The Busts of Lady Venetia Digby Part One

A Bronze Bust of Lady Venetia Digby (1600 - 33).

born Venetia Stanley 
by Georg Larson
c. 1633.
wife of Sir Kenelm Digby (1603 - 1665).

The Bust at Gothurst, Near Newport Pagnell, Bedfordshire 
in the 18th Century.

Lady Venetia married Sir Kenelm Digby in 1625.

Continuing with the theme of engravings and paintings of sculpture.

There is a tangential connection here between this post and the previous posts relating to Thomas Bodley.

Sir Kenelm donated much of  his library to the Bodleian Library 1634 - 39.

James Basire (1730 - 1802).

Engraving 

228 x 153 mm.

Illustration from Pennant's Tour from Chester to London. 1786.

British Museum.

see (Rev. William) Coles' notes on Gothurst sent to Horace Walpole c. 25 Sept 1762.
Referring to the portraits at Gothurst.

"......Mr Wright supposed it might be Lady Venetia Digby, but I could not discover the features of her in it, as represented in that by Van Dyke, no more than in two very fine busts of copper gilt, or brass, standing in Mr Wright's study, on two elegant pedestals of black and white marble. It is by no means improbable but the bust put up for this lady by her husband Sir Kenelm in Christ Church without Newgate in London was cast in the same mould with one of these: that bust and monument were destroyed in the Fire of London. One of these busts' is dressed in a loose and light habit, but in a fine taste, and with her hair rather more flowing than the other, which is frizzled out and curled, and ribbons behind; the figure is larger and fatter, and is habited after the Van Dyke manner with a large laced handkerchief"

Horace Walpole in Anecdotes of Paintings in England: with Some Account......

"Sir Kenelm erected for her a monument in black marble with her bust in copper gilt, and a lofty epitaph, in Christ Church without Newdate; but it was destroyed in the fire of London. Lodges Peerages of Ireland vol IV p.89. There are two busts of Lady Venetia extant at Mr Wrights at Gothurst in Buckinghamshire with several portraits of the family of Digby. The house belonged to Sir Kenelm and was purchased  by Sir Nathan Wright ( the bust which was placed upon the sarcophagus is said to have been extant, and seen by Mr Pennant( Journey to London)".

There is a passage in Athenae Oxoniensis by Anthony Wood (1632 - 95) 

"about 1676 or 5 as I was walking through Newgate Street I sawe Dame Venetia's bust standing at a stall at the Golden Cross, a braziers shop. I presently remembered it but a fire had got off the gilding: but taking notice of it to one who was with me, I ncould never see it afterwards exposed to the dtreet. They melted it downe. How these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them downe".

This account is very close to that of John Aubrey (1626 - 97) in Brief Lives. Aubrey certainly aided Wood in the compilation of his work.

Extract above from John Aubrey - My own Life by Ruth Scurr pub. 2016. Lifted from Google Books. 

The vignette of the Digby monument from Aubrey's manuscripts at the Bodleian Library???

This might suggest that the bust survived the great fire of 1666, was recovered and sold.

John Aubrey, in Brief Lives in 1680 says

"much against his mother's, etc., consent, he maried that celebrated beautie and courtezane, Mrs. Venetia Stanley, whom Richard earle of Dorset kept as his concubine, had children by her, and setled on her an annuity of £500 per annum; which after Sir K. D. maried was unpayd by the earle; and for which annuity Sir Kenelme sued the earle, after mariage, and recovered it. He would say that a handsome lusty man that was discreet might make a vertuose wife out of a brothell-house. This lady carried herselfe blamelessly, yet (they say) he was jealous of her. She dyed suddenly, and hard-hearted woemen would censure him severely.

After her death, to avoyd envy and scandall, he retired in to Gresham Colledge at London, where he diverted himselfe with his chymistry, and the professors' good conversation. He wore there a long mourning cloake, a high crowned hatt, his beard unshorne, look't like a hermite, as signes of sorrowe for his beloved wife, to whose memory he erected a sumptuouse monument, now quite destroyed by the great conflagration. He stayed at the colledge two or 3 yeares".

For Brief Lives, pub 1898 - vol I see - https://archive.org/details/briefliveschiefl01aubruoft

Vol II - https://archive.org/details/briefliveschiefl02aubruoft

Worth reproducing here as most of what has been written about the couple are based on Aubry.

