Queen Anne
John Obrisset (fl.1705-1728).
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1705
Materials
Turtleshell (tortoiseshell) and gilt bronze
Measurements
107.2 x 70.5 mm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 517345
Summary
Turtleshell (tortoiseshell) in gilt-bronze frame, Queen Anne (1665-1714), John Obrisset (fl. 1705-1728), signed 'OB' at right and dated 1705 at lower left. A press-moulded relief portrait in turtleshell (traditionally called tortoiseshell) of Queen Anne by John Obrisset. The queen is depicted crowned and in her coronation robes, facing left. Framed within a simple gilt-bronze frame with a scrolling loop for suspension at top.
Full description
John Obrisset was one of many Huguenot artists and craftsmen who left their native France to settle in Britain, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 put an end to a policy of tolerance towards the Protestant faith in France. Almost nothing is known about Obrisset’s life, the outline of his career depending on a series of signed and dated works. He seems to have worked exclusively in horn or in turtleshell, a material made out of the carapaces of sea turtles. Both horn and turtleshell are natural products with plastic qualities, meaning that they can be moulded with heat into a variety of shapes and can be impressed into moulds to form reliefs. Many of Obrisset’s works were made to form the covers of tobacco and snuff boxes. John Obrisset made a large number of relief portraits of Queen Anne (Philip A.S. Phillips, John Obrisset. Huguenot Carver, Medallist, Horn and Tortoiseshell Worker, and Snuff-Box Maker, with Examples of his Works dated 1705 to 1728, London 1931, nos. 31-54). Almost all are based on a Coronation portrait of the Queen created by the medallist John Croker (1670-1741), in turn derived from a painted portrait of 1702-04 by Sir Godfrey Kneller (Royal Collection, RCIN 405614). Several examples are in the British Museum, most of them forming the covers of small boxes. There is a snuff box bearing the portrait in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Horners (Inv. WCHL : 13, on display at the Museum of Design in Plastics, Bournemouth). That box is not dated, but a remarkable number of Obrisset’s portraits of Queen Anne are, like the version at Anglesey Abbey, dated 1705. Jeremy Warren 2018
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (The National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Lower right, by sitter’s shoulder: OB Lower left, near edge: 1705
Makers and roles
John Obrisset (fl.1705-1728)., sculptor