Portrait bust of Frederick Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, later 4th Marquess of Londonderry (1805-1872)
George Gammon Adams (Staines 1821 - Chiswick 1898)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1849
Materials
Marble
Measurements
760 x 610 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Mount Stewart, County Down
NT 1221056
Summary
Sculpture, marble; Portrait bust of Frederick Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, later 4th Marquess of Londonderry (1805-1872); George Gammon Adams (1821-1898); 1849. A portrait bust of Frederick, son of Charles, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, by his first wife, Lady Catherine Bligh, by George Gammon Adams. One of a pair of portraits of Viscount Castlereagh, as Stewart was at that date styled, and his new wife Elizabeth (NT 1221055).
Full description
Marble portrait bust of Frederick William Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, later 4th Marquess of Londonderry (1805-1872), by George Gammon Adams (1821-1898). The subject is depicted loosely draped, facing to his right, sporting prominent sideburns. A companion to the portrait bust of Lady Elizabeth Jocelyn, Lady Castlereagh (NT 1221055). Frederick William Robert Stewart was the only child of Charles, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, by his first wife, Lady Catherine Bligh, who died in 1812. After his mother’s death he was brought up in the household of his uncle Castlereagh, on the latter’s death in 1822 himself succeeding to the courtesy title of Viscount Castlereagh. Frederick succeeded as 4th Marquess on the death of his father in 1854. The 4th Marquess briefly held a couple of minor political posts, but as a young man was better known as a was a somewhat dissipated society figure, nicknamed ‘Young Rapid’ by his friends. A member of the social and literary circle of Lady Blessington and her companion the Count d’Orsay, it was almost certainly Frederick who acquired the series of caricature sculptures by Dantan jeune (Jean-Pierre Dantan, 1800-1869) now at Mount Stewart (NT 1221043-1221049). In 1842 he embarked on a tour of Egypt in the course of which he nearly lost his life, and in 1846 he married the widowed Lady Elizabeth Jocelyn, Viscountess Powerscourt. During the early years of their marriage the couple spent much of their time at Lady Castlereagh’s former home, Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, but after succeeding the title in 1854, he made substantial repairs to Mount Stewart, where they also spent time. The 4th Marquess’s final years were ruined by mental illness which worsened to the extent that he was eventually committed to an institution. George Gammon Adams was a successful mid-Victorian sculptor, who began his career working in the Royal Mint and had by the 1840s begun to work independently. In 1846 he travelled to Rome, where he briefly studied under John Gibson. Adams continued throughout his career to make and exhibit medals, and as a monumental sculptor received a number of public commissions. He was also highly successful as a portrait sculptor, and seems to have made something of a specialism of portraits of army officers. Adams’ posthumous bust of the Duke of Wellington was especially highly praised by contemporaries. The busts of Lord and Lady Londonderry were the first portraits that Adams is known to have made, after his return from Rome. Their public display at the 1849 Royal Academy exhibition would therefore have been especially important for the sculptor, for whom the RA exhibition would have been an opportunity to show off his credentials, following his return to London. The two portrait busts were presumably commissioned by the then Lord Castlereagh to celebrate his marriage. The bust of Elizabeth was completed in 1848 and that of her husband in 1849, the year in which both were exhibited at the Royal Academy. Jeremy Warren August 2022
Provenance
Commissioned by Frederick, 4th Marquess of Londonderry (1805 - 1872); by descent; on loan to the National Trust from Lady Mairi Bury (1921-2009), from 1976; accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Trust, 2013.
Marks and inscriptions
On back of bust:: G.G. ADAMS Sc./ LONDON. 1849. Reverse: CC Adams SC London 1849
Makers and roles
George Gammon Adams (Staines 1821 - Chiswick 1898), sculptor
References
Mount Stewart 1950: Inventory and Valuation of the Contents of Mount Stewart, Newtownards, County Down, the property of the Marchioness Dowager of Londonderry, D.B.E. Prepared for the purpose of insurance by H. Clifford-Smith, M.A. F.S.A. 1950, p. 4. Royal Academy 1849: The exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. MDCCCXLIX. (1849). The eighty-first., 1849, p. 54, no. 1291. Roscoe 2009: I. Roscoe, E. Hardy and M. G. Sullivan, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, New Haven and Yale 2009, p. 5, no. 33.