded it should be immediately carried to the Queene’s side to shew her. It was carried up into her bed-chamber, where she and the King looked on and admired it againe ; the King being call’d away left us with the Queene, believing she would have bought it, it being a Crucifix ; but when his Majesty was gone, a French pedling woman, one Mad. de Bord, who used to bring peticoates and fanns, and baubles, out of France to the Ladys, began to find fault with severall things in the worke, which she understood no more than an asse or a monkey, so as in a kind of indignation, I caused the person who brought it * E. M. Ward painted a picture of the incident. 76 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS to carry it back to the chamber, finding the Queene so much govern’d by an ignorant French woman, and this incomparable artist had his labour onely for his paines, which not a little displeas’d me, and he was faine to send it downe to his cottage againe ; he not long after sold it for .£80, tho’ well worth £100 without the .frame, to Sir George Viner.” # The result of Evelyn’s introduction of Gibbon to the King, if not very propitious in its early effects, proved eventually of particular assistance, for Charles gave the sculptor a post in the Board of Works, and this, together with Wren’s fulfilment of his promise to befriend him, may be said to have effectively started Gibbon on that prosperous and busy career which lay before him. All this was due to Evelyn’s indefatigable labour on behalf of his friend, and another entry in his diary still further shows this : “ His Majesty’s surveyor, Mr. Wren,” writes Evelyn, “ faithfully promis’d me to employ him, I having also bespoke his Majesty for his worke at Windsor, which my friend Mr. May, the architect there, was going to alter and repaire universally ; for on the next day (i.*., the 19 th Jan y ) I had a fair opportunity of talking to his Majesty about it.” That Gibbon was not ungrateful for all Evelyn had done for him, is to some extent proved by the fact that he carved and presented to him his own bust in wood, which the Diarist kept, at one time, in his house in Dover Street. f Although it is known that Gibbon’s art was employed in decorating no inconsiderable part of the rebuilt portions of Windsor Castle, such as mantels, over-doors, &c., the chief thing mentioned in connection with his work here is the marble pedestal in the principal quad- rangle, on which stood that statue of Charles II., which the loyalty of Tobias Rustat caused to be erected and * This piece of carving was later at the Duke of Chandos’s place, Canons, at Edgware. According to Walpole, it represented the martyrdom of St. Stephen. At the Canons sale it was bought by Mr. John Gore, and descended to J. Gordon Rebow, of Wyvenhoe Park, Essex. j" Nothing seems to be known of it at Wotton, so I suppose it has been lost or destroyed. GRINLING GIBBON 77 presented to his Majesty. This pedestal was decorated with fruit, fish, and naval trophies, in so rich and novel a way that Walpole says “ the man and horse may serve for a sign to draw a passenger’s eye to the pedestal.” It is interesting to remember that beneath this statue and its base, was concealed that engine for raising water which Sir Samuel Morland of Knightsbridge invented and was allowed to set up here. In connection with this statue, a licence was granted to Gibbon by Charles II. for the exclusive printing of engravings of it, and the sculptor appears to have even undertaken a print of it himself ; while, whether with his concurrence or not I am unable to say, a little-known engraver named Quellin also produced a representation of the statue. Evelyn thus records going to see the new work at Windsor and this statue in particular : “ 24. July. 1680. Went to Windsor to see that stately Court, now neere finish’d. There was erected in the Court the King on horseback, lately cast in copper and set on a rich pedestal of white marble, the work of Mr. Gibbons, at the expence of Toby Rustate, a page of the back stairs, who, by his wonderful frugality had arriv’d to a great estate in money, and did many works of charity, as well as this of gratitude to his Master, which cost him .£1000. He is a very simple, but honest and loyal creature.” But if Gibbon merely executed the pedestal of the statue of Charles II., he was responsible not only for this portion, but also for the figure itself, of the famous statue of James II. which, with the exception of Le Soeur’s Charles I., may be regarded as the most beautiful thing of its kind in London. This statue, erected in 1687, originally stood in the Privy Garden at Whitehall ; and later was hidden away behind the Banqueting House, whence it presently emerged into the publicity of Whitehall by being set in the centre of the green patch of grass next to Gwydyr House. More recently it has been moved to the more appropriate purlieus of the Admiralty (James, as Duke of York, was 78 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Lord High Admiral of England, it will be remem- bered), and may now be seen at the east end of the Mall. The king appears habited as a Roman, after the fashion of an earlier day, when it was considered inappropriate to depict a man in the dress he habitually wore.* The agreement for this statue was discovered by Vertue, by which the price paid for it is found to have been .£300, half of which sum was handed to Gibbon on the signing of the agreement, £50 at the expiration of three months, and the remainder on the completion and erection of the statue. Receipts for £200 of this are dated August 11, 1687, the paymaster being Tobias Rustat. Indeed as this gentleman, who was keeper of Hampton Court and Yeoman of the Robes to Charles II., had paid for the statues of Charles erected at Windsor and at Chelsea Hospital, so he did for that of James ;t an entry in the Gazette for 1685 reading, “ A free gift to their Majesties K. Charles II. and K. James II. of their statues in brass ; the former placed upon a pedestal in the Royal Hospital, at Chelsea, and the other at Whitehall — one thousand pounds.” Like so many of his contemporaries Gibbon had also a finger in the pie at the Royal Exchange, where a statue of Charles II. was from his hand, and he received a patent to sell engravings of the work, as was usual at that time when such things were commissioned. This patent is interesting as it indicates the sculptor’s residence at this period, for these prints are said to be on view “ at his house in the Piazza, Covent Garden.” Another work which Gibbon executed, about this time, for the king, was a bronze bust, larger than life, for the principal entrance to Whitehall, which was, however, subsequently removed to Windsor. I have set down such details as are known regarding * Even Sir Joshua Reynolds found fault with the statue of the Duke of Cumberland m Berkeley Square, because the sculptor had habited it in contemporary garb. f For a list of Rustat’s benefactions, see his “ Life,” and also Peck’s “ Desiderata Curiosa,” vol. ii. p. 50. GRINLING GIBBON 79 the statues or pedestals for statues, busts,* &c., which Gibbon executed, but his true genius hardly lay in this direction, although the effigy of James II. was such a marked success. What, however, distinguished the sculptor, was his marvellous power of representing flowers and fruit and foliage in wood, and it was chiefly on such things that he was employed at Windsor, where his “ incomparable carving,” as Evelyn calls it, in an entry describing a visit to the Castle on June 28, 1678, adorned far better than did Verrio’s “ sprawling saints,” the reconstructive work of Wren and May ; the old State dining-room ; the royal library, the queen’s audience and presence chambers being richly adorned with the fruits (and flowers) of his imagina- tion. But Gibbon’s royal commissions were not con- fined to work at Windsor ; he was also engaged at White- hall in adding to the internal beauty of the queen’s apartments and of the chapel, and Evelyn notes visiting both, the former on January 24, 1687, when he says, “ I saw the Queen’s new apartment at Whitehall. . . . The carving about the chimney-pieces, by Gibbon, is incomparable ” ; and the latter on the previous December 29. He had gone to the new chapel, then first opened publicly, to hear the Italian music, and he says: “ Nothing can be finer than the magni- ficent marble work and architecture at the end, where are four statues, representing St. John, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Church, in white marble, the work of Mr. Gibbon, with all the carving and pillars of exquisite art and greate cost.” It will be realised that a man who had thus secured the royal favour and was engaged on such considerable works for the king, was not likely to be long without private patronage, and, indeed, com- missions now began to flow in upon Gibbon in large numbers. One of the earliest of those who sought his aid in adorning their houses was Mr. Bohun, a friend of * There is an indifferent monument to Miss Beaufoy by him in West- minster Abbey. 80 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Evelyn,* and we find the Diarist, on August 31, 1678, going “ to see a neighbour, one Mr. Bohun, related to my son’s late tutor of that name, a rich Spanish merchant, living in a neate place, which he has adorned with many curiosities, especially severall carvings of Mr. Gibbon’s ” ; and again, on July 30, 1682, Evelyn records another visit to the same place, and mentions particularly seeing “ an excellent pendule clock inclos’d in the curious flower- work of Mr. Gibbon’s, in the middle of the vestibule.” There is little doubt that Evelyn was Gibbon’s best friend, and the Diarist, having introduced him to the Court, did his best to further his interests in every way. Evelyn, as a cultivated man and one of undeniable taste, knew when he had found something good, and deter- mined that those who could afford such luxuries as Gibbon’s inimitable work, should have, at least, an opportunity of securing specimens of his skill. A letter, dating from this time, indicates that the sculptor relied on his friend to push his fortunes. The original, pre- served at Wotton, runs thus, and indirectly indicates that Gibbon’s skill in the subtleties of English grammar and spelling was hardly equal to his mastery of the intricacies of carving : “ Honred Sir. I wold beg the faver wen you see Sir Joseff Williams (Williamson) again you wold be pleased to speack to him that hee wold get me to Carve his Ladis sons hous my Lord Kildare for I understand it will (be) verry considerabell or If you have acquantans wich (with) my Lord to speacke to him his sealf and I shall for Ev’re be obliaged to you I wold speack to Sir Josef my sealf but i knouw it wold do better from you. “ Sir youre Most umbel. “ Sarvant “ Lond. 23 rd March. 1682.” “ G. GibbonT * In the “ Book of Expenses ” of George GlanviJle, Evelyn’s brother-in- law, occurs the following entry : “ Nov. 17 (1692). Payd Mr. Gibbon in full, for ye marble chimney-piece, .£18 los.od.” Quoted in Holden’s “ Adversaria ” ; and see Notes and Queries , 4th series, vol. iv. p. 261. •j* A letter from Evelyn to Lord Kildare show? that the Diarist fulfilled the request of Gibbon. GRINLING GIBBON 81 Gibbon’s work divides itself into two phases : his wood-carving in private houses, on which his fame chiefly rests, and his labours in the realms of what may be described as pure sculpture and carvings as applied to churches. Taking the latter first, perhaps the most notable thing he achieved, was the splendid tomb erected to the memory of Baptist Noel, Viscount Camden, in Exton Church, Rutlandshire. Its dimensions were 22 ft. high by 14 ft. broad, and the Viscount with his wife, appear on it in full-length figures ; while there are bas-reliefs of their children. The fact that so much as .£1000 was paid for this, indicates the extent of the work expended on it, and also the popularity which Gibbon had achieved at the time he received this com- mission. A better-known example of the sculptor’s skill is the font in St. James’s Church, Piccadilly, on which are represented Adam and Eve, St. John the Baptist, and Philip and the Eunuch. The cover was also apparently by Gibbon, but has long since disappeared (it is represented in Vertue’s well-known engraving of the font), having, it is said, been stolen and hung up as a kind of sign at a spirit-shop in the vicinity of the church. Evelyn, paying a visit to the then newly rebuilt church on December 7, 1684, makes no mention of this font, but thus speaks of the beautiful woodwork over the altar which Gibbon also executed : “ The altar,” says he, “ was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons in wood ; a pelican with her young at her breast just over the altar in the carv’d compartment and border.” It may be safely asserted that no other artist has ever, before or since, approached Gibbon in such work as that which he here exhibits. The facility he shows is truly marvellous, fruit and flowers of the most delicate outline, dead game and trophies, lace-work and Cupids’ heads, seem to have found in him an equally dexterous imitator in wood. In many places of worship specimens of his skill are to be found, such as the foliage in the choir of St. Paul’s (for which he was paid .£1333 7 s. 5 d.) ; the §2 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS altar-piece in the Chapel of Trinity College, Oxford ; the Archbishop’s Throne in Canterbury Cathedral, for which Archbishop Tenison paid the very moderate sum of £ 70 ; the Last Supper, in alto-relievo , in the private chapel at Burghley House ; the font in St. Margaret’s, Lothbury ; the monument to Dorothy, Lady Clarke, in St. Paul’s, Hammersmith, for which he received £300 ; * the altar and pulpit in Fawley Church, Bucks ; the altar at St. Paul’s, Hammer- smith ; the pulpit and lectern at St. Bartholomew’s, Royal Exchange, which were removed when that church was destroyed, and placed temporarily in a church in the Gray’s Inn Road ; and decorations in many of the churches which Wren rebuilt after the Great Fire. But it is in his “ domestic ” wood-carving, as it may be termed, that Gibbon shows most markedly his peculiar and admirable gifts — gifts that differentiate him from all other sculptors and carvers. The best examples of his skill, in this direction, are to be found in many of the large country seats scattered throughout the land. Perhaps Chatsworth exhibits the most masterly series, for here, under his princely patron, Gibbon was enabled to give a free rein to his invention. Here in the great Ante-chamber can be seen the wonderful overmantel carved with dead game, and in one of the ante-rooms a pennon undistinguishable from a real feather, as well as more appropriate work in the chapel. “ All the wood-carving in England,” says Cunningham, “ fades away before that of Gibbon at Chatsworth. The birds seem to live, the foliage to shoot, and the flowers to expand beneath your eye. The most marvel- lous work of all is a net of game ; you imagine at the first glance that the gamekeeper has hung up his day’s sport on the wall and that some of the birds are still in the death-flutter.” Vertue tells us that when Gibbon had completed his labours at Chatsworth, he carved, and presented to the Duke, a “ point -lace cravat,” a woodcock, and a medal with his own * See Faulkner’s “ Fulham.” GRINLING GIBBON 83 head upon it, which are preserved under glass in the gallery.* I may mention here that not all the actual execution of these works was from the hand of Gibbon ; indeed he seems to have received no little assistance, for although he was, no doubt, responsible for all the designs and for the more intricate portions of the carving, a certain Samuel Watson, a native of Derbyshire, did a consider- able amount of work under his direction at Chatsworth. A number of memoranda written by Watson have been preserved, by which we learn that, on September 24, 1704, he received no less a sum than .£342 odd for work done by him,t in wood, and still larger sums for carvings in wood and stone. So much indeed did he do here that it has been claimed for him that it was he and he only who was responsible for these embellishments at Chatsworth. The absence of Gibbon’s name from the auditor’s accounts connected with the building of the mansion, and the feeble epitaph on Watson’s tomb which begins : Watson is gone, whose skilful art displayed To the very life whatever nature made : View but his wondrous works at Chatsworth Hall, Which are so gazed at and admired by all, have been supposed to afford more or less incontrovertible proof of the assertion ; but as Cunningham well says, “ Had the real masterpieces of Chatsworth been Watson’s, Watson would not have remained in Derbyshire to lead an obscure life, and be buried with a doggerel epitaph.” t At a somewhat later period than the Chatsworth embellishments were those which Gibbon undertook at Petworth, the decoration of one of the rooms in which * Walpole adds to this : “ I have another point cravat by him, the art of which arrives even to deception, and Herodias with St. John’s head, alto- relievo in ivory.” This subsequently belonged to the Baroness Burdett- Coutts. There was also a specimen at Cullum House, Banffshire. f See Rhodes’s “ Peak Scenery.” t See Gilpin, and Lysons’s “ History of Derbyshire,” for the reasons of Watson’s claims as against those of Gibbon. 84 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS mansion Walpole calls “the most superb monument of his skill ” ; and well he map, for the panels of the apart- ment (measuring 60 ft. bp 24 ft., and 20 ft. in height) are one mass of profuse decoration exhibiting in extra- ordinarp richness, fruit, flowers, shells, birds and sculp- tured vases, together with festoons enclosing the spaces in which pictures are introduced.* Here, too, he executed that antique vase with a bas-relief which has been described as “ of the purest taste, and worthp the Grecian age of cameos,” and which would have been destroped in a fire which occurred in the mansion, had not one of Gibbon’s assistants, Selden, rescued it, losing his life in the act, however. Another countrp seat wherein Gibbon’s wood-carving map be seen to the greatest advantage, is Burghlep House, where, in addition to the altar-piece and other work in the Chapel, alreadp referred to, he was responsible for a number of overmantels (in the Brown Drawing- room and Jewel Closet, for instance), over-doors and picture-frames (in the Black and Yellow Bedchamber, the First George Room, and elsewhere). At Houghton there are also two overmantels from his hand, and at Badminton the wall decorations in the Librarp are excellent specimens of his skill ; while in the following mansions examples, more or less elaborate, are to be seen : Belton House, t near Grantham ; Blenheim Palace ; Cassioburp Park ; Wimpole ; Gosford House ; Somer- lepton, near Lowestoft; Melburp House ;+ Gatton Park ; Studlep Ropal ; Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire ; Lowther Castle ; Witlep Court ; Lpme House, near Dislep ; Wollaston ; Hurstmonceaux Place ; Stanstead House, Hants ; Sodburp Hall, Derbpshire ; and Lee Place, near Charlburp, Oxfordshire ; while he also decorated the house of Sir Edward Waldo in Cheap- side, with carvings which were subsequentlp removed to Gungrog, near Welshpool. * See “ History of Western Sussex,” vol. ii. part i. p. 282. “j* The method of preserving Gibbon’s carving from worms, &c., invented by W. Gibbs (1792-1875), was applied successfully here as well as at Chats* worth. GRINLING GIBBON 85 Besides these, Gibbon’s carving may be seen in the Hall of the Inner Temple ; in Heralds’ College ; in the New River House, Clerkenwell ; in the Bristol City Library ;* in the Hall of the Skinners’ Company, Dowgate Hill ; and in Wren’s Library at Trinity College, Cambridge ; and even so far away as Modena, where some carving by him, in the Ducal Palace, is conjectured to have been sent as a gift by Charles II. Gibbon’s work, in this direction, in the King’s Gallery at Kensing- ton Palace, is known to most people, and the recent dismantling and sale of Holme Lacy (Lord Chesterfield’s seat) has drawn attention to the beautiful specimens which were, till recently, to be seen in the Dining- room and elsewhere there. It is probable that Gibbon decorated Monmouth House, Soho Square, the carvings in which residence were said, by J. T. Smith, who saw them in company with Nollekens just before the place was pulled down, to resemble those by Gibbon in St. James’s, Piccadilly. Among the other work by Gibbon, recorded by Vertue or Walpole, may be mentioned a chimney-piece adorned with flowers and vases at Stanstead, the seat of the Earl of Halifax, and a carved frame surrounding a portrait of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, which was once at Strawberry Hill ; while he also made a design for the statues which were intended to decorate the mauso- leum to Charles I., which Wren was commissioned to erect, but which never emerged from its initial stages.t Even this extensive list does not exhaust what Gibbon did in this direction.! Few country seats, dating from this period, fail to exhibit something, more or less notable, said to be from his hand ; although there is no doubt that much which is attributed to him is only in his style and is really the work of followers who copied his designs, or assistants who worked more or less directly * See “ History of Bristol City Library,” by Charles Tovey. •j* Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, once possessed “The Earl of Strafford, a whole length, finely carved in ivory, by Mr. Gibbon.” One wonders where it is now ! t Walpole notes that “ at Mr. Norton’s, at Southwick, in Hampshire, was a whole gallery embroidered in panels by his hand,” 86 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS under his superintendence. The split pea, which he was fond of introducing among his fruit decorations, is generally regarded as a kind of “ signature,” proving such carvings in which it appears, to be his, although it seems probable that this may have been occasionally imitated by copyists, and can hardly be regarded as a positive proof of authenticity. Much, too, of Gibbon’s work has undoubtedly been spoilt, like so much other decorative carving, by the layers of paint and varnish with which a later period covered them, and it is only necessary to see examples of his untouched work to realise with what skill (apart from the inherent artistry of design and arrangement) he beautified the wood over which the magic of his tools had passed. In 1714 Gibbon was appointed Master Carver to George L, receiving a salary of is. 6 d . a day — one of those practically honorary offices which rather indicated recognition of talent than any attempt to add to the emoluments of the person thus honoured. This post and its “ moderate bounty ” were held by Gibbon for the short remainder of his life, a period of only seven years, as he died on August 3, 1721, at his house in Bow Street, # being buried in the churchyard of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, on August 10. In November 1722 an auction was held of his effects, included among which were several examples of his work, notably two chimney- pieces which were valued, respectively, at £ 100 and £120 ; and his bust in marble by himself. f Of Gibbon’s pupils and assistants little is known ; Selden, as we have seen, risked and lost his life to save an example of his master’s skill, but this solitary and rather pathetic circumstance is all that has been preserved concerning him ; many better remembered men might be pleased to have come down to posterity, with so meagre but, at the same time, so honourable a record. Watson carried out much of Gibbon’s design at Chatsworth, * He had resided here since 1678. In 1701, this house fell down ( see the Postman for January 24, 1701), but was rebuilt by Gibbon. 