Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust
Laurence MacDonald (Scotland 1799 - Rome 1878)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1856
Materials
Carrara marble
Measurements
520 x 300 x 180 mm
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436786
Summary
Carrara marble on turned marble socle, Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust (1844-1921), Lawrence MacDonald (1799-1878), 1856, signed ‘L. MACDONALD. FECIT. ROMÆ. 1856’ on truncation at rear. Adelbert is shown as a young boy of around twelve, with long hair cropped below the ears and a side parting with fringe swept to the right.
Full description
The bust is by Lawrence MacDonald, a Scottish sculptor working in Rome in the former studio of Bertel Thorvaldsen. According to an Art Journal article of 1854, MacDonald established himself as the one of the leading bust portraitists for Victorian high-society. His studio was filled with ‘the peerage done into marble, a plaster gallery of rank and fashion’ (Florentina, Art Journal, 1854, p.351). The bust was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857 (no.1308). MacDonald also produced NT 436815, a bust believed to be John Cust, 1st Earl Brownlow (1779-1853) or his son, John Hume Egerton, Viscount Alford (1812-51). Alice Rylance-Watson October 2018
Provenance
Purchased 1856 by Lady Marian Alford (1817-88); exhibited 1857 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. 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
On truncation at rear: L. MACDONALD. FECIT. ROMÆ. 1856
Makers and roles
Laurence MacDonald (Scotland 1799 - Rome 1878), sculptor
References
Graves 1906: Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, vol. V, London 1906, p. 135