Homer
workshop of Matthew Brettingham the Younger (1725 - 1803)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1758
Materials
Bronzed plaster
Measurements
530 x 365 x 285 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 108988.2
Summary
Bronzed plaster, Homer, after a bust of Homer in the Farnese Collection, probably cast in London, possibly by Bartolomeo Mattevali, on behalf of Matthew Brettingham (1725-1803), c.1758. A bust of the epic poet Homer, depicted in old age with a furrowed brow, wrinkled skin, slightly parted lips, and wide, sunken eyes to convey his blindness. He wears a long beard and a band around this head, drawing his curly hair forward to frame his face. One of set of seven plaster portrait busts depicting Greek and Roman philosophers, writers, gods and goddesses, each cast from moulds after antique busts in Roman collections. Painted to look like bronze, mounted on a socle atop the bookshelves in the Library of Kedleston Hall. This bust is cast after a herm of Homer owned by the Farnese Family and displayed at the Palazzo Farnese and Villa Farnesina. It passed to the Bourbons by inheritance through Charles III and was transferred to Naples in 1790, where it remains (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv.no. 6023).
Full description
During his seven-year stint in Rome (1747-54) Matthew Brettingham not only dealt in casts and antiquities - furnishing the Earl of Leicester, for example, with casts and marble statues for Holkham Hall - but also commissioned actual moulds to be taken from famous Roman antiquities. The idea was that casts could then be made to order when he returned to London. He commissioned moulds for sixty busts, divided between Greek and Roman subjects, and twelve moulds of full-size statues. In addition to the 10 casts of statues he purchased for the Marble Hall, Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale (1826-1804), bought many of the classical busts on Brettingham’s books. Seven are mounted on top of the bookcases (NT 108611) in the Library of Kedleston Hall, in a display related to Robert Adam’s proposed designs for the room (see NT 109438–109442).The busts depict: the Greek philosopher Socrates; Homer, the legendary Greek author of the Iliad and Odyssey; the Greek goddess Athena; a Vestal Virgin of Rome; the Greek poets Pindar and Sappho; and Dionysus, Greek god of wine and revelry.Brettingham's Rome Account Book, his ledger of statues dealt, casts made, bought and sold when he was in Italy, confirms that the Library busts were moulded from some of the most prestigious antiquarian collections in Rome. ‘Homer’ and the ‘Vestal Virgin’ were after busts in the Farnese collection, assembled by one of the most powerful aristocratic and papal families in Europe which now resides in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. According to the accounts, Brettingham commissioned a marble copy of the Farnese Homer ‘by ye Fleman’, a Flemish sculptor, probably Peter Anton von Verschaffelt (1710-93), from whom Brettingham also bought marble copies of the Albani Faun and a Furietti Centaur (Kenworthy-Browne 1983, pp. 58, 122-123). A mould or ‘forma’ was made of the ‘Homero del Farnese’ in January 1753 (Kenworthy-Browne 1983, pp. 73, 94). A receipted bill, dated 23 January 1758, exists in the Kedleston Archive for ‘the Farnesian Homer’ for which Brettingham charged Lord Scarsdale £2-0s-0d (just over £200 in today’s money). The bust is listed in Nathaniel Curzon’s handwritten ‘List of Statues I have’ (c. 1760; MS, Kedleston Archive) as 'Homer', and again as 'Homer' in the 1769 published ‘Catalogue of the pictures, statues, &c. at Kedleston’ (p. 13). For more information on the set as a whole see master record NT 108998. Alice Rylance-WatsonMarch 2019
Provenance
Purchased by Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale (17126-1804) in c. 1758; see receipted bill dated 23 January 1758 for five of the busts (Homer, Vestal Virgin, Pindar, Socrates and Plato (i.e. Dionysus), each bust at £1-10-0 (MS, Kedleston Archive); identifiable, although with some incorrect titles, in the 1769 'Catalogue of the pictures, statues, &c. at Kedleston' (p. 13) as 'Busts of Homer, Sappho, Socrates, Virgil (incorrect), Anacreon (incorrect), Pindar, Horace (incorrect); identifiable in the 1861 'Catalogue' (p. 13), the busts listed as exactly as they were in 1769; purchased with part of the contents of Kedleston Hall with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1986 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000).
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
workshop of Matthew Brettingham the Younger (1725 - 1803), dealer possibly Bartolomeo Mattevali, caster
References
Kenworthy-Browne 1983: John Kenworthy-Browne, 'Matthew Brettingham's Rome Account Book 1747-1754', The Volume of the Walpole Society, vol.49 (1983), pp.37-132 Kenworthy-Browne 1993: John Kenworthy-Browne, ‘Designing around the statues. Matthew Brettingham’s casts at Kedleston’, Apollo, April 1993, pp.248-252