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Two eighteenth-century sculpture acquisitions for the Victoria and Albert Museum,

by MARJORIE TRUSTED

TWO IMPORTANT EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY sculptures were recently purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, both to be classified as British, although the earlier of the two is by an artist from the , and the later one a work produced in . The purpose of this article is to highlight these exceptional acquisitions, and to summarise the history of each sculpture. 1 The earlier of the two, the Crouching (Figs.35 and 36), sculpted in Carrara marble, and signed and dated 1702 by John Nost the Elder (active 1680s; died 1710), 2 was bought by the Museum in March 2012. 3 It is an extraordinarily early instance in Britain of a monumental freestanding life-size sculpture of a 35. Crouching Venus , by John mythological subject, carved in a classical style, some years before Nost, on its the Grand Tour became fashionable. The nude goddess half- contemporary kneels on an integral plain rectangular base, resting her left plinth. Signed and dated 1702. buttock on an overturned urn, her arms crossed in front of her Marble, 122 cm. breasts, her head turned to her right, and her hair partly coiled in high; 237 cm. a bun at the back of her head. She wears a bracelet on her upper with plinth. (Victoria and left arm. The sculpture is signed on the front of the base: ‘I. Nost Albert Museum, F. / 1702’. 4 Unusually for a sculpture of this date, the original London; plinth, of Sicilian and Belgian black marble, has survived purchased with the assistance (Fig.35). It closely resembles a design by Nost of the 1690s for a of the Hugh plinth for the statue of William III, a drawing also in the V. & A. 5 Phillips Bequest). The corners at the back of the plinth were cut away at some point, probably so that it could be accommodated in a niche (see by Charles I after 1631. In 1682 it was presented to Charles II by below). But the condition is generally good, since the piece Sir Peter Lely, who had bought it at the sale of Charles I’s goods, seems never to have been displayed outside. 6 after the king’s execution in 1649. For this reason it is sometimes Nost’s sculpture depends on the antique prototype of the known as the Lely Venus .8 Nost is extremely likely to have Crouching Venus (or Crouching ), a Hellenistic sculpture, known it, since he had numerous patrons at court, not least the perhaps dating from the 3rd century BC, of which several monarchs themselves, William and Mary, by whom he was versions are known: in the Uffizi, , in the Musée du awarded commissions at Hampton Court. 9 , , in the Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome, and Nost’s interpretation of this classical prototype is not unique, elsewhere. 7 One version, however, dating from the 2nd century although it is among the earliest. Other post-classical copies and AD, in the , and now on long-term loan to the variants of the Crouching Venus were made in France and Italy , may well have been the specific model on during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, notably a which Nost’s sculpture is based. The Royal Collection work was variant by Antoine Coysevox (1640–1720) dating from 1686. owned by the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua, and had been acquired Tommaso Solari made a garden sculpture of the Venus in 1762,

I am particularly indebted to John Brushe for drawing my attention to a number of period of deferral, the V. & A. raised the sum needed for its acquisition, partly using important sources, and for his pertinent and informed comments on the Deare relief funds from the Hugh Phillips Bequest. and its history. I should also like to thank Jon Bolter, Julius Bryant, Richard Davis, 4 The total height of the sculpture and plinth is 237 cm.; the height of the statue Sarah Healey, Charlotte Hubbard, Alastair Laing, Stuart Lochhead, James Stevenson, alone is 122 cm. Mercè Valderrey, Emma Whinton-Brown and Paul Williamson for their assistance 5 Inv. no.9145; see J. Physick: Designs for English Sculpture 1680–1860 , London 1969, in a variety of ways in the preparation of this article. p.56, fig.30. 1 They are now on display in the Dorothy and Michael Hintze Galleries at the V. & A. 6 Some pock marks are visible on the surface of the marble figure, as is the natural 2 For Nost, see I. Roscoe, ed.: A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain veining of the stone. The fingers and thumb of the left hand are later replacements, 1660–1851 , New Haven and London 2009, pp.913–17; entry by M.G. Sullivan. and the right hand seems to have been broken and re-affixed. There are also some 3 Inv. nos.A.5:1 and 2-2012. The sculpture came to the Museum as a result of surface chips on the figure and on the plinth. an export deferral by the Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, in November 2011, on the 7 F. Haskell and N. Penny: Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical Sculpture , New recommendation of the Reviewing Committee for the Export of Works of Art and Haven and London 1981, pp.321–23. See also B.S. Ridgway: Hellenistic Sculpture I. Objects of Cultural Interest, since it was deemed to be of outstanding interest for the The Styles of ca. 331–200 B.C. , Bristol 1990, pp.230–32 and pls.112a–c. study of British sculpture in the eighteenth century, the third of the three Waverley 8 A.H. Scott-Elliot: ‘The Statues from Mantua in the Collection of King Charles I’, criteria. For this specific case, see the press release issued by Arts Council THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 101 (1959), pp.220, 222 and 226, no.88. and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 4th November 2011. During the 9 Roscoe, op. cit. (note 2), p.913.

