This article explores the ambiguous relationship between various busts by Louis François Roubiliac commissioned by Henry, 9th Earl of Pembroke and his family, including six versions of the 9th Earl himself. The majority of these busts are now at Wilton House and have usually been understood to form a group to be displayed together. However, close examination of the documentary evidence, including successive editions of the Wilton guidebook, reveals that only two were shown together, and that no bust of the 9th Earl was in the house in the eighteenth century, although one marble version was at the family’s London house and another formed part of his monument in the church at Wilton. Yet while not created as a group to be seen together, these busts share one significant feature – their highly polished finish. It is argued here that this was a distinctive aspect of Roubiliac’s sculptural practice and that these busts together constitute an exceptional case that allows us to discern what a surviving original surface might look like, something that has been until now difficult to identify. At the same time, the article addresses the methodological question of what evidence can be assembled in extended entries for individual objects in a catalogue raisonné, and how interconnections between individual works lie outside such entries and need to be explored in other ways.

Previous articleNext article No AccessSculpting Reputation: A Terracotta Bust of Senesino by RoubiliacMalcolm BakerMalcolm BakerDistinguished Professor Emeritus, University of California, Riverside; Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Victoria and Albert Museum, London Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Metropolitan Museum Journal Volume 572022 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723653 Views: 7Total views on this site © 2022 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

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Installed in the library in the North Quadrangle of All Souls College, Oxford, in 1734, Henry Cheere's statue of Christopher Codrington, a benefactor to the college, is unusual in its format. Conceived as a figure in action, prompted by the verses on the plinth, it appears to have been carefully planned as part of the arrangement of the library and quadrangle, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The statue is a subject of current controversy because Codrington's estates in the Caribbean were worked by enslaved people.

Beginning with a question about how the spectator apprehends a figure or bust in marble as a representation, this article uses eighteenth-century portrait busts in marble to explore how competing theories about representation and the apprehension of art might be applied to a distinctive class of sculpture in a particular material from a specific period. It explores how the terms of a debate formulated by E. H. Gombrich and Richard Wollheim about pictorial illusion might be applied to our perception of sculpture, and goes on to examine the ways in which contemporary accounts of viewing eighteenth-century portrait sculpture might be understood within this context.

"Chapter 16 Monumental Elements in Early 18th-Century Book Illustration: Jacob Tonson the Younger, George Vertue and the Illustrated Editions of the Works of Edmund Waller" published on 13 Aug 2021 by Brill.

Exploring the variety of forms taken by collections of sculpture, this volume presents new research by twelve internationally recognized scholars. The essays delve into the motivations of different collectors, the modes of display, and the aesthetics of viewing sculpture, bringing to light much new archival material. The book underscores the ambiguous nature of sculpture collections, variously understood as decorative components of interiors or gardens, as objects of desire in cabinets of curiosity, or as autonomous works of art in private and public collections. Emphasizing the collections and the ways in which these were viewed and described, this book addresses a significant but neglected aspect of art collecting and contributes to the literature on this branch of art and cultural history. This book evolved from a symposium "Sculpture Collecting and Display, 1600-2000," organized by the Center for the History of Collecting, that was held at The Frick Collection on May 19 and 20, 2017. Both the book and the symposium were made possible through the generous support of the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation. The book is published in association with The Frick Collection.

On constate, depuis une trentaine d’annees, un veritable regain d’interet pour les moulages en plâtre et les collections de moulages. Une serie de colloques internationaux ont ete consacres au sujet en France a la fin des annees 1980 et dans les annees 1990, suivis de manifestations similaires en Italie, en Angleterre, aux Etats-Unis, en Pologne, en Allemagne et ailleurs. Ces evenements avaient souvent pour objectif de defaire l’image des moulages forgee au debut du xxe siecle, a savoir des c...

The current interest in how museums display sculpture forms part of a wider set of questions about how sculpture has been displayed and viewed historically. This paper surveys developments over the past thirty years or so and outlines some questions about the display and viewing of sculpture that we are addressing now. One central issue for any curator of sculpture is this: how should works of sculpture which were created for specific settings – often public settings – be shown meaningfully in gallery displays which impose their own new viewing conditions and lock these sculptures into a new set of narratives? How do both curators and spectators engage with sculptures which were once site-specific but which are now decontextualized or rather re-contextualised as gallery sculptures? These questions are examined here in terms of changing approaches within the discipline of art history as well as the options open to the curator.

This article discusses how one version of Roubiliac's bust of Alexander Pope may be interpreted in terms of the friendship between the poet and the young lawyer, William Murray, later 1st Earl of Mansfield. Until now the identity of Murray's bust of Pope, once at Kenwood House, has been uncertain but the bequest in 1796 of the Kenwood bust to the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam allows this to be identified as the bust dated 1740 in a private collection. The line from Horace inscribed on Roubiliac's marble (adopted in part by Murray as his motto) was subsequently inscribed (in the same position) on Murray's own bust of 1779 executed by Nollekens. The friendship articulated through these two busts is explored further through consideration of various other visual and literary sources, including a poem dedicated by Pope to Murray.