This post updated 27 January 2024.
The Pair of Anonymous Marble Busts of (perhaps) Thomas Fermor, 2nd Lord Lempster, Earl of Pomfret and his Wife Henrietta Louisa, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
These busts have in the past been attributed to Guelphi - the quality of these busts is so good that they could not possibly have been by him.
The main reason for this attribution would appear to be the fact that Guelphi had been employed at the family country seat at Easton Neston restoring - some would say butchering the ancient Arundel Marbles.
There is no mention of these busts in the correspondence of the Countess which suggests that if they are Thomas and Henrietta they were probably not carved by a continental sculptor on their grand tour.
If on the other hand the subjects are not the Fermors but another couple then it is much more likely that these busts are continental.
The use of the coloured marble socle would point to a continental origin.
I suggest that they were possibly sculpted in Rome by the Irish Sculptor Christopher Hewetson. (1737 - 99).
A former pupil /assistant of John van Nost III who was working in Rome from 1765.
see my post
...................................
Possibly Thomas Fermor, Second Lord Lempster, ( - 1753).
Lord Pomfret died 8 July 1753, and was succeeded by his
eldest son, George. The son's extravagance obliged him to sell the furniture of
his seat at Easton Neston, Northamptonshire.
His statues, which
had been part of the Arundel Collection, and had been purchased by
his grandfather, were bought by his mother for presentation to Oxford University. A letter of thanks, enclosed in a silver box, was presented to her by the
university, 25 February 1755,
and a poem in her honour was published at Oxford in the following year.
Possibly Henrietta Louisa Fermor, nee Jeffreys, Countess of Pomfret. (1698 - 1761).
Henrietta Louisa Fermor (née Jeffreys) was born at Lisle Street, London on 15 February 1698. She was the only surviving child of John Jeffreys, 2nd Baron Jeffreys of Wem,
Shropshire, by his wife, Lady Charlotte Herbert, daughter and heiress of Philip
Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery (by his wife, Henriette de Kérouaille, sister
of Charles II mistress Louise Dutchess of Portsmouth).
Henrietta’s father, who “is said to have exceeded even his father in his powers of drinking” (Halliday), died in 1702. Just over a year later, her mother remarried Thomas, Lord Windsor, which would provide Henrietta with five half-siblings.
On 14 July 1720 Lady Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys married
Thomas Fermor, 2nd Baron Lempster who in the following year was created Earl of
Pomfret. He was afterwards elected a K.B., and in September 1727 was appointed
Master of Horse to Queen Caroline, to whom also Lady Pomfret was one of the Ladies
of the Bedchamber.
From there she moved from her childhood home to her
new husband’s country seat at Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. The couple would
not remain there long and soon moved to a London home in Hanover Square where
they had their first child, Sophia, on 29 May 1721. The couple would go on to
have three sons and six daughters.
Later that year, on 27 December Thomas
became the first earl of Pomfret (or Pontefract), Yorkshire. Henrietta and her
husband had a close relationship with the Prince and Princess of Wales, George
and Caroline, and chose them to be the godparents of their first son, George.
Their close relationship was further cemented when Henrietta became a Lady of
the Bedchamber for Princess Caroline in May of 1725 and when her husband was
promoted to KB, Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath, in 1725. The earl
also became Master of the Horse for Caroline on 28 October 1727, after she
became Queen. Henrietta and her husband, however, were not the only members of
their family to participate in court functions.
The painting by William Hogarth
from 1732 captures Sophia, the eldest child, performing a scene from Dryden’s
Performance of the Indian Emperor, or, The Conquest of Mexico for several
members of the royal family, including the Duke of Cumberland, Princess Mary,
and Princess Louisa.
Henrietta was also chosen to accompany Princess Amelia to
Bath and Turnbridge Wells and acted as a Lady of the Bedchamber to Augusta,
Princess of Wales, when she wed Frederick on 27 April 1736. These outings allowed
for Henrietta and the earl to tour Leiden, Brussels, and part of the Low
Countries in June and July of 1736.
On the death of the queen in November 1737, Lady Pomfret,
with her friend Frances, countess of Hertford, retired from court.
In September
1738 she and her husband made a three years Grand Tour in France and Italy. At
Florence, where they arrived on 20 December 1739, they were visited by Horace
Walpole and Lady Mary Wortly Montague.
They soon afterwards returned to England
by way of Bologna, Venice, Augsburg, Frankfort, and Brussels, reaching home in
October 1741.
Henrietta Louisa Fermor, Countess of Pomfret.
Oil on Canvas.
125 x 100 cms.
Enoch Seeman.(1689 - 1745).
Private Collection.
Thomas Fermor, Ist Earl of Pomfret.
Oil on Canvas.
123 x 98 cms.
Joseph Highmore 1692 - 1780.
Thomas Bardwell (1704 - 67).
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Oil on
canvas; 216 x 124 cm
Signed: T Bardwell.f. and
inscribed: Thomas Farmor, Earl of Pomfret, and Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys,
his Wife.
Presented
by the Countess of Pomfret, 1759
Thomas
Fermor succeeded as 2nd Baron Leominster in 1711 and was created
Earl of Pomfret in 1721. He was Master of Horse to Queen Caroline from 1727 to
1737. He married Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys (1703-1761) in 1720.
This portrait
of the couple in peer's robes may have been painted to commemorate thirty years
of married life and the parchment he is handing to her would have been the
marriage settlement.
After the death of her husband, Lady Pomfret bought the
celebrated Arundel marbles from her dissolute son George before he could disperse them and presented them to the University of
Oxford in 1755.
Around 1757, she built a large town house in Arlington Street,
designed by Sanderson Miller in the Gothic style. The frame was designed for
Pomfret House.
A low resolution photograph showing the Gothic Frame.
___________________________________________
For the fascinating Correspondence
between Frances, Countess of Hartford, (afterwards duchess of Somerset,) and
Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Pomfret, between the years 1738 and 1741 see.
__________________________________________
Group of Framed Ivory Reliefs.
The reliefs of the Fermor Family each 5.5 cms.
Anonymous
Sold Sotheby's - Lot 150 - 9 July 2009.
This group was presumably all commissioned by Henrietta
Louise Jeffreys, Countess of Pomfret (d.1761) who lived at both Easton Neston
in Northamptonshire and at Pomfret Castle in Arlington Street, London. She as a
celebrated bluestocking who with her husband, Lord Pomfret, toured extensively
in France and Italy. She and her husband were largely responsible for the
decoration and furnishing of Easton Neston after their marriage in 1720. Lady Pomfret
was also Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline, the intelligent consort to
George II.
It was Lady Pomfret who "saved" the Arundel marbles,
presenting them after her husband's death to Oxford University.
These little reliefs fall into two distinct groups: those of her immediate family and
those of English monarchs and writers. The former include her eldest son
George, b.Viscount Lempster, later 2nd Earl of Pomfret (1722-1785); his brother
the Hon. William Fermor, who died young; and their two sisters, Lady Sophia
(1721- 1745) who married the 1st Earl Granville; and Lady Charlotte (1725-1813)
who was Governess to George III's children and married the Hon.William Finch.
The second group include English monarchs and writers,
familiar subjects from the early 18th century and can be seen in the light of
similar busts that often adorned Whig houses.
This description above from Sotheby's Sale Catalogue.
_____________________________________________
Pomfret Castle, 18 Arlington Street. St James London
This photographs above from the online Country Life Picture Library.
For an in depth look at Sanderson Miller see -
The Pomfret Cabinet, see -
Wall mounted Monument to Lady Pomfret.
John Townsend IV of Oxford.
1762.
St Mary's Church, Oxford.
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