Bust of Richard Meade by Roubiliac

 

 

A Marble Bust of Dr Richard Mead.

Physician in Ordinary to George II.

Doctor to Isaac Newton, Collector.

11 August 1673 - 16 February 1754. 

by Louis Francois Roubiliac.

 

At the Royal College of Physicians.

Regents Park, London.

 

The bust was created at the expense of Dr. Anthony Askew, and presented by him to the College in 1756, when displayed in the Physicians building in Warwick-Lane it was originally supported on a bracket, which bore the following inscription:—

Hanc Richardi Meadii effigiem, literarum atque artis medicae statoris et vindicii perpetui, amicitiæ causa ponendam curavit Antonius Askew, M.D. 1756.

 

The photographs below were taken in the Censors Room at the Royal College of Physicians on 8 September 2016. 

I am very grateful to staff at the Royal College of Physicians for their kind assistance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait of Richard Mead MD.

Arthur Pond.

Royal College of Physicians.

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Why has this image been removed???

 

A meeting of the College of Physicians: This engraving was published as Plate 20 of Microcosm of London, (1808). Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832).

At the old College in Warwick Lane.

Depicting the busts of Baldwin Hamey by Edward Pearce (above the door), and Dr William Harvey by Scheemakers in the Censors Room.

 

 

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For the Plaster busts at the British Museum purchased by Matthew Matey at the posthumous Roubiliac Sale including a bust of Richard Mead and for further portraits of Dr Mead see my blog entry -

 

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-twelve-busts-boughtby-dr-matthew.html

 

 

For a brief summaries of his life and times see -

 

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2003HisSc..41..293J/0000299.000.html

 

http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/3047

 

and

 

http://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Learning-Resource.pdf

 

 

 

For his monument in Westminster Abbey (he was buried in the Temple Church) see -

 

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/richard-mead

 

The monument is by Scheemakers.

 

 

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For an annotated Catalogue of the Collection of Richard Mead sold by Langford's of the Piazza Covent Garden Tuesday 11 March 1755 giving the price achieved and purchaser.

 

 see - http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/123243#page/2/mode/1up

 

 

"A catalogue of the genuine and entire collection of valuable gems, bronzes, marble and other busts and antiquities, of the late Doctor Mead : which (by order of the executors) will be sold by auction, by Mr. Langford, at his House in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden, on Tuesday the 11th of this instant March 1755, and the four following days. The said collection will be exhibited to public view on Friday, Saturday and Monday, the 7th, 8th and 10th instant, from ten in the morning till four, and the sale will begin each day punctually at twelve o'clock. Catalogues of which may be had on Thursday the 6th, at Mr. Langford's aforesaid".

 

Lots on the first day included busts in white marble by Scheemaker

 

 

 61. Shakespear bought Skinner.

62. Milton bought Duncomb.

63. Pope bought Gen' Campbell.

 

 

 

The Library of Dr Mead at Great Ormond Street.

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49 Great Ormond Street,

Home of Richard Mead, previously occupied by physician Sir John Radcliffe. 

The famous library was designed by James Gibbs and built 1732 - 34.

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George II, Weavers Hall, Dublin.

George II.

Bronze Statue.

Formerly on Weavers Hall, The Coombe, Dublin.

1750.

Attributed to John van Nost III.

Some have suggested that it was by Benjamin Rackstrow.

 

 

The Weavers Hall Architect was almost certainly Joseph Jarret of Dublin, 1747.

 

 

The figure of George, holding shuttles and other implements relating to the weaving trade, was removed and destroyed in November 1937 - it was feared by the owners of the building that the IRA might attempt to blow it up.

 

The Irish Times (17 November 1937) covered the story as follows:

STATUE OF KING HACKED TO PIECES.

“BETTER TO HAVE IT BLOWN UP”.

What is described as “the last British King in the City of Dublin” was beheaded in Dublin yesterday morning. Immediately afterwards men set about the task of hacking off his legs and arms. This was the fate which met the bronze statue of King George II, which has stood over the entrance of the Weavers’ Hall, in the Coombe, since 1750, and the reason is that the present owners of the premises, Messrs S. Fine and Co., Ltd., thought it better to have the statue peacefully removed than to have it blown up.