4 Probably that which Nahum Tate has “ celebrated ” in verse. GRINLING GIBBON 87 but can hardly be regarded as an original artist ; Henry Phillips assisted the master at Whitehall ; a certain Dievot or Dyvoet of Brussels and Laurens of Mechlin are known to have done journeyman work for him, notably on the statue of James II. already referred to, and after being in this country for some years, to have returned to their native towns, where they presumably carried on their trade not without success, the former, at least, being recorded as having become rich from its proceeds ; the latter dying in easy circumstances at Mechlin, in 1715. Besides the marble bust which Gibbon executed of himself, Sir Godfrey Kneller painted his portrait, which was once at Houghton and is now at St. Petersburg, and from which J. R. Smith executed a print ; it represents the sculptor in a full flowing wig and ample gown, holding with one hand a head of Niobe (probably from some actual carving executed by him) and with the other grasping, in a very affected and unworkmanlike way, a pair of compasses. In another picture of Gibbon, painted by Closterman, and also engraved by Smith, he is represented with his wife, but there is no record extant telling us of the date of his marriage. His wife, however, predeceased him, in December 1719, and was buried, on the 30th of that month, in St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. They had nine or ten children, five of whom were daughters, one, Catherine, becoming the wife of Joseph Biscoe, and being buried at Chelsea on January 23, 1732. The baptisms of Gibbon’s children are recorded in the register of St. Paul’s, where the sculptor’s name is variously spelt, as I have before mentioned. Although there is thus a certain amount of information available about his work and his personal appearance, we know curiously little of the character of Grinling Gibbon. That a man whom so judicious a person as John Evelyn continued to befriend during his life should have been both honest and sober-living, goes almost without saying. That he was grateful to those who assisted him is equally proved. Perhaps the extraordinary 88 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS reputation he achieved may have made him a little vain and self-satisfied, as he looks in Kneller’s portrait, but that will not detract from the splendour of the legacy, unique of its kind, which he has left to later wondering generations. STATUE OF QUEEN ANNE By Bird CHAPTER V BUSHNELL, BIRD, RYSBRACK, SCHEEMAKERS, ROUBILIAC, AND OTHERS Although Grinling Gibbon is chiefly associated with the days of Charles II., he lived, as we have seen, through the reigns of that monarch’s three successors and well into that of George L, the result being that his career overlapped those of several other sculptors, who were working in this country at the same time, but who are usually regarded as later men. None of these was of first-rate importance, although the last of them I shall speak of, Francis Bird, has claims to more consideration than the others. As Bird was essentially the sculptor of Queen Anne’s reign, his career will conveniently round off what I have to say about those who practised the art in England, before we come to the notable men who illustrated it, in so distinguished a way, under the Georges. The first sculptor to be noticed is Thomas Beniere , who, although a Frenchman, was born in this country in 1663. He produced a number of small works in marble, which are said to have been “ much commended ” ; but they have not survived, at least with any known mark of their provenance, to our day, although Vertue states that the “ anatomic figure commonly seen in the shops of apothecaries was taken from his original model.” Beniere seems to have been rather an industrious work- man than an inspired sculptor, probably turning out with facility, and a certain success, those busts which he is known to have executed at two guineas each, a sum which at once indicates his capacity. His short life was passed in the East End, and he both lived and died at a house near the Fleet Ditch, in 1693, having thus only attained his thirtieth year. 89 90 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Another foreigner who was working in our midst, at this time, was one Quellin , about whom so little is known that not even his Christian name has survived. His father, Artus Quellin, is said to have been a successful carver in Antwerp — indeed, the whole family- had a bent this way — but when the son settled in this country is not recorded. However, inasmuch as he is known to have resided in a large house in Tower Street, St. Giles’s, near the Seven Dials, we may assume that he carried on his art as successfully here as his father did in Flanders. But as a matter of fact we only know of a single work from his hand, namely, the curious and remarkable monument to Thomas Thynne of Longleat — Tom of Ten Thousand — in Westminster Abbey. On the tomb there is a representation of Thynne’s murder on February 12, 1682, when he was shot in his coach,* at the bottom of the Haymarket, either by Count Konigsmarck or ruffians in his pay. Of more importance was John Bushnell , to whom reference has before been made in connection with Thomas Burman, whose pupil he was, and who was born in England about the middle of the seventeenth century, although the actual year is not known. He became, as a youth, a pupil of Burman, but owing to an act of tyranny on the part of his master, he left him and went to France, where he studied the sculptor’s art for about two years. Having, apparently, learnt all he could there, he again set off on his travels, this time to Italy, and spent some time both in Rome and Venice, executing, while in the latter city, a sumptuous monument representing the Siege of Candia and a naval engagement between the Venetians and the Turks, for one of the Procurators of St. Mark’s. It seems probable that Bushnell considered that his training was now complete, for he returned to England and set up as a sculptor in London. Here he does not appear to have lacked patrons ; indeed he * A Welshman once claimed that his family was so illustrious that a member of it was represented on a monument in the Abbey, and being asked whereabouts, replied, “ In the same monument with Squire Thynne, for he was his coachman.” JOHN BUSHNELL 91 received official recognition, soon after his return, for we find him, not long after, engaged on statues of Charles I. and Charles II., for the Royal Exchange, as well as one of Sir Thomas Gresham, destined for the same building. It appears that he had been commissioned to execute statues of the whole of the kings of England, for the Royal Exchange, but happening to hear that another sculptor, who is said to have been Cibber, was making efforts to obtain the work, he refused to proceed with them, although he had already begun half a dozen or more. It is not known what motive induced him to act thus. Cibber was already too famous for Bushnell to wish to give him such a chance of exhibiting his skill, and so I fear that altruism cannot be regarded as the cause ; more likely is it that he was unwilling to work in competition with another, as he might conceivably have been called upon to do, and, as the capriciousness of his temper has been recorded, a fit of annoyance may have determined him thus to throw up a promising and even a splendid commission. He was, however, respon- sible for the royal statues adorning Temple Bar, which are said to have been the best things he ever produced. Among his other works were a number of sepulchral monuments, chief of which was that to Lord Ashburnham in Ashburnham Church, Sussex ; that to Mrs. Grew, wife of Dr. Grew, in Christ Church, Newgate Street ; one for Lord Thomond, in Northamptonshire; and those of Cowley, the poet, and Sir Palmes Fairborne, in Westminster Abbey, for which Dryden wrote the epitaph, and the statue of John, Lord Mordaunt, on his tomb in Fulham Church, which Dallaway regards as a better specimen of his skill than some of those named can pretend to be. He is also said to have executed a bust of William Talman, the architect of Chatsworth, who was his contemporary. This is not a very splendid total, but there is no doubt that Bushnell was also engaged in a variety of other work, much of it doubtless journeyman labour, and, were a reason wanted for the relatively few examples of his more 92 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS ambitious sculpture, it might easily be found in his curiously wayward temper and complex character ; for, not content with following his own art, he must needs be continually dabbling in invention of one sort and another, sometimes based on a more or less sound theory, oftener being but childish attempts to prove what nobody had ever thought worth denying. Thus, having heard the famous Trojan Horse laughed at as a fable, incapable of being executed, he determined to demonstrate the contrary, to which end he designed and had made, in timber, a horse of such proportions that in the head alone a dozen people could sit round a table, the interior being lighted by two windows formed by the animal’s eyes. This he intended should be covered with plaster, but before it was completed, a storm overthrew the effigy, and he lost .£500 by the venture. Two vintners, recognising that there might be at least a succes cPestime , if the structure was converted into a drinking booth, offered to erect it again at their own charges, but Bushnell was either too disappointed at the collapse of his toy, or was too furious at the thought of its being put to such vile uses, to comply with the suggestion. Another of his abortive schemes was the bringing of coals to London from the North by vessels ; but this, which really had in it, or should have had, the elements of success, landed him in still greater financial loss. To crown all he had purchased an estate in Kent, but there being some defect in the title, a law-suit was the con- sequence. He lost the case, and this seems to have given the final blow to his intellect, which must always have been a weak and unbalanced one. He died in 1701, and was buried in Paddington Church, although the registers, being defective for that year, contain no record of his decease. It is difficult to estimate the extent of Bushnell’s powers as a sculptor. Such examples as are known to be his, do not indicate any great originality or depth of thought, and we know that, during his own day, he was accused of being unable to carve the naked figure and that his attempt to prove his critics in the wrong, by JOHN BUSHNELL 93 producing a statue of Alexander the Great, was not a success. That he was, however, skilful in his representa- tion of drapery, is allowed, and it is more than probable that had he not embarked on so many other projects alien to his art, he might, especially at such a period when sculpture could not boast many notable exponents, have continued to make a name for himself, far more widely known than his now is ; he might, conceivably, have come down with the same sort of reputation among sculptors, as Kneller has done among painters ; but he would hardly, I think, have done more. Bushnell had two sons and a daughter, and as he left them all fairly well to do, notwithstanding his numerous monetary losses, and he certainly had no money with his wife, who was originally one of his master, Burman’s, maid-servants, it seems fairly obvious that he must have been a successful, if not a notable, sculptor. Among his other ventures Bushnell built himself a large house in Park Lane ; but at his death it was characteristically left unfinished, and, still more characteristically, was unprovided with floors or staircases ! Here his two sons, after his death, lived in hermit fashion, never permitting any one to enter, and they are described as being sordid and unpractical, and saying the world had not been worthy of their father, which latter trait should be remembered in their favour. Vertue had long desired to see the interior of this strange abode, and in 1725, both the occupants being away on one of their rare excursions, his wish was gratified. He has left, among his MSS., an account of what he saw, notably a plaster model of Charles II. on horseback, broken and in ruins, the statue of Alexander already referred to, and the models of the kings which had been intended for the Royal Exchange. A large painting, representing a Triumph, in a state of decay, showed another direction which Bush- nell’s activity had taken, while still another was recalled by a thick bar of iron, which had been successfully divided by one of his inventions. The name of the next sculptor to whom we come is better known than are those of his immediate predecessors 94 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS or contemporaries. Francis Bird , who has been called the “ Founder of English Sculpture,” if not a great artist — and he can certainly hardly claim that distinction — was at least a successful one, and during the reigns of Anne and George I. he represented practically alone what was good or bad in this phase of art during the first quarter of the eighteenth century ; and it is pleasant to think that, as an Englishman, he to some extent filled the position which Roubiliac and Rysbrack were to occupy at a rather later period. Bird was born in Piccadilly, always rather identified with the art, as being the spot where numerous statuaries’ yards and workshops were once situated, in 1667. Nothing is known of his parentage, but his artistic descent is directly traceable to Cibber and Grinling Gibbon, on whom he at least attempted to model himself and to form his style. At the early age of eleven he was sent to Brussels, where he studied under a certain Cozens, who had once resided for a time in England, but of whom no other record has survived. Having apparently learnt all he could from this instructor, Bird set out for Rome, proceeding thither on foot it is said. Arrived there he placed himself under Le Gros, with whom, it seems likely, he imbibed better ideas than he was able to do in Flanders ; for apart from his new master’s capabilities, he was surrounded by all those wonderful relics of anti- quity which could hardly fail to have an influence on an impressionable youth. In 1686* Bird returned to England, where Grinling Gibbon and Caius Gabriel Cibber were then practically dividing the art of sculpture between them. He sought employment and found it with both in turn, so that his novitiate may be regarded as having been curiously varied and complete. A second journey to Rome, again undertaken on foot, seems to have satisfied Bird’s insatiable desire for knowledge and in- struction, and on his return to England, he set up for himself, having practically succeeded to Cibber’s large and remunerative practice. * Redgrave gives 1716 as the date of his return, but Cibber, under whom he is said to have worked, had then been dead six years. FRANCIS BIRD 95 The work which first drew general attention to Bird, and which is not only by far the best example of his skill, but is even regarded by some as the finest specimen of the sculpture of the time, was the monument to Dr. Busby, the famous master of Westminster School, who became later Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and is said to have “ birched the whole Bench of Bishops.” This ex- cellent example of the sculptor’s skill * stands in the nave of Westminster Abbey, and well holds its place even among the many fine monuments by which it is surrounded. Walpole tells us that Busby “ would never permit his picture to be drawn, and the moment he was dead, his friends had a cast in plaster taken from his face, and thence a drawing in crayons, from which White engraved his print, and Bird carved his image.” It is certainly in this work that the truth of the assertion that “ Cibber and Gibbon were both more or less responsible for Bird, who set himself to profit by their examples,” is best attested ; but at the same time, it is so much better than the generality of this sculptor’s productions, that it can hardly be regarded as characteristic, and should rather be looked upon as one of those works in which men, not essentially great, have yet occasionally risen almost to greatness. “ Though not in itself superexcellent,” says Mr. Ernest Radford, “ it is yet a marvel of art if we compare it only with other works by the same hand.” The friendship and patronage of Wren did much towards forwarding Bird’s interests. At this time the finishing touches were being put to St. Paul’s, and Bird was one of those engaged on its final embellishment. His chief contribution was the group in the pediment at the west end, depicting “ The Conversion of St. Paul.” It is 64 ft. by 18 ft., and contains eighteen equestrian figures as well as numerous others, and the cost of it was .£1180; while for the bas-reliefs under the portico, also executed by Bird, .£450 was paid. Walpole, speaking of the pediment, says : “ Any statuary was good enough for an ornament at that height, and a good statuary had been * Nollekens on one occasion spoke of it as being “very good.” 9 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS too good.” There is some truth in this, although the principle is obviously a defective one. The fact is the work represents the good and bad qualities of the sculptor and cannot rightly be described as either wholly good or wholly bad. It is certainly over-elaborated, but Bird might have argued logically enough that this was necessary on account of its distance from the spectator, an argument which rather obviously swayed him when depicting the stone rays of sunlight, which he has painfully exaggerated in order to produce an effect ; this they certainly do, although the effect is gained by the overwhelming of the rest of the composition. But there is another point which has not, I think, been sufficiently considered, and it is this : the purely decorative additions to a masterpiece of architecture, must always, to a large extent, be dominated, if not overwhelmed, by the beauty of the building lines. When we look at some great edifice we instinctively consider it as a whole, and, regarding it so, the subsidiary orna- mentation becomes merged in the main outlines of the erection, and if the former are not too painfully aggressive they sink, as it were, into the main scheme of the work and become mere episodes in its story. It is for this reason that both good and bad sculpture, so applied, is apt to be inaccurately judged, and this is why Walpole’s remark contains a certain amount of truth. In addition to his work on the fabric (including five figures of Apostles, twice the size of life, on the roofs of the transept), Bird was employed to carve the statue of Queen Anne which for long stood in front of the cathedral, but which is to-day replaced by Mr. Belt’s copy. This statue, together with the pedestal and the four figures surrounding the latter, cost .£1130, a sufficiently large sum to show that Bird’s reputation was at least secure during his lifetime. It is curious how much indiscrimi- nate abuse has been showered on this work. The author of the “Abrege,” quoted by Walpole, seems to have begun it in his remark that “ A l’egard de la sculpture (en Angleterre) le marbre gemit, pour ainsi dire, sous des FRANCIS BIRD 97 ciseaux aussi peu habiles que ceux qui ont execute le groupe de la Reine Anne, place devant l’Eglise de St. Paul.” Garth in what Walpole terms “ admirable lines,” carried it on with his satire ; but Garth, who may have known something about medicine and certainly knew less about poetry, has never been credited with- any technical or critical knowledge of the fine arts (except in that all cultivated people suppose themselves connois- seurs) and is much more likely to have written for the sake of saying something smart than because he really had anything pertinent to say. And from Garth’s day till the year 1885, when the mutilated remains of the statue were removed (and, by-the-bye, replaced by an almost exact copy), there has been no lack of detractors, many of whom consisted of that class of critics who seem to think that disparagement is a sign of knowledge and that the only way to cry themselves up is by running down the work of others. The statue may not have been a striking example of the sculptor’s art ; very few in London are, for the matter of that ; but it hardly deserved the abuse which was levelled at it. It was, like much of Bird’s work, at least inspired by that Renaissance impulse which delighted in decorative motifs before all things and which, so long as it could give free play to light and shade in drapery, and embellish its work with rather florid attributes, seemed to care little for natural pose or simple effect. Among other works by Bird may be mentioned the monuments to Congreve, Killigrew, Dean Sprat, and Shadwell, to J. E. Grabe, a German scholar domiciled in England, and to Sidney, Earl Godolphin, of whom Charles II. once said that “ he was never in the way and never out of the way,” in Westminster Abbey ; and the statue of Wolsey which stands in a niche in Tom Tower of Christ Church, Oxford ; and which was set up when Wren completed the tower with his Gothic cone, which if not faultless is yet so u inevitable ” that we cannot imagine it in any other form. Bird also produced the brass figure of Henry VI. at Eton, which Walpole, not untruly, designates as “ a wretched performance indeed.” 98 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Far more successful was the sculptor in the large sepulchral monument erected to the memory of Viscount Mordaunt,* in Fulham Church, for which he received ^250, representing the amount paid for the carving alone. Another magnificent monument in which Bird had a hand, was that to the Duke of Newcastle, erected by his daughter, the Countess of Oxford, in Westminster Abbey. The monument was designed by Gibbs, who is said to have “ staked his immortality ” upon its success ; but Bird executed the work, and to him is alone due the recumbent effigy of the Duke. This has no little merit, and should be remembered to Bird’s credit, when one gazes at another monument in the Abbey by his hand, viz., the tomb of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, erected at Queen Anne’s expense, and probably as bad an example of the sculptor’s art as you will find in England. Indeed there are those who call it one of the worst in the world, and we know that Pope applied to it the epithet of “ the bathos of sculpture ” ; while Addison once remarked, in the Spectator , that “ Instead of the brave, rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing feature of that plain, gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau dressed in a long periwig and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state.” The fact is that Bird was one of the most unequal of artists : at one time producing what may be called a relative masterpiece, in his Dr. Busby, at another time sinking to mere journeyman work, exaggerated out of all seeming by a mania for elaborative accessory, as in his Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Nagler says of his work that it is barbarous in style and devoid of any charm, and later critics have, more or less, echoed his words ; but if not a great sculptor, Bird at least succeeded in becoming a popular one. Art and literature at this period form a very curious contrast. The latter was classical, restrained, and included some of the masterpieces of the writer’s art ; sculpture and painting were boisterous, exuberant, * Of which Bushnell, as we have seen, carved the statue. JOHN MICHAEL RYSBRACK RYSBRACK 99 exaggerated, and, to use again the untranslatable French word, flamboyant to a painful degree ; what wonder then that a man, admittedly no genius, should have been swept along in the current of popular predilection ? Rather should it be remembered to his credit that he was, on occasion, not wholly uninspired and even sometimes approached, if he never quite reached, per- fection. After an honourable and strenuous life, Bird died, in 1731, at the age of sixty-four. The short obituary notice of him in the Gentleman 1 s Magazine , for February 1731, contains the following words : “ Mr. Francis Bird, a famous statuary, as the many lofty tombs and magnificent monuments in Westminster Abbey and other churches sufficiently testify.” If the reign of Anne, so far as sculpture is concerned, cannot be said to have been particularly notable, those of her immediate successors may be regarded, in this respect, as important landmarks in the history of the art in this country. Unfortunately for our amour propre , this distinction was due, not to native talent, but to foreigners domiciled in our midst. Of these men, three stand forth conspicuously : Rysbrack, Scheemakers, and above all, Roubiliac. The first and last of these are well known and their work has been compared often enough, although there was not a great deal in common in their methods. Of the second, so little was at one time known, that Walpole, and therefore the more industrious Vertue, on whose foundations Walpole built the super- structure of his “ Anecdotes of Painting,” omitted his name altogether from their collections. These three men were contemporaries, although a few years seniority in age gives Rysbrack the claim to be first dealt with. According to the best accounts, John Michael Rysbrack was born in Antwerp, on June 24, 1693. His father, Peter Rysbrack, was a painter, who had lived for some time in this country in his youth, but subsequently went to Paris, where he married ; and later still sojourned in Brussels before finally returning to his native town, 100 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS where he died in 1726, at the age of eighty. Of the early years of his more illustrious son, we know nothing, until we come to his twenty-seventh year (1720), when we find him arriving in England, probably actuated in this choice of domicile by the fact that his father had been here before him, and, doubtless, had made friends who would be likely to be useful to the younger man. As was not unusual, in such circumstances, Rysbrack first set himself to the modelling of small figures in plaster and clay, rather as specimens of what he could do, and as a sort of advertisement, than anything else. The fact, however, proves that he had already served his apprenticeship abroad, even if he had never completed his novitiate by the then almost recognised necessity of a visit to Italy. His first patron appears to have been the Earl of Nottingham, of whom he modelled a bust, and so successfully, that he at once attracted attention and began, to use Walpole’s words, “ to be employed on large works, particularly monuments.” About this time, James Gibbs, the famous architect, was being employed on the erection of St. Martin’s-in-the- Fields, St. Mary-le-Strand, and other important works ; having taken, to some extent, the position formerly held by Wren. The architect quickly recognised that here, to his hand, he had a young sculptor who could not only help to embellish with carvings the buildings he was erecting, but could also undertake the execution of some of the monuments which he was being commissioned to produce. Walpole, who was never friendly to Gibbs, insinuates that many of the latter were entirely executed by Rysbrack, and that the architect not only gained the chief credit of them, but also benefited, in a pecuniary sense, by their production. But even were this the case it would not prove Gibbs to have been a hard taskmaster or an unfair employer of labour. Rysbrack was quite old enough to look after himself, and the fact that he was taken under the wing of the most fashionable and successful architect of the day, was sufficient, in itself, to more than RYSBRACK ioi repay what work he did under his patron’s cegis. We are told that for the statues on the monument to Prior, in Westminster Abbey,* G bbs received .