Farnese Flora
John Michael Rysbrack (Antwerp 1684 – London 1770)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1760 - 1762
Materials
White marble
Measurements
1790 mm high
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 562912.1
Summary
White marble sculpture, Farnese Flora by John Michael Rysbrack (Antwerp 1694 – London 1770), signed Mich. Rysbrack Sculpt., on yellow marble pedestal also supplied by Rysbrack. Payments made from December 1760 to January 1762. Copy of a colossal antique statue which was in the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese, Rome. Antique statues of Flora were drawn three times by Marten van Heemskerck who was in Rome between 1532 and 1536. By 1550 they were recorded in the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese, Rome by Aldrovandi and this original was restored by 1561. It was removed in 1787 for further restoration and sent to Naples in 1800 where it still is, in the Museo Nazionale. Roman copy of a Greek statue of Aphrodite of the 4th century BC. The Farnese Flora was much copied in 18th century and many versions are in Europe, often as pair to Farnese Hercules. After 1787, wreath in left hand changed to posy of flowers. Rysbrack used engravings of the original as sources for his versions of Flora, which are more slender than the original. He made a preliminary terracotta statuette (now at V&A: A-9-1961). Rysbrack, at Hoare's request, returned and worked on the face in situ. Although the artist was born in Antwerp and trained in the Netherlands, he spent most of his working life in Britain and never visited Italy although his work in often indebted to classical archetypes. Thinly draped female, right hand holds the drapery above a tree stump drapery tied at her waist.
Provenance
Commissioned by Henry II Hoare (1705-1785) in 1759 for the Pantheon, the lakeside temple in his landscape garden with the Hercules (paid £400); thence by descent; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of the contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946
Marks and inscriptions
Mich. Rysbrack Sculpt.
Makers and roles
John Michael Rysbrack (Antwerp 1684 – London 1770), sculptor
References
Haskell and Penny 1981: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique, The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500 - 1900, New Haven and London, 1981, 41 Michael Rysbrack, sculptor, 1694-1770 (ed. Katherine Eustace), Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, 06/03/1982-01/05/1982, 74 Kenworthy-Browne 1983: John Kenworthy-Browne, 'Rysbrack, "Hercules", and Pietro da Cortona', The Burlington Magazine, vol.125, no.961 (April 1983) Lord 1990 J. Lord, 'J.M. Rysbrack and a Group of East Midlands Commissions', in Burlington Magazine, CXXXII, December 1990, p. 868, note 21 Webb 1950: Marjorie Isabel Webb, 'Sculpture by Rysbrack at Stourhead', Burlington Magazine, 92, November 1950