museums and institutions:
Attributed works:
III. Pope Pius V (1504-72), attributed to Giovanni Antonio de' Rossi. Italian, c.1566. Coloured wax on glass in a glazed wood frame; diameter 8.6 cm., including frame. (A.2-1996; bequeathed by Mr E. J. Pyke). This relief is one of twenty-nine wax sculptures bequeathed to the Museum by Edward Joseph Pike (1898-1996). Teddy Pike devoted much of his life to the study of waxes, becoming the recognised authority on the subject after the publication of his Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers (1973; supplements in 1981, 1983 and 1986). Pyke's own collection, now divided between the V. & A. and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, was wide-ranging, and included British, German, French and Italian portraits and figure subjects from the sixteenth century to the present day: see Marjorie Trusted's account in Apollo [January 1997], pp.41-45.
Attributed works:
V. Temperance, by Hans Peisser. German (Nuremberg), signed and dated 1548. Solnhofen stone; diameter 13.9 cm. (A.4-1992). Hans Peisser (c.1503-71) was active in Nuremberg and Prague as a woodcarver and architect and was also known for his work on a small scale, producing models for plaquettes and bronze figures. The composition of this roundel is close to that on an almost contemporary but smaller medallion in the same material by Peisser's celebrated compatriot Peter Flötner, an example of which is also in the V. & A. (for an account of both see Norbert Jopek's article in this Magazine, CXXXV [1993], pp.820-21). The relief was possibly set on a cabinet with representations of the other Virtues. A smaller roundel by Peisser, also depicting Temperance, was listed in the famous collection of Paul Praun in Nuremberg.
Attributed works:
VI. Crouching warrior, by Hubert Le Sueur. French, c.1620-25. Bronze; height 28.7 cm., length 35 cm., width 29.3 cm. (A.1-1992; purchased with the aid of contributions from the National Art Collections Fund, Sotheby's, and a private individual). The figure of the crouching warrior, acquired in 1992, is shown here reunited with the equestrian statuette of King Henry IV of France on horseback which had been acquired by the Museum in 1951 (A.46-1951, given by Dr W. L. Hildburgh). At some time before that date the two components had been separated, possibly at Kimbolton Castle (from where the Crouching warrior is known to have come). The bronze and related pieces are discussed at length by Peta Evelyn in this Magazine, CXXXVII [1995],pp.85-92.
Attributed works:
VII. Charles I (1600-49), by Francesco Fanelli. Anglo-Italian, c.1635-40. Bronze; 17.5 cm. high, excluding base. (A.3-1999; purchased with the aid of contributions from the National Art Collections Fund, the Hildburgh Bequest, the Horn Bequest, the John Webb Trust, the Murray Bequest, the Crescent Trust, Mr Daniel Katz and others). Like Hubert Le Sueur, the Florentine Francesco Fanelli became Sculptor to Charles I. More gifted, he became well known for his small bronze groups, which were made in large numbers and collected avidly by the king. Unlike those multiples, this remarkable small bronze appears to be unique, and in the absence of Bernini's lost marble bust is the finest surviving sculptural likeness of the monarch. Its early provenance is unknown; it was owned by Miss Daphne Ionides when it was photographed in 1952 and published by John Pope-Hennessy in this Magazine (XCV [1953], pp.157-61).
Attributed works:
VIII. Louis XIII on horseback, signed by Hubert Le Sueur. French, c.1620-25. Bronze; 21 cm. high. (A.1-1994; given by the Crescent Trust in memory of L. and R. J. Lewis). Le Sueur, who specialised in bronze sculpture, held the post of Sculptor to the King of France under Louis XIII before coming to England to work for Charles I in 1625. This is the only known signed bronze statuette by the artist, the name LE SVEVER appearing on the girth of the horse. It belongs to a group of equestrian bronzes (including the larger example illustrated in Fig. VI) in which the horse and armoured body of the rider are identical but the heads are cast separately, enabling similar models to be reused for different patrons (for this group see this Magazine, CXXXVII [1995], pp.85-92).
Attributed works:
X. Sunna, by John Michael Rysbrack. Anglo-Flemish, c.1728-30. Portland stone; 88.3 cm. high. (A.2-1997; purchased with the aid of contributions from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Whiteley Trust and the Hildburgh Bequest). One of seven statues of Saxon deities, each associated with a day of the week, executed by Rysbrack for Lord Cobham's garden at Stowe, Buckinghamshire. Originally placed around an altar in an open grove, known as the Saxon Temple, the deities were by 1744 set in the Gothic Temple designed by James Gibbs and by 1773 had been moved again, to a nearby grove. All the works of art and other furnishings from the house were dispersed in two sales held at Stowe in 1848 and 1921; the Saxon gods were sold as separate lots in the latter and dispersed; their whereabouts have only recently been rediscovered. The Museum acquired another statue from the series, that of Thuner, in 1985.