£100 apiece, and that he paid Rysbrack .£35 for each figure ; but, apart from the fact that 35 per cent, does not seem bad pay for an employer to allow a workman, it must be remem- bered that Gibbs could have obtained the aid of a journey- man sculptor, whose work would have been deemed adequate, for even less, and that Lord Oxford would not have given the commission to a man, however good, who had not already made a name for himself. The earlier years, the unknown years, as we may call them, of men who have subsequently achieved distinction, are full of these incidents in which the parsimony, as it is termed, of their employers is arraigned because of the pupil’s later fame. The point is that, at the t me, the pupil was glad enough of the opportunity of distinguishing himself, as he might, otherwise, never have been able to do, under the wing of some one who had already obtained success. “ The statuary (Rysbrack) though no vain man, felt his own merit, and shook off his dependence on the architect, as he became more known and admired.” Thus Walpole, who is merely chronicling the usual process (where a pupil finds he has gained all he wants from a master, and can at length afford to act for himself), but who seems to think that he is illustrating a kind of nobility of action in Rysbrack. Before leaving Gibbs, Rysbrack carved, from his master’s designs, the large monument to John Holies, Duke of Newcastle,! in Westminster Abbey, in 1723 ; the first important work — in size, at any rate — which he under- took ; the memorial to Ben Jonson, also in the Abbey, which was erected by the Earl of Oxford from Gibbs’s designs, in 1737, but was wholly executed by Rysbrack, * The poet left £500 for “This last piece of human vanity,” as he calls it. The bust in it was by A. Coysevox, and had been presented to Prior by Louis XIV., in 1714. t The figures, as we have seen, were, however, by Francis Bird. 102 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS and one to Dr. Freind, also designed by Gibbs. Before saying anything about those works for which he was entirely responsible, I may remind the reader that Rysbrack executed a few monuments designed by William Kent. Of them the most important were those to Earl Stanhope, in which a sitting figure of Minerva and certain bas-reliefs are introduced, and to Sir Isaac Newton,* consisting of a statue with bas-reliefs at the base, which cost £500, both of which may be seen in Westminster Abbey. Perhaps the most important of Rysbrack’s individual productions is the superb monument, as Sir George Scharf termed it, to the Duke and Duchess of Marl- borough, and their two sons who died young, in the chapel at Blenheim. This fine work consists of figures of the Great Duke and his imperious Duchess ; beneath which is a sarcophagus supported by colossal figures, representing Fame and History, and below this, a bas- relief depicting the capture of Marshal Tallard. It was executed in 1733. Another example of Rysbrack’s sculpture, also at Blenheim, is the statue of Queen Anne, which stands in the Library, and bears beneath it, the following inscription : TO THE MEMORY OF QUEEN ANNE UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES JOHN, DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH CONQUERED AND TO WHOSE MUNIFICENCE HE AND HIS POSTERITY WITH GRATITUDE OWE THE POSSESSION OF BLENHEIM. A.D. MDCCXXVI. In the same year in which he executed the monument in Blenheim Chapel, Rysbrack produced his equestrian * Pope wrote an inscription for this which was not, however, used ; but the last two lines have become famous : “ Nature and Nature’s Laws, lay hid in night : God said, Let Newton be ! and all was light.” RYSBRACK 103 statue, in bronze, of William III.* at Bristol, for which he received .£1800. It was erected in the centre of Queen’s Square in 1736, and was commissioned by the Corporation of Bristol. It would seem that the statue had been open to competition, as Scheemakers also made a model for it, which, although rejected, was considered so meritorious that the sculptor was awarded .£50 as a solatium. From this time forward, for a number of pears, Rysbrack continued to be the fashionable sculptor, and the number of works he turned out is an eloquent proof of this. Although, as we have seen, he produced various large monuments (in addition to those mentioned, that to Miss Stanley, with an epitaph by James Thomson, in the Holy Rhood Church, near Southampton, another in Lymington Church, one to John Sympson, in Canterbury Cathedral, dated 1752, and another to Captain Powlett, in West Grinstead Church, may be named), a large part of his industry was expended on busts of which examples may be seen all over the country. Thus beyond those I have referred to as being in Westminster Abbey, where are also those of Sir Godfrey Kneller, Milton, Richard Kane, Nicholas Rome, erected by his widow, and Gay, set up by the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, on which appears the poet’s own couplet, Life is a jest, and all things show it ; I thought so once, and now I know it, as well as a monument to Admiral Vernon, “ Old Grog,” with figures of Britannia and Victory, there are busts of the second, third, and fourth Dukes of Beaufort at Badminton ; of Dr. Radcliffe, in the Radcliffe Library at Oxford; of George II. at Greenwich; of Sir Hans Sloane, formerly in the garden of his residence at Chelsea ; of Charles I., copied from Bernini’s famous work and executed, on commission, for George Augustus Selwyn ; and of Palladio, Fiamingo, and Inigo Jones, once at Chiswick House, from his hand. Of other monuments which Rysbrack produced may * There is a fine bronze in the Royal Collection which was probably modelled from this statue. io 4 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS be named those to Charles, Duke of Somerset, and his wife, in Salisbury Cathedral; to Lady Bessborough, at Derby; to Lady Folkestone at Coleshill, Berks ; as well as a Hercules and a Flora, formerly at Stourhead, and a statue of Locke in the Library at Christ Church, Oxford, once attributed to Roubiliac, which was completed by Rys brack in 1757. The busts of Palladio, Fiamingo, and Inigo Jones were produced, it is said, as a practical answer to those who, attracted by the rising of a new star in Scheemakers, were gradually deserting Rysbrack, as they did still more when Roubiliac appeared as a competitor to him some- what later. According to Gilpin, “ It was the work of emulation. Rysbrack had long enjoyed the public favour without a rival. Scheemakers first arose as a competitor, and afterwards Roubiliac, both artists of great merit : the latter of uncommon abilities.” There seems no doubt that these productions stayed for a while the ebb-tide of the sculptor’s popularity. But they were not sufficient to stem it entirely, and the Hercules which has been called his chef-d’oeuvre , “ an exquisite summary of his skill, knowledge, and judgment,” was a final attempt to assert his claims to be considered the sculptor of the time. “ This athletic statue,” writes Walpole, “ for which he borrowed the head of the Farnesian god, was compiled from various parts and limbs of seven or eight of the strongest and best made men in London, chiefly the bruisers and boxers of the then flourishing amphitheatre for boxing, the sculptor selecting the parts which were the most truly formed in each. The arms were Broughton’s, the breast a celebrated coachman’s, a bruiser, and the legs were those of Ellis the painter, a great frequenter of that gymnasium. As the games of that Olympic academy frequently terminated to its heroes at the gallows, it was soon after suppressed by Act of Parliament ; so that in reality Rysbrack’s Hercules is the monument of those gladiators. It was purchased by Mr. Hoare, and is the principal orna- ment of the noble temple of Stourhead.” * * “ Anecdotes of Painting.” RYSBRACK 105 Notwithstanding his industry and for a number of years his acceptance by the world of art and fashion, Rysbrack never succeeded in making a large fortune, and although the fact of his having a public sale of such works as remained on his hands, some time before his death, does not conclusively prove this, the circumstance seems, in his case, to have been made necessary by lack of money. He held more than one of these auctions, and at that which took place in 1765, thirty-seven “ lots ” were offered, consisting of vases, medallions, busts, models in terra-cotta, marble, and bronze. The highest individual price realised was £191 2 s., and the whole proceeds of the sale amounted to £991 10s. In another sale were included a large number of his drawings, which were, we are told, “ conceived and executed in the true taste of the great Italian masters.” Referring to these, Smith, in his “ Life of Nollekens,” remarks that “ though certainly considerably mannered, (they) possess a fertility of invention and a spirit of style in their execution seldom emanating from the hand of a sculptor of modern times. They are for the most part washed in bistre, and are frequently to be met with.” Rysbrack carried on his profession at a house in Vere Street, where he established one of those “ yards ” or manufactories of sculpture which were not infrequently to be met with in London in the eighteenth century, and where he was assisted by numerous pupils, of whom Delvaux, about whom I must say a word presently, was the most conspicuous. Of his private life little is known, that little being preserved by Rogers in certain notes prefixed to his “ Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings.” From this source, however, we learn that Rysbrack was reli- giously inclined and that he helped those of his relatives who required assistance, with money. Indeed, these drains on his resources were apparently so numerous and his good-nature was such, that to them Rogers attributes the fact that he was never able to accumulate a large fortune. He retired from active business when he was seventy years of age (1763), and his death occurred on 10 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS January 8, 1770, after which event a further sale of his remaining collection took place. Walpole’s silence concerning the next sculptor of the period, is the more curious as Peter Scheemakers was an artist of no small importance, and his name, though nothing else about him, is mentioned in the “ Anecdotes of Painting,” in connection with the model he made for the statue of William III. at Bristol, of which I have already spoken. Some excuse is forthcoming so far as the absence of any record of his private life is concerned, for, as a matter of fact, there is little to relate ; but that Walpole as well as Vertue should have overlooked the numerous evidences of the sculptor’s industry, and in some cases, success, is rather mysterious, and would almost suggest a purposed silence, unless it is due to a curious oversight. Wornum collected a few data about the career of Scheemakers, and on this one has, in the absence of other material, chiefly to rely. He was born at Antwerp in 1691, and was thus Rys- brack’s senior by two years. His father was also a sculptor, and from him, as well as from that Delvaux already referred to, the young Scheemakers gained his knowledge of the rudiments of the art. As a young man he is recorded as having visited Denmark, and in 1728 he set out from that country for Rome on foot. Unfortunately we know nothing of his doings in Italy, but we may take it for granted that he studied the relics of ancient art there, and that he came into touch with that numerous band of sculptors whose headquarters were in the Eternal City. From Rome he came to England, and found work with both Plumiere and Francis Bird. He seems first to have lived in St. Martin’s Lane, but in 1741 he removed to more commodious premises in Vine Street. It was about the year 1733 that he attempted to gain the commission for the statue of King William. Not improbably the disappointment attending his failure in this (although, as we know, his attempt was considered as so meritorious that he was awarded a solatium of .£50 by the Bristol Corporation) caused him again to travel to Rome. However, he could not have stayed long there, PETER SCHEEMAKERS SCHEEMAKERS 107 for in 1735 he returned to England, where he resided without a break till 1770. His second appearance here was the first pause given to the hitherto unchallenged popularity of Rysbrack, the work by which the new man achieved his first success being the execution of the statue of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey, which had been designed by Kent,* whose “ fashionable name,” as Walpole terms it, undoubtedly did much towards this result. The work itself can hardly be regarded as a masterpiece, but it had been “ invented ” by the fashion- able jack-of-all-trades of art of the period, and it was carved by a new man, both facts quite sufficient to give it an exaggerated merit in the eyes of a not very critical generation.! Although Scheemakers cannot truthfully be said to have been equal in artistic merit or invention to Rysbrack and still less to Roubiliac, who was, by far, the greatest of the trio, he was sufficiently good to prove a formidable rival to both, and just as he at length outdistanced the former, so he became as popular as the latter. A reason for this may be, perhaps, found in the fact that he greatly furthered that love for busts of the illustrious ones of the past and the noble ones of his own day. A sepulchral monument could, after all, only be occasionally seen by a patron, but a bust of himself or of some notable forebear, or classic writer or warrior, could stand always in his sight, above his books, or in his entrance hall, and could indicate to all and sundry his regard for his progenitors or his love for the classics. And so, I think, we may, to some extent, trace Scheemakers’s success to his having largely reintroduced this domestic form of sculpture, as it may be termed. It was not, therefore, inappropriate that Scheemakers’s most illustrious pupil, Nollekens, should have been chiefly famous in this branch of the sculptor’s art. * Another monument executed by Scheemakers from Kent’s designs was that to General Monk, also in the Abbey. t Walpole, speaking of Rysbrack’s growing loss of popularity and regarding this work as one of its causes, says : “ I shall say something hereafter on the defects of that design,” by which, I presume, he did intend to say something about Scheemakers. 108 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Besides the statue of Shakespeare, already referred to, several other memorials in Westminster Abbey are from Scheemakers’s hand, notably the figure of the Duchess, on the monument of Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire ; * that of Sir Charles Watson, a terrible affair, designed by James (Athenian) Stuart, which, with its towering palm branches and Oriental figures, wholly spoils the contour of the adjacent arches ; of Admiral Sir Charles Wager, with allegorical figures, and a bas-relief representing the departure of the Spanish treasure-ships in the West Indies ; and those to the memory of Sir Henry Belasyse, Admiral Sir John Balchen, Lord Aubrey Beauclerk, General Percy Kirk (of “ Kirk’s Lambs ” notoriety), Sir John Woodward, Lord Howe, and Dr. Hugh Chamber- lain.f There are, too, four busts in the Abbey, carved by him : those of Dr. Mead, Dr. Freind, John Dryden, set up in 1731, and replacing an earlier bust, and Horneck, the military engineer ; while one of Sir Hans Sloane, from his hand, is in the British Museum. Of his work scattered about various parts of the country, one of the most important examples is the group of the Duke of Kent, with his two wives, and daughters, at Fletton, in Bedfordshire. This group, which is executed in white marble, was produced in 1740. At Edenham, Lincolnshire, there may be seen his monument to the first and second Dukes of Ancaster, on which those noblemen are represented seated and habited as Romans. At Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, is his monument to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke ; at Gosfield, Essex, one to the memory of J. Knight, Esq. ; and at Staunton Hall, once the seat of Lord Ferrers, are busts of the Hon. Laurence Shirley, son of the first Earl Ferrers, and of his wife and four children ; while the monument to Henry Petty, Earl of Shelburne, at Wycombe, Bucks, and the figure on a sarcophagus to the memory of Montague Gerrard Drake, at Amersham, are also by Scheemakers. * In a volume of drawings by Roubiliac, Rysbrack, and Scheemakers, which once belonged to Nollekens, now in the Soane Museum, there is a sketch by Scheemakers of this monument. j* This was executed in conjunction with Delvaux. MONUMENT TO SHAKESPEARE By Scheemakers SCHEEMAKERS 109 Resides this not inconsiderable total, the sculptor executed a statue of Sir John Barnard, for the Royal Exchange ; of Admiral Pocock, Major Lawrence, and Lord Clive, for the India House ; of Edward VI., in bronze, for St. Thomas’s Hospital, and of Thomas Guy, for Guy’s Hospital, a figure which still stands in the fore- court of that institution. He also produced a colossal statue of George II., a bust of Earl Temple, and life-size statues of Lycurgus, Socrates, Homer, and Epaminondas, for Stowe Park ; and for the same place he executed, in rivalry with Delvaux, two marble groups, one repre- senting Vertumnus and Pomona, the other, Venus and Adonis. This does not exhaust Scheemakers’s achievements, but it is sufficient to indicate the extent and variety of his work. His headquarters, in London, were situated in Vine Street, Piccadilly, and it was here that young Nollekens came to him, as a pupil, in 1750, working under “ his friendly master,” as Smith phrases it, “ full ten years, without the exchange of one unpleasant word.” Scheemakers remained in England till 1770, about which time he returned to Antwerp, where he shortly afterwards died, having reached the ripe age of eighty-nine. He had a son, Thomas, whose dates are 1740-1808, who was also a not unsuccessful sculptor. Laurent Delvaux (1695-177 8), whom it is convenient to mention here, because, although senior to Scheemakers, he is largely identified with him and some of his work, was a pupil of Plumiere and afterwards of Francis Bird. He accompanied Scheemakers to Italy in 1728, and having stayed there some four or five years, during which time he found plenty of employment, especially at the hands of the Portuguese Minister in that country, he returned to England in 1733. While here he executed a group formerly at Stowe, and a statue of Hercules for Earl Tilney at Wanstead. The figure of Time on the Duke of Buckingham’s monument in the Abbey was also by him, and there is a sleeping Venus at Holkham from his hand. But perhaps his best-known work is the bronze lion, about which so many stories clustered, formerly on the top of no LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Northumberland House, Charing Cross, and now at Syon House, Isleworth. Delvaux, who did not remain long in this country, afterwards went to Brussels, of which city he was probably a native. He had, while in Italy, received an introduction from the Pope, Clement XIII., to the Papal Nuncio in Brussels, and through the instrumentality of the latter, was made chief sculptor to the Archduchess Marie Elizabeth and the Emperor Charles VI. On the death of the latter, he entered the service of Charles, Duke of Lorraine, in the same capacity, in 1750. Towards the end of his life he retired to Nivelles, where he died on February 24, 1778. Isaac Whood painted his portrait while he was in this country, a portrait that was engraved by Alexander van Halcken. It represents him wearing a turban and clothed in a fur-trimmed gown, and resting his left hand on the head of the Hercules which, from this circumstance, we may suppose him to have regarded as his chef- d'oeuvre * The name of Roubiliac is better known than that of any other sculptor of this period ; indeed it would not, perhaps, be too much to say that it is one of the half-dozen best-remembered names in the history of sculpture. Yet, notwithstanding this, D’Argenville, who compiled and published only twenty-five years after Roubiliac’s death, a record of the most notable French sculptors, omitted his name altogether from the list ; and even Walpole, who recognised his merit, and should have had some reason to be proud of the part his brother, Sir Edward Walpole, played in making the sculptor known, accords him but a beggarly two dozen lines in his “ Anec- * Another foreigner who was working in England at this time was Signor Guelfi , who was brought hither by Lord Burlington, for whom he did much work at Chiswick and Burlington House. He also repaired the “ Arundel Marbles ” for Lord Pomfret, but not very successfully. A more important work was his monument to Mr. Secretary Craggs, in the Baptistery in West- minster Abbey, about which Pope, who wrote the inscription on it, took so much trouble. The poet considered that when set up it would be the finest figure in the place ; but Pope was prejudiced, as any one may see by looking at the work. After living in England for twenty years, Guelfi returned to Bologna, his native town, in 1734. ROUBILIAC hi dotes of Painting.” Indeed, it is a curious fact that notices of the sculptor in contemporary literature are few and far between, and are confined to casual references in Goldsmith’s “ Citizen of the World,” in Foote’s farce, entitled “ Taste,” and in a poem by Lloyd, the friend of Charles Churchill. D’Argenville’s silence has been regarded as arising from the fact that Roubiliac, though a Frenchman, and as such properly coming within the scope of his work, lived and laboured chiefly in this country, and that, as Cunningham says, ic he was known to the world through his English works' alone.” But this very circumstance should, one would think, have caused Walpole to take particular care to find out, and set down, as he might have done with little trouble and much success, when the sculptor’s fame was still fresh in the minds of living men, everything possible that could be gleaned about him and his works. But as Walpole says all he wants to about Wren in the space of four or five octavo pages, we need hardly look for any recondite reason to explain why a few lines were held by him sufficient in which to dismiss Roubiliac. The unfortunate thing is that the silence of men who might easily have been able to glean authentic data, has resulted in our being left in painful ignorance of many incidents in the sculptor’s life about which it would have been helpful and interesting to know ; and although so much of his work speaks for itself, and enables us to judge his merits, in his private career many lacunce , which it is now practically impossible to fill up, exist.* Louis Francis Roubiliac (Anglice Roubiliac ) was born at Lyons, towards the close of the seventeenth century, and although the actual year is not known, 1695 is generally regarded as the date of his birth. His artistic training was carried on first under his kinsman, Nicolas Coustous, and then under Balthazar of Dresden, sculptor to the Elector of Saxony. We are not told that he had any other instruction, and he was one of the few artists * The best source of information is M. Le Roy de Sainte- Croix’s “Vie et Ouvrages de L. F. Roubiliac,” 1882. 