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and bronze statuettes dating from the late eighteenth and early sculpture of the seventeenth century with classical forms nineteenth century were produced by Giacomo Zoffoli (active ultimately stemming from Rome. 1763–84), Giovanni Zoffoli (c.1745–1805), and Francesco The Venus is a remarkable instance of Nost’s assured carving. Righetti (1749–1819). 10 The idealised beauty of the figure, as well as the graceful serpen - Nost’s Crouching Venus was probably made for the statesman tine pose, while deriving, of course, from the classical template and lawyer Andrew Archer (1659–1741) for Umberslade Hall, on which is it based, recall Giambologna’s work of a century Warwickshire. Archer was the brother of the gentleman before. 17 Its scale and accomplishment give it a grandeur and architect (c.1668–1743). 11 Umberslade had been presence which were truly exceptional at that date in Britain. As constructed c.1695–1700, and it is thought that the sculpture in its prototype, Venus is depicted ineffectually attempting to was intended to be placed in the entrance hall. It was apparently cover her nakedness, her gesture only succeeding in drawing originally paired with a statue of Apollo, perhaps a version of the attention to her sensual body. The goddess is thought to be Apollo Belvedere , now lost. 12 No documentation of the commis - bathing, or possibly adjusting her hair, and caught unawares. 18 sion survives, and it is first recorded at Umberslade in 1815, when When the Hellenistic original was created in Greece, the female the house was described as being ‘long neglected’ and ‘entirely nude was relatively novel; previously only males were so depict - unfurnished and forsaken’. 13 It had not been regularly occupied ed. 19 Nost’s sculpture suggests the sophisticated level of patronage since 1778, the date of the death of the 2nd Lord Umberslade, of the wealthy gentry in Britain at the start of the eighteenth also called Andrew Archer, the second son of the probable patron century, and tantalisingly evokes the way in which interiors of the sculpture. The 2nd Lord Umberslade was the younger of eighteenth-century country houses were adorned with brother of Thomas Archer (died 1768), the 1st Lord Umberslade, sculpture. In its present setting at the V. & A. it can clearly be seen who had originally inherited the hall on the death of the to form part of the tradition of British sculpture, a classicising first Andrew Archer in 1741. In 1858 the house was sold to the successor to the seventeenth-century work of Nicholas Stone Muntz family, who re-modelled it, and the sculpture’s position (1586/7–1647) and foreshadowing the slightly different classical in the new entrance hall was therefore a later placement. Poss ibly interpretations of Henry Cheere (1703–81), John Cheere at that date the plinth was cut down at the back, so that it could (1709–87) and Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823). 20 be accommodated in the niche. In the 1970s the house was sold The second of the two sculpture acquisitions here under dis - once more and converted into flats. 14 But the Muntz family cussion dates from the end of the eighteenth century, and came retained ownership of the Crouching Venus , although it con tinued to the Museum as the result of the munificent bequest of Count to be housed at Umberslade. The sculpture was sold in 2007 Vladimir Caruana and Ivan Booth. 21 The possibility to acquire a to Thomas Coulborn & Sons Ltd., Sutton Coldfield, West sculpture by the Neo-classical artist John Deare (1759–98) arose Midlands, from whom it was purchased in 2012 by the V. & A. fortuitously when a relief by Deare was offered for purchase at Nost came to Britain from Mechelen, and in the 1680s about the same time that the executors of the Caruana Bequest worked in London alongside the Netherlandish sculptor Arnold approached the Museum. The V. & A. owns a number of Quellinus (1653–86). He is a somewhat elusive artist: his birth drawings by this artist, but had lacked any sculpture by him. 22 date, the nature of his training in the Netherlands, as well as the The marble acquired, Julius Caesar invading Britain (Fig.38), is one exact date of his arrival in Britain, are unknown. On Quellinus’s of Deare’s most imposing works, carved towards the end of his premature death Nost married his former master’s widow, inher - short life. It is signed and dated: ‘I. DEARE . FACIEBAT . iting his workshop and sculpture practice. He set up premises ROMÆ . 1796’ at the bottom of the relief, the line of lettering in Portugal Row, near Hyde Park Corner, on what is now part following the flow of the carved marble waves (Fig.37). The of Piccadilly. Nost is perhaps most famous for his lead garden form of the signature and date replicates Deare’s inscription on statuary, in particular the figures made for Melbourne Hall in his earlier marble relief of Edward and Eleanor dated 1790 (private Derbyshire. But he also produced marble sculpture for Hampton collection) and acquired by Sir Andrew Corbet Corbet in 1792. 23 Court, and provided marble tables for the Duke of Devonshire. The subject of the V. & A.’s relief is probably unique in sculp - He additionally undertook impressive funerary monuments in ture. The literary source was a passage in Caesar’s Commentaries marble, such as that to the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch at on the Gallic and Civil Wars , which records the Roman invasion Durisdeer (Dumfries and Galloway). 15 Documented works by the of Britain in 55 BC. A Latin inscription on a separate marble slab sculptor are, however, comparatively rare. 16 Two of his relatives, under the figurative relief quotes from this text; brass letters both also called John Nost, worked as sculptors in Britain and (three of which are now missing) are affixed to the polished, Ireland during the eighteenth century, but John Nost the Elder slightly veined, red marble block beneath the white Carrara mar - is generally considered to be the most important member of ble relief (Fig.38). The inscription reads: ‘HOC [V]NVM AD the family. As the leading member of a dynasty of sculptors, PRISTI[N]AM FORTVNAM CAESARI DE[F]VIT’ (this one he was a seminal influence on British sculpture of the eighteenth thing was lacking to complete Caesar’s accustomed success). 24 century, combining traditions derived from Netherlandish The line comes from a passage in Caesar’s account describing the

