Saturday 5 December 2015

Statue of Shakespeare, Riversdale House, Kilmainham, Dublin.

A Statue of William Shakespeare.
 After the Original by Scheemakers.
 On Riversdale House, Kilmainham, Dublin. Ireland.

Demolished 1969.


 
 
 

 
Riversdale House, probably originally had Dutch Billy gables, and was constructed entirely in stone rather than brick. Constructed about 1725 by a Dublin lawyer called John Fitzpatrick who sold it shortly afterwards to a legal colleague, Simon Bradstreet. The Bradstreet family resided in the mansion throughout the 18th century, tending the formal gardens that stretched out in front of the house up to a splendid wrought iron gateway fronting the highway at Old Kilmainham. The house became tenements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with most of the house demolished about 1965.
 
 
 

 
 


Unknown Source - 1912.

“A full length statue, believed to be that of Shakespeare, was discovered last week by workmen engaged cutting down ivy growing outside the residence of 40 Old Kilmainham Road, Dublin. It was in a good state of preservation, and appears to have been placed over the porch, and was completely hidden by the ivy. It is supposed to date back to the 17th century.”




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Photographs of Scheemakers statue of Shakespeare For comparison Below 





Westminster Abbey Monument 1740.




The Wilton House version in Portland Stone of 1743.


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The Bonham's Sale Room  plaster version ( life size).



Sunday 29 November 2015

Roubiliacs Statue of Shakespeare for David Garrick

The Marble Statue of William Shakespeare
Made for David Garrick's Villa at Hampton
By Louis Francois Roubiliac.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Terracotta statuette of William Shakespeare.
The Model for David Garrick's Temple at Hampton. 
Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Inscribed on top left side of the desk LF Roubiliac in.t et Fec. 1757.
Height 55.9cms.
  The Folger Shakespeare Library. Washington DC.
 
Provenance.
Not included in The Roubiliac posthumous sale.
The portrait painter Thomas Hudson sale, Lot 36, Christie's 25 -26 February 1785
Held by Langford's of the Piazza, Covent Garden.
Bought Jean Baptiste Le Brun, Paris.
Eduard Chappey, Paris.
 
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Roubiliac with the Model for Garrick's Shakespeare.
by Adrien Carpentier, active in England from 1739, died 1778.
1257 mm x 1003 mm
Signed Adrien Carpentiers p: 1762.
 
Currently at Beningborough Hall
National Portrait Gallery.
 
If the date was added later, this may be the 'half length of Mr Roubiliac' ex­hibited by Carpentiers at the Society of Artists 1761. Roubiliac died 11 January 1762 and the quality of this portrait suggests it is unlikely to be a copy. The terracotta of his statue of Shakespeare commissioned by Garrick, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is dated 1757; the marble passed on the death of Mrs Garrick to the British Museum.
 
A version of this portrait without date or signature, was owned in 1931 by Kenneth Sanderson, and is apparently the source of the mezzotint by D. Martin engraved 1765 (see below) when in the possession of R. Alexander of Edinburgh. Both show a large pair of callipers on the stand in addition to the two small tools shown in the above portrait. A number of scholars have taken this to be a repetition. Where is it now?
 
 
 
Text lifted from  -http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/by-publication/kerslake/early-georgian-portraits-catalogue-roubiliac.php/#18
 
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Roubiliac and the Modello of Garrick's Shakespeare
after Carpentier.
Mezzotint 
David Martin
1765.
British Museum.
 
 
 
 
Terracotta Statuette
Signed on the Base.
Height 422 mm.
A slightly earlier sketch version of the Folger statuette.
The waistcoat is shown slightly differently revealing less of a paunch, The plinth of the desk has no drapery and the index finger is in a different position..
Victoria and Albert Museum.
 
Not included in the Roubiliac posthumous sale.
 
