DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68074#0218
near the grave.
3 Black’s Tourist Guide to the Wye (p. 68) men-
tions all these attributions.
122 ROUBILIAC
Roubiliac’s second Myddelton monument was probably the result of the
earlier commission. Pennant, when he visited Wrexham, described it as ‘ a
small but elegant monument of the Reverend Mr. Thomas Middleton and his
wife Arabella Hacker, by Roubiliac. Their faces are in profile on a medallion,
with a curtain lightly hanging on one side.’ Myddelton died in 1754, his wife
in 1756, and the work must have been erected after her death, since the por-
traits of both appear side by side on two overlapping medallions—not one, as
Pennant states—under a sort of canopy from which the curtain is looped back.
Two designs for ‘ Mr. and Mrs. Middleton ’ were sold in 1762, along with three
of ‘ Dr Middleton ’, who can be no other than Conyers Middleton, D.D., who
was buried in St. Michael’s, Cambridge. His monument is no longer there, but
its inscription is preserved,1 and the entries in the Sale Catalogue prove that
it bore a medallion portrait by Roubiliac, the sculptor selected by Middleton’s
widow to execute a bust of him for Trinity Library, though the project came
to nothing through her indifference or laziness (p. 99).
In a niche in the S. transept of Hereford Cathedral is a bust (Plate xxxi b}
traditionally said to be that of James Thomas (pb. 1757), a citizen of Hereford
buried close by? The delightful undress portrait in cap and loose gown
stands on a roughly carved cushion, and may well have been an ordinary
portrait bust subsequently used for sepulchral purposes; but so deeply rooted
is the instinct which insists that a fine work of art must represent a distinguished
man that the names of Garrick, Hogarth, Cowper, and Roubiliac himself-
each attribution more absurd than the other—have been suggested as the sub-
ject,3 though portraits of all exist to give these theories the lie.
Note. Four monuments by the sculptor known from models in the Sale Catalogue I have
failed to trace, those of Doctors Baron and Barrowby and Miss Folkes, sold on the second day
of the Roubiliac Sale, and that of Miss Hervey, sold on the third. All probably exist, and one
or two may well be important; but in view of the fact that John Bamber, M.D., was
commemorated by the artist, it is conceivable that John Baron’s monument may be an
auctioneer’s error. Where Baron and Barrowby were buried I have vainly tried to ascertain;
both are in the D.N.B.
1 Cooper’s Memorials of Cambridge, iii, p. 346.
2 I have to thank the Dean of Hereford formuch
kind help in the matter of the Thomas bust, which
has recently been restored to its traditional position
CORRIGENDUM
Page 123 f. Roubiliac’s copy of the Chandos
Shakespeare has now been identified as that pre-
sented by Dr. Maty to the British Museum in 1760.
See a letter by the writer, with an illustration, in
The Times, 16 Jan. 192g.
Esdaile: Roubiliac
3 Black’s Tourist Guide to the Wye (p. 68) men-
tions all these attributions.
122 ROUBILIAC
Roubiliac’s second Myddelton monument was probably the result of the
earlier commission. Pennant, when he visited Wrexham, described it as ‘ a
small but elegant monument of the Reverend Mr. Thomas Middleton and his
wife Arabella Hacker, by Roubiliac. Their faces are in profile on a medallion,
with a curtain lightly hanging on one side.’ Myddelton died in 1754, his wife
in 1756, and the work must have been erected after her death, since the por-
traits of both appear side by side on two overlapping medallions—not one, as
Pennant states—under a sort of canopy from which the curtain is looped back.
Two designs for ‘ Mr. and Mrs. Middleton ’ were sold in 1762, along with three
of ‘ Dr Middleton ’, who can be no other than Conyers Middleton, D.D., who
was buried in St. Michael’s, Cambridge. His monument is no longer there, but
its inscription is preserved,1 and the entries in the Sale Catalogue prove that
it bore a medallion portrait by Roubiliac, the sculptor selected by Middleton’s
widow to execute a bust of him for Trinity Library, though the project came
to nothing through her indifference or laziness (p. 99).
In a niche in the S. transept of Hereford Cathedral is a bust (Plate xxxi b}
traditionally said to be that of James Thomas (pb. 1757), a citizen of Hereford
buried close by? The delightful undress portrait in cap and loose gown
stands on a roughly carved cushion, and may well have been an ordinary
portrait bust subsequently used for sepulchral purposes; but so deeply rooted
is the instinct which insists that a fine work of art must represent a distinguished
man that the names of Garrick, Hogarth, Cowper, and Roubiliac himself-
each attribution more absurd than the other—have been suggested as the sub-
ject,3 though portraits of all exist to give these theories the lie.
Note. Four monuments by the sculptor known from models in the Sale Catalogue I have
failed to trace, those of Doctors Baron and Barrowby and Miss Folkes, sold on the second day
of the Roubiliac Sale, and that of Miss Hervey, sold on the third. All probably exist, and one
or two may well be important; but in view of the fact that John Bamber, M.D., was
commemorated by the artist, it is conceivable that John Baron’s monument may be an
auctioneer’s error. Where Baron and Barrowby were buried I have vainly tried to ascertain;
both are in the D.N.B.
1 Cooper’s Memorials of Cambridge, iii, p. 346.
2 I have to thank the Dean of Hereford formuch
kind help in the matter of the Thomas bust, which
has recently been restored to its traditional position
CORRIGENDUM
Page 123 f. Roubiliac’s copy of the Chandos
Shakespeare has now been identified as that pre-
sented by Dr. Maty to the British Museum in 1760.
See a letter by the writer, with an illustration, in
The Times, 16 Jan. 192g.
Esdaile: Roubiliac