10 Haskell and Penny, op. cit. (note 7), p.323. Turner, Coventry n.d. [1817], p.430. 11 N. Pevsner and A. Wedgwood: Warwickshire (The Buildings of England) , 14 Tyack, op. cit. (note 12), p.191. Harmondsworth 1966, pp.437–38. The V. & A. also owns a terracotta figure by 15 Roscoe, op. cit. (note 2), pp.914 and 915. Henry Cheere (1703–81) after a design by Thomas Archer, dating from c.1739, for 16 The V. & A. also owns two terracotta figures by Nost of William and Mary, the Thomas Archer monument in Hale Church, Hampshire; inv. no.A.11-1934. probably models for the figures made for the Royal Exchange, and dating from See D. Bilbey and M. Trusted: British Sculpture 1470 to 2000. A Concise Catalogue of the c.1695; see Bilbey and Trusted, op. cit. (note 11), nos.8 and 9. These are on display in Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum , London 2002, p.63, no.85. the British Galleries at the V. & A. 12 G. Tyack: Warwickshire Country Houses , Chichester 1994, p.190. 17 Cf. some of the marble figures by Giambologna, such as his Psyche or Bathsheba 13 Ibid . See also W. Dugdale: Warwickshire, being a concise topographical description [. . .] dating from c.1570–72, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. See C. From the elaborate work of Sir William Dugdale and other late authorities , published by J. Avery: Giambologna. The Complete Sculpture , Oxford 1987, pp.96–107 and fig.93.

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36. Fig.35 without its contemporary plinth.

18 Ridgway, op. cit. (note 7), p.231. 22 For the drawings, see the V. & A.’s website: http://collections.vam.ac.uk- 19 See the entry on the British Museum website: http://www.britishmuseum.org - /search/?offset=0&limit=15&narrow=&extrasearch=&q=john+deare+drawings&c /explore/highlights/highlight_objects/gr/m/marble_statue_of_aphrodite.aspx. ommit=Search&quality=0&objectnamesearch=&placesearch=&after=&after-adbc- 20 Sculptures by these two artists are on display nearby in the Dorothy and Michael =AD&before=&before-adbc=AD&namesearch=&materialsearch=&mnsearch=- Hintze Galleries; see Bilbey and Trusted, op. cit. (note 11), nos.15 and 16 (Stone); &locationsearch=. nos.129–46 (Nollekens). The terracotta for Andrew Archer’s monument by Henry 23 This is signed ‘I. DEARE . FACIEBAT ROM Æ 1790’; see C. Avery: ‘John Cheere mentioned at note 11 above is in the Ceramics galleries at the V. & A. Deare’s marble reliefs for Sir Andrew Corbet Corbet, Bt’, The British Art Journal 3/2 21 Known as the Caruana Bequest, the terms of this generous donation to the Mus - (2002), p.52, fig.3. eum stipulated that the money should be used to purchase one major work of art. Such 24 J. Caesar: Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars , tr. W.A. M’Devitte an acquisition would effectively act as a permanent monument to the deceased donors. and W.S. Bohn, London 1851, p.98, Book IV, chapter 26.

