DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68074#0046
20 ROUBILIAC AND HIS ENGLISH MASTERS
agreed to, and the quality of his work in the statues already mentioned, in the
Newton monument—an early work—and in his grand terra-cotta models in
the British and Soane Museums is sometimes worthy of Roubiliac himself.
The Dormer monument was erected in 1731, in the year, that is, following
Roubiliac’s success in the Grand Prix; and either or both may have brought
him both an important commission and an engagement with an English
master. The commission came from John Conduitt, F.R.S., Newton’s nephew
and successor at the Mint; its history is recorded in a Minute of the Royal
Society dated 18th August, 1785, which contains an extract from the will of
John Belchier, F.R.S.
‘ The Bust of Sir Isaac Newton I give to the Royal Society in order to have it placed at the
Observatory in Greenwich Park, and to be scheduled in like manner as the Bust of Flamstead
which I gave to the Society some years ago. N.B. This bust in terra cotta was made under
the eyes of Mr. Conduit and several of Sir Isaac Newton’s particular friends by Roubiliac,
from many Pictures and other Busts, and esteemed more like than anything extant of Sir
Isaac. As I have presented to the Society the original picture of Flamstead and a head of
Mr. Locke, a Bust being there already of Sir Isaac Newton, I choose this to be placed in the
Royal Observatory, where Sir Isaac spent many hours of his life.’
Of that terra-cotta nothing is known at Greenwich to-day, though one
engraving (Pl. iv b) preserves something of its fire, and a plaster cast and a
tiny ivory bust by Cheverton after Roubiliac’s later bust may be seen at the
Observatory.1 The noble marble bust for which it was a study is still in the
possession of a collateral descendant of Sir Isaac, and is here for the first time
reproduced by permission (Pl. iv a). ‘ More like than anything extant ’: the
praise given by Belchier to Roubiliac’s earliest-known portrait bust is the key-
note of all other eighteenth-century enthusiasm for this branch of his work.
Unsigned and undated though it is, the Newton was in position on the walls of
Conduitt’s house when Hogarth painted it in ‘ The Indian Emperor, or the
Conquest of Mexico, as performed in the year 1731, at Mr. Conduit’s,
Master of the Mint, before the Duke of Cumberland, &c.’2 It is therefore not
later than that year, and it is not an unreasonable conjecture that the sight of
the bust which he thus represented was the foundation of the lifelong friend-
ship between Hogarth and Roubiliac.
Like the statue at Trinity, and unlike Roubiliac’s intermediate busts of
Newton, it represents the philosopher in contemporary dress, and is of par-
1 I am indebted to Sir F. Dyson, Astronomer-
Royal, for permission to examine them.
* The picture, engraved by R. Dodd for Boy-
dell in 1792, is now at Holland House. Cf. John
Ireland’s Hogarth, III, p. 23, Austin Dobson’s
Hogarth, &c., for a discussion of the picture, which
proves that the square base of the bust with a Neo-
Hellenic figure of Astronomy is a later addition.
agreed to, and the quality of his work in the statues already mentioned, in the
Newton monument—an early work—and in his grand terra-cotta models in
the British and Soane Museums is sometimes worthy of Roubiliac himself.
The Dormer monument was erected in 1731, in the year, that is, following
Roubiliac’s success in the Grand Prix; and either or both may have brought
him both an important commission and an engagement with an English
master. The commission came from John Conduitt, F.R.S., Newton’s nephew
and successor at the Mint; its history is recorded in a Minute of the Royal
Society dated 18th August, 1785, which contains an extract from the will of
John Belchier, F.R.S.
‘ The Bust of Sir Isaac Newton I give to the Royal Society in order to have it placed at the
Observatory in Greenwich Park, and to be scheduled in like manner as the Bust of Flamstead
which I gave to the Society some years ago. N.B. This bust in terra cotta was made under
the eyes of Mr. Conduit and several of Sir Isaac Newton’s particular friends by Roubiliac,
from many Pictures and other Busts, and esteemed more like than anything extant of Sir
Isaac. As I have presented to the Society the original picture of Flamstead and a head of
Mr. Locke, a Bust being there already of Sir Isaac Newton, I choose this to be placed in the
Royal Observatory, where Sir Isaac spent many hours of his life.’
Of that terra-cotta nothing is known at Greenwich to-day, though one
engraving (Pl. iv b) preserves something of its fire, and a plaster cast and a
tiny ivory bust by Cheverton after Roubiliac’s later bust may be seen at the
Observatory.1 The noble marble bust for which it was a study is still in the
possession of a collateral descendant of Sir Isaac, and is here for the first time
reproduced by permission (Pl. iv a). ‘ More like than anything extant ’: the
praise given by Belchier to Roubiliac’s earliest-known portrait bust is the key-
note of all other eighteenth-century enthusiasm for this branch of his work.
Unsigned and undated though it is, the Newton was in position on the walls of
Conduitt’s house when Hogarth painted it in ‘ The Indian Emperor, or the
Conquest of Mexico, as performed in the year 1731, at Mr. Conduit’s,
Master of the Mint, before the Duke of Cumberland, &c.’2 It is therefore not
later than that year, and it is not an unreasonable conjecture that the sight of
the bust which he thus represented was the foundation of the lifelong friend-
ship between Hogarth and Roubiliac.
Like the statue at Trinity, and unlike Roubiliac’s intermediate busts of
Newton, it represents the philosopher in contemporary dress, and is of par-
1 I am indebted to Sir F. Dyson, Astronomer-
Royal, for permission to examine them.
* The picture, engraved by R. Dodd for Boy-
dell in 1792, is now at Holland House. Cf. John
Ireland’s Hogarth, III, p. 23, Austin Dobson’s
Hogarth, &c., for a discussion of the picture, which
proves that the square base of the bust with a Neo-
Hellenic figure of Astronomy is a later addition.