An Irish Times reporter was told that it had been necessary to dismember the statue in order to take it down without damaging the face of the building. It was fitted into the front of the house with iron stays, and to have removed it en bloc would have defaced the masonry. Some idea of the weight of the statue may be gathered from the fact that the head alone weighs almost 50lb.

 

This is probably rather disingenuous - it was probably much easier to hack it apart and then sell it for scrap rather than hire a crane and remove it carefully - a great loss..

Fine and Co were house furnishers but a watercolour by Flora Mitchell painted in the 1950's shows a very down at heel building. 

There are photographs of it in its final stages of disintegration before it was demolished in the Irish Architectural Archive on Merrion Square, Dublin which I hope to publish shortly.

 

Weavers Hall itself was finally demolished in 1965.

 

 

 

During the seventeenth century a number of French Huguenot weavers arrived in Dublin. They settled manly in the Liberties area of Dublin, west of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where they became part of the existing weaving fraternity. Many of them were experienced silk weavers and their expertise contributed to the establishment of a thriving silk and poplin industry.

 

A weavers’ hall had been built by the Guild in the Lower Coombe in 1682 and by 1745, when the building of a new hall was required, it was a Huguenot, David Digges La Touche, who advanced the £200 needed. The main room of the new hall is described as being fifty-six feet long by twenty-one feet wide, wainscoted, and hung with portraits of kings and notabilities, and included a tapestry portrait of King George II, woven by John van Beaver (see below).

 

 

 

 

image from - http://archiseek.com/2014/1747-weavers-hall-the-coombe-dublin/

 

John Van Nost III in, or shortly before, 1750 came to Dublin. In that year he executed the first of the many important works which he did in Ireland, a "Statue of King George II" for the Guild of Weavers. It was placed in an arched niche over the door of the Weavers' Hall in the Coombe,  and was exposed to public view on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, "when the covering was taken off," says "Faulkner's Journal," "in the sight of many spectators, who all expressed their satisfaction thereat by the loudest acclamations and demonstrations of joy."

 

 

 

 Early 20th Century photograph of Weavers Hall, on Lower Coombe, Dublin.

Showing the statue of George II.

Image South Dublin Library.

 

 

 

The tapestry of George II woven by John van Beaver, which hung in the Weavers’ Hall, is now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

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David Digges la Touche.

John van Nost III.

Huntington Library Art Collection.

  Several other 18th Century busts are in the Huntington Collection.

 Oliver Cromwell - Michael Rysbrack.

John Hamden - Michael Rysbrack.

Sir Peter Warren - L.F. Roubiliac.

Handel Plaster - Roubiliac.

Philip Stanhope 4th Earl Chesterfield - Scheemakers.

Horsemen on Rearing Horses a brief Survey. Marcus Curtius

 

Horsemen on Rearing Horses.

 

an excellent Survey of European Statues and images.

 

see - http://www.yu51a5.com/2400-years-of-the-history-of-a-horseman-on-a-rearing-horse/

 

I have confined my researches on this blog mostly to English and Irish equestrian statues with a fairly static pose based on the ancient statues the equestrian Marcus Aurelius and the horses from St Marks Venice which most will be familiar with.

 

 

 

This website gives an excellent overview of the more dramatic statues and images of the rearing horse with rider. 

 

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Here are a few images I have chosen which illustrate the legend of Marcus Curtius

from Livy's History of Rome.

 

 

 

 

Medallion of Francisco II Gonzaga by Bartulus Talpa. c.1530.

 

Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

 

 

Description: Front: FRANCISCVS GON to MAR III [separation characters triangle]. Bearded bust of Clifford Gonzaga halblangem, wavy hair and bearded to the left. Back: VNIVERSAE ITALIAE LIBERATORI / / BARTVLVS / TALPA [separation characters triangle]. The nude helmeted Marcus Curtius with raised sword riding right into the blazing flames.