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Poges, , once Penn’s country estate. 27 That article gave a full and scholarly account of the artist’s life and career, bringing his work once more to the attention of the academic world. As noted there, Deare was a native of Liverpool, and was apprenticed in London to the chimneypiece manu- facturer and sculptor Thomas Carter (died 1795). In 1785, the youthful sculptor won a stipend from the to study in Rome, having excelled at the Academy Schools, being the youngest artist ever to win the Gold Medal in 1780. He spent the rest of his life in Rome, drawing on both classical and Renaissance works as sources of inspiration. Greatly admired by his contemporaries, he died prematurely in Rome in 1798, 28 and is buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, where his compatriots Keats and Shelley would later be interred. 29 37. Detail of Fig.38. Deare worked on this sculpture over a period of several years in Rome, having been given the commission in 1791. The artist and art dealer James Irvine (1757–1831) noted in a letter from Rome to the writer and collector George Cumberland moment when the Roman troops, attempting to land their ships (1754–1848) of 8th April 1791 that ‘Deare has got a commission on British shores, were attacked by native soldiers, and were for a large bas-relief of the Landing of Julius Caesar in Britain, a forced to fight in shallow waters, to their disadvantage. Despite good subject, I think, for the variety of character. He sold his last the invaders’ ultimate victory, Caesar admitted that this was a marine nymph, or what you please to call it, very cheap, for fifty setback. The sculpture depicts this vivid battle scene, showing or sixty pounds’. 30 John Penn was in Florence and then in Rome the invading Roman soldiers being repelled by the Britons on from 1790 to 1791, and was ‘much charmed’ by Deare’s work, the shores of the English Channel. according to the engraver Charles Grignon (1754–1804), who The bravery of the local populace overcoming, if only tem - introduced him to the young sculptor. 31 Grignon noted in a porarily, an invading colonial force must have appealed to the letter to Cumberland of 16th November 1791 that Penn com - man who commissioned the piece, John Penn (1760–1834). 25 missioned a bust of himself from Deare, and ‘a very considerable Penn was an author, Member of Parliament, Justice of the basso-relievo – the subject pointed out by himself as the Britons Peace, and became the governor of Portland Castle, Dorset. He repulsing J. Caesar – also a chimneypiece’. 32 This confirms that was the grandson of the eponymous founder of the American Penn conceived the subject of the relief. Grignon’s phrasing state of Pennsylvania, William Penn (1644–1718). This land was likewise indicates that Deare was making two pieces: the Julius lost to the Penn family after the American Revolution of 1776. Caesar and a chimneypiece, which served as a complementary Thus John Penn was familiar with the political, and even pendant to the relief. 33 emotional, repercussions of a colonial force occupying, and Penn clearly befriended the artist, who was more or less being expelled from, foreign lands, from the point of view of an his contemporary. Deare wrote to his brother on 13th July 1791: Englishman whose family had once been colonial inhabitants in ‘Mr. Penn [. . .] took me to in his own carriage, to see an the New World. Paradoxically, at the same time, having lived eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and the antiquities in and about in America from 1782 to 1789, he may also have sympathised Naples, which are so wonderful, that I dare not attempt any with the cause of American independence, and felt an empathy description of them. I have 470l. worth of work to do for him’. 34 with his transatlantic fellows for throwing off the yoke of the The sum of £470 evidently refers to payment for the relief, the British Empire. Penn had considered settling permanently in chimneypiece and Penn’s portrait bust. In another letter from the the New World, writing in his journal, ‘I felt, indeed, the sculptor Christopher Hewetson (c.1737–98) to Cumberland of accustomed “amor patriae” & admiration of England, but some - 4th May 1792, Hewetson noted that ‘Fagan [the painter Robert times a republican sentiment, which attached me to America, & Fagan (1745–1816)] assures me that Mr Deare’s share of this almost tempted me to stay’. 26 american prize [ sic ] amounted to at least £400 sterling’. 35 This A wide-ranging monographic article on Deare by Peter compares with the fee of ‘£50 or £60’ for Deare’s smaller Marine Fusco, Peggy Fogelman and Simon Stock, published in 2000, Venus of 1787, noted above, and £100 for his relief of Edward and catalogued this sculpture when it was still at Stoke Manor, Stoke Eleanor of 1786, considerably simpler in composition than the