Attributed works:
XIII. Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham (1647-1730), by John Michael Rysbrack. Anglo-Flemish, c.1723. Marble; 65 cm. high. (A.6-1999; purchased with the aid of contributions from the National Art Collections Fund, the Parnassus Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation and Sotheby's in honour of Terence Hodgkinson). Described by Margaret Whinney as 'perhaps the most important of the early works of Rysbrack and a landmark in English sculpture (and indeed probably unique in the Europe of its day)' (Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830, 2nd ed., London [1988]), this highly classicising bust exemplified through its stylistic vocabulary the civic aspirations of the sitter in an entirely new manner. Rapidly adopted by other patrons and sculptors, this intensely serious and severe formula would become familiar but was perhaps never employed so successfully again as here.
Attributed works:
XIV. The Three Graces, by Antonio Canova. Italian (Rome), 1814-17. Marble; 173 cm. high. (A.4-1994; purchased jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland, with the aid of contributions from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the National Art Collections Fund, donations from John Paul Getty II, KBE, Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and public subscription). The Three Graces was commissioned in Rome from Canova by John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, after he had seen the sculptor's group of the same subject (now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg) made for the Empress Joséphine. Canova started on this second, improved, version in 1814, finishing it by 1817; in 1815 the artist advised the Duke of Bedford on the display of sculpture at Woburn Abbey, and in 1819 the group was finally installed in the newly designed Temple of the Graces, where it remained until 1985.
Attributed works:
XV. Chimneypiece, designed by Sir William Chambers. English, 1765-75. Marble; 190 cm. high, 254 cm. wide. (A.1-1998; purchased with the aid of contributions from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the National Art Collections Fund). Commissioned for the Great Drawing Room of Gower House, Whitehall, by the 2nd Earl Gower, the chimneypiece was removed in 1886 when the house was demolished, and installed by the 1st Earl Carrington at Daws Hill, High Wycombe, Bucks. It epitomises the purity of Chambers's best work, exemplifying the cool early neo-classical style which emerged in the aristocratic interiors of the late eighteenth century. Originally placed against panelled plaster walls of lilac and green, its monumental scale, ambitious carving and French-inspired details set it apart from Chambers's more modest chimney-pieces of the 1770s still extant at Somerset House, the architect's other major project of the 1770s, and suggest that it was executed in the workshop of his friend and colleague Joseph Wilton.
Attributed works:
XVI. Nita Maria Schonfeld Resch (1864-1928), by Conrad Dressler. English, signed and dated 1898. Painted terracotta; 64 cm. high, including socle. (A.3:1-1995). Conrad Dressler (1856-1940), of German extraction, was born in Streatham, South London, trained as a sculptor under Edouard Lantéri at the Royal College of Art, and went on to work with Joseph Edgar Boehm in Paris before returning to London. His career is characterised by a constant experimentation with materials, primarily with bronze at first, and then in ceramics. In the 1890s he worked with Harold Rathbone at the Della Robbia pottery in Birkenhead and eventually set up his own kiln, the Medmenham Pottery at Marlow in Buckinghamshire. In this bust of his wife, Dressler is seen experimenting with the effect of polychromy on terracotta, giving the surface of the sculpture a light off-white wash, while the hair, the irises of the eyes and the lips have been painted a pale red (for a more detailed account see Marjorie Trusted's article in Apollo [January 1996], p.50).
Attributed works:
XVII. A Bishop Saint, by Alfred Gilbert. English, probably c.1892-95. Ivory, copper alloy and copper foil set with glass beads on a wood base; 29.5 cm. high, including base. (A.4-1995; given by Lady Harvey of Tasburgh, in accordance with the wishes of Lady Makins). This small bust was originally conceived in connexion with the commission for the tomb of the Duke of Clarence in the Albert Memorial Chapel, Windsor. Work on the tomb was started by Alfred Gilbert in 1892, but proceeded slowly - as was so often the case with Gilbert's commissions - and in 1899 the sculptor gave the piece to the collector and dealer Robert Dunthorne. At one time mistakenly identified as St Edward the Confessor, its exact relationship to the tomb is still unclear: it may have been an early study for a figure of St Boniface which was not ultimately used. The bust offers a fascinating example of Gilbert's improvisation in the use of materials, as the central core of the figure - covered by the bishop's cope - is formed from a discarded bronze torso of the type employed for the tomb's armoured statuette of St George.
