George O’Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837)
Joseph Nollekens, RA (London 1737 – London 1823)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1815
Materials
Marble
Measurements
560 Height x 290 Width x 260 mm Depth
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486423
Summary
Marble, George O’Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837) by Joseph Nollekens, RA (London 1737 – London 1823), 1815. A marble portrait bust with naked shoulders, the head is turned slightly and the gaze directed downwards. Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823), was the most distinguished member of a family of artists who originally came from Antwerp. Both his father and his grandfather were painters, the former having settled in France after living in England. The latter worked in London from 1733, where he produced small conversation pieces. Joseph was apprenticed to Peter Scheemakers in 1750, and by the end of the decade had shown his talent by gaining three premiums at the Society of Arts. He was elected an ARA in 1771 and a full Academician in 1772, whilst exhibiting regularly until 1816. In 1760 he went to Rome, where he was to stay for ten years. On his return to England from Rome in 1770, he set up a flourishing practice in sculptural portraiture. Whilst his statues and monuments alone would hardly secure for him a place of any great distinction in the history of English sculpture his busts, however, are often of the first rank. Copies of his two most famous busts, those of Charles James Fox and the younger Pitt sold at £120 each and gave him a steady income. The lively head of Egremont by Joseph Nollekens is dated 1815, the year before this aging sculptor ceased modelling portraits.
Provenance
?Collected by 3rd Earl of Egremont, thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by H.M.Treasury.
Marks and inscriptions
NOLLEKENS Ft./1815 (on the back)
Makers and roles
Joseph Nollekens, RA (London 1737 – London 1823), sculptor