1 12 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS of that period who did* not begin their artistic careers by at least paying a flying visit to Italy. In other respects his education seems to have been carefully attended to, and he is said not only to have possessed an accurate acquaintance with French literature, but to have had an unusually close knowledge of the poetry of his native land, occasionally making excursions into verse himself, with more or less success. Like many of his countrymen, however, he seems to have found difficulty in mastering the English language, for although he lived for over forty years in this country, he never succeeded in over- coming this, and, to the end of his life, spoke broken English, and if he enabled himself to be understood, it was as much as he did. The year 1720 is generally regarded as the date of his arrival in this country, although as he is known to have gained the second Grand Prix of the Academie Royale de Peinture, with a work representing “ Daniel saving the Chaste Susanna,” in 1730, it seems more than probable that his first appearance in our midst was subsequent to this year. With his coming to these shores a story — perhaps legendary, but still a story — is connected. According to this anecdote, an Englishman strolling about in a French town, presumably Lyons, was attracted by some clay models exhibiting more than usual promise, and having made a note of their producer’s name, passed on his way. Some years later, a friend in England asked this very traveller for his advice as to the best man to undertake a piece of sculpture which he wished executed, and . . . but, as has been well said, when you know the end of a story, the story is told, and you wi 1 , of course, realise that Roubiliac was the sculptor sent for to execute the work. The tale has a ring of familiarity about it, besides being somewhat vague and inconclusive, which leaves one rather sceptical. Nor does it much matter under what conditions Roubiliac came to England ; the important point is that he did come, and for a time met with such little success that he was employed as a journeyman in the yard of Thomas LOUIS FRANCIS ROUBILIAC ROUBILIAC 1 13 Carter,* of Knightsbridge, the turner-out of now unconsidered monuments ; while he is also said to have spent some time, in a like manner, with Cheere,f whose statuary yard in Piccadilly was at that time a well-known centre of sculptural activity. Although there does not seem much doubt that Roubiliac’s native talent would, sooner or later, have distinguished him from among the sculptors who were then at work in this country — Rysbrack and Scheemakers among them — it is said that he owed his first step towards success to Sir Edward Walpole, under the following circumstances. The anecdote used to be told by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was intimately acquainted with Roubiliac, and is thus related by Northcote, so that there is perhaps more truth in it than in many such stories : “ Very soon after he arrived in England, and was then working as journeyman to Carter, a maker of monu- ments, having spent an evening at Vauxhall, on his return he picked up a pocket-book, which he found to enclose several bank-notes of value. He immediately advertised the circumstance, and a gentleman of fashion (Sir Edward Walpole X) claimed the pocket-book. Justly appreciating and remunerating the integrity of the poor young man, and the specimens of his skill and talent which he exhibited, he promised to patronise him through life, and he faithfully performed that promise.” It is said that the only recompense Roubiliac would accept from Sir Edward was the gift of a buck, which his patron sent him annually. It would appear that Sir Edward recommended Roubiliac to Cheere, and that the latter in turn intro- duced him to Jonathan Tyers, at that time engaged * He was a protege of Jervas, the portrait-painter, and executed the bas-relief on Colonel Townsend’s monument in Westminster Abbey, in conjunction with Eckstein. Flaxman had a very high opinion of this work. X “ The man at Hyde Park Corner,” as Lord Ogleby, in “ The Clandes- tine Marriage,” calls him. A number of monuments by him are in West- minster Abbey, notably to Sir Thomas Hardy, John Conduitt, Hugh Boulter, Samuel Bradford, and Dean Wilcocks, on whose tomb is a repre- sentation of the west towers of the Abbey, erected during his deanship. X Le Roy de Sainte-Croix gives the name as that of Sir Robert Walpole ! H 1 14 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS (1732) on his Vauxhall speculation, and for whom, as we know, both Cheere and Hogarth were engaged in decorating the gardens with statues and paintings. It was, too, at Cheere’s suggestion that a statue of Handel formed one of the embellishments of the place, and this statue was the work of Roubiliac. According to Cunningham, it stood in the gardens as early as 1744, although Smith, # giving a receipt dated June 9, 1750, wherein the sculptor writes, “ I promise to pay Jona. Tyers twenty pounds on demand, value received,” seems to infer that this transaction had something to do with this particular work ; whereas it rather obviously indicates that Tyers had lent Roubiliac the money, and that the document was an i.o.u. for the amount, and cannot be regarded as being in the nature of money paid on account for work to be done by Roubiliac ; whether that particular work was the statue of Handel, or anything else.f According to Walpole, this statue at once “ fixed Roubiliac’s fame.” Smith, in his “ Life of Nollekens,” gives the following account of the work and its later history : “ The statue of Handel,” he says, “ of which there is a beautiful engrav- ing by Bartolozzi, after being moved to various situa- tions in the gardens, was at length conveyed to the house of Mr. Barrett, at Stockwell, and thence to the entrance hall of the residence of his son, the Rev. Jonathan Tyers Barrett, D.D., of No. 14 Duke Street, West- minster. It is now (1828) to be sold, and may be seen in the hall of Mr. Newton’s private house, No. 69 Dean Street, Soho. When Mr. Nollekens was asked by the late Mr. Tyers what he considered that statue to be worth, he immediately answered, ‘A thousand guineas.’ ”J Another early commission which Roubiliac received, on the recommendation of Sir Edward Walpole, was * “ Life of Nollekens.” f £300 was the price paid by Tyers for the statue. Roubiliac is also said to have executed a Milton for Vauxhall. t The model for the statue once belonged to Hudson, the painter, and was in his house at Twickenham, being on his death purchased by Nollekens for £3. At the disposal of Nollekens’ collection it became the property of Hamlet, the silversmith, for ten guineas. ROUBILIAC US the execution of certain of the busts which adorn Trinity College, Dublin, among which was the famous one of Swift.* The sculptor’s studio at this time was in Peter’s Court, St. Martin’s Lane,f and here he began to be busily engaged, not only on these busts, but also on the many commissions that were now given him. Of these one of the most important was that for the monu- ment to John, Duke of Argyle, on which he was employed, again at the instance of Sir Edward Walpole. This fine work, Roubiliac’s first attempt at such an ambitious under- taking (it dates from 1743), may be seen in the south tran- sept of Westminster Abbey, where it remains as one of the best examples of the sculptor’s genius, the figure of Eloquence on it being a particularly masterly achievement. The Duke, warrior and statesman, is shown dying at the base of a pyramid on which a figure typifying History is inscribing the record of his splendid deeds, Minerva looking on regretfully the while, and Eloquence voicing the sadness of his end. It will be observed that History, in writing the words, “John Duke of Argyle and Gr ,” is executing a not ineffective aposiopesis, for grief is supposed to check her before she can complete the word Greenwich (which title expired with the Duke). Roubiliac could not entirely discard the usual allegorical stock-in-trade so fashionable in his day, nor does he combine the figures as ably as one would wish ; but where he advances so far beyond other contemporary sculptors is in the beauty, the truth to life, and the animation observable in the various figures, and Canova recognised this when he once said, “ This is one of the noblest statues I have seen in England.” In this work Roubiliac shows how great a reformer he was in the art of sculpture, in replacing the earlier literalness of figure by a freer and more poetic conception. * As Swift was not in England after 1727, Mr. Austin Dobson concludes that this bust was not modelled from life, but probably based on Jervas’s portrait. t The studio was subsequently demolished, and the site, for a time, occupied by a Society of Friends’ meeting-house. ii 6 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS His predecessors seem to have been content to produce copies of clothes covering a dead figure ; he made his men alive, and so achieved the true significance of a posthumous statue, in helping, by its aid, to recall not merely the features, but the spirit which once characterised the original. He infused something of his own personality — quick, vivacious, animated, enthu- siastic (you can see the divine afflatus which possessed him, in Carpentiere’s portrait) — into the stone or marble which was vivified by his touch, and which, like Pygmalion’s statue, seems almost to breathe. It is hardly to be wondered at that a man who could do this to such a degree, should have been able to astonish his generation and to leave a legacy behind him which will live among the finest achievements of modern sculpture. One likes to think of him, rolling his eyes in a fine frenzy, clasping his hands in an ecstasy as some new idea rushed into his active brain, flying from his table to his studio to stamp the image on a marble block, going off to worship Cibber’s “ Melancholy and Madness ” in that splendid enthusiasm that knew not envy and was ever ready to recognise genius. One cannot imagine anything mean or petty about such a character, just as one can see nothing weak or hesitating in the works of his hand. And there was nothing of this in Roubiliac ; he was a genius ; and those who in his own day placed him on a level with such men as Rysbrack and Scheemakers — good sculptors as, within their limits, both were — did so because they did not recognise genius, or because their minds were not prepared to realise the true greatness of the man and the importance of the innovations he introduced. Had Vertue or Walpole understood his many excellences, would they, think you, have been satisfied with the meagre record of the man, which they have left us ? One cannot but fear that the popularity Roubiliac achieved was largely due to the fact that he was a new man with new methods, and not because his age was capable of recognising his real importance. The works of Roubiliac are not so numerous as his long life and untiring industry might lead us to imagine ; ROUBILIAC 117 but he spared no pains in their execution, having always rather an eye to fame than to the monetary recompense for the work in hand, although, as in the case of his statue of Duncan Forbes at Edinburgh, he was not, on occasion, above leaving those portions of the marble not exposed to view untouched by the chisel. In Westminster Abbey there are seven specimens of his skill in varying degrees of excellence and importance. Of these, that to the Duke of Argyle has been already mentioned as being in the south transept. At the same part of the Abbey is his monument of Handel, which was, by-the-bye, the last work he completed, and in which the composer’s ear was modelled from that of a Miss Rich, the daughter of one of his friends, because, he said, “ The ear of Handel was so fine in music that it could only be represented in marble by one small and elegant ” ; a rather curious method of carving “ a 1’oreille de la lettre,” as it may be termed. The statue is rather a cumbersome affair, the figure of Handel being thick and heavy, but it has the merit of being a fine likeness. In the north transept are five of Roubiliac’s monu- ments, among them one to Major-General Fleming (1750) and another to Lieut. -General Hargrave, which cannot be said to exhibit any very remarkable characteristics. But a far more notable production than these was the monument to Sir Peter Warren (dated 1753), although it is by no means the best example we have of Roubiliac’s skill. It depicts a Hercules placing the bust of the dead sailor on a pedestal, while a figure representing Naviga- tion stands ready to crown its brows with a laurel wreath. Behind is shown the British flag forming a background ; a cornucopia emptying itself, an anchor, and a cannon being subsidiary points in the design. The whole will seem to our modern ideas allegorically overloaded, but if you examine the beautifully conceived and executed figure of Navigation (a lovely piece of work) by itself, or the Hercules, whose arms were, we are told, modelled from those of a waterman, you will hardly fail to realise the excellence of these, the chief features of the work. n8 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS In the monument to Field-Marshal Wade (1748), which is not far off, there is the same traditional desire to impress allegory into the service of art. Roubiliac, I imagine, realised that when a commission for such a work was given him, he was expected to produce these overloaded tributes to the dead; indeed he may have been, and probably was, specifically desired to do so ; and what he could do to distinguish them from others by less notable sculptors, was to give to the figures grace and dignity, and to envelop the whole in the cloak of his exquisite workmanship ; and so we have here Time attempting to overthrow the military trophies of the dead warrior, while Fame frustrates his endeavour ; a curiously unhappy prognostication, as Wade’s fame is little remembered to-day. But the best known of Roubiliac’s monuments in the Abbey, and certainly his finest achievement there, is that to Lady Elizabeth Nightingale (1761), which was so greatly admired by Burke. “ Those who are not pleased with the natural pathos of one part,” says Cunningham, “ are captivated by the allegorical extrava- gance of another ; and persons who care for none of these matters, find enough to admire in the difficult workmanship of the marble skeleton.” Mrs. Nightingale (she was of the noble house of Ferrers) is shown lying on a couch, on the point of expiring, and beneath this couch, a half-opened door gives egress to Death, in the form of a skeleton, who aims a dart at his victim ; while the husband in an access of despair, interposes his arm to ward off the blow. The idea was not improbably borrowed by Roubiliac from Rene Michel Slodtz’s somewhat similar production in the Church of St. Sulpice, at Paris, executed in 1750, although, as has been pointed out, there was no reason why he should have done so, as the idea itself is old enough, although its application in this way seems certainly to have been hitherto confined to Slodtz. As, too, there is no record of Roubiliac havingvisited Paris at this time,* and in those days * The date of the lady’s death, on the monument, is 1734, but it took place in 1731. MONUMENT TO LADY ELIZABETH NIGHTINGALE By Roubiltac ROUBILIAC 119 such an excursion was one which, had it occurred, would have been recorded, it does not seem that the sculptor could, in an y case, have actually examined Slodtz’s work. While engaged in superintending the erection of the Nightingale monument, Roubiliac was one day found by Gayfere, the Abbey mason, who used to relate the circumstance, standing spell-bound and in an ecstasy of admiration before one of the splendid figures which support the canopy over the recumbent figure of Sir Francis Vere ; as the mason approached Roubiliac laid his restraining hand on his arm and, pointing to the statue, exclaimed, “ Hush ! he will speak soon.” This was characteristic of the sculptor, whose eyes would roll in a fine frenzy at the sight of some unusually lifelike piece of work. In a lesser man such characteristics might be regarded as rather theatrical and studied, but I think there is little doubt that in this case the excitable temperament of the man and his passion of admiration for good work in others, really led him into remarks and attitudes which more sober critics may regard as extravagances. In other parts of the country examples of Roubiliac’s work are to be met with ; thus at Boughton, in North- amptonshire, are two of his most ambitious monuments : those to the Duke and Duchess of Montagu.* These works are very splendid ; indeed, as Cunningham remarks, the sculptor “ has not spared anything but original thought in their composition.” For such important personages Roubiliac evidently imagined that mere grace and simplicity would be insufficient in their monuments, and so he produced magnificent and elabo- rate designs which have all the force of official works, and appeal to us as little as this class of achievement usually does. The actual carving is excellent, almost faultless, but the designs are tame and uninspired, and might easily be those of a third- or fourth-rate sculptor executed by a master. * There is a monument by Roubiliac to Lord Shannon in Walton Church ; and one to the Lynn family in Southwick Church, for which he received £ 5°o. 120 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS As I have said, it was in single figures, where he could give life and variety to his work and was not tied down by those conventions which still survived in sepulchral monuments in which allegorical trophies and figures were expected to be very much en evidence , that Roubiliac was most successful, and one of the best examples of his skill in this direction is the statue of Duncan Forbes, President of the College of Justice, in Edinburgh. The expression of sagacity and earnest attention on the part of the judge is finely portrayed, and there is an anima- tion about the figure which, if not wholly appropriate to the calm, judicial air expected in an administrator of the laws, is yet a proof of the sculptor’s ability to endow his work with vivacity and life. The statue is carved from a hard bluish-tinged marble, and the surface is highly polished, which helps to preserve the material from stain, and gives an added softness and flexibility to the fall of the robes. Another of Roubiliac’s statues was that of George I., carved for the Senate House, at Cambridge, which Walpole describes as “ well executed,” and another, that of Charles, Duke of Somerset, the “ proud Duke,” as he was called, Chancellor of Cambridge University, which was also placed in the Senate House. Concerning these two statues, Cunningham once received the follow- ing judgment, from one whom he calls “ a sculptor of genius and taste,” and whom I suppose to have been Chantrey : “ A man who was not told they were by Roubiliac might look at them once, but never think of them again ; but when informed from whose hands they came, he would look for beauties and find few : careful workman- ship and desire of effect distinguish them in common with all that sculptor’s works — yet, as I have said, they are not striking performances, and one may pass by them without suffering a just reproach of want of taste.” Cunningham, in quoting this, adds that it is, perhaps, too severe a judgment. If it be, and it was enunciated by Chantrey, the sculptor’s praise of another of Roubiliac’s performances, more than makes up for it, for speaking ROUBILIAC 1 2i of the statue of Sir Isaac Newton, he says : “ The Sir Isaac Newton is the noblest, I think, of all our English statues. There is an air of nature, and a loftiness of thought about it, which no other artist has in this country, I suspect, reached. You cannot imagine any- thing grander in sentiment, and the execution is every way worthy of it.” “ The simplicity of the figure,” says Jones in his “ Life of Chantrey,” “ united with the apparent intelli- gence and thought in the countenance, he (Chantrey) considered as quite satisfactory ; and although he gene- rally disliked the imitation of any particular material in drapery, he was reconciled to the College dress of the philosopher. From its perfect arrangement, the imita- tion is so complete that the person who shows the statue at Cambridge always informs the visitors that it only requires to be black to render it a deception.” Chantrey, however, could not tolerate the ornaments on Roubiliac’s monument to Lord Shannon, in Walton Church, which he thought derogated from the dignity and simplicity of good sculpture ; on the other hand, the beadle of Worcester Cathedral used to tell how, whenever the sculptor was in that city, he made a point of visiting Roubiliac’s monument to Bishop Hurd, and was accustomed to spend a considerable time in studying it, so remarkable seemed to him his predecessor’s power over his material. The splendid statue of Newton was executed for Trinity College, Cambridge, where it may still be seen in its serene and dignified composure, a magnificent tribute to the extraordinary genius who is here so vividly portrayed.* This is probably Roubiliac’s finest work in this direc- tion, but his statue of Shakespeare may be said to be his most famous. This was a commission from David Garrick, in 1758, and was originally placed in the garden of the actor’s house at Hampton, being afterwards removed, according to the terms of his bequest, to the * Roubiliac also executed the monument to Henry Chichele, founder of All Souls’, Oxford, in 1751. 122 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS British Museum. Fault has been found with the work because it represents the Bard rather too obviously in a state of inspiration, depicting him, with his dress in most admired disorder, in the throes of composition. But, one asks, how better could he be represented ? Roubiliac attempted too much, perhaps, in trying to catch the illusive expression of genius, but to have attempted it shows that he recognised, as we know his temperament was just the one to sympathise with, the splendid imaginings of that mysterious entity whom we know as Shakespeare. That Roubiliac himself regarded it as, in a sense, his masterpiece may be assumed from the fact that in Adrien Carpentiere’s * portrait he is shown putting the final touches to the model, and as he fixes the expression of the eye with his modelling tool, his own eyes seem to be lighted up with sympathetic excitement. For this fine work the sum agreed upon between Rou- biliac and Garrick was the not extravagant one of three hundred guineas ; and it is said that the actor during the early stages of the work, visiting the sculptor’s studio, suggested to the latter the pose, and placing himself in position, exclaimed, “ Behold the poet of Avon ! ” which if not true was quite likely to have been. It appears that the marble for the work was faintly marked with veins ; it was as good as Roubiliac could afford at the price he was to receive, but one day Garrick, entering the studio and seeing this disfigurement on the face of his hero, exclaimed, “ What ! was Shakespeare marked with mulberries ? ” Whereupon Roubiliac cut off the head and replaced it by one in the purest marble obtainable. One suspects that this commission was not altogether a profitable or pleasurable one, for Garrick was a fidgety fellow, and was always dropping into the studio, and * Carpentiere was a sculptor much employed by the Duke of Chandos, at Canons, and was for a time chief assistant to Van Ost, or Nost, who executed the statue of George I., once at Canons and afterwards in Leicester Square. Carpentiere kept a leaden statue manufactory in Piccadilly, and died in 1737, when he was between sixty and seventy years of age (Walpole). ROUBILIAC 123 his, “ How’s Shakespeare, eh ? I shall go and pay my respects to him,” was generally the prelude to some criticism which, if not always judicious, at least meant more work for the ill-paid Roubiliac. When therefore he put the date (1758) of its completion on the pedestal of the statue, one imagines he was not sorry to say good- bye to the work, and still more to his hypercritical patron.* Of Roubiliac’s busts should first be mentioned those at Trinity College, Cambridge, representing Newton, Ray, Willoughby, &c., because no less an authority than Chantrey thus speaks of them : “ Those busts impressed me at once with veneration for the genius of the artist. I know of no works of that kind which may be safely compared to them. They have a manly air and vigorous freedom of manner, which proves to me that he treated them rather in the manner of the heads of statues than as domestic portraits, where fidelity of resemblance is more aimed at. Those who have not seen the Cambridge busts, and above all the statue of Newton, are strangers to the best work of Roubiliac.” Another set of busts were those which the sculptor executed to the order of Frederick, Prince of Wales, who gave them to Pope in 1739. They represent Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden. Pope bequeathed them to Lord Lyttelton, at whose seat, Hagley, they were placed. Among other work in this direction, may be named a bust of Pope,f executed for Bolingbroke, in 1741, and subsequently in the famous Watson-Taylor Collection ; one of Sir Robert Walpole, at Houghton ; that of Dr. Frewen (1757), in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford; and a plaster model of the head of Mr. Coke of Holkham, which may be seen, reproduced in marble by Chantrey, in the gallery at Holkham. ' In the British Museum are a series of terra-cotta * Among other statues Roubiliac executed is a not very well known one of Charles I. for George Augustus Selwyn, at Matson, signed and dated 1759. See Gentleman’ s Magazine for May, 1788. t The model for this once belonged to Rogers, the poet, at whose sale the late John Murray purchased it. I2 4 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS models and casts by Roubiliac, presented, soon after the sculptor’s death, by Dr. Maty. They include, besides copies from the antique, models for the busts of Milton, Shakespeare, Cromwell, Dr. Mead, Martin Folkes (the original is at Wilton), Lord Chesterfield, Bentley, Prior,* Ray, and Willoughby ; many of the completed marbles being at Trinity College, Cam- bridge. Among other busts by Roubiliac may be mentioned those of Bishops Hurd and Hough (1744), in Worcester Cathedral ; of Hogarth, in the National Portrait Gallery ; of Wilton, at the Royal Academy of Garrick, at the Garrick Club ; of Isaac Ware, the architect ; and of George I. and Handel, in the Royal Collection.f Roubiliac, who had all his life been an industrious worker, was accustomed to labour in his studio late into the night, after his workmen had left ; and this habit, unfortunately necessary, as he had by no means received emoluments consonant with the extent and variety of his undertakings, is said to have hastened his death, which took place, in St. Martin’s Lane, on January 11, 1762. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields four days later, the ceremony being attended by, amongst many others, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Hogarth. Ten years before his decease he had married a Miss Crosby, of Deptford (January 1752), whom the Covent Garden Journal for that month described as “ a celebrated Beauty with a Fortune of Ten Thousand Pounds.” Where, however, this money went to is a mystery, for Roubiliac died in debt, although he appears to have lived quietly and frugally, spending much of his time at those taverns, which then took the place in a man’s daily life that clubs do to-day, where he was accustomed to meet congenial artistic spirits, happy in cracking * Subsequently at Stowe, at the sale of which it was purchased by Sir Robert Peel for .£137 10 s. *j* Where possible Roubiliac dispensed with wigs on his busts. He greatly disliked these ornaments, and only when, as in the case of the Cass monument in St. Botolph’s Church, he was absolutely obliged, would he consent to add them. ROUBILIAC 125 the bottle and in indulging in his favourite game of whist.