DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68074#0100
56 ROUBILIAC
In any case, somewhere about the time when the indomitable old woman re-
plied to her doctor’s advice, ‘ I won’t be blistered, and I won’t die ’, and kept
her word, she ordered the bust and wrote its inscription herself, as she before
had written the envenomed words originally placed below Rysbrack’s statue
of Queen Anne at Blenheim, which ends with the asseveration, ‘ All this I know
to be true, Sarah Marlborough, M D CCXXXVIII ’.
Roubiliac, like Scheemaker in his excellent bust of Colonel Kirk (oZ>. 1744)
in Westminster Abbey, represents his subject in contemporary uniform. In
this, as in the decoration about Vernon’s neck, we are reminded of the cuirass
and Star on the bust of Lord Ligonier and of the later monuments to Wolfe
and Shannon.
But though Roubiliac was best known as a portrait sculptor—known indeed
to the London public in no other light when Vertue visited his studio in 1741—-
he was beginning to make a name in another held. His three earlier monu-
ments were, it is true, little known, but when Bowater Vernon of Hanbury
Hall, Worcestershire, died on the 30th November, 1735, it was to Roubiliac,
and not to the established sculptors Scheemaker, Cheere, or Rysbrack, that his
family turned for a monument to that much-loved squire and magistrate,
‘ A Gentleman in all Relations of Approved Conduct ’, as his epitaph has it
(Plate xiv a). The sculptor thereupon produced the earliest example of
what was to become a favourite scheme of his, a figure leaning on a pedestal
and studying a book. The absence of wig, the admirable modelling of flesh
and drapery, the charming medallion of his second wife, with pearls in her
hair and a rose at her bosom, are characteristic, but the only clue to the date
is given by the mention of the death of Vernon’s little daughter in 174.0. It
may be interesting to add that the resolute English pronunciation of the name
Roubiliac used by his own descendants, of which the double ‘ 11 ’ of eighteenth-
century usage is evidence, can be traced in the Vernon family for a century.
It is probable that this commission led to a more important one, the monu-
ment of Bishop Hough (p. 57), certain that the figure of Bowater Vernon is
repeated almost line for line in Roubiliac’s next monument, that of Peregrine,
Duke of Ancaster (ob. 1741), and his ‘Dutchess’ Jane at Edenham. The
pedestal on which Vernon leans has become an urn, the one cherub two, the
loose toga a species of pseudo-classical armour with a long fringed cloak over
it; but the designs are essentially the same, from the wigless head to the
medallion portrait of the wife, duly subordinated to her lord. The later
Sir Thomas Molyneux at Armagh (p. 95) is a modification of the same scheme.
Even to-day one commission in a neighbourhood leads to another; much
In any case, somewhere about the time when the indomitable old woman re-
plied to her doctor’s advice, ‘ I won’t be blistered, and I won’t die ’, and kept
her word, she ordered the bust and wrote its inscription herself, as she before
had written the envenomed words originally placed below Rysbrack’s statue
of Queen Anne at Blenheim, which ends with the asseveration, ‘ All this I know
to be true, Sarah Marlborough, M D CCXXXVIII ’.
Roubiliac, like Scheemaker in his excellent bust of Colonel Kirk (oZ>. 1744)
in Westminster Abbey, represents his subject in contemporary uniform. In
this, as in the decoration about Vernon’s neck, we are reminded of the cuirass
and Star on the bust of Lord Ligonier and of the later monuments to Wolfe
and Shannon.
But though Roubiliac was best known as a portrait sculptor—known indeed
to the London public in no other light when Vertue visited his studio in 1741—-
he was beginning to make a name in another held. His three earlier monu-
ments were, it is true, little known, but when Bowater Vernon of Hanbury
Hall, Worcestershire, died on the 30th November, 1735, it was to Roubiliac,
and not to the established sculptors Scheemaker, Cheere, or Rysbrack, that his
family turned for a monument to that much-loved squire and magistrate,
‘ A Gentleman in all Relations of Approved Conduct ’, as his epitaph has it
(Plate xiv a). The sculptor thereupon produced the earliest example of
what was to become a favourite scheme of his, a figure leaning on a pedestal
and studying a book. The absence of wig, the admirable modelling of flesh
and drapery, the charming medallion of his second wife, with pearls in her
hair and a rose at her bosom, are characteristic, but the only clue to the date
is given by the mention of the death of Vernon’s little daughter in 174.0. It
may be interesting to add that the resolute English pronunciation of the name
Roubiliac used by his own descendants, of which the double ‘ 11 ’ of eighteenth-
century usage is evidence, can be traced in the Vernon family for a century.
It is probable that this commission led to a more important one, the monu-
ment of Bishop Hough (p. 57), certain that the figure of Bowater Vernon is
repeated almost line for line in Roubiliac’s next monument, that of Peregrine,
Duke of Ancaster (ob. 1741), and his ‘Dutchess’ Jane at Edenham. The
pedestal on which Vernon leans has become an urn, the one cherub two, the
loose toga a species of pseudo-classical armour with a long fringed cloak over
it; but the designs are essentially the same, from the wigless head to the
medallion portrait of the wife, duly subordinated to her lord. The later
Sir Thomas Molyneux at Armagh (p. 95) is a modification of the same scheme.
Even to-day one commission in a neighbourhood leads to another; much