Lot 98: A LEAD FIGURE OF PANTALONE

A LEAD FIGURE OF PANTALONE ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN CHEERE (1709-1787), LONDON, CIRCA 1755 On an integral square lead plinth and a modern square wood base 38 in. (96.5 cm.) high; 61 ½ in. (156.5 cm.) high, overall

(96.5 cm.) high

CIRCA 1755

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: M. Fulton, 'John Cheere, the Eminent Statuary, his workshop and practice, 1737-1787, The Sculpture Journal, vol. X, London, 2003, pp. 21-39. M. J. Neto and F. Grilo, 'An Innovative Artistic Program: the Commissioned Lead Statuary for the Queluz Gardens’, The Gardens of the National Palace of Queluz: Conservation Intervention, Portugal, 2012, pp. 55-65.

Dutch Private Collection, 19th century, Italian, Private Collection, With Gertrud Rudigier, Munich, in 1980. German, Private Collection.

By the 1750s John Cheere was the leading practitioner of lead statuary in London, and his yard had become a destination in itself for travellers and aristocratic visitors to London. Cheere’s older brother Henry, who was knighted in 1760, was an established and highly respected sculptor, and helped John set up his yard at Hyde Park Corner. The workshop probably belonged to Andrew Carpenter, before his death in 1737 which had unlocked a gap in the market that Cheere was to exploit successfully . In around 1755 Cheere received an enormous commission to supply 233 statues for the royal palace of Queluz near Lisbon. For this extraordinary commission Cheere used a wide repertoire of models, including rustic and comic designs that Cheere or an assistant would have modelled themselves. Included in the crates which were loaded in July 1755, destined for Lisbon, were several Commedia dell’arte figures, including of Pierrot, Harlequin, Scaramouche and Colombine (Neto and Grilo, op. cit., p. 56). That Cheere was producing figures such as Scaramouche and Pantalone is also attested to by J.T. Smith’s recollection in 1815 that Cheere’s yard consistent of lead figures of 'Punch, Harlequin, Columbine and other pantomimical characters’ (Fulton, op. cit., p. 26). Scaramouche and Pantalone were both stock characters in seventeenth century Italian farce, and became integral figures in English Punch and Judy shows. Scaramouche, recognized by his hanging cap, was typically beaten by a harlequin for his cowardice. Pantalone was an old greedy Venetian merchant and is here accompanied by a cat on his shoulder. Much of Cheere’s work was long neglected or melted down, but the recent restoration of the remaining figures at Queluz Palace has revealed the true quality of an exceptional artist and businessman. The present examples are two of the finest models from his oeuvre.