* A few anecdotes have survived, all of which show Roubiliac to have possessed an amiable character, and to have been devoted to his art. As an exemplification of the latter characteristic, it is told that if he happened to be in the company of a lady who possessed a well- turned ear, or a small and prettily formed hand, he would gaze intently upon her, and suddenly exclaim: “ Madam, I must have your hand,’ 5 or “ Madam, I will have your ear,” as the case might be, much to the confusion of strangers who were not always prepared for such Gallic spontaneities. Smith, in his “ Life of Nollekens,” tells this story as illustrating Roubiliac’s constant thought of the particular work he might have in hand : “ My father,” says he, “ related the following anecdote of Roubiliac, who generally was so studiously wrapt up and absorbed in his art as to lose all individual recollection whatever of person and place unconnected with the subject immediately on his mind. One day at dinner, during the time he was so intently engaged in modelling the figure of Mr. Nightingale warding off the dart of death from his wife, he suddenly dropt his knife and fork on his plate, fell back in his chair, and then in an instant darted forward and threw his features into the strongest possible expression of fear ; at the same moment fixing his piercing eye so expressively on the country lad who waited at table, that he was greatly astonished.” Another story shows his absence of mind in a different direction. On one occasion having invited a friend to stay the night with him, after an evening at the tavern, he took him home, led him to his room, and left him. The friend, ready for sleep, threw off his clothes and jumped into bed, when he found himself * In the October of the year in which he was married he went with Hudson and Arthur Pond to Ita]y, where he met Reynolds, then returning home from the South. He subsequently told Reynolds that all he (Rou- biliac) had done seemed meagre and starved and “ as if made of nothing but tobacco pipes ” in comparison with Bernini’s work. 126 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS beside a dead body. Rushing to the door he shouted out for his host, who came hurrying up with, “ Mon Dieu ! what is the matter ? ” “ The matter ! ” replied his affrighted friend, “ look there ! ” and pointed to the corpse lying on the now opened bed. “ Oh dear ! oh dear ! ” exclaimed Roubiliac, “ it is poor Mary, my housemaid. She died yesterday, and they have laid her out here. Poor Mary ! oh dear me ! Come, I shall find you another bed.” On one occasion Roubiliac paid a visit to Johnson, in Gough Square, in company with Reynolds, in order to ask the Doctor to write an epitaph for one of his monuments. Arrived in the great man’s garret, the sculptor began a high-flown harangue indicative of the honour he was soliciting, whereupon Johnson cut him short with, “ Come, come, sir, let us have no more of this bombastic, ridiculous rhodomontade. Let me know, in simple language, the name, character, and quality of the person whose epitaph you intend to have me to write.” Another anecdote seems to show Roubiliac in a less amiable light than usual, but as he himself liked to put in “ all the warts ” in his busts, I give it as indicating that even so generally amenable a man had, occasionally, his rougher side. Dr. Anthony Askew, the friend of Hogarth, Mead, Dr. Parr, Sir William Jones, &c., com- missioned the sculptor to execute a head of Dr. Mead, which he intended for presentation to the College of Physicians. The price agreed upon for this was .£50, but when Askew received the bust he was so pleased with it that he sent the sculptor a further .£50. It is said, however, that Roubiliac, considering himself still underpaid, sent in an account for £108 2 r., which Askew indignantly paid. Lord Chesterfield once said that Roubiliac was a sculptor, and his rivals merely stone-cutters ; and there is a great deal of truth in the remark, for there is little doubt that, although such men as Rysbrack and Schee- makers were among the former, Roubiliac was so far beyond even them that he may properly be regarded as on a different and higher plane. Flaxman, who was ROUBILIAC 127 not uniformly friendly in his criticisms, and who certainly did not see eye to eye with the older man in his concep- tion of what sculpture should be, has left us the following judgment concerning him, although Flaxman can hardly be regarded as a safe judge of a man whose methods and aspirations differed so widely from his own : “ Roubiliac was an enthusiast in his art,” he says, “ possessed of considerable talent : he copied vulgar nature with zeal, and some of his figures seem alive ; but their characters are mean, their expressions grimace, and their forms frequently bad ; his draperies are worked with great diligence and labour from the most disagreeable examples in nature, the folds being either heavy or meagre, frequently without a determined general form, and hung on his figures with little meaning. He grouped two figures together, for he never attempted more, better than most of his contemporaries ; but his thoughts are conceits, and his compositions epigrams.” The remark about Roubiliac’s management of draperies makes the following words of Smith of interest here : “ He seldom,” says the writer, “ modelled his drapery for his monumental figures, but carved it from the linen itself, which he dipped into warm starch-water, so that when he had pleased himself he left it to cool and dry, and then proceeded with the marble ; this my father assured me he did with all the drapery on Nightingale’s monument.” We may regard this as an authentic description of the sculptor’s methods, as its narrator, Nathaniel Smith, father of the better-known John Thomas Smith, had become a pupil of Roubiliac in August 1755, and remained with the sculptor till his death, seven years later. He and Nicholas Read* are the only pupils whose names have been specifically mentioned ; Roubiliac cannot therefore, as was the case with Scheemakers, claim the honour of educating such a famous eleve as Nollekens.f * He produced a monument to Sir L. Robinson of considerable merit. f Smith records that “ Roubiliac, when he had to mend a broken antique, would mix grated Gloucester cheese with his plaster, adding the grounds of porter ; which mixture, when dry, forms a very hard cement.” 128 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS Apart from his sculpture, Roubiliac is said to have possessed a knowledge and love of poetry to a no in- considerable extent ; he even on occasion made excur- sions himself into verse ; but there are few people who have not done as much, and the specimen quoted by Dallaway, as a favourable example of the sculptor’s facility in this direction, is not sufficiently remarkable to require re-quotation. Roubiliac once, at least, made an attempt at oil painting, and in the sale of his effects, this effort, a portrait of himself, was sold for y. 6d. ! having appa- rently been purchased by a Mr. Scott, of Crown Court, Westminster. JOSEPH WILTON CHAPTER VI JOSEPH WILTON If to have been one of the founders of the Royal Academy, to have enjoyed the friendship of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson, to have designed the royal state coach, and to have achieved wealth, and distinction as a host, entitle a man to be considered famous, then Joseph Wilton, who was and did all these things, may be so regarded ; but as a sculptor, I fear, he cannot be credited with such an apotheosis. Not that I would go so far as to say that he was wholly undeserving of praise and that he was entirely destitute of merit in this respect, for this would be to err on the other side ; but he was one of those men who achieve success rather through for- tuitous circumstances than from the force of genius ; who, with really little original talent, have the art of making the best of what gifts they possess ; one of those, in short, who are apparently the delight of officialdom, and the despair of the true artist. But if Wilton cannot be considered among the most eminent of British sculptors, he holds an undisputed position in the art, for reasons other than those of native ability. In the first place he was the earliest to receive that systematic course of training which has since been considered necessary for a regular and complete mastery of the art of sculpture ; and he was certainly the first to throw off the incubus of architectural restraint and domination which had hitherto fettered the freedom of his precursors, at a time when the majority of sculptors took their orders from architects and could hardly call their souls their own if they did not abide by the in- junctions of their taskmasters. Cunningham has put the matter well when he describes how “The architects 129 i i3o LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS succeeded in maintaining their authority over the swarms of foreign sculptors, whom want of subsistence allured to the British market, and dictated monuments some- thing in the mathematical principles of their profession. ... In truth, the architects of those days were mighty men. Not contented with planning the houses in which the nobles lived, they laid out the gardens in which they walked . . . and following them to the family vault, erected a triumphant monument in honour of their virtues.” Wilton was practically the first to throw off this tyranny, for even successful men like Rysbrack and Roubiliac had succumbed to the tradition. Acquired wealth and a fortune left him by a successful father, combined with a spirit of proper independence, enabled him to take this step. By it he undoubtedly raised the status of the sculptor to a height to which it had, per se , never before attained, and his importance in the history of this branch of art is therefore obvious enough, even if, as was the case, his own contributions towards sculpture were for the most part uninspired and rather nugatory. Joseph Wilton was the son of a man who, beginning his career as a common plasterer, became by a combina- tion of shrewdness and untiring industry the head of a considerable manufactory where ornaments for ceilings and other architectural embellishments to houses, and furniture made of papier-mache, were turned out. In his workshops in Hedge Lane, Charing Cross, and in Edward Street, Cavendish Square, which premises Joseph inherited from him and subsequently occupied, he employed hundreds of men in his business ; with the result that he accumulated a considerable fortune, which he left to his son, and was enabled to give that son a thorough and extensive grounding in the art he had elected to follow. Wilton the younger was born in London on July 1 6, 1722. At first he received his education at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, the intention of his father being to make a civil engineer of him. But the boy seems to have had no leaning towards such a profession, although when he first began to show that predilection for sculpture which JOSEPH WILTON 131 we are assured he exhibited, is not known. However, he did so, and so markedly that in due course, his father placed him with the Laurent Delvaux whom we have before met with as assistant to Scheemakers, and who had been a pupil of Francis Bird, so that the sculptural succession was here curiously complete. Delvaux’s studio was at the town of Nivelles, in Brabant, and hither young Wilton came to study, being brought by his father, for whom it is suggested as probable that Delvaux had worked when in this country, a circumstance which would account for the choice of him as a master for Joseph. We have no record of what progress young Wilton made under Delvaux’s hands, nor do we know the length of his apprenticeship, but in 1744, being then in his twenty- second year, he left his master and proceeded to Paris, where he entered the Academy and studied under the great Pigalle for the space of three years. During this period Wilton succeeded in gaining a silver medal at the Academie des Beaux-Arts, and also “ acquired the power of cutting marble,” an art hitherto unknown to the sculptors of this country. In 1747 he set out for Italy, where he remained for eight years, first residing at Rome, and then proceeding to Florence, where he spent four years, at the same time making various journeys to inspect the relics of antiquity scattered about in other centres of that country. During the period Wilton spent in Italy, two circum- stances occurred of vital importance to his after-career. One of these was his gaining the Jubilee Gold Medal offered by the Roman Academy, which was presented to the young artist by the Pope — Benedict XIV. ; the other the acquisition of the patronage of an English gentleman who had been attracted by his work in Rome — a Mr. Locke of Norbury Park. Although we have no record as to how Wilton was affected by the sight of the treasures of antiquity around him, or of those still earlier ones which the excavations at Herculaneum and Paestum and elsewhere then going on, largely under the cegis of the Society of Dilettanti, were exhibiting to the gaze of the artistic and the curious, 132 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS yet we know that he employed much of his time in making copies of antiquities — statues, busts, &c.— in marble, which he was able to dispose of to the numerous Englishmen who visited Rome at this period, as a part of the Grand Tour, and who regarded it as almost necessary that they should take back to their own country some classic memento of the Holy City. Thus for eight years Wilton worked at his art and absorbed an invaluable amount of information which, if it never resulted in his rising above a respectable mediocrity, was, at least, not the fault of his models or his want of industry. In 1755 he left Italy in the company of Chambers the architect, Cipriani the engraver, and a sculptor named Capizzoldi, who was anxious to try his fortune in England.* The moment for Wilton’s return was particularly propitious. Just then the Duke of Richmond, a lover and patron of sculpture, had determined to open a gallery in Whitehall where students might study the collection of copies from the antique which he had assembled there, and work away to their hearts’ content, without any expense to themselves, and a chance of obtaining one or more of the premiums which the Duke promised to pay to the most successful. Such an institution obviously required technical supervision, and Wilton and Cipriani were chosen to control it. Un- fortunately for these artists as well as for those who hoped to benefit by the Duke’s liberality, the duration of this “ Statue Garden,” as it was called, was not destined to be a long one. The Duke of Richmond was called away to join his regiment on active service abroad, and in the haste of departure, overlooked the payment of some premiums which had become due, whereupon one of the irresponsible students, annoyed, or affecting to be, at the oversight, fixed a lampoon on the door of the * He to some extent succeeded, although his beginnings were small, as may be supposed when we know that in the attic he hired in Warwick Street he had perforce, in the absence of all but indispensable furniture, to paint on the walls a semblance of sofas and chairs and curtains, &c. (Smith). He worked for a time for Wilton, but subsequently returned to Italy. JOSEPH WILTON 133 gallery itself, where all the world might read an intimation purporting to come direct from the Duke, and apparently signed by himself, wherein he apologised for his poverty, and expressed sorrow for having promised premiums wdiich he was not rich enough to pay. The Duke returned and found the offending notice still up. Annoyed beyond measure at such an unseemly return for his kindness, he shut up the gallery and denuded it of its contents. The premiums were, of course, duly paid ; but for long the patron’s resentment was such that he would have nothing further to do with art students, and when, many years after, he did reopen his gallery, he placed it under the direction of the Society of Arts. It was in 1758 that Wilton had been made a director of the Richmond Gallery, and two years later, he was to receive another, and more permanent, appointment ; this was the office of State Coach Carver to the king, which was conferred upon him at the accession of George III. This appointment seems to have been anything but an empty honour, for Wilton was soon engaged on that Coronation State Coach which many generations since have seen and wondered at, and of which Cipriani painted the panels. Nowadays the selection of one who set up as a sculptor for such a work would be regarded as ridiculous, but then it was in no way thought to be an anomaly, and Wilton’s workshops, situated where Foley Place is now, were soon busy in supplying the vehicular wants of the new monarch. Hand in hand with these labours, which after all must have been largely carried out by Wilton’s workmen, the sculptor was slowly but surely taking his place, a foremost one, among those who carved statues and busts — to call them British sculptors would be to do them too much honour — and, as Cunningham says, “ ere long he began to be congratulated as the first great restorer of freedom to British sculpture.” There is no doubt that Wilton, notwithstanding his limitations — limitations rather perhaps due to the period in which he found himself than to his own want of restraint and perception — did no little towards the 134 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS advancement of British sculpture. He was a cultivated man, endowed with a far wider range of knowledge than the majority of his predecessors or contemporaries ; his acquaintance with anatomy, on which he prided himself, was considerable ; his studies of the antique had resulted in his studiously avoiding that flamboyant manner that had gained in the earlier years of the century, and was still receiving, acceptance ; he aimed at, and succeeded in attaining, a calm and restrained method which gives a dignity to his achievement, and where that achievement is disfigured by inappropriate accessories, we must rather blame the taste of the period than the instincts of the artist. Like many a better sculptor — Roubiliac, quite a different craftsman as he was, was, to a certain extent, one — he failed in composition and grouping, but many of his single figures and his busts have undoubted merit, if only because they aimed at introducing a simple and more classic style into the sculpture of this country. One of the first of Wilton’s works was his colossal monument to General Wolfe, in Westminster Abbey, which was erected by the king and Parliament in 1772 at a cost of .£3000. It is not a good example of what Wilton could do, nor is it worthy of much consideration, if any, as a work of art. It is heavy, crowded, and wants originality, although, on the other hand, it possesses many undoubted merits ; for instance, the way in which the whole of the vast erection is made to focus on the head of the dying hero is very skilfully and admirably contrived, and is, therefore, particularly noticeable. There is an excellent bronze bas-relief representing the toilsome march of the troops from the river-bank to the Heights of Abraham above, forming a portion of the work, and this was executed by the eccentric Capizzoldi, to whom I have before referred, and who is alone by it proved to have been a skilful and considerable artist. A far better piece of work than the Wolfe monument was that which Wilton was commissioned to undertake to the memory of Admiral Holmes, in 1766. It repre- sents the seaman dressed as a Roman citizen and resting his hand on a cannon, over which hangs the national flag. JOSEPH WILTON 135 Apart from the question, so long debated, and with no little acrimony, as to the propriety of dressing the figure of a modern man in the garb of an ancient, this statue is a successful one ; like all Wilton’s work the actual execution leaves nothing to be desired, and as he was at his best in such heroic figures as that here represented, the work may be regarded as a characteristic and notable example of his output at its best. Cunningham, who, by-the-bye, seems curiously biased against Wilton, says of it, “ The workmanship is respectable, and as one eye is enough to make a man king among the blind, Wilton triumphed over his fellows.” What gives to Wilton a high place among sculptors is the fact that his knowledge of anatomy was extensive and peculiar ; he had studied the human form carefully during those novitiate years in Rome, and although he can never exactly be said to have caught the spirit of classicism, he at least learnt from it the great secret that even a clothed figure can only be properly produced by an intimate knowledge of the bones and muscles that are hidden beneath flowing drapery. To some extent this is embodied in his next considerable achievement, the monument to the Earl and Countess of Montrath. This is a large and somewhat pretentious affair, and its immense proportions and innumerable adjuncts and trophies will appeal less to our saner ideas of what such things should be, than it did to the sculptor’s contemporaries. That in the main it pleased them is evidenced by the remarks of a critic of the day, who thus speaks of it in a strain of hyperbole which can only be understood by a knowledge of what was then considered excellent and right. “ The design,” he says, “ is truly grand, and the execution masterly. On the summit is the representation of the splendid mansions of the blessed, with cherubim and seraphim, and on a sarcophagus beneath are two principal figures — the one, an angel ascending on a cloud, the other, the Countess in the attitude of rising from the dead supported by an angel, who holds her up with his left hand, and with his right points to heaven, where a seat is prepared for her, and where another angel is ready to 136 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS receive and crown her with a wreath of glory. There are beauties in this monument which exceed description — the pleasure in the countenance of the receiving angel is inimitable, and the fine feathering of the wings has a lightness which nature only can surpass.” There was rather a tendency, in those days, to praise or blame in extremes, especially in the case of contem- porary work, and the last sentence quoted above is a good example of how work which was not in itself of the highest excellence, was apt to be consigned to a lower plane than it merited by later judges, because of the extravagant eulogy of those who had preceded them. Wilton was never better pleased than when he was able to introduce angels into his compositions, and since, as a critic of our own days has confessed, he was wont to support them on wings designed with ease, felicity, and a novelty which at once surprised and delighted, it is probable that in this monument (which I can only speak of from hearsay) the presence of such adjuncts treated in this way was largely responsible for the enthusiasm of the criticism I have just quoted. In 1767 Wilton was engaged, among much other work, on his sepulchral monument to Pulteney, Earl of Bath (now in Westminster Abbey), a composition in which his knowledge of anatomy had full play, and which was as cleverly executed, so far as the carving and finishing were concerned, as anything he ever did. To about the same time, also, must I think be dated his monument to Stephen Hales, the philosopher and divine, also in the Abbey. Two principal figures, one depicting Religion, the other Botany, flank the tomb. Hales’s medallion portrait is held by the latter, while at the feet of the figure appears a globe on which the winds are supposed to blow, an allusion to Hales’s invention of ventilation. The diffi- culty of telling this in marble is so obvious that we may for once agree with Cunningham in considering that Wilton was, here at least, attempting what sculpture could not perform ; and in this work the sculptor, no doubt, gave his detractors an opening for asserting that he never knew the limits of his art. JOSEPH WILTON 137 To this work may be added the sculptor’s statue of George III.* dressed as a Roman, in the Royal Exchange, and a monument to the Cremorne family, in Ireland, which has been regarded as the most masterly of his productions. So much for his more ambitious under- takings. If their small number is apt to create some surprise, considering that Wilton was for a time so industrious a workman, it must be remembered that much of his industry was directed into other channels : thus he executed a number of busts of eminent men, many of which exhibit a freedom of handling and an almost classic sense of restraint which was not always observable in his larger works. The memory of Bacon and Cromwell, Chatham and Chesterfield, Newton and Swift and Wolfe was thus perpetuated by Wilton. The Chesterfield bust is in the British Museum ; the rest are scattered about ; but on Wilton’s own showing, we know that he copied the Cromwell from the famous Florence mask, and criticism has agreed that it was a real and lifelike presentment, if exhibiting rather more ferocity than the Usurper ever showed, at least in his countenance. Wilton, working under a royal patron, may, however, have thought well to accentuate, pur- posely, in the face, what might, under such conditions, be regarded as characteristic of one who had taken a leading part in the judicial murder of a sovereign. Another form of artistic industry which occupied much of Wilton's time was the copying of antique statues and busts, and the renovation of broken fragments as well as the emendations , as they may be called, which he made to incomplete relics of classic sculpture. In such varied work,f his knowledge of anatomy and his love for the antique stood him in good stead, and in this direction * The statue of George III. in Berkeley Square was also erected under Wilton’s direction. It was executed by Beaupre, and represented the monarch as Marcus Aurelius. It was set up in 1766 at the instance of the Princess Amelia, daughter of George II., and removed in 1827. t He designed the monument to Sir Hans Sloane in the churchyard of Chelsea Church, near where he at one time lived, and two white marble urns in the church itself were executed by him in memory of two of his children. 