Sophia Hume, Lady Brownlow (1787/8-1814)
Joseph Nollekens, RA (London 1737 – London 1823)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1815 (signed and dated)
Materials
Carrara marble on marble socle and pedestal
Measurements
625 x 430 x 190 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436758
Summary
Carrara marble on turned marble socle, Sophia Hume, Lady Brownlow (1787/8-1814), Joseph Nollekens, RA (1737–1823), signed ‘Nollekens Ft 1815’ on truncation (rear). Sophia, Lady Brownlow is shown with her head turned to the right, her hair in ringlets tied in a bun and styled with a headband. She wears a loosely fitting gown with an empire line below the bust and a shawl draped across her shoulders.
Full description
Sophia Hume married John Cust (1779-1853), 1st Earl Brownlow, in 1810. She died four years later at the age of 25. In memory of his first wife Cust commissioned this bust, its accompanying spiral-fluted plinth and sculpture of the figure of Religion by Antonio Canova installed as the centerpiece of her memorial in Belton Church. This bust, signed and dated 1815, is a copy of an 1814 bust now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv.no. A.60-1965). Records show that £228 was paid for the present version (Belton Annual Account, 1816). It stands on a bespoke spiral-fluted plinth inscribed with a eulogy: ‘Still 'spite of death, thy form shall linger here / witness the lonely sigh, the secret tear, / still though unseen, with wonted love in part / (thou canst alone) some comfort to this heart, / this widowed heart, Ah! Teach it to resign / its wayward will, with piety like thine / and patient wait, till heaven's more kind decree / calls me from earth and grief to bliss and thee’. The plinth is by Sir Richard Westmacott, a sculptor Earl Brownlow regularly commissioned; a bill of September 1816 lists ‘a Spiral fluted Column moulded Cap & Base, with Inscription’ for the sum of £60. Westmacott went on to produce the funeral monument to the Earl's second wife, Caroline, in 1826. Alice Rylance-Watson October 2018
Provenance
Acquired 1816 by John Cust (1779–1853), 1st Earl Brownlow, for sum of £228; 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 1984)
Marks and inscriptions
Truncation, rear: Nollekens Ft 1815
Makers and roles
Joseph Nollekens, RA (London 1737 – London 1823), sculptor
References
Smith 1829: John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and His Times[...], Second Edition, In Two Volumes, London 1829, vol.II, p.67 Bilbey and Trusted 2002: Diane Bilbey and Marjorie Trusted, British Sculpture 1470 to 2000, A Concise Catalogue of the Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2002, p.100, no.137