English 18th Century Portrait Sculpture: A Miniature Carved Wooden Bust of Matthew Prior attrib. to Martin Jugiez

A Miniature Carved Wooden Bust of Matthew Prior.

After an original plaster bust by John Cheere.

Approximately 12 cms tall.

Carved Mahogany.

Here attributed to Martin Jugiez (fl 1762 - d. 1815) of Philadelphia.

The Cheere Bust was adapted from the bust of Prior by Antoine Coysevox on the Monument in Westminster Abbey.

This bust was once almost certainly mounted on a piece of furniture - the socle is not original.

Currently on the English Art Market.

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I first posted on the subject of the busts of Matthew Prior 11 November 2014 with particular reference to the busts of John Cheere.

see - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-lead-of-matthew-prior-by-john-cheere.html

I updated this post with a new post on 24 January 2018.

https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/01/lead-bust-of-matthew-prior-by-john.html

see also for another bust of Prior on

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2018/12/some-carved-wooden-busts-on-mid-18th.html

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Here is a further post on the subject of the busts of Matthew Prior with the appearance of the miniature bust on the English Art Market.

The photographs below are not great - taken with my i phone in poor light.

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Martin Jugiez (c.1730 - 1815).

Pennsylvania Gazette on November 25, 1762, that he and his partner Nicholas Bernard had imported goods on the Carolina with Captain Friend at the helm sailing from London,” Gergat said. The advertisement listed “A Compleat assortment of Looking-Glasses, framed in the newest Taste, Picture Frames, Sconces, Chimneypieces, Ornaments for Ceilings, Pictures Framed and Glazed, a neat Harpsichord, N.B. All Sort of Carving in Wood or Stone and Gilding done in the neatest Manner.”

In the Pennsylvania Gazette in 10 January 1765 they offered " a great variety of figures, large and small busts in plaister of Paris, and Brackets for ditto". and "Any gentlemen and ladies that want paper machie cielings may be supplied at a reasonable rate."

They advertised again in the Pennsylvania Gazette 3 September 1767.

Jugiez had advertised "just imported" stock including "a great variety of glasses, with mahogany and walnut, plain or gilt frames, and dressing ditto; . . . He likewise makes frames of any kind, . . . also gorondolas, brickets, bases &c. He has paper mache for ceilings, or for bordering rooms, plain or gilt." Pennsylvania Gazette, March 10, 1773.

It has until recently been assumed that Jugiez was apprenticed in London, but I have discovered that as his name suggests, he was French and was apprenticed to François Germain Suppligeaux in Paris in 1741.

Contrat de mise en apprentissage pour 5 ans, entre Jacques Jugiez, marchand de vins, et François

Germain Suppligeaux, maître sculpteur, au profit de Martin Jugiez, âgé de 11 ans, fils de Jacques,

logé, nourri, blanchi et entretenu par son père, sauf l'hiver, où le maître le logera, sans deniers

déboursés (approuvé par les jurés en charge, droits perçus).

30 juin 1741.

30/06/1741 : apprenticeship contract between Jacques JUGIEZ (Wine merchant) and François Germain Suppligeaux (master carver).

The apprentice is Martin JUGIEZ, 11 years old - Son of Jacques Jugiez

https://www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/rechercheconsultation/consultation/ir/pdfIR.action?irId=FRAN_IR_042005

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Unlike the immigrant carvers James Reynolds and Hercules Courtenay, Jugiez never advertised as having arrived from London as the other two would do in 1766 and 1769 respectively.

Between 1762 and 1783, Jugiez shared a business in Philadelphia with the carver Nicholas Bernard. Bernard and Jugiez publicised that they could provide all manner of carving in wood and stone. They also offered an assortment of items for sale imported from London, including looking glasses, picture frames, chimney pieces, and ornaments for ceilings. Shortly after Bernard and Jugiez first advertised in The Pennsylvania Gazette on November 25, 1762, they were engaged in many of the most desirable commissions in Philadelphia, including producing a variety of architectural carving for St. Peter's Church and the massive organ case (1763-1764), and creating the carved interiors at Mount Pleasant (completed 1765), the country seat of the privateer John Macpherson and his wife Margaret.

From receive commissions from affluent patrons such as Benjamin Chew, John Cadwalader, and Samuel Powel, as well as from prominent Philadelphia cabinetmakers Thomas Affleck and Benjamin Randolph. He marched alongside James Reynolds and the carver's float in Philadelphia's Grand Federal Procession of July 4, 1788, and carved Ionic capitals for the central rotunda of the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1799.2

Little work is documented or attributed to him past the end of the eighteenth century, though in an 1803 letter to Samuel Mifflin discussing the construction of a stove for the U.S. Senate Chamber in Washington, D.C., architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe wrote, "and old Martin Jugiez renowned as the ugliest man in Philadelphia will do the carving, exactly in the stile of the stove of the Bank of Philadelphia.

Text above from http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=872#Anchor-49575

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Luke Beckerdite on the Chipstone Foundation website makes the point - Jugiez’s (busts of Locke and Milton) were probably inspired by imports. In 1765 Jugiez and Bernard advertised a “variety of neat figures and busts in plaister of Paris, with brackets for ditto.

http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/752/American-Furniture-2016/A-Philadelphia-Carved-Bust-of-Benjamin-Franklin

(These busts of Locke and Milton were probably derived from imported plaster casts by John Cheere.

For the busts of Locke by John Cheere see - my post -

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/02/some-plaster-busts-of-john-locke-by-and.html

http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=872#Anchor-49575

Clipping from The Pennsylvania Gazette, 25 November 1762.

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Bernard and Jugiez.

Pennsylvania Gazette, 11 October 1770.

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9 July 1788

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From the American Museum vol 4 Pub. 1787.

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An Account of the Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia, 4 July 1788.

Mentioning both Rush and Jugiez

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The Will of Martin Jugiez. 1814

JUGIEZ, MARTIN. Phila. Carver.

July 19, 1814. April 25, 1815. 6.35.

Legacy to nephew Jerome Jugiez.

All residue to friend John Bernard and to his heirs.

Exec: Said friend John Bernard.

Codicil: July 19, 1814. Legacy left to Jerome Jugiez to remain in hands

of Executor John Bernard until Martin Jugiez, son of Jerome Jugiez

shall attain age of 21 years.

Witnesses to Will and Codicil: George Glentworth, Joshua Robinson.

info from - http://files.usgwarchives.net/pa/philadelphia/wills/willabstrbk6a.txt

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For more on the portrait sculpture of Martin Jugiez of Philadelphia see;

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-american-carved-wooden-busts-of.html

http://www.chipstone.org/html/publications/2004AF/Beckerdite/beckerditeindex.html

of tangential interest see -

http://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2018/11/carved-wooden-bust-of-benjamin-franklin.html

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Matthew Prior, Although somewhat crude the little mahogany bust is obviously derived from the Cheere bust.

Above Left to Right -

Lead Bust of John Cheere in the Louvre.

Prior in Mahogany by Martin Jugiez of Philadelphia.

Plaster bust of Matthew Prior, 43 cms, sold by Sotheby's, London -7 Dec 2010.

and the Wedgwood & Bentley Basalt Bust of Matthew Prior c. 1775.British Museum 15.2 inches tall. The original plaster for the basalt bust was supplied to Wedgwood & Bentley in 1775 by Hoskins and Grant and is in the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston (4592).

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