25 A bust of Penn by Deare, dating from 1791–93, is in Eton College Library, Eton from Charles Grignon of 20th August 1798. For a full account of Deare, see ibid. , College, . See P. Fusco, P. Fogelman and S. Stock: ‘John Deare (1759–1798). pp.234–59; Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25); and Roscoe, op. cit. (note A British Neo-Classical sculptor in Rome’, The Sculpture Journal 4 (2000), pp.101 and 2), pp.350–53 (entry by E. Hardy). 118, fig.32. Penn, a confirmed bachelor, also founded in 1818 a ‘matrimonial society’ 29 Ibid ., p.351. to improve the domestic life of the married, later re-named The Outinian Society; F. 30 Cumberland Papers held at London, British Library, VI, Add. MS 36496, fol.307v, McDermott: William Penn, Thomas Gray and an Account of the Historical Associations of cited in Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), pp.100 and 125, note 288, there , London 1930, p.40. For John Penn and his family, see J. Burke: Genealogi - mistakenly said to be from VII, Add. MS 36947. cal and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain . . ., III, London 1838, pp.491–94. 31 J. Ingamells: A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800 , New Haven 26 Penn’s manuscript journal, now in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and London 1997, p.755; and Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.100. Philadelphia, quoted in F. Fergusson: ‘James Wyatt and John Penn: Architect and 32 Ibid . For the bust, see note 25 above. Patron at Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire’, Architectural History 20 (1977), p.46. 33 Cumberland papers, op. cit. (note 30), Add. MS VI, 36496, fol.334r, cited in Fusco, 27 Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), pp.100–01, fig.32. Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.100. 28 J.T. Smith: Nollekens and his Times , ed. W. Whitten, II, London 1920, p.255; letter 34 Smith, op. cit. (note 28), II, p.252, cited in Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit.

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38. Julius Caesar invading Britain , by John Deare. Signed and dated 1796. Marble, 87.5 by 164 by 17 cm. (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Ivan Booth and Vladimir Caruana Bequest).

Julius Caesar relief. 36 Deare wrote to Cumberland on 1st March inscription below the figurative carving served as its lapidary 1794: ‘in a very [missing word, probably ‘short’] time I shall send epigraph. The relief and chimneypiece were probably initially a chimney-piece to Mr Penn of Stoke near Windsor’. 37 This may housed in London from about 1796, after they had been shipped refer to both the chimneypiece and the relief. Their exact date of from Rome, until some time after 1804, when the building arrival in London remains uncertain. A letter from Grignon could work at Stoke Park was complete. They were possibly installed imply that they had been shipped over by early 1796; he wrote at Penn’s town house, known as The Portico, at 10 New Street, to Cumberland on 20th January of that year: ‘I suppose you Spring Gardens, , or perhaps stored in packing sometimes see Mr Penn as I think you are neighbours [. . .] Deare cases. 39 In the early nineteenth century they were installed in sent your little centaurs in a case of Mr Penn – you have no doubt the Great Dining Room (or ‘Banquetting Room’, later the received it’. 38 However, since the sculpture is dated 1796, this Presidents Bar, and now once again the dining room) at Stoke may be a reference to an unrelated transaction. Park. In a watercolour from a set dating from 1830 illustrating The present marble has had a history of being moved and the interiors at Stoke Park, a rectangle represents the Deare relief removed. As Fusco, Fogelman and Stock stated in their article, (Fig.39), shown verbally, rather than visually, over the chimney - Deare’s relief was originally an overmantel, placed above the piece. The space where the relief would have been set is chimneypiece which, as proposed above, Deare almost certainly inscribed: ‘Julius Caesar’s check invading Britain; his confession carved at the same time. The chimneypiece could be said to in his Commentaries “This only was wanting to continue have acted as a visual pedestal to the relief, while the Latin the ancient good fortune by Caesar”’. In the lower left of the

