Two Plaster Busts at the Royal College of Surgeons
by Louis Francois Roubiliac.
William Cheselden (1688 - 1752) and John Belchier (1706 - 85).
Post updated 13 June 2023.
to be further updated in due course.
Cheselden was a member of the St Martin's Lane Academy.
Photograph from a tweet by Eleanor Crook Sculpt @CrookEleanor
William Cheselden (1688 - 1752).
Plaster bust.
It has sustained some damage to the drapery.
Life Size. Height 61 cms.
I suspect the socle is a replacement.
I am very grateful to Bruce Simpson, Curator, Royal College of Surgeons for providing this photograph.
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William Cheselden.
by Jonathan Richardson.
1720's or 1730's.
140 x 118 mm.
This portrait is of the anatomist and eminent surgeon William Cheselden, who was one of the closest friends of the artist, Jonathan Richardson. It is one of a series of small chalk and graphite drawings of friends and acquaintances that Richardson made in his retirement. Some of these images were drawn from memory and together, they represent a sustained project in recording friendships across Richardson's whole life. Drawing was the perfect medium for this project as it allowed Richardson to produce a large number of images quickly and was closely associated with friendship and intimacy.
Text and image © National Portrait Gallery, London.
Cheselden.
by Jonathan Richardson.
British Museum.
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William Cheselden.
Jonathan Richardson.
Royal College of Surgeons.
William Cheselden.
1753.
Mezzotint.
John Faber after Jonathan Richardson.
Image courtesy Wellcome Collection.
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Marble Bust of Cheselden by Weekes.
Dated 1871.
St Thomas's Hospital, London.
Life Size.
see my post -
On 3 June 1871, Dr Leonard W. Sedgwick, wrote to the
Governors of St Thomas', offering, on behalf of 'old Students of the Medical
School of this Hospital', marble busts of William Cheselden and Sir Richard
Mead, both by Henry Weekes RA. The offer was formally accepted by the Grand
Committee at its meeting of 6 June 1871.
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William Cheselden giving an anatomical demonstration to six spectators in the anatomy-theatre of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, London.
Oil painting, ca. 1730/1740.
Wellcome Library, London.
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Of tangential relevance to this post.
A Medallion by William Wyon c. 1827/8
in the BM.
Adapted from the Roubiliac Bust.
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John Belchier (1706 - 85).
Plaster Bust
Royal College of Surgeons
There is mention of busts of Belchier and Dr Richard Meade in the Museum at Guys Hospital in an inventory published in 1829 by Thomas Hodgkin.
I suspect that it was these two busts not of Richard Mead
For a bust of Richard Meade by Roubiliac see my post.
I am very grateful to Bruce Simpson, Curator, Royal College of Surgeons for providing this photograph (above).
This Image from:
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John Belchier (1706-1785) who was at Guy's Hospital 1736 - 68. He discovered at about the time of his Guy's appointment that the vegetable dye madder stained newly forming bone tissue, opening up the study of the growth and development of the skeleton, which was vigorously taken forward by Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and John Hunter, he and was a member of the Court of Assistants at the Company of Surgeons from 1751 to 1785. [Wikipedia]
The Oxford DNB entry is more extensive: "John Belchier (bap. 1706, d. 1785), surgeon, the son of James Belchier, innkeeper and bailiff of Kingston, was born at Kingston, Surrey, and was baptized there on 5 March 1706.
He entered Eton College as a king's scholar in 1716. On leaving school he was apprenticed to William Cheselden, head surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, London. By perseverance Belchier became eminent in his profession, and in 1736 he was appointed surgeon to Guy's Hospital. In 1732 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital, a charity created by Royal Charter in 1739. Belchier was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society in 1737, and his name appears on the list of the council from 1769 to 1772.
He contributed some papers to the society's Philosophical Transactions. On Belchier's retirement as surgeon of Guy's Hospital he was elected one of its governors, and also a governor of St Thomas's Hospital. He had an exaggerated reverence for the name of Guy, saying ‘that no other man would have sacrificed £150,000 for the benefit of his fellow-creatures’. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1743 is the following story:
One Stephen Wright, who, as a patient, came to Mr. Belchier, a surgeon, in Sun Court, being alone with him in the room clapt a pistol to his breast, demanding his money. Mr. Belchier offered him two guineas, which he refused; but, accepting of six guineas and a gold watch, as he was putting them in his pocket Mr. Belchier took the opportunity to seize upon him, and, after a struggle, secured him. (GM, 1st ser., 13, 1743, 50)
A stout but active man, Belchier died suddenly in Sun Court, Threadneedle Street, on 6 February 1785 after returning from Batson's Coffee House. His manservant had attempted to raise his master but was told ‘No John—I am dying. Fetch me a pillow; I may as well die here as anywhere else’ (Wilks and Bettany, 127). He was buried in the founder's vault in the chapel attached to Guy's Hospital."
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The terracotta bust of Isaac Newton sculpted by
Louis-François Roubiliac recently reappeared in the Royal Museums Collection. The bust had
been bequeathed to the Society by John Belchier FRS, and the Council Minutes of
18 August 1785 record that Belchier wanted it to be put on public view at the
Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Royal Society already being in possession
of a Roubiliac marble bust of Newton.
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John Belchier (d.1785).
by Ozias Humphrey (1742 - 1810).
Oil on Canvas.
76 x 64 cms.
1785.
Presented by Henry Watson in 1785 to Royal College of Surgeons.
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Engraving from the European Magazine which included an obituary - April 1785.
'Mr Belchier was a great admirer of the fine arts and lived in habits of intimacy with the principal artists of his time'.
A short lecture on the subject of Belchier.
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