English 18th Century Portrait Sculpture: Busts of Oliver Cromwell Part 9. Roubiliac

Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658).

by Louis Francois Roubiliac (1702 - 62)

Terracotta.

The British Museum.

Photographs above from the British Museum Website

Text below from the British Museum Website

There are numerous portraits of Cromwell.(3) A marble bust by Edward Pearce in the Museum of London, which is dated 1672, is the earliest three-dimensional image. (photographs to follow).

As Nicholas Penny has remarked,(4) busts of Cromwell were exceedingly popular in the eighteenth century and were carved by all the leading sculptors, such as Rysbrack, Wilton and Nollekens, as well as Roubiliac. No study has yet been made of who purchased these busts, but the memory of the Protector appears to have lived on without attracting the opprobrium which might have been expected. Grosley remarks, 'I was shown at court the grand daughter or great grand daughter of Cromwell, a connexion which is not much considered as a mark of infamy as it is of honour and distinction.'(5)

A marble by Francis Harwood was sold on the London market in July 1986,(6) and another in July 1997.(7) Nicholas Penny suggests that Harwood's portraits are in turn based on a marble which he attributes to Nollekens, and which depicts the sitter in armour,(8) but this attribution has been questioned by Malcolm Baker, who believes it is after all by Harwood.(9)

Roubiliac himself created more than one image of the Protector, as his sale lists both 'medals' and a 'basso relievo'.(10) A terracotta medallion of Cromwell now in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto is discussed by John Mallet,(11) who describes it as 'very closely based on the bust presented by Doctor Maty to the British Museum' and 'a work of considerable power' whose 'characterization of the Protector's face is more convincing than in the British Museum bust'. (see photograph below).

Esdaile(12) considered it 'iconographically the least satisfactory of the Museum busts, which bears no close resemblance to any of the famous pictures' of the Protector, but points to the sculptor's 'revaluing of the entire personality' of the sitter. Whinney describes the terracotta as 'alert and virile'.(13)

Like that of the terracotta of King Charles I (see registration no. 1762,0528.6), the surface coating on this bust has been almost completely removed in the course of time. Traces of a dark brown surface layer remain on the face and hair, which can also be discerned on the collar and right shoulder. The head is hollow, and was probably made separately, the hair and collar effectively disguising the join, as on other terracottas in the collection.

Notes:

(1) P. J. Grosley, Londres, 1770 edn, trans. Thomas Nugent as A Tour to London: or, New Observations on England and its Inhabitants, London, 1772, 2 vols (British Library pressmark 567 d 3), p. 216. Grosley's first visit to London was in 1765, but there appears to be no edition of his account of it earlier than 1770.

(2) For Scharf s drawing see fig. 7.

(3) D. Piper, 'The contemporary portraits of Oliver Cromwell', Walpole Society, XXXIV, 1952-4, pp. 27-41.

(4) N. Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum 1540 to the Present Day, III: British, Oxford, 1992, p. 142.

(5) Grosley, trans. Nugent, 1772, p. 66.

(6) Christie's, Important Marble Statuary, European Sculpture and Works of Art, 15 July 1986, lot 73, H. 62 cm, dated 1759, noted by Penny, 1992, p. 142.

(7) Sotheby's, European Sculpture and Works of Art, 2 July 1997, lot 264. A bust of Cromwell signed and dated F. Harwood Fecit 1759 was sold at Sotheby's New York, 10 January 1995, lot 66.

(8) Penny, 1992, no. 558.

(9) M. Baker, review of Penny, 1992, in Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXXVI, no. 1101, December 1994, p. 851.

(10) 'Lot 24 2nd day's sale 13 May 1762 - one of 4 "medals"; lot 25, one of 5 medals; lot 52, mould in same lot with Inigo Jones; lot 92, basso relievo of Inigo Jones and Oliver Cromwell; lot 33, 4th day's sale six medals of Pope, Inigo Jones, Mr Handell, Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Garrick, and O. Cromwell'; see D. Bindman and M. Baker, Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre, New Haven and London, 1995, Appendix B, pp. 362-9, for a transcription of Roubiliac's sale catalogues.

(11) J. V. G Mallet, 'Some portrait medallions by Roubiliac', Burlington Magazine, vol. CIV, no. 709, April 1962, p. 157, fig. 26.

(12) Esdaile, 1928, p. 104.

(13) Whinney, 1988, p. 224.

An old note by Hugh Tait records that the bust was seen by Vertue in 1738, but this was not checked by A. Dawson

_____________________

Oliver Cromwell
Louis Francois Roubiliac
Terracotta

Height: 63.3 cms. Width: 50.3 cms. Depth: 22 cms.

British Museum.

The photographs above were taken by the author taken under very difficult circumstances - the overhead lighting that this and the other Roubiliac busts in the gallery are under, is terrible, and the busts are displayed on columns which I think are much too tall.

I like to view busts such as these head on, which is what I believe the sculptor, in this case intended, as though one were meeting the individual portrayed.

These busts in my opinion are masterpieces and deserve much better treatment.

Oliver Cromwell.

Robert Walker.

Duke of Grafton.

Euston Estate.

Oliver Cromwell was painted many times by the artist Robert Walker but this image is unusual: Cromwell is shown wearing a white mantle, which frames a gold pendant on which appear the three crowns of Sweden. Its connection with Andrew Marvell’s poem, and with an exchange of portraits which took place between Cromwell and Queen Christina in 1653, was only re-established relatively recently. The identification brings into focus some of the ways in which a gift-portrait can do diplomatic work.

This text from:

see - http://www.textualambassadors.org/?p=801

______________________

The Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector (1653-1658), 1653, base silver? medal, 10.00g., 33mm,

by an unknown in Geneva after Thomas Simon, armoured and draped bust of Cromwell left, OLIV D G R P ANG SCO ET HIB & PRO (Oliver by the grace of God Protector of the Republic of England, Scotland and Ireland), rev. lion displaying the arms of the Protectorate, PAX QVAERITVR BELLO (peace achieved through war).

Struck by an unknown artist in Switzerland c.1730, the medal closely copied two works by Thomas Simon, the obverse of his 1650, Cromwell as Lord General (MI 388/7) medal and the reverse of the 1653, Lord Protector medal (MI 409/45). It was a commercial venture that reflected the intense popular interest in Cromwell and the English Republic on the continent. The medal was struck to commemorate the dismissal of the Barebones Parliament and the introduction of a new constitution, the Instrument of Government, granting executive power to Cromwell for life as Lord Protector, it was the first written constitution in the English-speaking world.

Text and image above from -

http://www.yorkcoins.com/m550_-_the_commonwealth,_oliver_cromwell,_lord_protector_(1653-1658),_165.htm

_____________________