The 17th and 18th Century Busts of Oliver Cromwell. Part 4. Oliver Cromwell by Joseph Wilton

The 17th and 18th Century Busts of Oliver Cromwell. 

Part 4. 

Oliver Cromwell 

by Joseph Wilton (1722 - 1803)

Some unedited notes:

Oliver Cromwell

By Joseph Wilton

Inscribed OPUS./ JOSEPHI WILTON 1762'

 Height: 74.9 cm

Object history note:

Purchased by the Museum from Alfred Spero, London, in 1930, for £70.

V and A.

Bibleography

Whinney, M.,English Sculpture 1720-1830, London, 1971, p. 100

Whinney, M., Sculpture in Britain 1530 to 1830, 2nd ed. London, 1988, pp. 262, 460, note 26

Wilson, D. A bust of Thomas Hollis by Joseph Wilton RA: Sitter and artist revisited. The British Art Journal. V. no. 3. Winter 2004. pp. 17, 19.

Bilbey, Diane and Trusted Marjorie. British Sculpture 1470 to 2000. A Concise Catalogue of the Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. London, 2002. p. p. 163-4. cat. no. 220.

Wilson, D. The rediscovered Mr Gladstone goes home. A bust of the stateman by Joseph Edgar Boehm. The British Art Journal. VII. no. 3. note. 34 on p. 27.

The Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon. Huntingdon, 1965. p. 3. cat. no. 13.

Throsby, J. Select view in Leicestershire, from original drawings. Leicester, 1789. I. p. 173 [2345.]

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O127087/oliver-cromwell-bust-wilton-joseph-ra/

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Goverment Art Collection

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Oliver Cromwell

Joseph Wilton?

Marble bust

730 mm

Anglesey Abbey

National Trust

Versions at Victoria & Albert Museum, Castle Donnington, Liecestershire National Trust.  and Government Art Collection

(Possibly) Joseph Wilton with his wife and Daughter 

by Francis Hayman.

Oil on Canvas

80.8 x 16.7 cms canvas size

c. 1760.

This painting is something of an enigma and there are various arguments as to whether it represents Wilton and his family or Benjamin Carter and his family. The chimneypieces were supposedly carved by Benjamin Carter, who was paid £292 for the two in May 1757, just around the time the Gallery was completed. (it is not clear which chimneypieces are referred to in the House Accounts).

The arguments for and against as set out in the VandA's website (see link below). Currently I lean towards the Wilton attribution.

In 1757 he married Frances Lucas and their eldest daughter, also named Frances, who is seen here in the picture as a two-year-old, was born the following year.

Provenance: Morrison family, Yeo Vale, Devon; by descent to Sir Robert Kirkwood; sale, Sotheby's, March 1985 (43) ; purchased by V & A.

Victoria and Albert Museum

This painting also depicts the modello for the pair of Telemonic Chimneypieces at Northumberland House (one now at the V and A. the other at Syon House).

The V and A has an excellent in depth study of this picture on their website.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O50742/the-sculptor-joseph-wilton-with-oil-painting-hayman-francis-ra/

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Joseph Wilton - Brief Biog:

Born 16 July 1722, christened at St Martin in the Fields August 1722, the son of William Wilton an ornamental plasterer in the with workshops in Cavendish Square and Charing Cross , his father had sculpted the ceilings of the Foundling Hospital there. His father wished him to be a civil engineer but he strongly desired to be a sculptor.[1]

Wilton initially trained under Laurent Delvaux at Nivelles, in present-day Belgium. In 1744 he left Nivelles and went to the Academy in Paris to study under Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. 

In 1752 he accompanied his friend Louis-François Roubiliac to Italy and stayed for seven years, living first in Rome and then in Florence.