(note 25), p.100. ‘little centaurs’. The centaurs might be works by Deare, otherwise unrecorded, or 35 Cumberland papers, op. cit. (note 30), VI, Add. MS 36496, fol.333r, cited in Fusco, were possibly antique sculptures. Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.100. 39 Since the Dining Room was not finished until 1804, it seems probable that the relief 36 The marble Marine Venus is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the and chimneypiece could not be taken to Stoke Park until then. See An Historical Edward and Eleanor mentioned above is in a private collection; ibid. , pp.94–96; and and Descriptive Account of Stoke Park in Buckinghamshire , London 1813, p.69. This book Avery, op. cit. (note 23), pp.50–52. is anonymous, but is known to have been written by John Penn, with the assistance 37 Cumberland papers, op. cit. (note 30), Add. MS 36497, fol.289r, cited in Fusco, of his brother, Granville, according to a manuscript note in the Lewis Walpole Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.100. Library, as noted in the National Art Library online catalogue, and also as recorded in 38 Cumberland papers, op. cit. (note 30), Add. MS 36498, fol.58r, cited in Fusco, McDermott, op. cit. (note 25), p.40. Penn’s town house is illustrated in the lithograph Fogelman and Stock op. cit. (note 25), p.100. This is, however, not necessarily a used as the frontispiece to the proceedings of Penn’s Outinian Society, mentioned at reference to the relief or chimneypiece, since the work might not have been note 25 above, published in 1822: see Records of the Origin and Proceedings of the Outinian completed by January 1796, given the fact that it is dated to that year. The phrase Society , I, London 1822. A copy of the print, published by Charles Hullmandel, is held seems to be somewhat oblique for such a major work, simply packed in with the in the London Metropolitan Archives, Wakefield Collection, no.p 7521989.

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tury. 44 A later owner, perhaps Edward Coleman (1834–85), who bought Stoke Park in 1863, or Sir Wilberforce Bryant (1836–1906), who acquired the estate in 1887, moved the Deare relief, without the chimneypiece, from the Dining Room to the Great Breakfast Room, which became the ballroom, and later the drawing room. It was photographed there in 1930, and again in 1957, installed as an overmantel in a later painted wood surround, displayed considerably higher than Deare had presum - ably envisaged (Fig.40). 45 In 1908 Stoke Park and its estate became a golf course. In 1928, it was bought by a property developer, Sir Noel Mobbs (1878–1959), who put it up for sale in 1957, while continuing to 39. Catalogue of reside at Stoke Manor. The golf course and Stoke Park were then pictures hung in purchased by Eton Rural District Council, now Stoke Park, Bucking - District Council. Just before the sale, Deare’s relief was moved hamshire. Coloured drawings by an once more, without the later surround and chimneypiece, this unknown draughts - time from Stoke Park to Sir Noel’s home, Stoke Manor, and man. (Historical installed in isolation, in a recess high up on the end wall of the Society of Pennsylvania, great hall, about three metres from the floor, and a similar Philadelphia; Bd distance below a first-floor gallery running along one side of the 16.St.67). hall. 46 This meant that it was difficult to see, and the inscription with the sculptor’s signature and date was illegible and hence rectangle are the words, ‘By Deare’. 40 The chimneypiece shown forgotten. 47 Other than its publication in a privately printed book in the watercolour, from which the relief was divorced in the of 1930, in an article by Alastair Laing of 1983, and in the 2000 late nineteenth century, as will be noted below, is still in the article, it was virtually unknown and unseen. In 2011 it was dining room at Stoke Park, although the marble surface has been rediscovered anew, and bought by Daniel Katz Ltd., London, irreparably damaged by energetic cleaning. who sold it to the V. & A. 48 In the mid-eighteenth century the estate at Stoke Poges The composition of the relief is both complex and compell ing. comprised Stoke Manor House and extensive grounds and was Clearly Deare, perhaps guided by Penn, was closely following inherited by John Penn when he was still a minor in 1775. 41 the text of Caesar’s Gallic Wars . In the centre, the helmeted From 1789 onwards Penn commissioned the building of Stoke figure of Caesar stands commandingly on a flat-bottomed land - Park, initially from Robert Nasmith (died 1793), and then James ing craft, armed with a shield and spear, his cloak billowing Wyatt (1746–1813), who undertook the bulk of the work from behind him in the wind. Behind him one of his soldiers, carved the 1790s to 1808. 42 Humphry Repton (1752–1818) oversaw in low relief, aims an arrow at the Britons coming in to attack the landscaping of the surrounding estate. Using the annuities from the right. One of these, a long-haired figure, wearing only paid to him by both the new American Commonwealth and the a loincloth, strides forth, his mouth open, no doubt shouting a British Parliament, in compensation for the loss of his American battle cry, having leapt from his scythed chariot, the wheel of territory, Penn demolished most of the earlier Manor House, which is armed with a knife blade. Three other bare-chested except for one wing. This is the present Stoke Manor, on the east Britons fight in the water, while two more can be seen charging side of the lake in the landscaped grounds, Stoke Park lying on in from behind. In the shallows a dead centurion, the eagle- the west side, further south. 43 bearer of the Tenth Legion, lies clutching a standard, which Penn died unmarried and childless in 1834, and the Stoke three of his fellow soldiers are wresting from a Briton who is Park estate was initially inherited by his brother, Granville attempting to seize it. 49 Another Roman soldier is about to fire (1761–1844). It was sold to the Whig politician Henry a stone from his sling, while a slaughtered Roman lies nearby in Labouchere, Lord Taunton (1798–1869), in 1848, and was to the water. The long hair and semi-nudity of the natives contrast change hands several times again during the nineteenth cen- with the more sober military demeanour of the helmeted

