BY LOUIS FRANCOIS ROUBILIAC (1702-1762), CIRCA 1750 Depicted facing to sinister and wearing a heavily draped cloak; on an integral square marble socle carved with the Pembroke coat-of-arms and inscribed 'VNG. GP. SERVERAY' 24 5/8 in. (62.5 cm.) high; 32 1/4 (82 cm.) high, overall
R. Pococke, The Travels through England of Dr Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Camden Society, N.S. 44, 1888-89 J. Lees-Milne, Earls of Creation - Five Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art, London T. Murdoch, 'Roubiliac's Monuments to Bishop Hough and the Second Duke and Duchess of Montagu', in Journal of the Church Monuments Society, 1985, I, part I, p. 41. D. Bindman and M. Baker, Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-Century Monument - Sculpture as Theatre, New Haven and London, 1995, pp. 343-4, no. 24
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
K. A. Esdaile, The life and Works of Louis Francois Roubiliac, London, 1928, p. 91 R. Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, rev. ed., London, 1951, p. 329 T. Murdoch, 'Louis François Roubiliac and his Huguenot Connections', Proceeding of the Huguenot Society of London, London, 1983, XXIV, p. 34.
Provenance
Recorded on the monument to Henry Herbert 9th Earl of Pembroke, Church of St Mary and St Nicholas, Wilton, by 3 July 1754 Sold on behalf of the St. Mary and St. Nicholas Preservation Trust, Christie's, London, 2 December 1997, lot 83 (£220,000)
Notes
THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke's background is one of truly great tradition and culture. The 1st Earl of Pembroke was Holbein's patron, while the 3rd Earl was almost certainly the recipient of Shakespeare's First Folio (published in 1623) and the 4th Earl was patron of Inigo Jones. Herbert was, therefore, born - with dates variously given as 1688, 1689 and 1693 - into a great architectural and artistic heritage. It was perhaps the imposing south facade of Wilton, designed by Jones, and his Cube and Double Cube rooms behind it that inspired Herbert to be Jones's most fervent champion, and later an architect in his own right.
Herbert apparently followed the path of duty that every 18th century noble man was expected to tread. Amongst his various duties, he held a number of offices, did the Grand Tour in around 1712, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1743. Impressively, however, the latter honour was granted to him not on account of his high birth, but for having excelled in one of the fields of science - in this case Archaeology.
Herbert was an erudite man, seemingly un-phased by his noble birth, and a generous patron of the arts. Dean Swift, a contemporary of his, wrote of him in 1733:
'The new Lord Pembroke had not changed a jot in character or habit because of his great inheritance and enhanced position at court. He was still universally respected for his enthusiastic promotion of learned institutions and architectural ventures... nd hhis patronage of scholars and artists.' (Lees-Milne, op. cit., p.63)
A tall and powerful man, he was also known by some of his more effeminate friends as 'that Goliath, Samson and Hercules...' (ibid, p. 63). He was a ferocious boxer in his youth and was said to have swum like a 'dolphin possessed'. Tennis proved to be his favourite pastime. Unfortunately for him, however, it also seemed to draw out the less charming aspects of his personality, so much so that the Primate of Ireland refused to play him because of his caustic, blasphemous swearing. Indeed, the voracity of his temper and foul language is comically noted in his description of the postmaster of Hounslow, whom he claimed had
'a hundred devils and Jesuits in his belly...,andd also in a letter he wrote to Lord Hillsborough, beginning
'To that a son of a bitch commonly called Lord Hillsborough' (ibid., p.64).
Witticisms aside, Herbert achieved a degree of distinction in his most cherished discipline - that of architecture. The Architect Earl, as he was affectionately known, was responsible for a number of projects, including The Palladian Bridge on the grounds of Wilton, the designs for Marble Hill House and Richmond Lodge, and also acted as superintendent on the construction of Old Westminster bridge. He favoured the Palladian style that harked back to classical architecture and its use of simple, harmonious lines. There can be no doubt that Herbert's interest in this architectural style was borne from Inigo Jones's application of it at Wilton - and the latter's triumph at having been the first man in England to translate Palladio's seminal quattro libri dell'architettura. The Palladian Bridge remains Herbert's most significant testament to Jones's and Palladio's observations on architecture; with Lees-Milne (ibid, p.97) humorously referring to it as being 'all grace and tenderness, it is an extraordinary commentary upon the character, boisterous, overbearing and rude...'.
In his will, Herbert requested that his funeral should be conducted with no pomp or expense. His procession was of the simplest order. Denying himself the appropriate burial for a man of his birth, he chose to be delivered to his tomb by four servants dressed in grey coats and black waistcoats - a humble and unpretentious funeral for a man that was so much larger than life. He was buried in the Church of SS Mary and Nicholas in Wilton beneath his portrait bust by Roubiliac (see comparative illustration), which is the bust offered here. Lees-Milne described the bust as being:
'A noble memorial and fittingly a splendid work of art. The head is of a man of impregnable will. Under a narrow, puckered forehead a slightly Roman nose points to a projecting underlip. The pugnacious jaw is supported by a seemingly limitless substructure of jowl and double chin... and yet the sculptor's genius has introduced among these brutish features just a perceptible trace of sadness in the mouth and - can it be? - of contrition in the narrow eyes.' (ibid, p.100) In 1684, Herbert's father, Thomas Herbert, the 8th Earl of Pembroke, married Margaret Sawyer through whom he inherited Highclere house in Berkshire. Before 1720 the 8th Earl employed Isaac Milles as Henry's tutor, and it is for Isaac's son, Thomas, that a monument carved by Roubiliac is placed in the chapel at Highclere. The 8th Earl also commissioned Roubiliac to model his own portrait in terracotta, as the bust in Wilton testifies. It is clearly through this connection that Henry Herbert met Roubiliac and commissioned him to carve the portrait in question.
In total, Roubiliac carved four marble busts and modelled one in terracotta for Herbert. In recent correspondence with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, it was suggested that the terracotta, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, is the prototype upon which the marbles are based. The present lot, which was formerly on the tomb, is almost certainly the prime version; two others still reside at Wilton, a fourth is listed in Webb's article (loc. cit.) as being in the possession of Mr. Robert Tunstill.
One of the earliest references we have of the present bust being in Wilton is in James Wyatt's drawing of the funerary monument from 1750 (Bindman and Baker, op. cit, pl. 282). In addition, Murdoch (loc. cit., 1985) refers to a notice in The General Advertiser from 20 July 1750 that states Roubiliac's studio contained 'A curious fine monument to the memory of the Right Hon. the Earl of Pembroke... to be erected at Wilton in Wiltshire'. Since this specifically refers to the monument as opposed to a terracotta model (mentioned above), it is likely therefore that our bust is the same one that was seen in the studio in July 1750. The bust was certainly in place on 3 July 1754 when Richard Pococke makes reference to it in his notes entitled The Travels through England of Dr Richard Pococke, (Bindman and Baker, loc. cit).
French-born Roubiliac was, along with his older rival Michael Rysbrack (1684-1770), the most accomplished sculptor working in England in the mid 18th century. He made a formidable contribution to the formation of the English rococo style through his dramatic funerary monuments and his characterful portrait busts such as the one offered here. His 1738 marble monument to George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is arguably one of the most accomplished pieces of 18th century English sculpture. Like the Handel, the powerful yet sensitive bust offered here is exemplary of Roubiliac's virtuosity and conveys so strongly the multifaceted character of the 9th Earl of Pembroke.
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