Whilst in Rome he met and befriended his first patron, William Locke of Norbury, who thereafter accompanied Wilton on his tour of Italy.  He made plaster casts and marble copies of classic works – many of these later formed the nucleus of the collection of Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond at Richmond House in Westminster

A marble bust of the physician and scholar Antonio Cocchi, carved by Wilton in 1755, his last year in Italy, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

While in Florence he became friendly with Florentine painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani. and returned to England in May 1755 with Cipriani and William Chambers.

On his return he lived with his father at his house in Charing Cross before setting up his workshop in what became Foley Place with his house nearby in Portland Street.

In 1757 he married Frances Lucas and their eldest daughter, also named Frances, who is seen in the painting by Hayman (above) as a two-year-old, was born the following year.

Wilton was named co-director of Lennox Duke of Richmond's Richmond House gallery and Academy of Casts.

He built up a considerable practice, making busts and monuments, including the memorial to James Wolfe in Westminster Abbey. 

He made at least two marble busts of Oliver Cromwell, which he showed at the Society of Artists, in 1760 and 1761.

One marble version, and the terracotta model for it, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In 1761, he was first commissioned to produce a statue of King George III. Similar commissions followed, including one in 1766 from New York City. This massive statue portrayed the king on horseback in Roman garb, and was cast in lead and gilded before being shipped to America and erected at Bowling Green, near the tip of Manhattan in August 1770. It did not last long, being torn down by patriots in July 1776.

Wilton's other works include many notable busts, monuments and other carvings including Chimneypieces and tables.

In 1768, when Wilton was perhaps at the peak of his powers, he was elected a founder member of the Royal Academy. However, that year also saw him inherit his father's fortune and the new wealth diverted him away from sculpture. In 1786 he was forced to sell most of his possessions and in 1793 he was officially declared bankrupt. 

In 1790 he was appointed Keeper of the Royal Academy, a post he maintained until his death in 1803.He was buried in the Church at Wanstead, East London.

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Some works by Wilton (not exhaustive).

Bust of Anson, Shugborough, 1750

Monument to Admiral Samuel Graves in Antony, Cornwall (1755)

Monument to Pyke Crouch in Buntingford, Hertfordshire (1756)

Monument to Admiral Temple West in Westminster Abbey (1757)

Bust of Thomas Sydenham (1758)

Bust of a Bearded Immortal for Wentworth Woodhouse (1758)

Medici lion sculpture at Kedleston Hall (carved around 1760-1770)[8]

Monument to Stephen Hales in Westminster Abbey (1761)

Monument to Admiral Holmes in Westminster Abbey (1761)

Bust of his friend Louis-François Roubiliac (1761)

Monument to Bishop Hoadly in Winchester Cathedral (1761)

Monument to Charlotte St. Quentin in Harpham, Yorkshire (1762)

Bust of Sir Isaac Newton in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (1762) Almost certainly not Wilton

see my blog post - http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/03/bust-of-isaac-newton-in-bodleian-library.html

Bust of Oliver Cromwell, Victoria and Albert Museum (1762)

Monument to Sir Hans Sloane in the churchyard of Chelsea Old Church (1763)

Monument to Mary Okeover in Okeover, Staffordshire (1764)

Monument to William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath in Westminster Abbey (1764)

Bust of Lord Camden (1767)

Bust of Sir Robert Long in Draycote Cerne Church, Wiltshire (1767)

Monument to the Earl and Countess of Mountrath in Westminster Abbey (1771)

Bust of Alfred the Great for Lord Radnor (1771) now in University College Oxford

Monument to General James Wolfe in Westminster Abbey (1772)

Bust of Lord Chesterfield, 4th Earl of Bristol at Ickworth Park, Suffolk (1772)

Monument to Sir Thomas Street in Worcester Cathedral (1774)

Monument (including a life-size figure) of the Earl of Mexborough at Methley, Yorkshire (1778)

Monument to Sir Basil Keith in Jamaica Cathedral (1780)

Monument to Sir James Steuart Denham in Westminster Abbey (1780)

Monument to his own daughters in Chelsea Old Church (1781)

Monument to Sir Archibald Campbell in Westminster Abbey (1795)