40 The watercolours are in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Advice by the Conservation and Design Officer, John Brushe, pp.3 –4. A copy of the Philadelphia. I am most grateful to John Brushe and Jon Bolter for bringing them to report is held at the council offices, Denham, Uxbridge. A resin replica of the relief my attention. has now been installed in the recess at Stoke Manor, fulfilling a condition set by the 41 McDermott, op. cit. (note 25), p.42. planning authority when permission to remove the sculpture was requested. 42 H. Colvin: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600 –1840 , 3rd ed., New 47 For this reason, the relief was misdated to 1791–94 in Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, Haven and London 1995, p.695. op. cit. (note 25), p.101, understandably using the evidence of contemporary 43 N. Pevsner: Buckinghamshire (The Buildings of England) , Harmondsworth 1960, references, the authors being unaware of the date 1796 inscribed on the marble. pp.246–47; Fergusson, op. cit. (note 26), pp.45–55; A. Laing: ‘Clubhouse Neo- 48 Inv. nos.A.10:1 and 2-2011. The measurements are as follows: h. of relief: 87.5 Classicism. Sculpture at Stoke Poges’, Country Life 173 (27th January 1983), p.186; cm.; w. of relief: 164 cm.; d. of relief: 17 cm.; h. of inscription: 12.8 cm.; w. of and Colvin, op. cit. (note 42), p.1117. inscription: 169 cm.; d. of inscription: 5.8 cm. There are some minor losses: the left 44 For a list of the owners, see McDermott, op. cit. (note 25), p.41. arm of the Briton in the water on the right is missing, and his lance partly replaced; 45 Ibid. , plate opposite p.38, and p.39. See also Laing, op. cit. (note 43), p.187, fig.4. the sword held in the right hand of another Briton is missing; the blade of the sword This is also the photograph used in Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), held by Julius Caesar is a replacement; the tip of an arrow piercing the torso of the p.118, fig.32. Briton in the water near the chariot is missing; the chariot is chipped, and the shield 46 Laing, op. cit. (note 43), p.187; see also McDermott, op. cit. (note 25), p.39. The held by one of the Romans is likewise chipped. For the published references, see history of the building is recorded in the unpublished report of a meeting of the South McDermott, op. cit. (note 25); Laing, op. cit. (note 43); and Fusco, Fogelman and Bucks District Council Planning Committee, 31st August 2011: Internal Specialist Stock, op. cit. (note 25). The artist Edward Armitage (1817–96) submitted a design for

