The Charles Harris Catalogue 1777.

 

Charles Harris (d.1795).

Sculptor and Supplier of Plaster Casts.

At the Alfred's Head.

Opposite the New Church in the Strand.

(St Mary le Strand).

162 Strand.

Catalogue in French for 1777.

 

For  more on Richard Parker and Charles Harris see - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/asummary-of-researches-into-bust-of.html

For Parker supplying Wedgwood with plaster casts see -
and also Hoskins and Grant.

The Life of Josiah Wedgwood: From His Private Correspondence and Family Papers ... with an Introductory Sketch of the Art of Pottery in England, Volume 2. Hurst and Blackett, 1866.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KpxGAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Hoskins+and+Grant%22+London&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs provided by the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.

 

I am very grateful to Maria Singer and all involved at the Yale Centre for British Art for providing me with  these high resolution photographs of this unique publication.

 

Until now the only known copy of a catalogue of the output of Charles Harris is that in the National Arts Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum - it is undated and in English.

A transcribed copy of this publication appears in The Marble Index by Malcolm Baker, pub Yale.

 

 

Invoice signed by Mr Parker.

to the Earl of Winterton.

For Bustos of Virgil and Dryden.

British Museum.

 

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Trade Card for Charles Harris.

British Museum.

 

 

Monument to 3rd and 4th Dukes of Ancaster

Charles Harris 1777/8.

 

 

Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster (1714-1778) married Elizabeth Blundell, and secondly Mary Panton (d.1793). Shown seated holding a cameo of the Duchess. Standing in roman dress is the 4th Duke, Robert Bertie (1756-1779).He never married, and died of Scarlet Fever.

Monument by Charles Harris of London.

 

St Michael and All Angels Church.

Edenham.

Lincolnshire.

NB the late use of the Craggs / Shakespeare pose.

See forthcoming entry on this blog for the remarkable monuments at Edenham.

 

 

           Charles Harris and Richard Parker, Plaster Figures and Busts.

Harris is noted at 162 Strand, London Kent’s Directory 1794.

 

Harris was in partnership with Richard Parker by 1776, working at Parkers premises in the Strand, opposite the New Church with second premises in Bond Street, Bath.

Richard Parker specialized in making casts. There was a set of busts by him at Ashburnham Place, Sussex, - Locke, Milton, Congreve, Prior, See Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors .Roscoe. 2009) Parker is mentioned as Statuary of The Strand bankrupt in The Gentleman’s Magazine and The Town and Country Magazine in October, 1776.

Parker was employed by Wedgwood, their archives contain a letter from their London agent William Cox which states “Mr Parker has cast the medallions off in the best manner him and I could well contrive. I should be glad of your notes respecting the propriety or Deserts of the Performance. (Wedgwood/ParkerE5/30873 undated)

Theodore Parker, father of Richard supplied Wedgwood in 1769 with a figure of Shakespeare. In 1769 Theodore supplied Wedgwood with Flora, Seres, Spencer, Hercules, Seres Large Juno, Prudence, Milton and Shakespeare (Wedgwood/Parker L1/73, Theodore Parker acct Sept 1769 – 18 Dec 1769

Also supplied ‘Bracket open work’, ‘a boy a couch’ 3 dogge. Same refs

1774, Richard Parker supplied busts to Wedgwood & Bentley see Plagiarism personified. European pottery and porcelain figures, Julia Poole 1986.

Busts Zingara and Vestal and Pug Dog 10^th Feb 1774. On the bill is the printed heading

‘Scagliola;/or Plaster casts of Elegant subjects/ proper to introduce into the decoration of rooms, staircases, halls etc/ Richard Parker/ Opposite the new curch in the Strand/ having obtained from Joseph Wilton Esq. statuary to his majesty,/ various moulds of bas reliefs and bustos, made upon his original models / has the honour to acquaint the nobility and gentry, that they may be accommodated with casts at the shortest notice, Sundry samples of which with/ their prices may be seen at the above RICHARD PARKER’S / N.B. These original casts can be had at no other place; and although it may happen/ that some figure makers may clandestinely make moulds of any of those casts, they can / produce at best but an impression void of every original touch’.

In 1785 in Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth: with a catalogue of his works by John Nichols ... - Page 20 mentions a catalogue of the Statues, Bustos, etc of Richard Parker Statuary in the Strand and Hogarth’s Pug Dog.

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James De Ville (1777-1846)

James De Ville  was a plaster figure maker, lamp manufacturer, publisher of marked phrenological busts and owner of a museum of phrenological casts. He was born at Hammersmith in 1777, the grandson of a Swiss refugee from religious persecution.  While working at the Edinburgh Castle Tavern in the Strand De Ville attracted the attention of Charles Harris, a statuary and worker in plaster of Paris, who was then carrying on a large business across the street and who took De Ville as an apprentice, a position in which he continued until Harris’s death in 1795, thereafter working as a moulder in plaster.

 

In 1803, De Ville began business on his own account, purchasing some of the stock and moulds of John Flaxman, father of the sculptor, presumably at his posthumous studio sale that year. De Ville started selling plaster figures in Little Pulteney St, Soho, moving to larger premises in Great Newport St, Leicester Square about two years later, soon employing eight workmen, besides a modeller in clay.)

Citation needed for this paragraph 

 

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 Catalogue of the Plaster Casts of Robert Shout, 18 High Holburn.

Robert Shout 1764 - 1843.

 

 

Printed by Edward Spragg (fl.1794 - 1850), 27, Bow Street, Covent Garden.

Spragg was at 27, Bow Street by July 1801 (dated engraving The Quack Doctor's Prayer after Rowlandson in the Welcome Collection) still at Bow Street in 1819, he had left by 1824.

 

 

 

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