Bust of Oliver Cromwell
by Lawrence Anderson Holme.
Updated 12 June 2023.
The appearance of a marble bust of Cromwell at Sotheby's has required a reassessment of this post.
I now believe that the bust of Cromwell by Lawrence Anderson Holme is that sold at Sotheby's Milan, Lot 117, 22 March 2023.
see -
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A few notes:
A bust
of Cromwell until recently believed lost by the Danish born sculptor Lawrence Anderson Holme (Holm) (fl.1759
- 74) is recorded as exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1766.
see The
Biographical Dictionary of English Sculptors....pub Yale, 2009.
The three busts of Cromwell at Russell Cotes Museum, Milwaukee Museum and Lady Lever Art Gallery are possibly related, a fourth bust now in the Museum of London is also related (I am currently awaiting some good photographs of this bust.
L to R -The Russell Cotes Museum Bust, The Lady Lever Bust, The Milwaukee Museum Bust.
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The Tangye Bust of Oliver Cromwell.
It is difficult to make out the quality of this bust from this old photograph but better photographs should arrive soon.
These busts appear to be related to the bust of Cromwell at Hovingham Hall
see my post - https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2019/04/unsigned-marble-bust-of-oliver-cromwell.html
This bust in turn appears to have similarities to the bust by Wilton in the Government Art Collection.
Update - whilst not great the photographs of the Tangye bust at the Museum of London reveal yet another rather indifferent quality bust, probably 19th century from the same workshop as the three other very similar busts at The Russell Cotes Museum, the Lady Lever and Milwaukee Museum of Art.
The Tangye bust of Oliver Cromwell now in deep store in the London Museum.
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The Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire, Marble Bust of Oliver Cromwell.
The Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire, Marble Bust of Oliver Cromwell.
Possibly by Lawrence Anderson Holme, but much closer to the bust of Cromwell in the Goverment Art Collection, illustrated below, attributed to Joseph Wilton.
I suspect this is a 19th Century copy given the shape of the socle.
The quality of the carving of the hair is noticeably sketchy - and that's being kind.
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Oliver Cromwell.
Marble Bust.
Government Art Collection.
Here attributed to Joseph Wilton.
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Lawrence (Lauritz) Anderson Holme (various spellings). fl. 1759 until after 1775.
From Page 636. A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain - 1660 - 1851. pub Yale 2009.
Monuments.
1759. Monument to Sir Edward Hulse, Wilmington,Churchyard. Kent.
1763. Abigail Prowse, Axbridge, Somerset.
1767. Thomas Prowse and 7 family members. Axbridge, Somerset. Pevsner Somerset & Nth Bristol. 1958.
.............................
All the following works are untraced
Statues.
1765 Oedipus expounding the Riddle of the Sphinx. Society of Arts premium
1767. Sophonisba with the cup of poison Society of Arts premium.
1773. Figure sketch for a statue Exhib Soc of Artists.
..............................
Busts.
1762.Unidentified Gent. Exhib. Soc. of Artists.
1766. Oliver Cromwell. Exhib. Soc. of Artists (see above).
1768, George Grenville Special Exhibition, Soc. of Artists.
1768, Unidentified Gent (model) Exhib. Soc. of Artists.
1768. Unidentified lady. Exhib. Soc. of Artists.
1769. The King of Denmark Model Exhib. Soc. of Artists.
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The ground taken jointly by Yonge and Selby was built up
over a
number of years, before Selby assigned his interest to Yonge
in 1779, with
stables and coach-houses in Stratford Mews and small houses
on Marylebone
Lane, including what became the Prince of Wales or Wigmore
pub at the
corner of the mews. The builders here included William
Arrow, carpenter,
who set up his yard and workshop at the back of the houses.
Some remaining
ground at the irregular north end of the estate, partly
abutting Wigmore
Street, was let by Stratford in 1775 to the Danish sculptor
Lauritz or Lawrence
Anderson Holm, then of Castle Street, for a house and
workshop. The rest
was absorbed into Wigmore Street plots off the estate
developed by the
Piccadilly violin-maker Thomas Smith, one at least also
leased to Holm. Note 11
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In Ancient Topography... by JT Smith records that Lawrence Anderson Holme was responsible for the model of the State Coach designed by William Chambers, which suggests that he was associated with Wilton and Cappizoldi, whose involvement in this venture is well documented. In 1764 Holme was working with William Atkinson (d.1766) (see biog below).
Joseph Rose
II was his apprentice - Hulme received premiums from the Society of Artists for
classical subjects in 1765 - when he was recorded as living 'next door to the
Kings Arms, Hyde Park Corner' he returned to Denmark in about 1774.
Virtually all his recorded work has disappeared but the monument to Sir Edward Hulse d 1759 in the churchyard at St Michaels, Wilmington in Kent survives a bust of Sir Edward is recorded exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1763) and two mural monuments (to Abigal and Thomas Prowse) are in Axbridge Church.
Monument to Thomas Prowse.
Lawrence Anderson Hulme.
Axminster Church.
Images from Google Street View.
Images from Google Street View.
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Monument to Edward Hulse d.1759.
Church Yard Winnington Kent.
In 1763 Holme exhibited a bust of Edward Hulse at the Society of Artists (now unaccounted for).
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Extracts below from Ancient Topography of London; containing not only views of buildings which in many
instances no longer exist, and for the most part were never before published;
but some account of places and customs either unknown, or overlooked by the
London historians.
By John Thomas Smith, 1766-1833. published in 1815.
Amusingly written and profusely illustrated by Smith.