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In Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen by JP NEale pub. 1822 Neale, in the chapter entitled Gayhurst, Buckinghamshire, the Seat of Miss AB Wrighte, states.

"There are two beautiful busts of Venetia Anastasia Lady Digby, in brass. One is in the dress of the times; an elegant lace handkerchieffalls over here shoulders leaving her neck bare: the hair is braided and formed on the hind part of her head into a circle, beneath which fall elegant locks: on this bust is inscribed :- UXORAM VIVUM AMARE VOLUPTUS, DEFUNCTAM, RELIGIO. The other is a l'antique, the head dressed in the same manor, only bound in a fillet, the drapery covers her breast, but so artificially as not to destroy the elegance of the form. These busts are considered by Pennant as the work of either Le Soeur or Fanelli"

Two bronze busts in the hall at Gothurst (Gayhurst) are noted in Magna Brittania by Lysons. pub.1813. p. 564.

Lady Venetia Digby
George Larson active c. 1634 - 1654.
Bronze
Height 38.5inches.

Mentioned in British Portraits, Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, 1957 .
Private Collection

Venetia Anestasia Lady Digby
Georg Larson

In 1972 this bust was illustrated in The Tate Gallery Catalogue, The Age of Charles I, Painting in England 1620 - 1649. Page 128.

It is described as Venetia Lady Digby, Bronze: Height 22 1/2 inches. Signed G Larson and inscribed with her name and: VXORAM VIVAM AMARE,  VOLVPTUS EST: DEFUVNCTAM, RELIGIO.




 It would appear that neither Pennant or Neale looked closely at the bust or that perhaps the Gothurst busts were  unsigned versions by Larson.

Georg Larson was almost certainly a member of the Dutch Larson family but the surname would suggest Scandinavian origins

For William Larson II see -


http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/equestrian-statue-of-james-ii.html


and -   http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/larson-equestrian-statue-redux.html

The Larson family of Sculptors and Foundreymen worked in London and the Hague,
Father Guillaume, sons Johann d. 1664 and William Junior d. 1692. I suspect that Georg was the brother or cousin of William Larson.

A William Larson of the Parish of St Martin in the Fields, drew up a will in 1659, proved 1660/61 PRo, Prob 11/303/48. In it he describes himself as a carver, but revealed that he also made sculpture by casting, He further mentioned that he had property in Holland.
See also KA Esdaile, Pepys Plaisterer, The Times Literary supplrement, 2 October 1943. p480

Info Big. Dictionary of London Tomb Sculptors ... Adam White Walpole Soc. Journal. 1999.

William Larson.

Little is known of Larson's career, but he was responsible for one of the most important lost royal monuments produced in 17th-century England. 

(See my previous blog entries).

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/equestrian-statue-of-james-ii.html

and -   http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/larson-equestrian-statue-redux.html

He was the son of William Larson, an Anglo-Dutch carver who had a workshop in Pall Mall Fields in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and a substantial sculpture business in The Hague. It may be either the father or son who was paid £12 for repairing statues at Northumberland House, Charing Cross in 1655. 

The elder Larson died in 1660 and in his will praised his son as ‘very industrious in getting and preserving that small estate I possess in England in the time of my late long sickness.' William jnr recieved all his father’s 'plaister moulds and brass moulds whatsoever,’ and a share of land in Holland. 

The workshop in The Hague was taken over by William’s brother, John (or Johan) Larson, who died in 1664, leaving William all his sculpting and foundary tools and instructions to complete the unfinished lead and plaster sculpture in the Hague workshop. The stock was sold, suggesting that William preferred not to continue the Dutch part of the business.

 Larson must have had a substantial impact in England, as by August 1673 he had become statuary in ordinary to the Crown and in April 1686 he was commissioned to make and cast an equestrian statue in cannon brass of James II to stand on the Sandhill in the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The work was completed by 1688 under the supervision of Sir Christopher Wren, then the surveyor-general (2). It appears to be the first English royal statue to present a horse in the levade position, showing the King exercising mastery over the animal with its front hoofs off the ground. It was therefore a notable technical feat. Gibson attributes to Larson another royal statue in Newcastle, of King Charles II, 1680-85. This was set up on the Magazine Gate crossing the River Tyne and is now at the Guildhall (Gibson 1997 (1), 372).