At the sale of the property of Edward Stevens (architect), held on 7 February 1776, lot 38 is described as 'A terracotta figure of Mr Roubiliac's Shakespeare'.
Noted on departmental records at the V and A, as having been purchased by Mr. A. Myers from the Henry Farrer Esq, F.S.A. sale (held at Christie's between 12 and 18 June 1866). Sold on the second day's sale, 13 June 1866, as lot 218, described as 'Shakespeare, by Corbett: a copy of the statue by Roubillac [sic]'.

The annotated catalogue is held in the National Art Library records it was purchased by Myers' for £2. Lots 221 and 222 in the same sale, described as models for a tomb in Westminster Abbey, were also purchased by Myers for 10s each.
 
The Shakespeare statuette was purchased by the Museum from Mr Myers in 1867 lot £4 4s. A terracotta model by Rysbrack for the Locke monument was also purchased from Myers at this time.
 
 
 
 
 
Copy of Roubiliac's Shakespeare at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham.
Undated photograph.
 
 
 
 
Life Size statue of William Shakespeare
made for the Temple at David Garrick's Villa, Hampton, Middlesex.
Louis Francois Roubiliac.
1758.
Now in the British Library.
 
 
William Shakespeare
Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Size Unknown.
 
This was apparently given to the anonymous owners grandfather by Warren Hastings.
This information, and the scanned photograph - 
from Louis Francois Roubiliac, Katherine A. Esdaile, Oxford, 1928.
 
This marble is very close to the first terracotta model of the Garrick Shakespeare now in the V and A.
Disappeared.
Showing the open waistcoat but an undraped plinth.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Garrick's Villa and Temple
Engraving after Joseph Farington
1793
From a History of the River Thames
250 x 358mm plate mark.
British Museum.
 
 
Johann Zoffany (Johannes Zauffay).
Garrick Club.
 
 
Zoffany
Garrick Club.
 
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A current view of the interior of David Garrick's Temple at Hampton
With the reproductions of the Roubiliac Statue and the bust of Garrick.
 
 
 
A reproduction of the Bust of David Garrick.
in the Shakespeare Temple at Hampton
Derived from the bust in the Garrick Club.
 

 
 

 

Tuesday 24 November 2015

David Garrick after Gainsborough with a bust of Shakespeare. The Busts of David Garrick





David Garrick


David Garrick after Gainsborough with a bust of Shakespeare. 

Some notes on The Busts of David Garrick.

19th Century Copy of the original destroyed in a fire at Stratford upon Avon
After Gainsborough
National Trust - Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
 Oil on Canvas
1137 x 756 mm.
The bust of Shakespeare looks to be a version of the Rysbrack terracotta now at the Victoria and Albert Museum.





Showing the Palladian Bridge at Prior Park, Widcombe, Bath in the background.
Another version of this painting is in the Folger Shakespeare Library.
The Original by Gainsborough was exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain at Spring Gardens Charing Cross in 1766.





David Garrick with the bust of Shakespeare
Mezzotint
Valentine Green
62.0 × 38.6 cm plate size.
1769.



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David Garrick
Louis Francois Roubiliac
Plaster
After an original lost terracotta of circa 1750.
25 in. (635 mm) high
National Portrait Gallery.

The Marble bust of Garrick by Roubiliac was sold by Christies on 23 June 1823 at the sale of Mrs Garrick.

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Louis Francois Roubiliac
and the bust of David Garrick
Andreas Soldi.
Dated 1757.
Garrick Club.

Another version of this portrait is in the Dulwich picture Gallery which is mentioned by George Vertue in his notebooks in  November, 1751, ‘lately Mr Rubilliac the Statuary, his picture painted by Mr Soldi'  which instead of the bust of Garrick depicts the figure of Charity for the Montagu tomb at Warkton, Northamptonshire (below).





Lois Francois Roubiliac
Soldi
Dated 1751
97 x 83 mm.
Dulwich Picture Gallery

© Dulwich Picture Gallery, London / By permission of the Trustees.

