DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68074#0227
AND SOME MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 127
‘ Model of Shakespeare ’ at the Society of Artists (No. 88). No marble figure
of Shakespeare is mentioned in the Sale Catalogue, where marbles are care-
fully distinguished; therefore the small version must have been in the owner’s
hands before Roubiliac’s death. It was clearly the model for this work, not for
the Garrick statue, which is represented in Carpentier’s portrait (Plate xlv<z).
The statuette was a gift from Warren Hastings to the great-grandfather of
the present owner, and differs from its prototype not in size only but in various
details of hair and drapery, in the position of the MS. on the desk, and having
a copper-plate engraved with a cento from Shakespeare affixed to the pedestal:
How noble in Faculty, Infinite in Reason 1
A Combination and a Form indeed,
Where every God did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Heav’n has him now—■, yet, let our idolatrous fancy
Still Sanctify his Relicts,
To the last Syllable of recorded time.
For if we take him but for all in all,
We ne’er shall look upon his like again.
How Warren Hastings became possessed of the work is uncertain. He returned
to England in 1764, more than two years after the sculptor’s death, and was
not back again till 1785; it seems clear therefore that it must have been a
commission not from him but from some admirer of the Garrick statue; the
tradition in the owner’s family is that Warren Hastings bought it at some
sale.
The splendid Shakespeare in painted terra-cotta (Plate xli a) known some-
what fantastically as the Davenant bust was presented to the Garrick Club
by the seventh Duke of Devonshire in 1865. It was discovered twenty years
earlier bricked up in a niche in Spode and Copeland’s warehouse on the site
of the old Duke’s Theatre, Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, along with a
companion bust of Ben Jonson which was unfortunately smashed at the moment
of discovery.1 A second version, somewhat harder in style, is in the British
Museum2 (Plate xli Z>), and there is a cast in the Memorial Library at Stratford
of such merit that it must have come from Roubiliac’s studio. The type suggests
an elaboration on the theme of the Chandos portrait, and seems to point to a
different conception of the man, developed a la Bernini from the relative
1 Spielmann, Encycl. Brit., 1 ith ed.,xxiv, p. 798.
* I published it in the Burlington Magazine for
April, 1923, and there described it as a replica;
a version would be the more accurate phrase, as
there are certain small differences both of style
and detail.
‘ Model of Shakespeare ’ at the Society of Artists (No. 88). No marble figure
of Shakespeare is mentioned in the Sale Catalogue, where marbles are care-
fully distinguished; therefore the small version must have been in the owner’s
hands before Roubiliac’s death. It was clearly the model for this work, not for
the Garrick statue, which is represented in Carpentier’s portrait (Plate xlv<z).
The statuette was a gift from Warren Hastings to the great-grandfather of
the present owner, and differs from its prototype not in size only but in various
details of hair and drapery, in the position of the MS. on the desk, and having
a copper-plate engraved with a cento from Shakespeare affixed to the pedestal:
How noble in Faculty, Infinite in Reason 1
A Combination and a Form indeed,
Where every God did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Heav’n has him now—■, yet, let our idolatrous fancy
Still Sanctify his Relicts,
To the last Syllable of recorded time.
For if we take him but for all in all,
We ne’er shall look upon his like again.
How Warren Hastings became possessed of the work is uncertain. He returned
to England in 1764, more than two years after the sculptor’s death, and was
not back again till 1785; it seems clear therefore that it must have been a
commission not from him but from some admirer of the Garrick statue; the
tradition in the owner’s family is that Warren Hastings bought it at some
sale.
The splendid Shakespeare in painted terra-cotta (Plate xli a) known some-
what fantastically as the Davenant bust was presented to the Garrick Club
by the seventh Duke of Devonshire in 1865. It was discovered twenty years
earlier bricked up in a niche in Spode and Copeland’s warehouse on the site
of the old Duke’s Theatre, Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, along with a
companion bust of Ben Jonson which was unfortunately smashed at the moment
of discovery.1 A second version, somewhat harder in style, is in the British
Museum2 (Plate xli Z>), and there is a cast in the Memorial Library at Stratford
of such merit that it must have come from Roubiliac’s studio. The type suggests
an elaboration on the theme of the Chandos portrait, and seems to point to a
different conception of the man, developed a la Bernini from the relative
1 Spielmann, Encycl. Brit., 1 ith ed.,xxiv, p. 798.
* I published it in the Burlington Magazine for
April, 1923, and there described it as a replica;
a version would be the more accurate phrase, as
there are certain small differences both of style
and detail.