138 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS his success was considerable, although it is on record that a torso which had been injured in a fire at the Duke of Richmond’s house in Whitehall, and which the sculptor attempted to restore to its pristine beauty, was anything but a success. It is now in the British Museum, so that its merits as a rifacimento can be judged by those who are curious in the matter. By these varied employments, combined with his emoluments as the Royal Coach Carver, and the consider- able fortune left him by his father, Wilton had become a rich man ; while his intimacy with many of his more notable contemporaries, Reynolds, Chambers, Cipriani, Baretti, Richard Wilson, and Johnson and his circle, to mention but these, made him a person of importance in his day. In 1768, he had been elected a member of the Royal Academy, of which he was later appointed Keeper and Librarian, a post he held till his death, in succession to Carlini, who had been raised to the dignity of an R.A. at the same time as his friend The accumulation of wealth and the enlargement of his friendships, seems to have had a rather deteriorating effect on Wilton’s artistic energy, and from the carving of statues he passed com- placently to the carving of joints and became famous for his dinners and his wine ; in a word, he blossomed into a man of fashion, who indulged his taste by still occasion- ally giving evidence that he had once been an artist. Such was the influence of money on one who had given so much promise and had, for a time, followed it up by so much industry. But it was not only affluence that caused him to take the step of entirely retiring from the exercise of his art. Other men were gradually arising who threatened to supplant him in public favour, like Nollekens and Banks, and he may have recognised the propriety of not exceeding his “ welcome while,” and of quitting the artistic arena while his powers were still recognised and appreciated. Wilton may also have considered that to labour till the end of his days without tasting the pleasures of repose and enjoyment was both ill-advised and unnecessary. His family consisted of one daughter, whose beauty has been preserved by Reynolds, JOSEPH WILTON 139 and is said to have been one of the chief attractions which drew many people to her father’s hospitable board. This daughter became the wife of Sir Robert Chambers, and Johnson, writing to Boswell, in 1774, remarks that “ Chambers is either married or almost married to Miss Wilton, a girl of sixteen, exquisitely beautiful, whom he has with his lawyer’s tongue persuaded to take her chance with him in the East.” This event probably marks the period when, from receiving occasional visitors and giving intermittent dinners, Wilton determined to live the life of a man of wealth and fashion and to entertain largely. He had a fine house, sumptuously furnished, his friends, besides his notable artistic contemporaries, included such men as Mr. Locke of Norbury Park, his earliest patron, Lord Charlemont, who had posed as a Maecenas to Hogarth, and Joseph Baretti, who paid for his regular meals at Wilton’s house by doses of the flattery which he knew his host appreciated, applied personally to him or more discreetly enclosed between the covers of his “ Guide to the Royal Academy.” Smith indeed relates that he had frequently seen Baretti and Richard Wilson, another of Wilton’s friends, walking under the large elms which at that time stood at the end of Union Street, waiting till their host’s dinner hour should be announced by the clock of Portland Chapel. “ I have,” adds Smith, “ the figures of these men still in my mind’s eye. Baretti was of a middling stature, squabby, round-shouldered and short-sighted ; and the landscape painter was rather tall, square-shoul- dered and well built ; but with a nose which had increased to an enormous size. They both wore cocked hats and walked with canes.” Wilton subsequently disposed of his studio and other professional possessions by auction. An interesting account of the premises has been left us by Smith in his “ Nollekens and his Times,” which seems worth tran- scribing, because, as usual with Smith, the writer par- ticularises the exact position of the place. “ I remember,” he says, “ one Sunday morning going 140 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS with my father and Mr. Nollekens to see the studio and workshop of the late Joseph Wilton, Esq., R.A., father of the present Lady Chambers and friend of Baretti. . . . Mr. Wilton’s studio stood on the south side of Queen Anne Street East, now Foley Place, upon the site of five houses, Nos. 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26 ; in the house No. 27, at the corner of Portland Street, Mr. Wilton resided for many years. We viewed his works, and the model of King George III.’s state coach, a most beautiful little toy, exquisitely adorned with ornaments modelled in wax by Capizzoldi and Voyers, the panels being painted in water-colours by Cipriani. The designs consisted of figures and historical emblems, and Cipriani also painted the same subjects upon the coach itself.” Smith must have felt a personal interest in viewing these things, for as a boy he had attracted the notice of Wilton, who, on the boy’s evincing a desire to become an engraver, had furnished him with a letter of introduction to Barto- lozzi. Although Wilton gave up active service in the interests of sculpture, he continued to hold his appointment of Keeper of the Royal Academy, and as one of its members, is said to have taken a leading part in the impeachment and subsequent expulsion of James Barry, in which he was at one with most of his fellow members. His death took place at his house in Queen Anne Street East on November 25, 1803, when he had reached the ripe age of eighty. Cunningham describes his outward man as being tall, portly, and personable, and, what is better, tells us that he was a warm friend and an agreeable, courtly companion — a perfect gentleman in manners and at heart. He was fond of dress and was always arrayed in the height of fashion, his wig well powdered and his gold-headed cane carried with an air of distinction. Roubiliac once executed a bust of him, representing him with his sculptor’s hammer in his hand ; this records one, the earlier, side of his career ; the other and later is perhaps better exhibited by the portrait which Mortimer painted of him, in which he is shown in the company of the artist, JOSEPH WILTON 141 and which may be regarded as a commentary on his good- fellowship and love of his kind.* As a sculptor, although Wilton cannot be ranked among the highest, yet his claims have been rather unfairly dealt with. Indeed, betwixt the contending hyperbolic eulogies of his friends and the disproportioned abuse of his detractors, it is rather difficult to arrive at a sane judgment concerning his aims and achievements. If on the one hand he is said to have possessed little or no originality, to have wanted loftiness of idea and sentiment, and to have been seldom natural ; on the other he may be regarded as representing the transition between the school of Roubiliac, and his master Pigalle, and that neo-Hellenic school which was gradually super- seding their flamboyant but at the same time poetical ideas. He was better equipped than most men of his day in the arcance of his art ; his training had been more systematic than that of nearly any sculptor before or since ; his knowledge of anatomy was perfect, his tech- nical execution irreproachable, while occasional gleams of inspiration and graceful thought show that he almost achieved the position of a great artist. Perhaps in a different age and under other conditions, he might actually have become one, although it is yet a question whether, under any circumstances, his easily pleased self- criticism and a certain enjoyment of life, rather alien to true genius, would ever have enabled him to rise to the greatest heights. That illusive quality which we, in want of a better word, call genius was not implanted in him ; but after all genius is not everything, and it is probable that Wilton, wanting this inspiring quality, remained, if a lesser artist, a better and more lovable man. * The bust afterwards passed to Lady Chambers, who presented it to the Royal Academy ; the portrait is now to be seen in the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House. CHAPTER VII THOMAS BANKS Before the middle of the eighteenth century had been reached, three men were born who were destined to make great names for themselves in the role of British sculptors ; they were Thomas Banks, Joseph Nollekens, and John Bacon, and all were so far contemporaneous that they came into the world within a period of five years : Banks being born in 1735, Nollekens two years later, and Bacon in 1740. Thus Banks had a slight priority, although he was not fated to achieve the success which attended the other two, and it will therefore be proper to speak first of him. Thomas Banks was the son of William Banks, who is described as a worthy and diligent man, and who for many years occupied the responsible position of land steward to the Duke of Beaufort, at Badminton. Thomas was, however, not born there, but in Lambeth, where he first saw the light on December 29, 1735. Nothing, not even the maiden name, is recorded of his mother, but she is known to have given birth to two other sons— one of whom, Charles, became like his brother a sculptor, although he never made any position for himself. The elder Banks’s affairs were sufficiently flourishing to enable him to give his children a sound education, although it has been conjectured that Thomas’s subse- quent love and knowledge of the classics was more likely to have been gained from translations than from any intimate or extensive acquaintance with the originals. The youth must have shown artistic tendencies, for although these were not then sufficient to cause his father to place him with a sculptor, they were pronounced enough to show that a training in some branch of art 142 THOMAS BANKS THOMAS BANKS 143 would better suit his tastes and temperament than would a commercial career. After having received the rudiments of ordinary education at Ross, in Herefordshire, young Banks studied for a time with one Barlow, an ornamental carver, and remained with him for seven years till he (Banks) was twenty-two years of age. At this moment William Kent was the god of London’s artistic (if it may be dignified with such a word) idolatry. Kent had become successful by pandering to all tastes and by being a kind of jack-in-all-trades of art — artist, sculptor, architect, landscape-gardener, and what not — and the elder Banks, probably recognising the advisability of his son’s having more than one string to his bow, placed him under the fashionable arbiter of taste. It is not improbable that Kent may have been summoned to Badminton in connec- tion with the mansion or the gardens, and that William Banks thus came into contact with him ; in any case Banks the younger was placed with him and proceeded to learn the elements of architecture and the then subsidiary art of carving the more decorative portions of buildings. Although his later work in sculpture, pure and simple, can be far less traced to this early training than to his individual inspiration and love of the classics, yet in some of his bas-reliefs there are indications of his architectural novitiate in the management of perspective and a certain conception of form and arrangement. How long he remained with Kent is not known, but it is said that, on leaving his master’s studio, he worked for a time at wood-carving, a profession then and for some time after (Chantrey and others followed it) more closely connected with sculpture than we now regard it. Indeed the fact that Grinling Gibbon is admitted into the ranks of sculptors, is alone sufficient to prove its former status, even if there should be any question about it now. A relic of these days was once preserved, and may possibly still be in existence, in a winged angel carved in wood for the top of a harp which Banks gave to his daughter ; but this is the only specimen of 144 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS his skill in this direction which has been identified as his work. But it was sculpture that attracted young Banks ; and in this art he seems to have been practically his own master, for there is no record of his having received any instruction in any school (except that he is known to have studied “ from the living model ” at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy in 1761), until the institution of the Royal Academy, when he became a student there, in 1769. But before this he had made so much progress in the art* that he had been awarded certain premiums by the Society of Arts, between the years 1763 and 1769. Although we do not know the nature of the subjects of the works he exhibited, it is interesting to find that for a basso-relievo in marble he gained twenty-five guineas ; for a similar work in Portland stone thirty guineas ; for another smaller one in marble, ten guineas ; for a model in clay, twenty guineas ; and for a design for ornamental furniture (Kent’s influence and method of universal art provider seem evidenced here), twenty guineas. On the opening of the Royal Academy, Banks at once became a student. Notwithstanding the fact that he was now thirty-three, had become a husband and a father, and had, as we have seen, acquired no little success, he was ready to join the band of younger, and, in many cases, wholly inexperienced men, who flocked to the new school. It is pleasant to find that he received instant recognition, and not only many of the Acade- micians but even the President- — the great Sir Joshua himself — showed him marks of appreciation and un- reservedly praised his models and his methods of produc- ing them. Indeed he is said to have been the first of the students to gain the notice of Reynolds, who not long after affirmed that Banks was the first British sculptor to execute works instinct with classic grace, and that “ his mind was ever dwelling on subjects worthy * It is said that Banks’s first master, Barlow, lived near Scheemakers, and that after working all da y with the former, Banks was accustomed to spend his evenings studying in the studio of the latter. THOMAS BANKS 145 of an ancient Greek ” ; words which, even if they pro- tested a little too much, had yet sufficient truth in them to show that Sir Joshua was able to appreciate that particular quality in Banks which differentiated him then from his predecessors in the art of sculpture. Remembering Reynolds’s devout worship of Michael Angelo, one can quite understand his rapturous recognition of one who, if not as fervent an admirer as himself of the great Italian, was yet imbued with the restrained and poetic conceptions of ancient art, to a remarkable degree. Nor was the Academy’s reward to the sculptor confined to the verbal praises of its head, or the appreciative remarks of its members. In 1770 it conferred on Banks its Gold Medal, the highest reward it had to bestow, and one which he gained in competition with a large number of aspirants for the coveted prize. This honour did much to make the sculptor’s name known beyond the artistic circle in which it had already been recognised ; while one or two other works which he completed, and exhibited on the Royal Academy walls about this time, still further helped to spread abroad his reputation. Two of these designs had for their subject iEneas rescuing Anchises from the burning walls of Troy ; but they differed in their treatment of the subject, a circum- stance which helps to show that lack of inventive power was not one of Banks’s shortcomings. During the next year, he showed a piece of sculpture depicting a cherub hanging a garland on an urn, and a bust of an old man, taken from one of the professional models attached to the Royal Academy ; both of which met with success ; although, in the former especially, no marked originality was exhibited. But it was his group of Mercury, Argus, and Io, which met with the greatest success ; indeed so highly did the Council of the Royal Academy think of this work that its members unanimously voted to Banks the Travelling Scholarship in their gift, which enabled its recipient to spend three years in Rome at the Academy’s charges. It can be imagined with what delight a man of Banks’s temperament, full of love for the classics and possessing 1 46 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS no inconsiderable knowledge of them, would hail such a chance of visiting the city crowded with the unrivalled remains of ancient art, and so full of splendid memories, as Rome, and Banks lost no time in putting his affairs in order and setting out for Italy. His wife determined to accompany him ; and disposing of the small house and studio which he had been for some time occupying in Bird Street, Oxford Street, or as it was then called the Oxford Road, which studio seems to have been taken on by his brother Charles, he set out, with Rey- nolds’s advice in his ears : never to lose an opportunity of studying in the Sistine Chapel, and with the more official recommendation from the R.A. Council, to note and absorb all that was best in ancient and modern art in Rome. Although the amount allowed towards his expenses was but .£50 a year, Banks had been able to earn money before his departure, added to which his father had always been liberal with him, and his wife, a member of the Wooton family, was a co-heiress to much property — fields and gardens now covered by parts of Mayfair — and had brought a considerable dowry to her husband. Thus Banks, who had never known want, was well provided for in his first visit to a foreign land, and possessed this undoubted advantage : that he could see, in reason, everything he wished to without having to count the cost, and could prosecute his art without the enervating and often paralysing necessity of having to keep an eye on his bank-book. Armed with letters of introduction and carrying with him many of his sketches, which, as we shall see, formed some of the most notable portions of his life’s output, he and his wife arrived in Rome in the August of 1772. Here his life was divided between working diligently, which he began to do almost immediately on his arrival, seeing and studying the wonders of art around him, and making acquaintances among the numerous band of English artists and patrons who, at this period, swarmed in the capital. As is well known the impetus given to the searching out of antiquities THOMAS BANKS 147 by the Society of Dilettanti was bearing splendid fruit ; excavations were taking place on all sides, and from all sources the unconsidered (unconsidered by the Italians, that is) treasures of antiquity were being packed up and sent over to this country. One of the foremost in the search for such things was Gavin Hamilton, the Scotch painter, who had carte-blanche from Lord Lansdowne to acquire such statues and fragments as he might consider worthy of being placed in Lansdowne House, and it was due to him that the wonderful assemblage of antiquities now to be seen in that mansion, was got together. Hamilton soon extended his friendship to Banks, as he had done to Reynolds, Fuseli, Nollekens, and so many others. Another man, soon to become famous, whom the young sculptor had a chance of meet- ing, was Romney ; while the great collector Townley was present, pursuing his indefatigable quest after his beloved fragments, and Capizzoldi, whom we have met with in connection with Wilton, and to whom Banks had brought a letter of introduction from Carlini, was here to give the sculptor instructions in that art of cutting marble, over which Banks had not yet attained much mastery. Indeed we find Banks writing to Smith, from whom he also had a letter of introduction, in these words : “ Your good friend, Capizzoldi, has been truly kind to me ; he has improved me much by the instruc- tions he has given me in cutting the marble, in which the Italians beat us hollow. 55 Another letter from the sculptor, dated July 31, 1773, helps us to reconstruct, to some extent, the society he was now mixing in : “ Among the students in painting, 55 he writes, “ Fuseli cuts the greatest figure : last season he had pictures bespoke to the amount of thirteen hundred pounds, good encouragement for a student, yet nothing more than from his great abilities he is justly entitled to. Little Wickstead has had most of the portraits to paint here last season, owing to the endeavours of Messrs. Norton and Byres to carry every gentleman they could get hold of to see him : but Barron arriving, and having 148 LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS great merit in the portrait way, and a good correspondence with the gentlemen, got so many portraits to paint as proved no small mortification to the aforesaid gentle- man as well as his helpers. Barron is a young man of very conspicuous merit — has the most of Sir Joshua’s fine manner of any of his pupils, and it is beyond a doubt that when he returns to England he will cut a great figure in his way ” ; which last remark shows the fallacy of hasty prognostication, for who remembers Barron or his work now ? This extract is also interesting as showing the com- mercial side of the art even in Rome, and how an artist’s success largely depended not so much on his merit as on the assiduity with which the commercial travellers of art, as it were, canvassed his qualities. Luckily for himself Banks did not require such adventitious aids, and if he did not in consequence receive numerous commissions, he could afford to ignore this, and was able to go on his own calm and reserved way, working steadily to his heart’s content, laying up stores of in- valuable knowledge, and wondering at the beauties spread so prodigally before his eyes. Travellers are frequently wont to set down their impressions, especially those to whom such impressions are in the nature of education, and Banks is said to have made many notes in this way. Unfortunately the only ones which have been preserved are those in which he criticises the famous Venus de Medici. The memo- randum is rather a long one, but that must not prevent me from setting it forth here. “ This divine statue, having been broken in several places, displays now the left arm from the elbow, and the right arm from the shoulder, of modern composition. In these lie the only defects of this otherwise perfect figure, for the wrists and the fingers are evidently too small for the other corporeal proportions. These faults have arisen from the erroneous notion that small legs and arms are beauties in women, whereas those parts being more fleshy than in men, must in nature be thicker in proportion to the size of the body. Some connois- THOMAS BANKS 149 seurs have also thought this elegant figure round- shouldered, because the back from the nape of the neck is rounder than where that beautiful part is distorted into a straight line by unnatural bandages. This love- inviting Venus stands on one leg only, which inflates the principal muscle, while it depresses another into a beautiful dimple. Indeed, were the figure scrutinised by square and compass, the mathematician and anatomist must receive equal satisfaction with the connoisseur. The modest elegance of her attitude is well known from the numberless casts of this admired statue in every country — but her face has beauty and expression so happily combined, that at first sight one sees she is conscious of her exposed state. The face is truly Grecian, having a straight line from her forehead to the end of her nose ; her mouth is small, and the hair is tied in a graceful knot behind a small but elegantly shaped head. It is to be lamented that the marble of this figure is not of that fleshy whiteness which so delicately characterises the Apollo of Belvidere.” This is, of course, but a note, apparently jotted down to aid the writer’s memory, and those who, like Byron, are annoyed to see this lovely relic of antiquity thus coldly appraised, should not forget this. What is rather curious is that a man like Banks, who was full of poetry, and recognised, as well as any, the inherent beauty of such things as he here catalogues rather than describes, should have been content to set down his impressions so prosaically. The general effect on his senses of what he saw in Rome cannot be better told than in these words of Cunningham: “ He confessed that all the visions of excellence which had ever visited his dreams were now realised before his waking eyes — that the antique sculpture fairly transcended all that he had con- ceived of it, and that in the heroic style of art rivalry with those magic marbles was more than hopeless.” Among Banks’s productions during his sojourn in Rome, three deserve particular mention : one, “ Carac- ISO LIVES OF THE BRITISH SCULPTORS tacus and his Family in the Presence of Claudius ” ; * the second, “ Psyche stealing the Golden Flame,” in which Psyche was intended to represent the Princess Sophia of Gloucester, and which subsequently became the property of that branch of the Royal Family ; the third, “ A Figure Emblematic of Love seizing the Human Soul,” or “ Love catching a Butterfly.” Of these the last was the most original and the most beautiful ; and of it, Banks’s biographer