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The Garrick Sale - 23 June 1823.
Christie's
The Busts

Lot 72 Bust of Pope by Roubiliac

Lot 73 Ditto of Sterne

Van Nost 1764 Lot 74 An Early ditto of his majesty George III

Lot75 A bust of Garrick in terra cotta




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David Garrick.
By Louis Francois Roubiliac
Gilded Bronze Relief
18.5 x 15.5 x  6 cms
1758
Presented to the Garrick Club by Peter Norton, 1833.






It has many similarities with the plaster version of Garrick by Roubiliac in the NPG
 Many thanks to Marcus Risdell, current curator of the Garrick Club collection for providing this image.
  
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A Plaster Bust of David Garrick (1717 -79) 
Life Size
after the original attributed to John III van Nost.
Height 543 cms, socle 14.5 cms.

Presented to the Garrick Club by Theodore Hooke, 1830's.
NB Missing Buttons

It should be noted that the detail above the socle and the turned socle itself  are very close to that of the Shout bust of Shakespeare in the Garrick Club and the Athenaeum Club's 1830's Sarti plaster busts of Garrick (see below and previous post).

This suggests an attribution to the workshop of Shout or the later Sarti.






Once again many thanks to Marcus Risdell, curator of the Garrick Club collection for providing this image.

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William Thomas Lewis, Joseph Shepherd Munden, John Quick, and Tryphosa Jane Wallis, in a Scene from "Speculation", 

Depicting a Roubiliac bust of Garrick.

This bust is very similar to the plaster bust now in the NPG (photograph above).

Johann Zoffany, 
1796, 

oil on canvas, 102 x 128 cm


Digital image courtesy of The Garrick Club
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A Plaster Bust of David Garrick (1717 -79) 
Life Size
after the original attributed to John III van Nost, circa 1762
Athenaeum Club.
Supplied by Pier Angelo Sarti in 1830.


For much more info on the Sarti family see -





For the busts in the Athenaeum Club see -










The bust is attributed to John III Van Nost (d. 1780) on the slender evidence of J.T. Smith, who records this exchange: Macklin loquitur: ‘Do I not see your bust of Garrick in every barber’s shop-window, as a block for wigs?’ ‘No’, answered Nollekens, ‘it is not my bust; it is Van Nost’s.’ (J.T. Smith, Nollekens and his Times, 1828, II, 275.

Nost was born and trained in London, but made his name in Dublin, where he was the pre-eminent sculptor of the 1750s and 1760s, known particularly for his public statues of Hanoverian monarchs. He appears to have been the son of John Nost II and Catherine Nost, born on 22 June 1713 and christened at St Martin-in-the-Fields two days later. An entry in the Apprenticeship Books for 17 October 1726 records that ‘Jn Son of Jn Nost of St. Geo: Hanov: Square’ was bound to Henry Scheemakers for seven years, at a cost of £40.

A bust of Mr Garrick by van Nost was exhibited at The Society for the Encouragement of Arts Manufactures and Commerce in 1762 as reported in The London Magazine, Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, Volume 31.

Garrick owned busts of Pope (marble) and himself, mentioned in an inventory for his Hampton house where it was described as being in the Green striped  Bedroom in 1779 (National Arts Library) It is unclear whether this was a marble bust

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'Although it is less well-documented, Nost appears to have had a career in London as well as Dublin. In 1763 he was listed in Mortimer’s Universal Director ‘at Mr Clarke’s, St Martin’s-lane, opposite May’s-buildings’ (p 28; Rate-Books 1763, Cleansing Street Rates, F6007).
J T Smith later recollected that Nost had lived at 104 St Martin’s Lane, in a large house once inhabited and decorated by King George I’s sergeant painter, Sir James Thornhill.
Smith considered Nost’s most noteworthy work to be ‘the famous mask of Garrick from his face’ (55), which had been in Nathaniel Smith’s collection, but had finished up in a ‘gallery of theatrical pictures, busts &c’ owned by a Mr Mathews of Highgate Hill. According to the actor, Macklin, Nost’s bust of Garrick was ‘in every barber’s shop-window, as a block for wigs’ (Smith 1828, v.2, 228, 275)'

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It occurs to me that if Macklin's quote is correct then the bust of Garrick might well have been a bareheaded. The versions that we are aware of show Garrick in his wig - hardly very useful for displaying for displaying a barber wig.