 

Comment: above perforated cast medal. -The representation on the back refers to the victorious battle against the French at Fornovo in 1495 and refers to the ancient Roman myth of Marcus Curtius Knight is aufopfernden for the welfare of the State.

Literature: L. Börner, the Italian medals of the Renaissance and Baroque periods (1450-1750). Berlin Numismatic research 5 (1997) 33 f. No. 71 TAF. 21 (this piece);

G. F. Hill, A corpus of Italian medals of the Renaissance before Cellini (1930) 50 f. 205 a TAF. 37 (this piece);

J. Friedländer, the Italian show coins of the fifteenth century (1430-1530). A contribution to the history of art (1882) 128 No. 2 TAF. 23.2 (this piece);

S. k. shear in: k. Christiansen - S. Weppelmann (ed.), Renaissance faces. Catalog Berlin (2011) 238 f. No. 91 with fig. (this piece).

For more information about the object, see here: http://ww2.smb.museum/ikmk/object.php?id=18200293.

Bing Translation from -  http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/2064108/Museu_ProvidedCHO_M_nzkabinett__Staatliche_Museen_zu_Berlin_1797992.html

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Concz Welcz or his school, Bohemia. 1535.

 

Image from Morton and Eden

https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=799&category=17338&lot=790289

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abraham de Bruyn

16th Century

50 x 47 mm

 

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Holland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anon. German signed I.B. dated 1529.

 

 

 

A 16th Century Milanese Helmet (Cabasset) depicting Marcus Curtius

Metropolitan Museum, New York.

 

 

 

A Helmet in the Kunsthistotische Museum, Vienna.

Depicting Marcus Curtius.

 

Archduke Karl II son of Ferdinand I of Habsburg Austria,1540-1590.

In the style Giovanni Battista Serabaglio or his workshop.

Milan c. 1550.

 

 

 

 

Georg Pencz  (? - 1550).

 

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Hans Colleart (c. 1525 - 80).

 

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Jaques de Gheyn (1565 - 1629). Christie's.

 

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Hendrik Goltzius

1586 

 

An opportunity to post an image by Goltzius a particular favourite of mine.

 

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Enamelled gold pendant set with an onyx cameo of the Devotion of Marcus Curtius, hung with a pearl. The cameo, inspired by the work of Francesco Tortorino, probably Milan, about 1600, the mount about 1650-1700. Enamelled gold set with a layered agate cameo hung with a pearl.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Chimneypiece - du Jaques Androuet de Courceau

2nd Book of Architecture.

1520 - 61?

 

Cropped from above.

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Etching - Wilton House

Relief of Marcus Curtius.

Society of Antiquaries of London Catalogue of Drawings and Museum Objects: Classical Antiquities

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Giovanni Batista Serabaglio, Milan

 

Marcus Curtius signed Giuseppe de Vico

Marco Antonio Fava

 

 Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna,

H. 90,5 cm, B. 68.5 cm, L. 47.5 cm,

The Line of Kings, Tower of London, Equestrian Statues

The Line of Kings, Equestrian Statues.

Tower of London.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographs by the Author. 

 

 

 

The Line of Kings by Rowlandson.

Rysbrack Plaster Equestrian Statuette of William III, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

The Plaster Equestrian Statuette of William III.
circa 1732 - 36.

Michael Rysbrack.


Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

On loan from Hull City Museums and Art Galleries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gilt Plaster Statuette of William III.

692 mm including the base.

Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

Photographs David Bridgwater.

This statuette was first recorded on display in the Wilberforce House Museum, Hull in 1927.

At the time it was believed to be related to Scheemakers lead statue of William III in Hull but close examination reveals it to be a version of Michael Rysbrack's equestrian bronze of William III in Queens Square in Bristol.

 

There was an identical cast in the collection of GK Beaulah, Hessle, Hull which had previously been bronzed but had been recently gilded (Eustace 1982).

Information from -

  Exhibition Catalogue - Rysbrack - City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, 1982. Katherine Eustace.

 

 

 

 

 

National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.