Page 76 refers to Lawrence Anderson Holme and the model of the State Coach for George III.
Page 76 refers to Lawrence Anderson Holme and the model of the State Coach for George III.
Available on line and highly recommended. A must for anyone interested in the topography of London.
..........................................
The Biographical Dictionary pub Yale 2009 for Lawrence Anderson Holme records an entry in the Builder Magazine 1854. 72. regarding Holme making the model of the State Coach. It appears that this article was based on the evidence of JT Smith in the above piece.
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For an introduction to JT (Antiquity) Smith (1766 - 1833) see Wikipaedia
see also Tate Gallery website.
Anyone with an interest in 18th century sculpture should have a copy of Smith's Nollekens and his Times, by JT Smith pub.1829 (noted for his "malicious candour") to hand. - available online at:
John Thomas Smith had been a studio-assistant of the sculptor Nollekens from 1779 to 1781. He was commercially unsuccessful as a draughtsman and engraver of London views, and took the post of Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in 1816; and in 1828 published the first edition of this biography.
His account is less an appreciation of the sculptor than a 'warts-and-all' biography, with anecdotes of the London art-world at the end of the eighteenth century.
(A
supplementary account of Nollekens was published by A. Cunningham in 1830.)
The text records Nollekens's training in London under P.
Scheemakers, W. Shipley and W.H. Spang and in Rome under Cavaceppi (1762-1770).
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In Ancient Topography... by JT Smith records that Lawrence Anderson Holme was responsible for the model of the State Coach designed by William Chambers, which suggests that he was associated with Wilton and Cappizoldi, whose involvement in this venture is well documented.
In 1764 Holme
was working with William Atkinson (d.1766) (see biog below).
.......................................
William Atkinson (d. 1766) from The Biographical Dictionary.....
William Atkinson was
the step-son of Joseph Pickford, who married Atkinson’s widowed mother, Mary,
in 1734. He appears to have entered into partnership with Pickford soon after,
and they were working together as late as 1758 from premises between Brick
Street and Down Street, Piccadilly. Atkinson was one of Pickford’s executors
and with his mother inherited Pickford’s stock-in-trade and the yard by Hyde
Park Corner, where he was still living in 1763. Like Pickford, Atkinson married
when he was middle-aged, in 1762.
Sarah Atkinson outlived her husband and
continued to live at Hyde Park Corner until 1772.
From 1754 to
1758 the partners were building Stephen Wright’s University Library at
Cambridge, for which they received nearly £5,000. Atkinson himself seems to
have provided most of the decorative stone carving and was paid £333 for his
work (8). In 1759 he was responsible for the masonry work when wings were added
to Copt Hall, Essex under the direction of the architects Sir Roger Newdigate
and Thomas Prowse, for which he received £86.
He provided
the wall monument to Sir John and Lady Bendyshe, which has a conventional
double portrait medallion supported by a weeping cherub (1). The memorial to
Walter Cary is described by Pevsner as ‘boldly handled, with cartouche, wreath,
and large lettering’ (2) and another wall monument with a fine bust celebrates
Lewis Dymoke (5). He was also involved in two monuments in Ireland. That to the
Earl and Countess of Bessborough, †1758, is his most ambitious work (3). In an
elaborate architectural setting, the Earl and Countess are represented
half-length above a sarcophagus, wearing Roman togas. They hold hands in a
classical pose emblematic of conjugal fidelity, deriving from a Roman tomb,
engraved and published in the 17th century by P S Bartoli. The monument to Mrs
Osborne, who did not die until 1798, is signed by Carew of Waterford (perhaps
the father of J E Carew), but incorporates a medallion of a man mourning over
an urn signed by Atkinson (6). It seems likely that the medallion originally
came from another of Atkinson’s memorials.
The will of
William Atkinson, ‘Architect and Builder’, was proved on 7 July 1766.
Two
posthumous auctions catalogues of his stock-in-trade survive. The sale of 24-25
July 1766 conducted at his house and yard in Piccadilly, near Hyde Park Corner
by a Mr Webster, comprised models, casts, moulds, figures, carved ornaments and
utensils. Among the lots was a head of Apollo, ‘two side frizes of statuary
carved with Diana’s trophies’, ‘5 figures in Portland stone (the Stuart family)
and one pedestal’; ‘Figures of Peace, Plenty and Cleopatra’, ‘Two vases, one on
a pedestal ornamented with vine leaves and a Janus’s head, the other on a truss
ornamented’ and ‘a fine cast of dolphin and boys by Rysbrack’.
The second sale,
conducted by Burnsall, on 2-3 April 1767, offered vases, alabaster statuary,
plasters and moulds after the antique. The items included ‘a large and
magnificent vase in Bath stone, designed by Mr. Kent’ and ‘a most beautiful and
magnificent table inlaid with horses’ teeth and different rich marbles in fret
and with a statuary marble border’. Also listed were ‘Garden terms in Portland
stone 7 ft. high of Alcibiden and a Grecian Venus’and a bust of Lord Westmorland.
The unusually diverse range of sculpture and materials suggests a busy shop,
which perhaps also dealt in work by outside craftsmen.
Literary
References:
Mortimer 1763, 49; Gunnis 1968, 22; McCarthy 1973, 26-36 (Copt
Hall); Potterton 1975, 34; McCarthy 1979, 382 (Copt Hall); Pevsner, London 3:
NW, 1991, 423; Saunders 1993, 11-16
Archival
References: GPC
Will: PROB
11/920
Auction
Catalogues: Atkinson 1766; Atkinson 1767.
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