Garrick Busts and Moulds In The Roubiliac Posthumous Sale.

Ist Day Lot 1 - Plaster Bust of Garrick
2nd Day Lot 5 - Plaster Bust of Garrick
Lot 53 - Mould - For Garrick
Lot 74 - Garrick Bust in Terracotta
3rd Day lot 82 - Garrick Bust in terracotta
Day 4 Lot 54 Garrick - Mould in Plaister


Nicholas Read in an advertisement in March 1762 he advertised among others busts of Garrick and Pope "Any persons who are related to the said gentlemen, or holding them in esteem". They were to be supplied "considerably cheaper than their usual price" before the moulds were disposed of by public auction. Moulds in plaster for the bust of Pope were lots 42 and 48 on the first day of Roubiliac's sale, 12 May 1762

In the Catalogue of Charles Harris of the Strand of about 1785 three busts of Garrick were advertised in three different sizes. (Catalogue National Arts Library)
Large as Life 2 Guineas
24 Inches at 16 s
Another 11 inches at 7/6


At the Garrick Club a plaster bust of David Garrick was presented by Theodore Hook in 1835 (or 1841: Ashton, no. S11) which is identical to the Athenæum bust, but it lacks the three buttons on the coat. Wedgwood made reduced and simplified busts in his ‘basalt ware’.



At Joseph Nollekens’s sale of 4-5 July 1823, a ‘Sarti’ bought a number of casts and terracottas after the antique, as well as figures by Michael Rysbrack and Nollekens. Sarti took a mould of the ‘antique dog’, then owned by Noel Jennings and now in the British Museum.
In 1826 a ‘Sarti’ received a payment of 10s for unspecified work for John Flaxman RA (Flaxman Papers BL Ad MS 39791, fol 135-42). Flaxman produced an undated pencil drawing inscribed ‘Portrait of Sarti’, which shows a young man with a naked muscular torso. J T Smith records that Sarti had a business in Greek Street in 1828, and that he offered for sale 52 varieties of Fiamingo’s children.

There is a plaster bust (711 x 483 mm) of Milton at Wimpole Hall, Cambridge (National Trust). One of a set of four, Pitt Dryden and Locke marked P.Sarti, Dean Street, Soho.

There is also a plaster bust of Pope (620 x 450 mm) supplied by Sarti? which is described as Newton at Wimpole Hall.

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The Wedgwood Basalt Bust of David Garrick

After the original attributed to John III van Nost.






David Garrick
Impressed Wedgwood
Height 16.75 ins 425mm
Lot 886, Neal's Auctions. New Orleans, 9th February 2014.


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David Garrick
 Wedgwood
Neals Auctions.



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 Some Contemporary Engraved Portraits of David Garrick.



David Garrick
After Arthur Pond (c 1705 - 58).
James McArdle.
Mezzotint.
322 x 228 mm.
Mid 18th Century.
British Museum.

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David Garrick
After Thomas Hudson
Anonymous Mezzotint
150 x 113 mm
British Museum

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David Garrick
After Jean Etienne Liotard
McArdle
Mezzotint
329 mm x 227 mm.
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
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Replica Portrait bust of David Garrick.
Attributed to John III van Nost.
 After the original in the Garrick Club (see above).

In the Garrick Shakespeare Temple at Hampton Middlesex along with a replica of the Garrick Shakespeare currently in the British Library.





Bust of David Garrick by Nollekens

Engraving after Burney

British Museum