 During the Glorious Revolution of November 1688, Newcastle declared its allegiance to the Prince of Orange and the Protestant cause and the statue was symbolically dragged from its carved marble pedestal to the quayside, where it was toppled into the Tyne. The horse was subsequently melted down and in 1695 the bronze was given by the common council to two local churches, All Saints’ and All Hallows’, for the repair of their church bells. A print was subsequently produced, and an impression printed in 1742 is in the Royal Collection.

 William Larson's workshop was on the north side of Piccadilly, between Sackville Street and Swallow Street, from 1670 until 1692, when he died. His widow continued to live on the site.

Recent scholarship by Frits Scholten has established that the Dutch arm of the family business was influential on subsequent leadwork in that country. Much remains to be known, however, about the importance and influence of the London workshop.

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Literary References: 

Brand 1789, vol 1, 30-1; 

Mackenzie 1827, 161-2 n; 

Esdaile 1943 (2), 480; S of L, vol 31-2, 

St James Westminster, Pt 2, 58; 

White 1999, 76 n1; 

Gibson 2000, 10, 13 nn 63-5;

Usherwood 2000, 328; 

Scholten 2004-5, 54-5; 

Sullivan 2005, 30-40; 

Scholten 2008, 291

 Archival References: 1655 Archives, Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick

Will: William Larson the elder, proved 5 March 1661, PROB 11/303/82

This info from The Henry Moor Centre, Leeds website

http://liberty.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/sculptor/browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=1606&from_list=true&x=4

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In A Biographical Dictionary of London Tomb Makers ....... Walpole Soc. Journal 1999, Adam White notes an 18th century reference to George Larson having moved to Berlin by 1654, where he cast 12 figures of children for the Lustgarten (Nicolai 1786).

Adam White also suggests that the marble parts of the tomb of Lady Digby might have been supplied by Isaac Besnier fl. (1631 - 42) who succeeded Hubert le Seuer as Sculptor in Ordinary to Charles I on the return of Le Seuer to France. 

The bust of Lady Digby was placed on a black marble socle, the whole being supported by a sarcophagus of the same material. The design of the sarcophagus was derived from the memorial to Ludovic, Duke of Lennox and Richmond in Westminster Abbey of 1624, where the sculptor of the was almost certainly Hubert Le Seuer.

Adam White points out the similarities of the bust of Lady Digby with the bust of Anne Cottington d. 16 Feb. 1634on the Cottington Memorial in St Pauls Chapel, Westminster Abbey. (see below)

see - http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/ludovic-and-esme-stuart

Isaac Besnier French sculptor active in England. Probably Huguenot immigrants, he and his brother Peter could have been two of the three Frenchmen working for Hubert Le Sueur in 1639. After Le Sueur’s return to France, Isaac Besnier succeeded him as Sculptor in Ordinary to Charles I, but died (or perhaps followed Le Sueur back to France) in 1643, when Peter was appointed in his place. He became responsible for the King’s collection of sculpture.

It is very possible that William or Georg Larson were also assistants of Hubert Le Seuer.

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Bust of Anne Cottington on the Cottington Memorial ,Westminster Abbey.

They say by Le Seuer, but I believe possibly Larson.

The usual very low resolution photograph from the Westminster Abbey website

for more on this monument see - 

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/francis-cottington

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The Antiquarian Repertory. pub. 1808.


The Tomb of Venetia Anastatia (sic) Lady Digby.

The Tomb of Lady Venetia Digby

Christchurch within Newgate, London, destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.
with the Copper Gilt bust

from a sketch by Aubrey - Aubrey notes the bust of Gilt bronze

Basire c. 1786?

Image from National Trust, Berrington Hall.

There is a coloured illustration of the monument in the Digbiorium an Illuminated Pedigree compiled by Sir Kenelm Digby ( info - Dictionary London Tomb Sculptors).

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Lady Venetia Digby (possibly)

but more likely Lady Francis Cranfield

Despite the doubt I include it because it is such a beautiful portrait.

Lewis Walpole Library

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Lady Venetia Digby 

by Henri Toutin

Miniature Portrait of Lady Venetia Digby 

by Henri Toutin ( 1614 - post 1683).

Dated on the reverse 1637.

Posthumous enamel from an original by Peter Oliver.