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Romans. To the left, two Roman soldiers are seen from the rear in a smaller rowing boat, holding up their shields to defend themselves from the attack of the Britons, grasping shields and spears, and peering down at the invaders from their vantage point above on the cliff top. In the background at the centre right in low relief, sorrowing bearded Druids with upraised arms bewail the scene. 50 The theme of threatened invasion may have been inspired by fears of French attacks on Britain, which were only too apparent in the 1790s, and which became yet more real during the Napoleonic era, when Penn installed Deare’s relief in his Great Dining Room at Stoke Park. Caesar might even have been viewed as a prototype of , menacing Britain’s 40. Fig.38 set into sovereignty. Despite his American roots and affection for a painted wood America, Penn was a fervent British patriot, and a great surround above a later chimneypiece admirer of William Pitt the Younger, to whom he dedicated his in the drawing play The Battle of Eddington [sic ]; or, British Liberty in 1796. The room at Stoke Park, play recounted the ninth-century battle of Edington, when Buckinghamshire. Photograph dating Alfred the Great repelled an attempted invasion of Britain by from c.1930. the Danes. The frontispiece of the third edition of the play of (English Heritage 1832 was an engraving of Deare’s bust of Penn. 51 Deare’s relief Archive, Swindon). could therefore be understood as an epitome of Britain’s heroic defence of its shores, dramatising through sculpture an subject from Roman history, this time derived from Tacitus, historical scene with all its resonance for current events. showing Britons heroically confronting imperial invaders. 58 The literary and historical inspiration for this work was Such a blend of classical, Renaissance and contemporary sources complemented by a rich variety of visual sources. The authors was typical of the sculptor’s practice. of the 2000 article have drawn attention to some of these: the Apart from this eclectic range of sources, the virtuoso carving figure of Caesar is inspired by Alexander and Bucephalus , one of and mastery of composition are vividly evident. The marble is the Dioscuri on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. 52 The Briton leap - exploited to yield extraordinary subtlety and potency in both ing from his chariot is derived from the ,53 high and low relief. The composition is reminiscent of a paint - and also recalls the figure of in Titian’s Bacchus and ed narrative, and conversely the thrusting figures emerge from Ariadne , which Deare might have seen in Rome. 54 The virtuoso the surface of the carved stone in an arresting and dramatic way. use of low relief for the battle may have been inspired by The natural cloudy discolouration of the stone at the top right the skirmishes depicted on Trajan’s Column in Rome. 55 In has been used to suggest a cloudy sky. This, one of Deare’s last addition, the mourning Druids in low relief in the background works, indicates only too clearly his exceptional talent, and also recall the bas relief figures of Donatello, seen in his schiacciato shows that he was at least the equal of both Banks and John marble reliefs, such as the Ascension with Christ giving the keys to Flaxman (1755–1826), his almost exact contemporary. It forms St Peter at the V. & A., or the bronze figures executed in the an interesting parallel with another major work by Deare, backgrounds of the reliefs on his pulpits in the church of S. his large Judgment of Jupiter of the late 1780s, now in the Los Lorenzo, Florence. 56 The low relief marble of Thetis and her Angeles County Museum of Art. 59 Both are ambitious and nymphs rising from the sea to console Achilles for the loss of Patroclus virtuoso renderings in marble of classical subjects, drawing on a of 1777–78 by Deare’s older contemporary Thomas Banks wide repertory of sources. In its present position at the V. & A., (1735–1805), now also in the V. & A., provides another striking the Julius Caesar relief, although now separated from its parallel, and may well have been known to Deare before it left chimney piece below, can be viewed as a harmonious counter - Rome. 57 Perhaps Banks’s Caractacus before Claudius for Stowe part to the work of the aforementioned British artists, as well as of 1773/74–77 similarly inspired Deare, since it too depicts a that of the Neo-classical master Antonio Canova. 60

one of the murals for the new Houses of Parliament c.1843, of the same subject. This chronology of the Bacchanals and the evolution of one of them , London 1969. visually parallels the Deare, and must surely have been inspired by the earlier marble. 55 Cf. I. Miclea: The Column , Cluj 1971, esp. p.59, pl.XXXIII, and p.159, pl.XCIV. Armitage’s drawing (never to be translated into sculpture) is now in the Palace of 56 For Donatello’s marble relief, see J. Pope-Hennessy: Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in Westminster archives, London; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caesars_inva - the Victoria and Albert Museum , I, London 1964, pp.70–73; for the bronze pulpit reliefs sions_of_Britain.jpg. see idem : Donatello , New York 1993, p.310, fig.310. 49 For the reference to the heroic eagle-bearer, see Caesar, op. cit. (note 24), Book 57 This relief is now in the V. & A., inv. no.A.15-1984; Bilbey and Trusted, op. cit. IV, chapter 25. (note 11), no.69. 50 For the Druids in Gaul, who were said to have come from Britain, see ibid. , Book 58 J. Bryant: exh. cat. Thomas Banks 1735–1805. Britain’s First Modern Sculptor , London VI, chapters 13 and 14. (Sir John Soane’s Museum) 2005, no.12. 51 J. Penn: The Battle of Eddington; or, British Liberty. A tragedy , London 1796. An 59 For The Judgment of Jupiter , see Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), earlier edition was published in 1792. For the bust see note 25 above. pp.90–92, and p.107, fig.3. See also http://collectionsonline.lacma.org /mwebcgi - 52 Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.101; and Haskell and Penny, /mweb.exe?request=record;id=40804;type=101. op. cit. (note 7), p.138, fig.72. 60 For works by Flaxman in the V. & A., see Bilbey and Trusted, op. cit. (note 11), 53 Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.101; and Haskell and Penny, pp.76–83. Canova’s Theseus and the Minotaur , inv. no.A.5-1962, is displayed op. cit. (note 7), p.223, fig.115. nearby in the gallery. For the Canova, see H. Honour et al. : exh. cat. The Age of 54 Fusco, Fogelman and Stock, op. cit. (note 25), p.101; for the Titian, see C. Gould: Neo-Classicism , London (Royal Academy of Arts and Victoria and Albert Museum) The Studio of Alfonso d’Este and Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne: a re-examination of the 1972, no.307 (entry by H. Honour).

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