Sir Mark Stuart Pleydell, Bt (c.1692/3 - 1768), aged 63
Louis-François Roubiliac (Lyon 1702 – London 1762)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1755 (signed and dated)
Materials
Marble
Measurements
550 mm high
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Buscot and Coleshill Estates, Oxfordshire
NT 1439109
Summary
Marble sculpture, Sir Mark Stuart Pleydell, Bt (c.1692/3 - 1768), aged 63 by Louis Roubiliac (1702 – 1762), signed and dated: ad vivum Sct. / L.F.Roubiliac, inscribed on the truncation at the back: Sr. Mark Stuart Pleydell Bt. 1755 aet. 63 1755. A marble portrait bust that the sitter sat for between 12 -15 May 1755 at a cost of £86 which formed part of the chimney piece in the Saloon at Coleshill as an integral feature. Sir Mark Pleydell was the owner of the Inigo Jones-designed Coleshill House from 1728 to 1768. On his death, his son-in-law, William Bouverie, who in 1761 had succeeded his father as Viscount Folkestone, owner of Longford Castle, Wiltshire, and in 1765 was created Earl of Radnor succeeded Coleshill. The Earl of Radnor retained Coleshill until it passed, in 1889, at the death of the 4th Earl to his second son, The Hon. Duncombe Pleydell Bouverie.
Provenance
Commissioned for the sitter’s home at Coleshill House, then Berkshire, on the chimneypiece in the Saloon; ('plaister' [sic] versions appeared in his sale, 12-15 May 1762 on 14 May, lot 16 and lot 54); thence by descent through the Pleydell-Bouverie family to Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie (1895-1985); removed from the house which was destroyed by fire on 23rd September 1952 under the ownership of Ernest Cook (1865 – 1955) who had destined the house and its contents to the National Trust - athough not recorded until re-discovered in the Old Laundry of Coleshill; on loan to tenant at Clock House, Coleshill, 1963-83; whence on loan to the V&A
Credit line
Coleshill, The Pleydell-Bouverie Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Louis-François Roubiliac (Lyon 1702 – London 1762), sculptor
References
Pleydell-Bouverie Papers, D/EPB/E11 Avray Tipping 1919 (I), H. Avray Tipping, 'Coleshill House. Berkshire. The seat of the Hon. Mrs Pleydell-Bouverie', I, Country Life, XLVI, 26 July 1919, pp. 108-116 Avray Tipping 1919 (II), H. Avray Tipping, 'Coleshill House. Berkshire. The seat of the Hon. Mrs Pleydell-Bouverie', II, Country Life, XLVI, 26 July 1919, pp. 138-146 Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England, Victoria & Albert Museum, London 16 May - 30 September 1984, 300-1 (repr) Bilbey and Trusted 2002 Diane Bilbey and Marjoire Trusted, British Sculpture 1470 to 2000. A Concise Catalogue of the Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2002, no. 158, p.116-7 (repr) Roscoe 2009: I. Roscoe, E. Hardy and M. G. Sullivan, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, New Haven and Yale 2009, 90 Baker 2000, M. Baker, Figured in Marble. The Making and Viewing of Eighteenth-century Sculpture, London, 2000, p. 55, pls 39-40 on p. 56 Fielder 2012, Karen Fielder, Lord Burlington and the Leaning Stacks of Coleshill House', National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual 2012, pp. 57-59, fig. 2