Portrait of Sir Robert Carr, (c.1637-82), 3rd Baronet of Aswarby, Lincs
British (English) School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1683
Materials
Wax
Measurements
200 x 180 x 45 mm
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk
NT 852238
Summary
Sculpture, wax; Portrait of Sir Robert Carr (c. 1637-1682); British, 1683. Sir Robert Carr was a Member of Parliament for Lincolnshire and from 1672 until his death served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His daughter by his second marriage, Isabella (1670-1693), in 1688 became the first wife of John Hervey (1665-1751), created 1st Earl of Bristol in 1714. Wax portraits from Britain predating 1700 are extremely rare. The portrait of Sir Robert was a memorial image, made in the year after his death. It was probably made by a medallist. The medallist and engraver Abraham Simon (c. 1622-c. 1692) is known to have made independent wax portraits but the portrait od Sir Robert Carr does not seem to be in his style.
Full description
An oval profile portrait in wax of Sir Robert Carr, 3rd Baronet (c. 1637-1682), depicting the sitter facing left, bewigged and draped in an ample cloak. Set within the oval recess of a backboard, and within a wooden frame, presumably the object’s original frame. On the back an old handwritten label identifying the sitter and bearing the date 1683. The white wax is now somewhat discoloured. Sir Robert Carr or Carre, 3rd Bt (1636/7-1682), of Aswarby and Sleaford, Lincolnshire, served as the MP for Lincolnshire from 1664/65 until 1681, and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1672-82. He was an active Parliamentarian. His father was a Royalist member of the gentry. Carr was married twice, firstly, in 1662 at Sleaford to Isabel Falkingham, said to have been ‘his mother’s maid, to whom he gave £1,000 that she should not claim him’, thereby allowing him two years later in 1664 to marry, secondly and probably bigamously, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Bennett of Harlington, Middlesex, and sister of Henry Bennett, 1st Earl of Arlington. Robert's elder son, Sir Edward, 4th and last Baronet (1665-1683), outlived his father by only just over a year before dying at the age of eighteen. His and Elizabeth's daughter Isabella (1670-1693) in 1688 became the first wife of John Hervey (1665-1751), created 1st Earl of Bristol in 1714. There are at Ickworth painted portraits, by a follower of Sir Peter Lely, of Sir Robert Carr and his second wife Elizabeth Bennett (died 1696) (NT 851979 and 851765). The old written label on the back of the relief carries the date 1683, so the year after the death of Sir Robert, indicating that the wax relief was made as a memorial image. Still in what is probably its original frame, it is a very rare example of wax portraiture from later seventeenth-century Britain, made well before the arrival in Britain of the Huguenot wax-modeller Isaac Gosset (1713-99) who made numerous portrait reliefs. Very few wax portrait reliefs from before 1700 with a strong claim to have been made in Britain survive and we know almost nothing about sculptors who might have been working in wax at that time. The only reasonably well-known individual is Abraham Simon (c. 1622-1692),a medallist and the brother of the medallist and seal engraver Thomas Simon (1618-1665). A large group of highly individual wax relief portraits by Abraham Simon survive in the British Museum, from the collections of Sir Hans Sloane. Many of these portraits are models for medals, but Simon does seem also to have made independent portraits in wax (Pyke 1973, pp. 135-36). Although the portrait of Sir Robert Carr is not the work of Abraham Simon, it is quite possible that it was made by a medallist such as Simon, for whom the preparation of wax models was part of the normal working procedure. But other sculptors would also have worked in wax, including Francis Le Piper (or Lepipre), a wealthy amateur who was said later in his life to have 'apply'd himelf to the Study and Practice of Modelling in wax, in basso rilievo, in which he did abundance of things with good success.' (cited in Roscoe 2009, p. 731). Jeremy Warren December 2025
Provenance
Part of the Bristol Collection. Acquired by the National Trust in 1956 under the auspices of the National Land Fund, later the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Marks and inscriptions
On label on back of frame:: SIR ROBERT CARR / 1683
Makers and roles
British (English) School, sculptor
References
Pyke 1973-86: E J Pyke, A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, Oxford and London 1973-1986 Roscoe 2009: I. Roscoe, E. Hardy and M. G. Sullivan, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, New Haven and Yale 2009