Alexander Pope (1688-1744) (after Roubiliac)
John Cheere (London 1709 – London 1787)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1755
Materials
Bronzed plaster
Measurements
525 x 310 x 225 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Felbrigg, Norfolk
NT 1403260
Caption
This bust was among a number of bronzed images supplied by John Cheere to Garrick's friend William Windham the elder, probably sometime between 1751 and 1756, when Windham employed architect James Paine to carry out extensive remodelling of Felbrigg Hall. For the hall and dining room at Felbrigg, Paine incorporated bronze plaster busts into decorative scheme, a familiar feature of his designs. It would seem that the plaster was cast directly from the bust owned by David Garrick since it corresponds not only in the details of its drapery and blank eyes but also in the unusual shape of its back.
Summary
Bronzed plaster, Alexander Pope (1688-1744) (after Roubiliac) by John Cheere (London 1709 – London 1787), circa 1755. This is a bronzed plaster cast of the marble head and shoulders portrait bust of Pope by Louis François Roubiliac of 1741, once owned by David Garrick, William Windham's friend, and now in the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead.
Provenance
William Windham II (1717-1761) between 1751/56; bequeathed with the hall and contents to the National Trust in 1969 by Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer (1906-1969)
Credit line
Felbrigg Hall, The Windham Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
John Cheere (London 1709 – London 1787), sculptor after Louis-François Roubiliac (Lyon 1702 – London 1762), sculptor
Exhibition history
Fame and Friendship, Pope Roubiliac and the Literary Portrait Bust in Eighteenth Century England. , Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, 2014, no.41 Fame and Friendship, Pope Roubiliac and the Literary Portrait Bust in Eighteenth Century England. , Waddesdon, 2014, no.41
References
Fame & Friendship Pope, Roubiliac and the Portrait Bust (exh cat) (ed. Malcolm Baker), Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 19 Feb - 19 May 2014 and Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections), Buckinghamshire, 18 June- 26 Oct 2014 , 41