Portrait bust of Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry (1730-1803), the Earl-Bishop
Christopher Hewetson (Thomastown c. 1736 - Rome 1798)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 1778 - 1779
Materials
White marble sculpture on white marble socle
Measurements
660 x 510 x 360 mm
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852208
Summary
Sculpture, marble; Portrait bust of Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry (1730-1803); Christopher Hewetson (c. 1737-1799); Italy, Rome, c. 1778-79. The portrait shows the 4th Earl of Bristol in ecclesiastical robes reflecting his position as the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry. It was made by the Irish sculptor Christopher Hewetson, who spent most of his career in Rome where, by the 1770s and 1780s, he had come to be recognised as the finest portrait sculptor working in the city. This portrait was probably made around 1778, when the Earl Bishop made a long visit to Rome with his family.
Full description
A portrait bust depicting Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry (1730-1803), wearing bishop’s robes, head turned slightly to his left. Mounted on a white marble socle with a blank tablet. There is a large chip in the clerical bands, the bib-like collar worn by the Earl Bishop. This is a version of a signed portrait bust of the 4th Earl of Bristol, the Earl Bishop, made by the Irish sculptor Christopher Hewetson, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 3895; Hodgkinson 1954, p. 50, Pl. XVIIa; Breffny 1986, p. 57, no. 13). The Ickworth bust is all but identical to the NPG version except for details of the dress. Frederick Hervey was one of eight children of John, Lord Hervey (1696-1743) and his wife Mary Lepel (1696-1768), and the younger brother of George William, 2nd earl of Bristol (1721-75) and Augustus John, 3rd earl and Vice-Admiral (1724-79). As both died without legitimate male heirs, Frederick inherited the title and the Bristol estates on the death of Augustus John Hervey in 1779. After trying work as a lawyer, Frederick entered the Church in 1754 but remained impecunious until, thanks to the 2nd Earl, who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he was granted the Bishoprics of Cloyne (1767) and Derry (1768), the latter the wealthiest diocese in Ireland. These positions eventually provided the Earl Bishop, as he came to be known, with the enormous income of some £20,000 a year, whilst on inheriting the earldom, he came into a further £20,000 a year. The Earl Bishop was for a while quite a radical reformer, sympathetic towards Irish nationalism and the Catholic religion. During his visit to Rome in 1771, Hervey discussed with the Papal authorities the possibility of their permitting Irish Catholic clergy to take the oath of allegiance to the King, but without success. Generally the Earl Bishop was not temperamentally suited to clerical life, so spent ever more time travelling, building his mansion at Downhill and planning his two great rotunda villas at Ballyscullion and Ickworth - and, of course, building his extensive art collections. The Earl Bishop generally had himself portrayed in his clerical robes, as in this sculpted portrait and in a painting by Pompeo Batoni (1708-87) dated 1778, now in the Howard de Walden collection, in which he is depicted with Londonderry Cathedral in the background (Kenwood 1982, no. 34; Bowron 2016, II, pp. 533-36). The NPG portrait is signed by the Irish sculptor Christopher Hewetson, who spent much of his career working in Rome. He was born in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny in 1737, to Protestant gentry parents. In the late 1750s he was working in Dublin for the sculptor John Nost III, but in 1765 arrived in Rome, where he would remain for the remainder of his life. By the 1770s Christopher Hewetson was regarded as the finest portrait sculptor working in the city. Much of his clientele came from British and Irish visitors to Rome, but in fact his portraits were sent all over Europe. Hewetson and the Earl Bishop, who made several visits to Rome, will have known each other well. Hewetson’s portrait of Hervey has been dated to his visit to Rome in 1771 but also to his subsequent visit in 1777-78 – it was in 1778 that