Image courtesey Walters Art Museum

https://art.thewalters.org/detail/18028/portrait-of-lady-venetia-digby/

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Sir Kenelm and Lady Venetia Digby

Isaac Oliver. (1589 - 1657)

After Anthony van Dyck

Watercolour on Vellum

Height 8.8 cms

1632

Image Courtesey Lewis Walpole Library.

This image had disappeared and has been newly inserted 28 Dec 2022

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Posthumous Portrait of Lady Venetia Digby (possibly as Prudence).

Anthony van Dyck

National Portrait Gallery.

see - Franciscus Junius FF and his Circle, edited Rolf Hendrik Bremmer

Lady Venetia Digby

Anthony van Dyck

Northampton Museum and Art Gallery

Lady Venetia Stanley on her deathbed

Anthony van Dyck

Dulwich Picture Gallery.

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For the lives of  the Digbys see -

https://archive.org/stream/lifeofsirkenelmd00longuoft#page/n7/mode/2up


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Sir Thomas Bodley
with vignettes of William Laud, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, John Selden and Sir Kenelm Digby.
Michael Burghers
1654
Engraving.
315 x 196 mm.
National Portrait Gallery

By coincidence Sir Kenelm Digby is shown in the bottom left vignette this engraving.
Sir Kenelm left his library to the Bodlein.

See my previous blog entry regarding the portraits of Sir Thomas Bodley.

https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/nicholas-stone-and-monument-of-thomas.html

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Just for fun here are some further images of Sir Kenelm Digby.

My favourite fact? regarding Sir Kenulm Digby is that he was the inventor of the modern wine bottle.





Sir Kenelm Digby
c. 1640
Oil on Canvas
117 x 91.7 cms
National Portrait Gallery

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Sir Kenelm Digby
National Maritime Museum.

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Sir Kenelm Digby
Circle of Anthony van Dyck
c. 1650.
127 x 101 cms
oil on canvas

image courtesy Philip Mould.
see -

http://www.historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=345&Desc=Sir-Kenelm-Digby-%7C-Sir-Anthony-Van-Dyck,-Circle-of

The broken orrery perhaps indicating the tragic loss of his beloved wife.



Sir Kenelm Digby
Robert van Voerst
after van Dyck
1636
251 x 189 mm
National Portrait Gallery.

Horace Walpole in Anecdotes .....  reports the original of this portrait at the house of Vice Admiral Sir J Stradling of Glamorganshire
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Sir Kenelm Digby
Richard Gaywood
after van Dyck
engraving
107 x 83 mm
1654
National Portrait Gallery




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Sir Kenelm Digby
after van Dyck
Jacobus Houbraken
1747
342 x 238 mm.
National Portrait Gallery.

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Catherine Bruce, Mrs William Murray (d. 1649).
Later Countess of Dysart
Gilt Bronze Bust
785 mm.
1637 - 39?
At Ham House, Surrey.
National Trust

This bust has been attributed to both Besnier and Le Seuer
but I would like to suggest that our friend Georg Larson might again be responsible.

Very poor Photograph.

Courtesy National Trust website.

One has to be thankful to the NT for publishing their collection on line but it really is about time that 

they publish some half way descent photographs of their holdings.

It is also not possible to right click and save a larger image fro their website - which I believe shows a meanness of spirit

http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1139887

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In a further misguided attempt to monetise their collection Alamy - a commercial photograph library have snaps of this bust available to purchase on line - see -

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-the-reverse-of-a-gilt-bronze-bust-of-katherine-bruce-mrs-murray-d1649-94490565.html

Thank you Alamy for at least having reasonably high resolution images of this bust available.

Catherine Bruce, Mrs William Murray (d. 1649).

Later Countess of Dysart

Anthony van Dyck

Oil on Canvas

112 x 86.5 cms

Ham House

National Trust

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/catherine-bruce-d-1649-mrs-william-murray-217125

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Catherine Bruce Mrs William Murray (d. 1649).
Later Countess of Dysart
Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641).
Oil on canvas
135 x 108 cms
Petworth House.
National Trust.

image from -


https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/catherine-bruce-d-1649-mrs-william-murray-219750


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Anne of Austria
Marble Bust ex Castle Howard from Sotheby's Treasures Sale 8 July 2015

For a closer look at this sculpture see

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/bust-of-anne-of-austria-from-castle.html


For Sotheby's Catalogue entry see

- http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.18.html/2015/treasures-l15303




Much more to follow on the two bronze busts of Lady Venetia Digby ..........



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