goes so far as to say that “ perhaps for grace, symmetry of form, and accuracy of contour, it has scarcely been equalled by a modern hand, and might almost vie with those productions of the ancients to which his admiration as well as emulation has been so constantly directed.” It is a sad commentary on the want of reliance on their own judgments, which characterised the many English residents and visitors in Rome, that they did not purchase any of Banks’s works. They were admired and praised, and there the matter ended ; and it is a fact that during the seven years he remained there (for he had added four to the three years paid for by the Royal Academy) he secured many friendly critics, but no buyers. It has been suggested that this arose from the fact that the travellers sought for antiques, or, at any rate, such things as appeared to be antiques, and that modern work did not appeal to them, but, as we have seen, on Banks’s own showing, Fuseli was able to dispose of his productions, and so were Wickstead and Barron. What seems, I think, a better reason for Banks’s want of success in this direction was the fact that he was a quiet, un- advertising man who failed to make it worth the while of the middlemen — the Nortons and Byreses of the time — to exploit him and his productions, and that he lost many of those chances of disposing of his works which others, less squeamish, were able to secure. In 1779 Banks returned to England, and taking a house on lease in Newman Street, he added to it a gallery and studio, and set up as a sculptor ; but by this time * This was afterwards purchased by the Marquis of Buckingham, and was at Stowe. THOMAS BANKS 151 two notable contemporaries had arisen who practically divided public patronage between them — Nollekens, to whom every one went for busts, and Bacon, who received all the chief commissions for groups and monu- ments. The result was that Banks worked and waited in vain,* and for five years lived on his private resources, and grew sick at heart with hope deferred. “ Not finding his talents sufficiently appreciated at home, on his return from Italy,” says his daughter, “ he determined on making a trial of Russia, where he had very favourable prospects held out to him by the Court.” It may seem curious that the sculptor should have elected to journey to a country then so difficult of access and so barbaric ; but he was not the only man of talent whom the promises of the great Catherine had lured to her Northern Court ; Diderot and others will occur to the mind. The Empress was anxious to make her capital a centre of literary and artistic activity ; she loved the converse of men of letters and the air of cultivated distinction which they, as well as artists, shed around her frost-bound throne. Her emissaries were active in all parts of Europe, and in Rome Banks’s poetical conceptions, though they may not have appealed to the antiquarians, possibly attracted those who were on the look-out on the Empress’s behalf. The fact that the sculptor had not achieved a marketable success, probably made Catherine think that he would be the more willing to join her circle of brilliant and cultivated men. And she was right. He could not fail to be dazzled by the imperial condescension, and he set out alone, leaving his wife and daughter in London, for Russia, carrying with him some of the best of his productions. His reception was cordial, and the Empress immediately purchased the 202 vicar of. See Bettes City Library, 85 Earl of, 243, 244 n. British Museum, 108, 122, 123, 137, 138, 219, 224, 288 Britton, 8 Broker, Nicholas, 15 Brooke, Lord, 33 bust of, 173 INDEX 302 Brooke House, 33 n. Brougham, Lord, 294 Broughton, 104 Brown, John, 9 Browne, Dr., bust of, 272, 273 Sir Richard, 75 Brownlow, Lord, bust of, 172 Bruce, Lady Mary, 220 Lord. See Ailesbury, 3rd Earl of Brussels, 94, 99, 1 10 Dievot or Dyvolt of, 87 Bryan’s “ Dictionary of Painters,” 2 n. Buckhurst Church, Sackville Chapel in, 68 Buckingham, Earl of, 37 George Villiers, Duke of, 21, 22, 45> 47? 5 1 Mary Beaumont, Countess of, 31 Marquis of, 150 n. Buckinghamshire, Gothurst in, 56 Fawley Church in, 82 Duke and Duchess of, monu- ment to. See Westminster Abbey Bullock, A. E., 25 Burdett, Sir Francis, bust of, 276 Burdett-Coutts, Baroness, 83 n. Burgess, Captain, monument to. See London : St. Paul’s Cathe- dral Burghley House, 17, no «., 153 n. Gibbon’s work at, 82, 84 Nollekens’s work at, 180 Burke, 118 Burlington, Lord, no n. Burman, Thomas, 70, 90 Burney, Dr., bust of, 172 Burns, Robert, statue of, 255 Bury, Hawstead by. See Hawstead Busby, Dr., monument to. See Westminster Abbey Bushnel], Tohn, 70, 90-93, 98 n. Butler, Sir Walter, 26 Byron, Lord, memoir of, 284 n. Oesar, Sir Julius, tomb of, 39 Calcutta, monuments at, 205, 288 Calthorpe, Sir H., tomb of, 24 Cambridge : Senate House, statues in, 120 Trinity College, Wren’s library in, 85 statue of Newton at, 121 statue of Pitt at, 170 busts at, 123, 124 Cambridgeshire, Wimpole in, 108 Camden, Baptist Noel, Viscount, tomb of, 81 Campbell, Lord Frederick, 224 Thomas, on FJaxman, 252 Sir Thomas, tomb of, 28 of Mamore, Colonel, 220 Campden, 56 Campton, tomb at, 42 Candia, siege of, monument repre- senting, 90 Cannes, 122 n. Canning, George, busts of, 172, 176, 282 statues of, 288, 290. And see Westminster Abbey Canova, 1 15, 213, 283, 284 Canterbury, Chilham near. See Chilham John Peckham, Archbishop of, tomb of, 5 Langham, Archbishop of, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Laud, Archbishop of, 41 n., 55 Sheldon, Archbishop of, monu- ment to, 71 Michael of, 5 Tenison, Archbishop of, 82 Cathedral, carving by Gibbon in, 82 monument to John Symp- son in, 103 tomb of Edward the Black Prince in, 14 Archbishop Peckham in, 5 Henry IV. in, 14 INDEX Capizzoldi, the sculptor, 132, 133, 140,147 Cardiganshire, 153 Carey, lectures on art by, 269 Carleton, Dudley, 31 Carlini, Agostino, 138, 147, 215, 216, 217 Caroline, Queen, 229 bust of, 226 Carpentiere, Adrien, 116, 122 Carter, Thomas, 113, 213 Carus, Dr., 286 Cary, Lady, tomb of, 38 Casaubon, Isaac, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Casherberry, 29 Cass family, monument to, 124 n. Cassiobury Park, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Castlereagh, Lord, busts of, 172, 176, 285 Cavalcanti, Bernardo, 10 Cavallari, Antony, 15 Cavallini, Pietro, 2, 3, 4 Cavendish, Lord George, bust of, *73 Caverswell Church, monument in, 289 Cecil’s “ Life of John Bacon,” 197, 200 Cellini, Benvenuto, II n. Ceracchi, Giuseppe, 218, 219, 222, 225 Chamberlain, Dr. Hugh, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Chamberlayne, Mr., 180 Chambers, the architect, 132, 138 Lady, daughter of Joseph Wil- ton, 139, 140, 141 n. Mr., 29 Sir Robert, 139 Chancellor’s “ Lives of British Ar- chitects,” 24, 30 “ Private Palaces of London,” 33 *• Chandos, Duke of, 76 n., 122 n. Chantrey, Francis, 120, 121, 123, i&i 43 > i 79 > l8l > i8 7 > 203, 2 i 7 303 Chantrey, Francis, bust of Nollekens by, 188 life and work, 260-297 boyhood and apprentice- ship, 261-264 goes to London, 265 returns to Sheffield, 268 marriage, 273 visit to Paris, 278 “ The Sleeping Children ” at Lichfield, 279-281 elected A.R.A., 279 R.A., 281 visit to Italy, 282-284 death, 295 portraits of, 297 honours, 297 Jones’s “ Life” of, 121 Bequest, 297 Collection, 289 Lady, 283, 286 Thomas, 261 Chapone, Mrs., 234 Charlbury. See Lee Place, near Charlcote, tomb at, 45 Charlemont, Lady, bust of, 172 Lord, 139 bust of, 173 Charles, Nicholas, Lancaster Herald, 16 Charles I., 72 art treasures of, catalogue of, 53 busts of, 51, 53, 56, 103 grant by, 34, 35 mausoleum to, 85 as patron of fine arts, 33, 47, 48,55 as Prince of Wales, 21, 22 portrait of, 41 n. reign of, 46, 57 equestrian statue of, 47-51, 53 other statues of, 52, 55, 91, 123 n. Charles II., 43, 72, 97 head of, 56, 71 reign of, 89 304 INDEX Charles II., statues of, 67, 76, 77, 7 8 > 9L 93 and Grinling Gibbon, 74, 75, 76, 85 Charles VI., Emperor, no Charlotte, Queen, 155, 190, 203, 225 Charlton, 38 Chatham, Earl of, busts of, 137, 172 monuments to, 197. And see London : St. Paul’s Cathe- dral, and Westminster Abbey Chatsworth, Cibber’s work at, 62, 63 Gibbon’s work at, 82, 83, 84 n., 86 architect of. See Talman, William Chatterton, monument to, 237 Cheere, the sculptor, 113, 114 Chelsea, 33, 45, 87, 103 Church, monument in, 137 n. Hospital, statues at, 78 Chesterfield, Lord, 85, 126 busts of, 124, 137 Chichele, Henry, monument to, 121 n. Chichester Cathedral, monuments in, to Collins, William, 239 Cromwell, Miss, 239 Chilham Church, monuments in, 57, ?9° Chiswick, no «. House, 103 Christchurch Priory, monument in, 248 Christmas, Gerard, 24, 25 John, his son, 24 Mathias, his son, 24 Churchill, Charles, in Chute, Challoner, monument to, 154 Cibber, Caius Gabriel, 61-70, 91, 94.95, 1 16 marriage, 64 work at Chatsworth, 62, 63, 64 figures at Bethlem Hospital, 65, 66 appointed Carver to the King, 68 Cibber, Caius Gabriel, portraits of, 69 Colley, 61, 65 Cipriani, 132, 138, 140, 180, 216 Civil War, 16, 49, 55, 231 Clare, Countess, 266 Earl of, 31, 32 Clarke, Sir Charles, 295 bust of, 288 Dorothy, Lady, monument to, 82 Sir James, bust of, 279 Mrs., tomb of, 41 n. Clayton, Mary Caroline, daughter of Sir William, 209 Clement XIII., no Cleobury, Elizabeth, medallion to, 248 Clerkenwell, New River House, 85 Clive, Lord, bust of, 277 statue of, 109 Closterman, portrait of Gibbon by, 8 7 Clowes, Rev. Mr., monument to, 248 Coade, manufacturer, 1 93, 195, 196 Coke, Lord Chief Justice, statue of, 44 tomb of, 39 Mr., plaster head of, 123 Mrs., monument to, 172, 180 T. W., bust of, 172 Colbert, 54 Coleshill, monument at, 104 Colley, family of, 64 Collins (the painter), 286 William, monument to. See Chichester Cathedral Colpoys, Admiral, bust of, 172 Colte, Maximilian, 23 Abigail, his daughter, 23 Alexander, his son, 23 John, his son, 23 otherwise Poutrain, Maxi- milian, 23 Comp ton- Verney, 39 Conde, Henri de, monument to, 54 Condi vi, 13 n. INDEX Conduitt, John, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Congreve, monument to. See West- minster Abbey Conteryn, Moses, 8-9 Conway, Anne Seymour. See Darner, Mrs. Hon. Henry (General), 220 bust of, 224, 226 death of, 228 Mrs., bust of, 156 Cook, Mr., 39 Cooke, Mrs., monument to, 289 Cooper, R., 229 Coote, Sir Eyre, bust of, 173, 175 monument to. See Westminster Abbey statue of, 250 Copen, George, tomb of, 38 Copley, picture by, 202 Corby Castle, Mrs. Howard of. See Howard, Mrs. Corfe Castle, John Bourde of, 7 Cornbury, Lord Danby’s house at, 39 Cornwallis, Lord, monument at Calcutta to, 205 monument to. See Lon- don: St. Paul’s Cathedral statue of, 250 Mr., 38 Sir Thomas, tomb of, 30, 38 Corsica, 218 Cosway, Richard, 158 miniature of Mrs. Darner by, 229 Cottington, Lord and Lady, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Coustous, Nicolas, 1 1 1 Coutts, Mrs., 177 Thomas, 177 bust of, 173, 1 76, 181 Cowley, monument to. See West- minster Abbey Cowper, Earl, 224 bust of, 173 William, bust of, 289 quotation from, 198 305 Coxe, Sir Richard, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Coysevox, A., 101 n . Cozens, 94 Craggs, Mr. Secretary, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Cranfield, Frances. See Dorset, Countess of Cranford, monument to Lady Berkeley at, 43 Lord Treasurer Weston, Earl of, 48, 49 Cremorne family, monument to, 1 37 Creswell, Mr., tomb of, 42 Crewe, Mrs., 223 Crispe, porcelain manufacturer, 191, 192, 193 Critz, John de, 23 Croker, 285 Cromford Church, 289 Cromwell, Miss, monument to. See Chichester Cathedral Oliver, busts of, 58, 124, 137 porter of, 67 n. Crosby, Miss, 124 Crouchback, Edmund. See Lan- caster, Earl of Croydon Church, monument in, 71 Croyland, 38 Crutchley, Mr., 234 Cuckfield Church, monuments in, 248 Cullum House, Banffshire, 83 Cumberland, Duke of, statue of, 78 n. Cumberland’s “ Anecdotes of Span- ish Painters,” 13 n. Cummings, Master, 8 Cunningham, Allan, 277 remarks on Bacon, 192, 194, 197, 200, 207 Banks, 157 Cibber, 62, 63, 64, 66 Flaxman, 231;, 244 n., 24c, 248, 249, 250, 253, 255 Gibbon, 82, 83 NoBekens, 162, 171, 178, 179, 181 u INDEX 306 Cunningham, Allan, remarks on Roubiliac, in, 1 14, 1 18, 1 19, 120 Wilton, 129, 133,134,136, 140 Cure, Cornelius, 23 Curran, bust of, 277 Curtis, Sir William, 276 bust of, 288 Dallaway, 13, 14, 1 6, 17, 18, 23, 38 40, 48 n., 57, 65, 71, 91, 128 Dalton, Dr., statue of, 288 Darner, Hon. John, 223 Mrs., 210, 218, 220-230 parentage and childhood, 220 statue of, 219, 230 portraits of, 219 marriage, 223 bust of, 226 list of productions, 225 portraits of, 229-230 Noble’s Life of, 225 n. Danby, Earl of, 38, 39 Danvers, Lord, 38 Sir John, 45, 46 D’Argenville, no, in Darnley, Lord, bust of, 1 72 Dartmouth, Lord, 281 Darwin, Erasmus, 224 Dashwood, Sir John, monument to, 180 Daubeny, Sir Giles, altar tomb to. See Westminster Abbey Davenport, Richard, monument to, 180 n. David, the French painter, 156, 250 Davies, Sir John, 33 Davy, Sir Humphry, bust of, 226 Deare, John, 2 12-215, 2I 7 Death masks, effigies from, 13-14 Delvaux, Laurent, 105, 106, 108 n ., 109, no, 131 Delves, Mrs., effigy of, 56, 57 Denman, Anne, 238 Denmark, Scheemakers in, 106 King of, 62 Dent, J., portrait sold to, 71 n. Deptford, 73, 124 Derby, 104 Lady. See Farren, Miss Derbyshire, 83 Devonshire, Duchess of, 223. And see Foster, Lady Elizabeth Duke of, 62, 64, 82, 226, 281 Dewes, Paul, 25 Digby, Lady Venetia, 56 Mr., monument to. See Worcester Cathedral Sir Kenelm, 56, 57 n. Margaret, his sister, 57 n. Dilettanti, Society of, 131, 147 Disley. See Lyme House, near Dobson, Austin, 115 n. Donatello, 14 Doncaster, Owston near, 289 Donne, Dr., 28 tomb of. See London : St. Paul’s Cathedral. Walton’s Life of, 36 Mrs., tomb of, 33 Dorchester, Lady, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey. Viscount, tomb of. See West- minster Abbey Dorset, Countess of, 32 Frances Cranfield, Countess of, 68, 69 Duchess of, monument to, 248, 290 Duke of, 172 monument to, 172, 180 Earl of, tomb of. See Sackville family Charles, Earl of, 69 Richard, Earl of, 68, 69 Douce, Francis, 182, 186, 188 n. Dover Castle, 27 D’Oyley, Mrs., 265, 270 n ., 273 Sir Christopher, 265 n. Drake, Montague Gerrard, monu- ment to, 108 Draper, Mrs., monument to, 202 Drayton Manor, 286 Dresden, Balthazar of, 1 1 1 INDEX Drummond, Provost, bust of, 173 Drury, Sir Robert, tomb of, 29, 38 Dryden, John, bust of, 123. And see Westminster Abbey epitaph by, 91 Dublin, Chantrey in, 266 Trinity College, 115 Duckworth, Admiral, bust of, 276 Dugdale, 7 n. Duncan, Admiral, bust of, 270 Duppa, Bishop, bust of. See West- minster Abbey Durham, tomb of the Venerable Bede at, 4 Thomas Morton, Bishop of, 32, 33 Du Sart, Francis, 72 Du Val, Ambrose, 54 Dysart, Lord, monument to, 180 Earle, miniature of Chantrey by, 297 East, Sir Edward Hyde, monument to, 288 East India Company, 155, 250 Eastbourne Church, Poyntz memo- rial in, 290 Easton, Little, Church of, Maynard chapel in, 58, 59 Eckstein, 113 n. Edenham, monument at, 108 Edgeworth, Miss, letter to, 294 n. Edies, sketch of Chantrey by, 297 Edinburgh, 28, 224, 267 Royal Infirmary, bust in, 173 statues at, 117, 120, 277, 292 Edward the Confessor’s Chapel. See Westminster Abbey the Black Prince, tomb of. See Canterbury Cathedral 1., crosses erected by, 4 effigy of. See Westminster Abbey 11., tomb of. See Gloucester Cathedral 111., 5 effigy of. See Westminster Abbey 307 Edward III., Edmund Crouch- back, son of. See Lan- caster, Earl of statue of, 58 V. , statue of, 33 VI. , statue of, 109 Effingham, Earl and Countess of, monument to, 205 Egremont, Lord, 216, 254, 281 bust of, 173, 289 Eldon, Lord, statue of, 295 n. Eleanor, Queen, crosses in memory of, 4, 50 effigy of. See Westminster Abbey Elgin Marbles, 179, 186, 297 «. Elizabeth, Queen, 16, 18 reign*of, 16, 20 statue of, 33 tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Ellis, the painter, 104 Elph instone, Mountstuart, monu- ment to, 288 Eltham, John of, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Embden, John Schurman born at, 45 Emmett, Philip, 71 William, 71, 72 Emneth, Norfolk, tomb at, 29 Enfield, tombs at. See Palmer, James ; Palmer, Mrs. Engleheart, 236 Erskine, Lord, bust of, 173 Mrs. F., 230 Essex, Little Easton Church in, 58 Gosfield in, 108 John, 7 Eton, Bird’s figure of Henry VI. at, 97 Bacon’s figure of Henry VI. at, 198, 201, 202 statue of Dr. Goodall for, 295 n. Dr. Keate, headmaster of. See Keate Eu, Anguier born at, 54 Evans, Thomas, bust of, 58 INDEX 308 Evelyn, John, 73-76, 79, 80, 81, 87 Everard, Sir Anthony, Anne, daughter of, 59 Evesham, Epiphanius, 24 Ewer, Nicholas, 11 Sir Thomas, tomb of, 38 Exeter, monument at, 288 Woodbury near, 25 Cathedral, 2 Exton Church, tomb in, 81 Fairborne, Sir Palmes, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Faithorne, 57 Fanelli, Francis, 51, 55-57 Farren, Miss, bust of, 224, 227 Faulkner, Captain, monument to. See London : St. Paul’s Cathedral Faulkner’s “ Fulham,” 82 n. Fawley Church, 82 Ferrers, Lord, 108 Fiddes’s “ Life of Wolsey,” 15 Fielding, Henry, 168 Fitzharris, Lady, monument to, 248 Fitzpatrick, General, bust of, 172 Fitzwilliam, Lord, 263, 269 Flanders, 90, 94 Flaxman, John, 5, 14, 65, 113, 126, I 27 > 157. 158. J 59 > 176, 177. 178, 179, 180, 213, 217 life and work, 231-259 boyhood and early successes, 231-236 work for Wedgwoods, 236, 237 marriage, 238 elected Royal Academician, 246 monuments by, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251 ^ visit to Paris, 250 elected Professor of Sculpture, 2s 1 sojourn in Rome, 240-245 designs for Homer, Aischylus, and Dante, 241 “ Lectures on Sculpture,” extract from, 242-243 return to England, 245 lectures and writings, 252, 253 Flaxman, John, death of his wife, 255 death, 256 personal appearance, 257 portrait and busts of, 257 senior, 231 Fleming, Major-General, monu- ment to. See Westminster Abbey Flensburg, Cibber born at, 61 Fletton, monument at, 108 Florence, 52, 13 1 Peter, a painter of. See Torri- giano Folkes, Martin, bust of, 124 Folkestone, Lady, monument to, 104 Foote, “ Taste,” a farce by, in Forbes, Sir Charles, monument to, 288 Duncan, statue of, 1 17, 120 Foster, Lady Elizabeth, bust of, 224, 226 Fox, Charles James, bust of, 172, 174, 178, 187, 225 Thomas, 261, 262 France, school of, 2 Bushnell in, 90 Freind, Dr., monument to. See Westminster Abbey Frewen, Dr., bust of, 123 Fulham Church, tomb in, 91, 98 “ Fulham,” by Faulkner, 82 n. Fuller, Isaac, 71 Fuseli, 147, 150, 158, 176, 184, 200, 252 Gaddi, 4 n. Gage, Master, 52 Gahagan, Nollekens’s assistant, 174, 186 Garrick, David, 121-123, 163, 166 bust of, 124 Mrs., 168 n. Garrod, Anne, tomb of. See West- minster Abbey Garth, 97 Galton Park, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Gawdy, Lady, tomb of, 30 INDEX Gay, monument to. See Westmin- ster Abbey Gayfere, the Abbey mason, 119 George L, bust of, 124 master carver to. See Gibbon reign of, 89, 94 statues of, 120, 122 n. 11., busts of, 103, 196 statue of, 109 111., 190, 198 n ., 199 busts of, 166, 167, 169, 277, 288 State Coach Carver to, 133 of, 140 statues of, 137, 215, 224, 276, 292 IV., 196, 255 bust of, 286, 288 statues of, 291, 292, 293 Gerbier, Sir Balthazar, 21 Ghiberti, 14 Gibbon, Grinling, 50, 51, 70, 71, . 94 > 9 5 > 143 life and work of, 72-88 presentation to Charles II., 74-76 master carver to George I., 86 portraits of, 87 children of, 87 work at Windsor, 76-79 Whitehall, 79 Gibbon, Simon, 72 n. Gibbs, James, 98, 100, 101, 102 W., 84 n. Gilpin, 104 Gladstone, Mr., 65 Glanville, George, 80 Glasgow, statues in, 250 Gloucester, Thomas le Despenser, Earl of, 7 Princess Sophia of, 150 Cathedral, monument to Mrs. Morley in, 239 tombs in: Edward II., 6, 13 Abraham Blackleech and wife, 56 Goblet, Nollekens’s assistant, 182, 186 309 Godfrey of Wood Street, 6 n. Godolphin, Sidney, Earl, monu- ment to. See Westminster Abbey Goldsmith, Oliver, in bust of. ^Westminster Abbey monument to, 180 Goodall, Dr., statue of, 295 n. Goodwood, marble figures at, 1 97 Gordon, Duke of, bust of, 173 Gore, Mr. John, 76 n. Gorhambury, 16 Gosfield, monument at, 108 Gosford House, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Gosse, Mr. Edmund, quoted, 21 7 Gothurst, 56 Gottingen, University of, 196 Gotzenberger, 231 Gougeon, 40 Gough’s “ Sepulchral Monuments,” 2fl.,4«.,7»., 13 “ Topography,” 24 n. Gower, Lord, bust of, 173 Grabe, J. E., monument to. See Westminster Abbey Grafton, Duke of, bust of, 173 Granby, Lord, bust of, 173 Grantham. See Belton House, near Lord and Lady, 271 Granville, Thomas, bust of, 173 Gray, Thomas, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Great Tew Church, monument in, 287 Greenwich, 103 Charlton by, 38 Hill, 246 Naval Asylum, busts by Chan trey for, 270 Grefen, Mr., 27 Grenville, Lord, 280 bust of, 172 Hon. Thomas, 182 Gresham, Sir Thomas, statues of, 58, 67, 91 Grew, Mrs., wife of Dr. Grew, 91 Grey, Hon. C., bust of, 172 Grinstead, West, Church, 103 INDEX 310 Guelfi, Signor, 1 10 n. Guy, Thomas, statue of, 109 Gwydir, Lord, bust of, 173 Hacwell, Mr., 27 Hadley, tomb at. See Wilbraham Hafod, 153 Mr. Johnes of. See Johnes Hagley, 123 Halcken, Alexander van, 1 10 Hale, Job, 261, 262, 287 n. Hales, Stephen, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Halford, Sir H., bust of, 289 Halifax, Earl of, 85 monument to. See W estminster Abbey Halpine, 263 Hamilton, Gavin, 147, 165 Lady, 229 Sir William, 229 Hamlet, the silversmith, 114 n. Hammersmith, St. Paul’s Church in, 82 Hampstead, Proctor buried at, 212 Hampton, Garrick’s house at, 121 Hampton Court, 52 n. keeper of, 78 vases at, 58, 67 work of Torrigiano at, 12 Hand, Mr., monument to, 156 n. Handel, bust of, 124 monument to. See Westminster Abbey statue of, 1 14 Handsworth Church, statue in, 288 Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor, monu- ment to, 108 Hardwicke HalJ, 63 Hardy, Sir Thomas, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Hargrave, John, 44 Lieut.-Gen., monument to. See Westminster Abbey Harries, Charles, statue of. See Westminster Abbey Harrington, Lucy. See Bedford, Countess of Harrison, the regicide, 50 Mr. and Mrs., monument to, 289 Harrod, 8 Harvey, Captain, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Hastings, Marquis of, statue of, 250 Warren, bust of, 156 monument to. See West- minster Abbey statue of, 250 Hatfield, 17 Hawkesbury, Lady, bust of, 172 Hawkins, Mr., 279, 280 Hawksmoor, architect, 26 Hawsted Church, tomb in. See Drury, Sir Robert Hawtrey, Ralph, and his wife, busts of, 24 Hayes, Sir Thomas, tomb of, 29, 38 Hayley, 255 Heathfield, Lord, monuments to. See London : St. Paul’s Cathe- dral, and Westminster Abbey Heber, Bishop, 285 monument to, 288. And see London : St. Paul’s Cathedral Heisett, tomb at. See Baron, Mr. Henley - on - Thames, Park Place near, 220 rector of. See Mavor, Dr. Bridge, masks on, 224 Henniker, Lord, monument to, 209 Henrietta Maria, statue of, 55 Henry III., 3 image of, 3 tomb of. See Westminster Abbey IV. , reign of, 7 tomb of. See Canterbury Cathedral V. , reign of, 7 tomb of. See Westminster Abbey VI. , reign of, 7 figures of. See Eton VII. , model of, 12 statue of, 33 INDEX Henry VII., chapel. See West- minster Abbey VIII., I, 9, 15, 16 indenture for erecting tomb of, 11 medallion of, at Hampton Court, 12 statue of, 16 tomb of. See Windsor Herbert, Lord, 15 of Cherbury, Edward, Lord, head of, 56 Hertford, Lord, 220 Hervey, Mary Lepel, Lady, portrait of, 85 Hewar, Sir Thomas, tomb of, 29 High am, Sir John, tomb of, 42 Hilliard, Nicholas, 17 Hoare, Mr., 51, 104 Hobhouse, Sir B., bust of, 289 Hoddesdon, 130 Hogarth, 1 14, 124, 126, 139 bust of, 124 Hokyntone, William de, 14 Holbein, Hans, 17 Holden’s “ Adversaria,” 80 n. Holkham, 109, 123, 172, 180, 293, 294, 295 _ Holland, Nicholas Stone in, 25-26 Sir John, 37 Lord, bust of, 1 73 Miss Martha, 204 Holies, Francis, tomb of. See West- minster Abbey George, tomb of. See West- minster Abbey John. See Newcastle, Duke of Holme Lacy, Gibbon’s carving at, Holmes, Admiral, monument to, 135 Holstein, Flensburg in, 61 Holt, Mr., 182 Holyrood, 28, 46 Homer, statue of, 109 Hone, the painter, 175, 184 Hookham, bust of, 279 Hope, Erigadier, monument to, 204 Thomas, 241, 255 3H Hoppner, 158 Horne, Sir Everard, bust of, 277 Horneck, monument to. See West- minster Abbey Horner, Francis, statue of. See Westminster Abbey Horsham, 56 Houdin, 207 Hough, Bishop, bust of. See Worcester Cathedral Houghton, 87, 123 carving by Gibbon at, 84 Howard, — , 217, 255 Frank, engravings by, 241 Henry. See Northampton, Earl of John, statue of. See London : St. Paul’s Cathedral Mrs., monument to, 172, 178 Howe, Lord, bust of, 270 monuments to, 249. And see Westminster Abbey Howley, Archbishop, bust of, 289 Hudson, the painter, 114 n. 125 n. Hull, Captain, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Hume, Sir Abraham, 21 1 David, 220, 221 Hunt, Mr., bust of, 268 Hunter, John, bust of, 251, 289 Joseph, 269, 271 Hurd, Bishop, monument to. See Worcester Cathedral Hurstmonceaux Place, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Hutton, Judge, tomb of, 39 Huy, Pepin de, 14 Ilam Hall, Dovedale, 286 Inchbald, Rev. P., 270, 278 n. y 284 Inquisition, Torrigiano and the, 12 Ireland, 26, 220 monuments in, 137, 205 William of, 4 Iremonger, Rev. F., altar tomb to. See Winchester Cathedral Isham, Sir Justinian, 45 Isleworth. See Syon House INDEX 312 Italy, school of, 2, 14 Anguier in, 54 Bushnell in, 90 Chantrey in, 283, 284 Deare in, 213 Delvaux in, 109, no Roubiliac in, 125 n. Rysbrack in, 100 Scheemakers in, 106, 109 Stone, junior, in, 43 See also Rome Jackson, Dr. Cyril, statue of, 288 John, portrait of Nollekens by, is? Mr., of Sheffield, 266 William, R.A., 282, 284 Jamaica, monuments in, 205 James I., 18 n. y 23 n. bust of, 51 reign of, 1, 20, 46 statue of, 52 II., statues of, 51, 77, 78, 79, 87 Isaac, 25, 26, 27 Jansen, Bernard, 25, 27, 28, 31 Jan, 25 Jenkins, a collector at Rome, 164, 165 Mr., 264 Jennings, Sir Percy, monument to, 248 Robert, n Jervas, 17, 113, 115 Johnes, Mr., of Hafod, 153, 154, 275 bust of, 277 Miss, monument to, 275 Johnson, a builder, 196 Dr., 126, 129, 138, 139, 166 bust of, 168, 173, 178 statue of. See London : St. Paul’s Cathedral Johnston, Sir Alexander, 227 Jones, George, R.A., 272 Inigo, 22, 30, 35, 38, 45, 48, 53 . 