Busts of Oliver Cromwell Part 6. The Bronze Bust by Michael Rysbrack.

The Bronze Bust of Oliver Cromwell.

 by Michael Rysbrack.

circa 1765.

Originally paired with the Bronze Bust of Isaac Newton.

Both Busts were sold at the Rysbrack Sale of 20 April 1765,

Held by Langford and Son of the Piazza, Covent Garden.

Lot 74 & 75 on Page 4 of the Sale Catalogue (see below).

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The Bronze Bust of Oliver Cromwell by Michael Rysbrack

Height of Cromwell 58.4 cms.

Private Collection.

Sold Christie's 5 April 2001.

I am very grateful to the owners, who wish to remain anonymous, for allowing me to visit and then publish these photographs.

All photographs below were taken by the author.

For the original terracotta version of this bust now in the Queen's House in Greenwich see my previous post.

For the marble version of this bust at the Huntington Library see my next post.

For my previous post on Bronze busts of the 18th Century with particular reference to a later bronze bust of John Locke see - 

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-bronze-bust-of-john-locke.html

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Oliver Cromwell. 

(after?) Lely.

Oil on canvas.

72.7 x 59.7 cms.

Museum of London.

One of several versions.

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Oliver Cromwell.

(Warts and All).

after Peter Lely.

John Faber.

Mezzotint.

338 x 276 mm.

Illustrations to Pecks Memoires of Cromwell, 1740.

Image courtesy British Museum.

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The Rysbrack Sale Catalogue.

Langford and Son on the Piazza at Covent Garden.

20 April 1765.

Included in this sale are the original terracotta models for the statuettes of Rubens (lot )

and the terracotta bust of Fiamingo  - Francois du Quesnoy, see  -

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-rysbrack-statuettes-of-rubens-van_19.html

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This sale also includes the Marble bust of Fiamingo - Francois du Quesnoy.

It is now in the de Ciccio Collection - Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy which was bequeathed to the Museum by Commandatore Mario de Ciccio in memory of his brother Guiseppe and his son Francesco and put on display in 1959.

It was suggested by the author of the article, FJB Watson, that it would have been bought in London where de Ciccio purchased much of the majolica which forms the core of the collection.

Watson had spotted the bust at the Capodimonte Museum where it had remained anonymous until he had identified it.

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-rysbrack-statuettes-of-rubens-van_18.html

The terracotta bust of du Quesnoy is now in the Royal Art Gallery Toronto, Canada.

see - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-rysbrack-statuettes-of-rubens-van_72.html

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The Fitzwilliam Bronze Bust of Isaac Newton.

by Michael Rysbrack.

The Bronze Bust of Isaac Newton.

Formerly paired with the bust of Oliver Cromwell (above).

Lot 75 Langford's Sale - 20 April 1765.

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The Bronze Bust of Oliver Cromwell by Michael Rysbrack.

The extract below from the text from Christie's Catalogue for 5 April 2001.

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/a-bronze-bust-of-oliver-cromwell-by-2016690-details.aspx

 It corresponds exactly to a terracotta version, today in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (illustrated in Baker, op. cit., fig. 104), which seems to have been bought by Rysbrack's patron, Sir Edward Littleton, in one of Rysbrack's sales of the late 1760s (14 February 1767, lot 61). 

In another of these sales (Langford and Son, 1765, op. cit.), lots 74 and 75 are listed as bronze busts of Cromwell and Newton. 

The present bust, which was sold together with a pendant bust of Newton in 1967 (Christie's; The remaining contents of Cornbury Park, Charlbury, Oxfordshire, sold by order of the Trustees and Beneficiaries of the Late O.V. Watney, Esq.) therefore almost certainly represents the bust of Cromwell which was sold from Rysbrack's own sale in the 18th Century.

"Although the appearance of the present bust, with the pendant bust of Newton, is first recorded with certainty in the collection of O.V. Watney, there is an interesting possibility that it passed to him from the collection of the Earls of Portsmouth. Watney's mother, Lady Margaret, was a daughter of the 5th Earl of Portsmouth. 

In the 18th Century the Portsmouths had acquired, by marriage to a great-niece of Sir Isaac Newton, Rysbrack's celebrated marble version of the bust of Newton mentioned above, along with a number of other Newton-related items . 

It is therefore possible that the Portsmouths had, at one time, also owned the bronze version of the bust of Newton - along with the present bust of Cromwell - and that the two passed through the family to Watney through his mother".