Sir Edward Cust
Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, RA (Vienna 1834 - London 1890)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1866 - 1867
Materials
Bronze on ebonised mahogany and pine
Measurements
570 x 420 x 210 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 435381
Summary
Bronze on ebonised mahogany and pine pedestal, Sir Edward Cust, (1794-1878) Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, RA, signed and dated ‘JE Boehm Fecit 1866’. Bronze statuette of Sir Edward Cust (1794-1878), on horseback, dressed in 17th-century armour, raising a plumed Cavalier's hat in his right hand. Sculpture group mounted on ebonised mahogany and pine pedestal with brass plaques, 1867.
Full description
Sir Edward Cust served during the Peninsular War (1807-14) and ascended the military ranks to General in 1866. He was equerry and master of the household to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (later Leopold I of Belgium) and a friend and courtier to Queen Victoria. Boehm was commissioned by Cust's nephew John William Spencer Egerton Cust (1842-67) to produce this bronze showing Sir Edward as a 17th century Cavalier sporting a Victorian hairstyle. The bronze commemorates Cust’s elevation to the highest of military ranks, General, and the publication of his latest military history: Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years’ War (1865). He was already the author of a mighty five-volume tome: Annals of the Wars of the Eighteenth Century (1857). The statuette was presented in 1867 on an especially-designed plinth dedicated ‘To General the Honourable Sir Edward Cust GCL KCH from John William Spencer Brownlow Egerton Cust Earl Brownlow 1867’ in celebration of ‘The wars and the warriors of the XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries’. Alice Rylance-Watson October 2018
Provenance
Acquired 1866 by John William Spencer Brownlow Egerton Cust (1842-67); purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) from Edward John Peregrine Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow, C. St J. (b.1936) in 1984.
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by the National Trust in 1994)
Marks and inscriptions
J. E. Boehm fec 1866 (on base) / To General the Honble Sir Edward Cust GCL KCH from John William Spencer Brownlow Egerton Cust Earl Brownlow 1867 (on brass plaque) / The wars and the warriors of the XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries (on brass plaque)
Makers and roles
Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, RA (Vienna 1834 - London 1890), sculptor