DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68074#0088
50
ROUBILIAC
How Bolingbroke came into contact with Roubiliac we are not informed.
He retired to France in 1739, so that he might well have seen the Handel before
he went; came back for a brief visit on his father’s death in 1742, when Pope
on 23rd April was ‘ every day in expectation ’ of his arrival; and did not again
settle at his manor of Battersea until after the reversal of his attainder in 1743.
Like Vertue, he may have visited the sculptor’s studio; but the commission for
Pope’s bust was probably sent from France, and the poet’s sittings certainly
took place in his friend’s absence. Of Bolingbroke’s own portrait, which was
executed in 1741 and wore no wig, I can learn nothing. J. T. Smith speaks of
it as if he had seen it (Nollekens, i, p. 377), and, as we shall see, there may be a
cast at Stourhead (p. 107).
Vertue’s allusion to the portrait of Hogarth is of the first importance.
Hogarth and Roubiliac were from the first intimate, and if the sculptor exe-
cuted his friend’s bust and a model of his favourite dog, Trump, the painter, as
family tradition asserts, painted the portrait of Roubiliac in return (p. 189).
The bust (Plate tx d) which did not go beyond the model stage in which Vertue
saw it, passed from Roubiliac’s studio to Hogarth’s house in Leicester Fields,
and on Mrs. Hogarth’s death in 1789 was bought, together with the model of
Trump (Plate ixZ>), by one Mr. John Henley, on whose death shortly after-
wards Samuel Ireland acquired them both for £7 ys. and reproduced them as
the frontispiece to his second volume of Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth in 1799.
Ireland died the following year, and in 1801 the bust—nothing is said of the dog
—was bought for f 1 5.?. by a Mr. Smith, who sold it to Mr. George Baker, of St.
Paul’s Churchyard, in whose possession it was when Cooke engraved it in
1810.1 It was inherited by Baker’s great-nephew, Mr. Frederick Hemming, by
him bequeathed to his sister Miss Frances Hemming, of St. John’s Wood, and
by her sold to Mr. William Baker of 37, Southampton Row, who in 1861 sold
it to the National Portrait Gallery.2
dated 23 November, 1740. ‘ I learn very well the
Common Prayer-Book and Bible—I have learnt
Molly Mog of the Rose, and am learning now the
English Grammar.’ And the standard in the
Duchess of Portland’s schoolroom was a high one,
the governess being no less a person than the
famous Anglo-Saxon scholar Mrs. Elizabeth
Elstob {Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs.
Delany, ii, p. 141).
1 As the frontispiece to vol. ii of Nichols’s
and Steevens’s Hogarth; in i, p. 396, its, ‘ strong
resemblance ’ to the original is rightly emphasized.
In the Gazette des Beaux Arts (1868, xxv, pp. 208-9)
the model of the dog is mentioned, but not the
incomparably more important bust. When this
was cleaned in 1926, the foot with its relief of
masks and palette (recalling the astronomical
details on the Royal Society’s Newton) proved
to be of plaster, all but one corner, which, like the
bust, was terra-cotta. Presumably the foot was
damaged and the lost portions made good in
plaster by the sculptor himself.
2 That the admirable lead bust described as a
portrait of Hogarth bequeathed by the late
Colonel Croft-Lyons to the Victoria and Albert
Museum is rightly named is more than question-
ROUBILIAC
How Bolingbroke came into contact with Roubiliac we are not informed.
He retired to France in 1739, so that he might well have seen the Handel before
he went; came back for a brief visit on his father’s death in 1742, when Pope
on 23rd April was ‘ every day in expectation ’ of his arrival; and did not again
settle at his manor of Battersea until after the reversal of his attainder in 1743.
Like Vertue, he may have visited the sculptor’s studio; but the commission for
Pope’s bust was probably sent from France, and the poet’s sittings certainly
took place in his friend’s absence. Of Bolingbroke’s own portrait, which was
executed in 1741 and wore no wig, I can learn nothing. J. T. Smith speaks of
it as if he had seen it (Nollekens, i, p. 377), and, as we shall see, there may be a
cast at Stourhead (p. 107).
Vertue’s allusion to the portrait of Hogarth is of the first importance.
Hogarth and Roubiliac were from the first intimate, and if the sculptor exe-
cuted his friend’s bust and a model of his favourite dog, Trump, the painter, as
family tradition asserts, painted the portrait of Roubiliac in return (p. 189).
The bust (Plate tx d) which did not go beyond the model stage in which Vertue
saw it, passed from Roubiliac’s studio to Hogarth’s house in Leicester Fields,
and on Mrs. Hogarth’s death in 1789 was bought, together with the model of
Trump (Plate ixZ>), by one Mr. John Henley, on whose death shortly after-
wards Samuel Ireland acquired them both for £7 ys. and reproduced them as
the frontispiece to his second volume of Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth in 1799.
Ireland died the following year, and in 1801 the bust—nothing is said of the dog
—was bought for f 1 5.?. by a Mr. Smith, who sold it to Mr. George Baker, of St.
Paul’s Churchyard, in whose possession it was when Cooke engraved it in
1810.1 It was inherited by Baker’s great-nephew, Mr. Frederick Hemming, by
him bequeathed to his sister Miss Frances Hemming, of St. John’s Wood, and
by her sold to Mr. William Baker of 37, Southampton Row, who in 1861 sold
it to the National Portrait Gallery.2
dated 23 November, 1740. ‘ I learn very well the
Common Prayer-Book and Bible—I have learnt
Molly Mog of the Rose, and am learning now the
English Grammar.’ And the standard in the
Duchess of Portland’s schoolroom was a high one,
the governess being no less a person than the
famous Anglo-Saxon scholar Mrs. Elizabeth
Elstob {Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs.
Delany, ii, p. 141).
1 As the frontispiece to vol. ii of Nichols’s
and Steevens’s Hogarth; in i, p. 396, its, ‘ strong
resemblance ’ to the original is rightly emphasized.
In the Gazette des Beaux Arts (1868, xxv, pp. 208-9)
the model of the dog is mentioned, but not the
incomparably more important bust. When this
was cleaned in 1926, the foot with its relief of
masks and palette (recalling the astronomical
details on the Royal Society’s Newton) proved
to be of plaster, all but one corner, which, like the
bust, was terra-cotta. Presumably the foot was
damaged and the lost portions made good in
plaster by the sculptor himself.
2 That the admirable lead bust described as a
portrait of Hogarth bequeathed by the late
Colonel Croft-Lyons to the Victoria and Albert
Museum is rightly named is more than question-