Attributed works:
XVIII. Cathal and the Woodfolk, by Charles Sargeant Jagger. English, signed and dated 1914. Bronze relief in an oak frame; 49.5 by 77.5 cm. (A.1-1997). This bronze relief is one of Jagger's earliest known sculptures, produced while the artist was working under Edouard Lantéri at the Royal College of Art. Jagger submitted a plaster of the design for his unsuccessful application for the newly established scholarship in sculpture at the British School at Rome in 1913 and seems to have started working on the composition in the previous year. He applied again, successfully, in 1914 with a stylistically related bronze relief of a Bacchanalian scene, but was prevented from taking up the scholarship by the outbreak of war. After 1918 he made his name with a series of war memorials and other large-scale commissions in a different, more sombre style - most notably the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner of 1921-25.
Western art unattributed:
I. Wings from a triptych with scenes from the Infancy and Passion of Christ. English, c.1300. Ivory; each wing 10 by 3.2 cm. (A.31:1 and A.31:2-1996). Although the central panel of the triptych was acquired by the Museum in 1867 (inv. no.243-1867), the wings had by then been separated from it and eventually entered the Wernher Collection at Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire. Their allocation to the Museum by the Museums and Galleries Commission in 1996, following their acceptance in lieu of inheritance tax (Estate of Lady Anastasia Wernher), has allowed the triptych to be re-assembled. English gothic ivory carvings are rare, and this is one of only three known complete triptychs.
Western art unattributed:
II. Mould for repoussé or relief work. Italian (Tuscany or North Italy), c.1400-20. Fine limestone; 26.6 by 31.7 cm. (depth 7 cm.). (A.4-1993). On one side a young man kneels before two women seated under a canopy with a second scene, at right angles to the first, showing five men in a boat (the second from the left wearing a helmet with a tall winged crest) gesticulating in animated discussion. The other side contains several ornamental designs, including two shouldered quatrefoils containing an amorino and an archer with a wolf. Said to have been excavated in Florence, the stone is one of a small number of goldsmiths' matrices still in existence. The unidentified narratives seem to depict secular episodes, possibly from a classical romance, and were perhaps intended to decorate a marriage chest in silver or pastiglia. Alternatively they might be connected with a saint's life and designed for a shrine or altar-piece.
Western art unattributed:
IV. Leaf from a diptych with the Crucifixion. French (Paris?), c.1320. Ivory; 10.7 by 7.1 cm. (A.5-1999; given by Mrs Catherine Ward). The plaque originally formed the right leaf of a diptych, and was probably paired with either a standing Virgin and Child between angels or an Adoration of the Magi. The remains of the hinges are still visible on the left edge, and clusters of three small nail holes on the right indicate the original presence of two clasps. The two large holes in the background suggest that the plaque was re-used at an early date and displayed in a different setting.
Western art unattributed:
IX. Mortar. Probably French (Paris?), c.1550. Bronze; 11.5 cm. high. (A.2-1999; acquired at the Hackwood Park sale [20th-22nd April 1998] and given by Mr Daniel Katz). This rare mortar is of exceptionally high quality for a functional object. Decorated with naked male trumpeters, it bears the mark, an anchor surmounted by a crown, of an unidentified foundry, which also appears on a smaller mortar, decorated with putti, in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Other 'putti mortars' of similar design, some possibly later casts, exist in good numbers and have traditionally been linked to the school of Fontainebleau.
Western art unattributed:
XI. A male saint (St Benedict?). South German, c.1730-60. Terracotta on a gilt-wood base; 32.5 cm. high. (A.2-1992; given by Mr Michael Grimwade in memory of Mr David Peel). This terracotta statuette is almost certainly a sketch model for a life-sized painted wood figure intended to be placed to one side of an altar-piece. The larger figure has not been traced, and it is possible that the terracotta represents an unsuccessful bid for a commission. Stylistically it is comparable with terracotta sketch models and life-sized wood figures dating from the mid-eighteenth century of South German origin, such as the works of Ignaz Günther, Paul Egell and Johann Joachim Dietrich.
Western art unattributed:
XII. Apollo, by Louis Royer. Netherlandish (Mechelen), signed and dated 1818. Terracotta; 54 cm. high. (A.5-1992). Louis Royer (1793-1868) was one of the foremost Southern Netherlandish sculptors of the first half of the nineteenth century. A native of Mechelen (Malines), he moved first to Paris in 1819 and then to Amsterdam the following year. He took up the Prix de Rome in 1823, returning to the Netherlands in 1828 and becoming the King's Sculptor in 1835 and Director of the Amsterdam Academy in 1837. This terracotta figure, originally painted, is one of Royer's earliest works, and a plaster sketch model for it - less than half its size - was exhibited in Mechelen in 1818 (now in the Stedelijk Museum in Mechelen). The terracotta should therefore be viewed as an Academy piece, a finished work in its own right, rather than as a preparatory model for a larger-scale marble.