he commissioned the portrait from Batoni. The Earl Bishop looks much the same age in Batoni’s portrait and in the sculpted bust, whilst it was on the latter visit that he began to collect art in a major way, so that on balance the later dating seems more probable. As well as the sculpted portrait of himself, the Earl Bishop must have commissioned from Hewetson a charming portrait of a young girl (Private collection, Belfast; Breffny 1986, no. 5), which has been identified as his granddaughter Lady Caroline Crichton (1779-1856), later Baroness Wharncliffe, daughter of Mary Hervey, Lady Erne (1753-1842). In 1789, perhaps aware that the storm clouds of the French Revolution would impact on the numbers of visitors to Rome, the 4th Earl wrote to his daughter enquiring whether Hewetson was employed (Child-Pemberton 1925, II, p. 415), and he is reported as having commissioned a colossal bust portrait of William Pitt (Esdaile 1947, p. 135). Although he was reluctant to undertake the commission as he would have only had engravings to work from, Hewetson agreed to undertake it ‘for the love of Bread and Cheese’. But the sculpture may well never have been made, although it has been suggested that a colossal marble bust of a man sold at Christie’s New York, 22 November 2011, lot 166, signed by Hewetson’s last assistant and his heir Cristoforo Prosperi and dated 1800, might be a portrait of Pitt - and thus this commission, completed after Hewetson’s death in 1799. The Ickworth version of the portrait of the Earl Bishop is unsigned and has sometimes in the past been regarded as a copy of the signed bust in the NPG. But it is of high quality, whilst there are some noticeable differences between the two sculptures. In the NPG version a fur mantle extends across and down the whole of the shoulders, whereas in the Ickworth version this part of the sitter’s dress is in the form of a much smaller fur collar. The handling of the surfaces, for example the hair or the subtle carving around the eyes with the delicately incised eyebrows and crows' feet (lines in the skin extending out from the eyes), is comparable in both versions, whilst both are also mounted on identical socles. For all these reasons, the Ickworth portrait of the 4th Earl should be regarded as an autograph version. Sculptures by Christopher Hewetson elsewhere in National Trust collections include: a bust of Pope Clement XIV at Beningbrough (NT 1191237); one of the sculptor’s rare portraits of women at Ardress (NT 247725.4); at Coughton Court, a portrait bust of Sir John Courtenay Throckmorton, 5th Bart (1754-1819) unfinished at Hewetson’s death and completed by Cristoforo Prosperi (NT 135688). Jeremy Warren November 2025
Provenance
Probably made in Italy before the Bishop had succeeded as Earl of Bristol before 1779; and thence by descent to the 4th Marquess (1863-1951), on whose death valued for probate; accepted in lieu of tax by HM Treasury, and transferred to the National Trust in 1956
Makers and roles
Christopher Hewetson (Thomastown c. 1736 - Rome 1798), sculptor
References
Childe-Pemberton 1925: William S.Childe-Pemberton, The Earl Bishop: the life of Frederick Hervey, Bishop of Derry, Earl of Bristol, 2 vols., London 1925 Esdaile 1947: Katherine Esdaile, ‘Christopher Hewetson and His Monument to Dr. Baldwin in Trinity College, Dublin’, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 77, no. 2 (1947), pp. 134-35 Hodgkinson 1958: Terence Hodgkinson, 'Christopher Hewetson, an Irish Sculptor in Rome', The Walpole Society, 34 (1954), pp. 42-54 Ford 1974: Brinsley Ford, 'The Earl Bishop: an eccentric and capricious patron of the arts', Apollo 99, June (1974): pp. 426-34 Kenwood 1982: Pompeo Batoni (1708-87) and his British Patrons, exh.cat., Kenwood House, London 1982 Breffny 1986: Brian de Breffny, "Christopher Hewetson’, Irish Arts Review, 3, no.3 (1986), pp. 52-75. Roscoe 2009: I. Roscoe, E. Hardy and M. G. Sullivan, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, New Haven and Yale 2009, p. 610, no. 10 Murphy 2014: Paula Murphy, ed., Art and Architecture of Ireland. III. Sculpture 1600-2000, Dublin/New Haven/London 2014, p. 164 Bowron 2016: Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni. A complete catalogue of his paintings, 2 vols., New Haven/London 2016