7 2 «■ bust of, 103, 104 portrait of, 41 n. Sir William, 126 monument to, 246 Jonson, Ben, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Jordan, Mrs., and children, group of, 287 Jordansthorpe, Chantrey born at, 260 Josephine, Empress, 229 Kane, Richard, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Kauffmann, Angelica, 175 portrait of Mrs. Darner by, 229 Kearne, Andrew, 40, 44 Keate, Dr., bust of, 173 Keepe, 4 Kemble, bust of. See Westminster Abbey Kennett’s Register, 50 Kent, Bushnell’s estate in, 92 Winam in, 39 Duke of, monument to, 108, 180 William, 102, 107, 143 Keswick, Greta Lodge at, 286 Keyser, Hendrik de, 25 Peter de, 25, 26 Thomas de, 25 Kildare, Lord, 80 Kilkenny, 26 Killigrew, monument to. See West- minster Abbey King, Admiral, bust of, 173 Dr. Henry, 36 Kingston, Lord, 64 Kirk, General Percy, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Kirtlington Park, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Knelier, Sir Godfrey, 87, 88, 93 monument to. See Westmin- ster Abbey Knevett, Lord, 38 Knight, J., monument to, 108 Mr., 237, 240 R. Payne, 226 Knole, 172, 248 Konigsmarck, Count, 90 INDEX Laguerre, 62 Lake, Lord, bust of, 173 Lamb, Hon. Peniston, bust of, 226 Lambeth, 34 n ., 142 Coade’s Artificial Stone Fac- tory at, 192 Lamport Hall, 45 Lancaster, Aveline, Countess of, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Edmund Crouchback, Earl of, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Herald. See Charles, Nicholas Langham, Archbishop of Canter- bury, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Lansdowne, Lord, 147 House, 147 Laroon, Marcellus, portrait of Cib- ber by, 69 Latham, the sculptor, 71 Latimer, Coomb Bank at, 220 Laud, Archbishop, 55 portrait of, 41 n. Lauderdale, Lord, bust of, 172 Lawes, Mr., 28 Lawrence, Major, statue of, 109 Sir Thomas, 71, 159 n., 255 remarks on Flaxman, 258 portrait of Southey by, 286 Le Blanc, Abbe, 70 n. Lebons, John, 11 Le Despenser, Thomas. See Gloucester, Earl of Lee, Sir Humphrey, 39 Lee Place, near Charlbury, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Lege, F. A., 281 n. Leggitt, Martin, 260 Leghtone, Master Thomas of, 14 Le Gros, 94 Leicester, Lord, 293 medal of, 18 Leigh, Lord, monument to, 180 Lely, Sir Peter, 42 n., 74 Lennox, Duchess of, 53 n. 313 Lepel, Mary. See Hervey, Lady Le Sacq, Mary Anne, 161 Le Soeur, Hubert, 46-54, 56, 57 statue of Charles I. by, 47- 51 Isaac, 54 Lethaby’s “ Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen,” 3 Lewes, Master Thomas of, 14 Lewisham Church, 154 Lichfield Cathedral, monument by Chantrey in, 279-281 Liege, Hennequin de, 14 Lincoln, monument near, 38 Lincolnshire, Edenham in, 108 Lisbon, 168 Liverpool, John Deare born at, 212 statue of Roscoe at, 288 Town Hall, statue of Canning in, 282, 288 Lord, bust of, 173, 181 Lloyd, poem by, 1 1 1 Locke, statue of, 104 Mr., of Norbury Park, 131, 139, 164 London, 4 bronze-worker of. See Orchard, John coal-supply to, 92 coppersmiths of, 15 the Admiralty, 78 Aldermanbury, tomb in, 29, 38 Bell Sauvage Court, Ludgate Hill, 73 Berkeley Square, 78 n., 137 n. Bethlem Hospital, 65, 66, 67 Bird Street, Oxford Street, 146 Bow Church, 15 1 n. Churchyard, 19 1 Street, 86 Buckingham House, 26, 196, 272 Palace, 39, 292 Street, Fitzroy Square, 245 Charing Cross, 53, no Hedge Lane at, 130 Charterhouse, 27 Cheapside, 84 INDEX 3H London, Clare Market, 212 Covent Garden, 40 n ., 78 Bedford Arms Tavern at, 223 New Street in, 231 Christchurch, Newgate Street, 56,91 Cripplegate Church, 1 56 n. Curzon Street, Mayfair, 265, 270 n., 273 Dorset Square, theatre in, 73 Dover Street, Evelyn’s house in, 76 Eccleston Place, Pimlico, 278 Edward Street, Cavendish Square, 130 The Exchange, 33, 58, 67, 78, 9 1 , 93, I0 9> !37> 2 9 2 Fishmongers’ Hall, 85 Fleet Ditch, 89 Foley Place, 133, 140 Garrick Club, 124 Goldsmiths’ Hall, 288 n. Gough Square, 126 Gray’s Inn Road, 82 Great Fire, 36, 56, 73, 82 Guildhall, 33, 197, 276, 292 Guy’s Hospital, 109, 197 Gwydyr House, 77 Hanover Square, 290 Haymarket, 90 Heralds’ College, 85 Holborn, Lord Brooke’s garden in, 33 Conduit, 49 Holland House, 35 Hyde Park, 233 Corner, 113 India House, 109, 295 n. Inner Temple Hall, 85 Kensington Palace, 85 Knightsbridge, 1 13 Leicester Square, 122 n. Lincoln’s Inn, 27 Duke Street in, 161 Long Acre, 40, 42 The Mall, 78 Marble Arch, 292 London, Marylebone Church, 156 n. y 168 Mayfair, 146 The Monument, 58, 68 Moorfields, 66 Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square, 165, 1 68 National Portrait Gallery, 41 n ., 58, 124 Newman Street, 150, 153, 196, 197 Northumberland House, 24, 25, no Old Jewry, 28 Paddington Church, 92, 156, 182 Pall Mall, Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery in, 156 Park Lane, 93 Piccadilly, 94, 113, 122 n. St. James’s Church in, 81, 85, 162 Portland Chapel, 139 Place, 237 Street, 140 Queen Anne Street East, 140 Rathbone Place, 234 Rolls Chapel, 12 Royal Academy, 124, 129, 145 exhibitors, &c., at : Banks, 144, 145 Chantrey, 266, 269, 274, 276, 280, 281 Darner, Mrs., 21 1, 212, 217 Flaxman, 235-237, 246,251,255 Wilton, 1 31, 138 Collection, 124 College of Physicians, 287 of Surgeons, 251, 277 St. Bartholomew’s, Royal Ex- change, 82 Church, 23, 52, 54 Close, 23, 53-4 St. Botolph’s, 124 n. St. Clement Danes, 33, 58 St. Dunstan’s by Temple Bar, 39 INDEX London, St. Gregory by St. Paul’s, 42 St. Helen’s the Great, 39 St. James’s Palace, 30, 52 Park, 52 n. Place, 267 Square, 208 St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, 82 St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, 40, 42, 44, 100, 124 St. Martin’s Lane, 106, 124 Peter’s Court in, 115 Academy, 144 St. Mary-le-Strand, 100 St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, 48, 70, 86, 87 St. Paul’s Cathedral, 66, 68, 95 Gibbon’s carving in, 81 monuments in : Captain Burgess, 155 Chatham, Lord, 219 Cornwallis, Lord, 217 Donne, Dr., 36, 44 Faulkner, Captain, 217 Heathfield, Lord, 217 Heber, Bishop, 289 Howard, John, 198, 203 Johnson, Dr., 198, 203 Owen, 24 Rodney, Lord, 217 Westcott, Captain, 155. >56 St. Thomas’s Hospital, 109 Savoy Chapel, 60 Seven Dials, 90 Skinners’ Hall, Dowgate Hill, 85 Soane Museum, 236 n. Soho, Carlisle Street in, 215, 216 Dean Street in, 114, 161 Square, 67, 251 Monmouth House in, 85 Somerset House, 40, 45, 52, 54, 55, 153, 155. 179. i8 °. 199, 202, 215 Place, 216 Southampton Street, 62 31s London, Spur Alley, Strand, 72 Strand, 231, 233, 237 Shipley’s Drawing School in the, 161 Surrey Street, Strand, 60 Tart Hall, 39 Temple Bar, 50, 91 Church, tomb in, 41 Tottenham Court Road, Whit- field’s Chapel in, 208 Tower Street, St. Giles’s, 90 Trafalgar Square, 292 Union Street, 139 United Service Club, 251 Vauxhall, 113, 114 Vere Street, 105 Vine Street, Piccadilly, 106, 109 Wardour Street, 196, 238, 259 Warwick Street, 132 n. Wellclose Square, Danish Church in, 69 Whitehall, 30, 33, 51, 74, 75, 78, 79, 87,132,138 Gardens, 55, 77 statue of Charles I. in. See Charles I. Richmond House in, 223 York Water Gate, 45 Longleat, Thomas Thynne of. See Thynne Longueville family, monument to, 54 Lonsdale, Earl of, 255 Loraine, Lord, monument to, 180 Lorraine, Charles, Duke of, no Lote, Stephen, 15 Louis XIV., 54, 101 71. Lowther Castle, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Lubomerski, Prince, bust of, 226 Lucan’s “ Pharsalia,” 28 Lucca, 14 Lucy, Sir Thomas, tomb of, 45 Lupton, Nollekens’s assistant, 186 Lushington, Miss Mary, monument to, 247 Lycurgus, statue of, 109 Lyme House, near Disley, carving by Gibbon at, 84 INDEX 316 Lymington Church, monument in, 103 Lyndhurst Church, monument in, 248 Lynn, tomb at. See Ewer, Sir Thomas family, monument to, 119 n. Lyons, 112 Lysons’s “ History of Derbyshire,” 83 n. “ Middlesex,” 24 n. } 43 n. Lyttelton, Lord, 123, 285 Sir Thomas, tomb of sons of, 32. 37, 38 Machonochie, Alexander. See Meadowbank, Lord Mackenzie, Rev. Alexander, monu- ment to, 289 Mackintosh, Sir James, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Macleod, Lieut. -Col., monument to. See Westminster Abbey Madras, statues at, 281, 292 Madrid, 52 Malcolm, Sir John, statue of, 290. And see Westminster Abbey Malibran, 294 Malmesbury, Earl of, monument to, 287 Malton, Sledmere Church near. See Sledmere Manchester, statue at, 288 St. John’s Church, monument in, 248 Manners, Lord Robert, monument to, 172, 180 Mans, Du Val born at, 54 Mansell, Sir, tomb of, 42 Mansfield, Lord, 165, 183 bust of, 173 monument to. See West- minster Abbey Marie Elizabeth, Archduchess, no Markham, Dr. See York, Arch- bishop of Marlborough, Duke and Duchess of, monument to, 102 Marlow Church, monuments in, 180 n ., 209, 248 Marshall, Joshua, 50 Martyn, Mr., tomb of, 42 Mary Queen of Scots, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Mason, Mr., 269 Mathew, Rev. Mr., 232, 234 Mrs., 234 Mathias, Mr., bust of, 173 Matson, 123 n. Maty, Dr., 124 Mavor, Dr., 155 May, Baptist, 74 Hugh, 74 architect at Windsor, 76 Maynard, John, n Sir William, and Anne, his wife, monument to, 58, 59 Mayor, Humphrey, 44 Mead, Dr., 126 busts of, 124, 126. And see Westminster Abbey Meadowbank, Alexander Machono- chie, Lord, 277 bust of, 278 n . Meary, Sir Thomas, 39 Mechlin, Laurens of, 87 Melbourne, Viscountess, bust of, 224, 226 Melbury House, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Melville, Lord, bust of, 289 statue of, 277 Michael Angelo, 9, 10, 11 12, 65, 164 Duppa’s “Life of,” 13 n. Flaxman’s statue of, 254 Micheldever Church, monument in, 247 “ Middlesex Parishes,” by Lyson. See Lyson Stanwell in, 38 Mildmays, tomb of, 23 Millar, Captain, monument to, 249 Lady, monument to. See West- minster Abbey INDEX 3i7 Milton, John, busts of, 58, 123, 124 monument to. See West- minster Abbey statue of, 1 14 n. Lord, 223, 269 Modena, carving by Gibbon at, 85 Moira, Lord, bust of, 172 Molesworth, Mr., 38 Monk, General, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Monmouth House, 85 Monro, Sir Thomas, statue of, 292 Monson, Sir Thomas, 38 Montagu, Duke and Duchess of, monuments to, 119 Mrs., 234 Montague, Captain, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Montford, Dr., 36 Montgomery, Robert, 280 Montrath, Earl and Countess of, monument to, 135 Moore, Sir John, monument to, 250, 270 Tom, 284 Mordaunt, John, Lord, statue of, 91, 98 Morison, Bridget, 29 Sir Charles, tomb of, 29, 38 Morland, Sir Samuel, 77 Morley, Mrs., monument to. See Gloucester Cathedral Mortimer, 233 portrait by, 140 Morton, Judge, monument to, 204 Mulgrave, Countess of, 45 Lord, bust of, 172, 174 Murray, the painter, 72 John, 123 n. bust of, 288 Nagler, 98 Napoleon, 219, 229, 245 proposed memorial to, 297 n. Nayler, Mrs. Hare, 241 Nelson, Lord, busts of, 224, 226, 227, 251, 270 monument to, 251 Netherlands, wars of, 31 Newbattle Church, tomb in, 42 Newcastle, tomb at, 28 Duke of, bust of, 173, 18 1 Duke and Duchess of, 103 John Holies, Duke of, monu- ment to. See Westminster Abbey William, Duke of, 55-6 Newton, a painter, 166 Sir Adam, 38 Bishop, monument to, 15 1 n. Mr., 1 14 Mrs., 151 n. Sir Isaac, busts of, 58, 123, 137 statue of, 1 21 monument to. See West- minster Abbey Nicholson (drawing-master), 279 Nightingale, Lady Elizabeth, monu- ment to. See Westminster Abbey Niton Church, Isle of Wight, monu- ment in, 248 Nivelles, no, 13 1 Noble, Percy, “ Life of Mrs. Da- rner,” 225 n. Noel, General, monument to, 180 Penelope, bust of, 56 Nollekens, Cornelius Franciscus, 161 Joseph, 85, 95 n., 107, 108 IOQ, 127, 128, I40, I42, 147, 151, I90, I93, 213, 2I4, 215, 216, 257 life and work, 1 60-1 88 parentage, 161 in Rome, 163, 164, 165 marriage, 168 monuments by, 180 busts by, 166, 167, 172, 173 , 174 character and personal appearance, 182-187 portraits and busts of, 187, 188, 279 death, 182 will, 186 appreciation of Chantrey by, 274 INDEX 3i8 Nollekens, Mrs., 177, 184, 185, 188 “ Nollekens and his Times, 1 ” 66 n ., 105, 114, 125, 139, 140, 160 et seq. Nonsuch, 30 Norbury Park, Mr. Locke of. See Locke, Mr. Norfolk, 29, 35, 37 Normandy, Eu in, 54 Normanton, Lord, monument to, 204 Northampton, 4 Henry Howard, Earl of, 27 Lamport Hall near, 45 Northamptonshire, Bough ton in, 119 Newbattle in, 42 Stow in, 38 Northcote, 113 bust of, 277 monument to, 288 Northumberland, Duke of, 255 portrait of, 41 n. Norton Churchyard, Chantrey buried at, 295 in Derbyshire, Jordansthorpe in, 260 Offleys of, 260 Church, 261 Norton, Mr., 85 n. Norwich, 295 Belstead near, 42 tomb at. See Anguish, Aider- man Cathedral, statue of Bishop Bathurst in, 295 Nost. See Van Ost Nottingham, 216 Earl of, 100 Okeover, in Staffordshire, 260 Oldfield, Mrs., 85 n. Oliver, Isaac, 17 Orange, Frederic Henry, Prince of, 55 Orchard, John, 14 Ormond, Earl of, 26 Osborn, Colonel, tomb of, 42 John, 55 Ossian, head of, 193 Owen, monument to, 24. See London : St. Paul’s Cathedral Owston Church, monument in, 289 Oxford : All Souls’ College, monu- ment to founder of, 121 n. statue of Blackstone at, 198 Bodleian Library, busts in, 58 Chantrey Collection at, 289, 292 Christ Church, busts at, 123, 196 Dean of. See Busby, Dr. statues at, 97, 104 tomb at, 42 Magdalen College, Lyttelton monument in, 38 Physic Garden, 38 New College, 38, 65 Radcliffe Library, 103 St. John’s College, 55 St. Mary’s Church, 38 statue of Dr. Jackson, Dean of Christ Church at, 288 statue of William, Earl of Pem- broke, at, 51 tomb of Sir Thomas Bodley at, V. Trinity College, 82 University College Chapel, monument in, 246 University Museum, 226 Countess of, 98 Earl of, 10 1 Oxfordshire, Radley in, 39 Oxnete, Norfolk, 37 Paine, James, architect, 26 Painters’ Company, the, 58 Palmer, Sir Anthony, 5 7 n. Margaret, his wife, 57 n. Francis, 186 James, tomb of, 29 Mrs., tomb of, 38 Sir Thomas, 39 Palmerston, Lord, 271 Panshanger, 226 Paoli, General, busts of, 174. And see Westminster Abbey INDEX Paris, 14, 54, 99, 163 . Academie des Beaux-Arts, 13 1 Royale de Peinture, 112 book of designs published at, 57 Ceracchi in, 219 Church of St. Sulpice at, 118 Flaxman in, 250 Le Soeur born at, 47 Parker, editor of “ Gleanings from Westminster Abbey,” 14 n. Parr, Dr., 126 Paston, Lady, tomb of, 35, 37 Mr., 37 Sir Edmund, 38 Peacham’s “ Compleat Gentleman,” 52 “ Peak Scenery,” by Rhodes, illus- trated by Chantrey, 83 72 ., 284 72., 296 Pearce. See Pierce Peck’s “ Antiquities of Stamford,” 8 Peckham, John, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 5 Peel, Sir Robert, 124 n. bust of, 289, 291 letter from Chantrey to, 285, 286 Pelham, Hon. Mr., bust of, 172 Hon. Mrs., bust of, 172 Pembroke, Earl of, 40 n. medal of, 18 Aymer de Valence, Earl of, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey William, Earl of, 51 Penfold, Sir Thomas, monument to, 180 Penkethman, John, 24 Peranesi, J. B., bust of, 174 Perceval, Spencer, bust of, 173, 176 Percy, Lady Eleanor de, tomb of, 6 Perrault, 54 Pete, Peter, 25 Peter the Roman Citizen, 2, 3, 4 Petre, Lord, bust of, 172 Petrie, Mrs., monument to, 154 Petty, Henry. See Shelburne, Earl of 319 Petworth House, Gibbon’s work at, 83, 84 Philip IV. See Spain Philippa, Queen, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Phillips (the painter), bust of, 285 Henry, 86 Pierce, or Pearce, Edward, 55, 57-60 assistant to Wren, 58 portrait of, 71 Pierson, Major, monument to, 202 Pigalle, 131, 141 Pilon, 40 Piroli, T., engravings by, 241 Pisano, 13 n. Pitt, William, bust of, 174, 276 statues of, 170, 250, 290, 292 Playfair, bust of, 277 Plumiere, 106, 109 Pocock, Admiral, statue of, 109 Sir George, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Pomfret, Lord, no n. Pond, Arthur, 125 n. Pope, A., 65, 98, 102 72., no 72., 123 bust of, 123 Popes, the. See Benedict XIV., Clement XIII., Urban IV. Porchalion, Thomas, 7 Porchester, tomb at. See Cornwallis, Sir Thomas Porson, Professor, bust of, 289 Porter, Miss Lucy, 168 72. Portland, Earl of, 50 Isle of, 26 Portsmouth, 30 Poutrain, or Powtrain, Maximilian. See Colte Powlett, Captain, monument to, 103 Poyntz memorial, the, 290 Prest, Godfrey, 15 Prior, Matthew, bust of, 124 monument to. See West- minster Abbey Proctor, Thomas, 2 10-2 12, 213 Puckering, Sir Thomas, tomb of, 39 Putney, 174 tomb at. See Martyn, Mr. INDEX 320 Quellin, 90 Artus, 90 Quidenham, 37 Radcliffe, Dr., bust of, 103 Thomas. See Sussex, Earl of Radford, Ernest, 95 Radley, 39 Raeburn, portrait of Chantrey by, 297 Raffles, Sir Stamford, statue of. See Westminster Abbey Ramsay, Robert, of Sheffield, 262 Raphael, 12, 44, 254 Ratclifle. See Sussex, Earl of Raworth, Mr., of Rycroft, 264 Ray, busts of, 123, 124 Read, John, 282 Nicholas, 127 Reading, Master Richard of, 6, 8 Rebow, J. Gordon, 76 n. Redgrave, — , 94 «., 193 church of, 30 Renishaw Hall, 263 Rennie, John, bust of, 281, 289 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 78 n., 1 1 3, 124, 125 126, 138, 144, 145, 146, 147, 168 n. 9 169, 175, 185, 194, 21 1, 212, 238 bust of, 219 portrait of Lord Mansfield by, 245 n. Dr. Johnson by, 203 portraits of Mrs. Darner by, 229 Rhodes, author of “ Peak Scenery,” 83 n ., 278, 284, 296 Rich, Miss, 117 Richard II., 6 tomb of. See Westminster Abbey III., statue of, 33 Richardson, George, 184 Sir Thomas, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Richmond, 40 Richmond, Margaret, Countess of, tomb of. See Westminster Abbey Duke of, 132, 138, 197, 220, 225 Gallery, the, 133 Richter, Christian, portrait of Cibber by, 69 Rigaud, picture by, 216 River, James, monument to, 51 Rivett, John, 49, 50 Robinson, Mrs., 279 Rev. William, 279 Sir L., monument to, 127 n. Sir Septimus, monument to, 180 Rochester Cathedral, 5, 209 Rockingham, Marquis of, 169, 179, 180 bust of, 174 Rodney, Lord, monument to, 205. And see London : St. Paul’s Cathedral Roehampton, 48, 49 Rogers, Samuel, 123 n., 255, 267 Rome, 3, 10 Banks in, 146-150 Bird in, 94 Bushnell in, 90 Cibber in, 62 Flaxman in, 240-245 Nollekens in, 163-165 Rossi in, 216 St. Peter’s, 43, 44 Scheemakers in, 106 Stone in, 43, 44 Theed in, 217 Wilton in, 131, 132 Nicholas, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Romney, 147, 253, 255 Hayley’s “ Life of,” 253 Roos, Lord, bust of, 172 Roscoe, statue of, 288 Ross, in Herefordshire, 143 Rossi, John Charles Felix, 216, 217 Rotterdam, Grinling Gibbon born at, 72 INDEX Roubiliac (Roubiliac), Louis Francis, 66, 94, 99, 104, 107, 108 n., 130, 140, 206, 213 life and work, 110-128 anecdotes of, 125, 126, 127 “ Vie de,” by Sainte-Croix, in n., 1 13 n. school of, 141 remarks on Flaxman, 232 Rovezzano, Benedetto de, 15, 16 Rowsby, a monk, parson of St. Clement’s, Stamford, 8 Ruislip Church, 24 Rundell and Bridge, silversmiths, 218, 254, 255 Russell, J., portrait of J. Bacon by, 209 Lady Louisa, statue of, 281 Mr., 281 Mrs. Watts, 286 Russia, Thomas Banks in, 151-152 Catherine, Empress of, 15 1, 152 , 173 bust of, 174 Rustat, Tobias, 76, 77 Rutland, Duke and Duchess of, busts of, 172 Rutlandshire, Colley family in, 64 Exton Church in, 8 1 Rye Church, tablet in, 209 Rysbrack, John Michael, 94, 99- 106, 107, 108 n., 113, 116, 126, 130 Peter, 99 Sackville Chapel in Buckhurst Church, 68, 69 at Knole, 178, 248, 290 Thomas, tomb of, 68 Hon. Edward, 69 Hon. Lionel, 69 St. Asaph’s, — Shipley, Bishop of, bust of, 173 n. monument to, 180 St. Barbara, medallion of, in Henry VII.’s Chapel, II St. Christopher, medallion of, in Henry VII.’s Chapel, 11 3 21 St. Edmund, image of, in Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, 3 St. Edward, image of, in Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, 4 St. George, medallion of, in Henry VII.’s Chapel, 11 St. Helen’s, Lord, bust of, 173, 181 St. John, statue of, by Gibbon, 79 the Baptist, carving of, by Gibbon, 81 the Evangelist, image of, in Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, 4 St. Michael, medallion of, in Henry VII.’s Chapel, 11 St. Paul, statue of, by Gibbon, 79 St. Peter, statue of, by Gibbon, 79 image of, in Edward the Confessor’s Chapel, 4 St. Petersburg, 87 St. Stephen, martyrdom of, by Grinling Gibbon, 76 n. St. Vincent, Lady, monument to, 289 Sainte-Croix, Le Roy de, “ Vie de Roubiliac,” 111 n., 113 n. Salesbury, Sir Thomas, monument to, 180 Salisbury Cathedral, monument to Charles, Duke of Somer- set, in, 104 the Earl of Malmesbury in, 287 Sands, Lord, monument to, 180 Saxony, Elector of, 1 1 1 King of, 286 Scharf, Sir George, 102 Scheemakers, Peter, 90, 103, 104, 113, 116, 126, 127, 131, 144, 162, 197 n. life and work, 106-109 Thomas, 109 Schurman, John, 44-46 Schwartz, the missionary, statue of, 251 Scotland, Nicholas Stone in, 28. See Cullum House Scott, Mr., 128 Sir Walter, letter from, 294 X INDEX 322 Scott, Sir Walter, bust of, 285 “ Sculpteurs, Vie des Fameux,” by D’Argenville, 54 Selby, Sir Thomas, tomb of, 28 Selden, an assistant of Gibbon, 84 Selsey, Lord, 165 Selwyn, George Augustus, 103, 123 n. Sergison family, monument to, 248 Settle, Proctor born at, 210 Seville, Torrigiano in, 13 Seymour, Lord Henry, 271 Jane, tomb of. See Windsor Shadwell, monument to. See West- minster Abbey Shakespeare, statue of. See West- minster Abbey Roubiliac’s statue of, 121, 122, 123 Banks’s statue of, 156 busts of, 123, 124 Shannon, Lord, monument to, 119 »., 121 Sharp, Granville, bust of, 277 Shee, Sir Martin, 296 Sheffield, 289 exhibition of Chantrey’s works at, 268 Chantrey’s youth in, 261-265 Sheaf House at, 293 Infirmary, statues at, 262 n. bust at, 273 Shelburne, Henry Petty, Earl of, monument to, 108 Sheldon, Archbishop. See Canter- bury Sheffield, Chapel of the Vyne near, T 54 Shipley, Bishop. See St. Asaph’s Mr., monument to, 180 Shirley, Hon. Laurence, bust of, 108 Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Siddons, Mrs., 159 bust of, 156, 226 Sitwell, Sir Sitwell, 263 Skewer, Sir Edward, tomb of, 42 Sledmere Church, monument in, 290 Sloane, Mr., 276 Sir Hans, 265 «., 271 busts of, 103, 108 monument to, 1 3 j n. Lady Gertrude, 271 Slodtz, Rene Michel, tomb of, 1 18 Smith, John Raphael, 87, 217, 264, 274, 297 bust of, 270, 274, 276 J. T., 66 w., 85, 105, 127, 182. See “Nollekens and his Times ” Nathaniel, 127, 160 n., 161 Soane, Sir John, bust of, 288 Museum, 288 Sobieski, John, statue of, 71 Socrates, statue of, 109 Sodbury Hall, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Somerleyton, near Lowestoft, carv- ing by Gibbon at, 84 Somerset, Charles, Duke of, monu- ment to, 104, 120 Somerville, Mrs., bust of, 288 Sonning-on-Thames, tombs at. See Clarke, Mrs. ; Wright, Dr. Southampton, Holy Rhood Church, near, 103 Southey, Robert, bust of, 286, 288 Southwark, 27 John Bacon born at, 190 Southwick Church, monument in, 119 n. carving by Gibbon at, 85 n. Spain, Philip IV. of, 22 Torrigiano in, 12-13 journey of Charles, Prince of Wales, to, 22 Speed’s “ History of Great Britain,” 16 Spencer, De, tombs of family of, 6 Countess, 241 monument to, 248 Lord, monument to, 180 Lord R., bust of, 172 Lord and Lady, tomb of, 39, 44 Spenser, Edmund, bust of, 1 23 tomb of. ^Westminster Abbey INDEX 323 Sprat, Dean, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Sprot, William, 14 Stafford, Marquis of, bust of, 288 Stamford, 8 Church of St. Mary at, 8 parson of St. Clement’s at, 8 Stanhope, Earl, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Stanley, Dean, 31 Miss, monument to, 103 Stanmore Church, porch to, 39 tomb at. See Worsnom, Sir J. Stanstead House, carving by Gibbon at, 84, 85 Stanwell, 38 Stapylton, Sir Robert, bust of. See Westminster Abbey Staunton, Sir George, statue of. See Westminster Abbey Hall, 108 Steevens, George, statue of, 25 1 Sterne, Laurence, bust of, 163, 165, 166, 174 Stevens, a sculptor of Delft, 18 n. Palamedes, 18 n. Richard, 17-19 Stevyns, Thomas, 8 n. Stilles, Alderman, tomb of, 29 Stoakes, Charles, 39, 44, 72 Stockwell, Mr. Barrett’s house at,i 14 Stone, Henry, 40, 41, 42 John, 40-43, 62 Nicholas, 1, 20-22, 25-40, 42 life of, 25-40 in Holland, 25-26 in Ireland, 26 m Edinburgh, 28 epitaph to, 40 appointed architect at Windsor by Charles I., 34y35 . publication of 7 8 > 79 INDEX Windsor Castle, mason and archi- tect of. See Stone, Nicholas ; Suthis, William “ Manner of tombs to be made for the King’s Grace at Windsor,” 1 6 rebuilding of, 5 tomb of Jane Seymour in, 16 Wolsey’s tomb in, 15, 16 Witley Court, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Woburn Abbey, statues at, 281, 288 Wolcot, Dr. (Peter Pindar), 175, 1 76, 184 Wolfe, General, monument to. See Westminster Abbey bust of, 137 Wollaston, carving by Gibbon at, 84 Wolsey, Cardinal, 11, 15 statue of, 97 tomb of. See Windsor Castle. Woodbury, 25 Woodford, Sir Ralph, monument to, 288 Woodward, Sir John, monument to. See Westminster Abbey Woollett, engraver, monument to. See Westminster Abbey John, tablet to, 209 Woolwich, 25 Wooton family, 146 Worcester, Bishop of, monument to, 180 Cathedral, monument to Mr. Digby in, 287 Bishop Hurdin in, 121, 125 Bishop Hough in, 124 Wordsworth, William, bust of, 285 329 Wornum, — , 106 Worsley, Sir Richard, 214 Worsnom, Sir J., tomb of, 39 Wotton, 76 n ., 80 Wren, Sir Christopher, 50, 58, 68, 74, 76, 82, 85, 95, 97, 100 bust of, 58 Wright, Dr., tomb of, 30 Mr., 56 Wyat, Enoch, 54 Wyatville, Sir J., bust of, 289 Wycombe, monument at, 108 Wykeham, William of, 5, 64 statue of, 65 Wyndham, William, monument to, 180 Wynne, Sir W. W., bust of, 172 Wyvenhoe Park, 76 n . Yarborough family, monument to, 248 Lord, 165, 169, 180, 197 n., 281 Yevele, Henry, 15 Ymber, Laurence, 11 York, Dr. Markham, Archbishop of, 194, 196, 198 Duke of, 255 bust of, 173, 176 Flaxman, born at, 231 Minster, tomb of Lady Bennet in, 28, 38 Sir Henry Bellasys in, 28 Young, Dr., Master of the Rolls, tomb of, 12 Dr. Thomas, tablet to. See Westminster Abbey Younge, Dr. William, bust of, 268 Zoffany, Mrs., 177 n . Y Printed by BALLANTYNE 6* COMPANY LTD AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS Tavistock Street Covent Garden London ■ n kf .u j> 3 £ c r g GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00094 1050