Benjamin Carter the Sculptor and his Family.
Formerly believed to be Joseph Wilton the Sculptor and his Family
by Francis Hayman, RA.
Oil on canvas.
ca. 1760.
Height: 80.8 cm canvas, Width: 106.7 cm, Depth: 1.9 cm.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Purchased, 1985.
A few notes and images.
Formerly described as a portrait of the scuptor Joseph Wilton (1722-1803) with his wife and daughter. Joseph stands before an easel at the right, his wide Frances seated at the left holding their daughter Frances (born 1758). On the right is his modello for one of the chimneypieces for Northumberland House (now in the V&A see poor images below).
This portrait may show the sculptor Joseph Wilton
(1722-1803) with his wife and young daughter, or it might be a portrait of
Benjamin Carter (died 1766), also a sculptor, of whom little is known. Wilton
had returned to England in May 1755 in the company of the decorative painter
G.B. Cipriani (1727-1785), the architect William Chambers (1723-1796) and an
unidentified sculptor called 'Capizoldi' (possibly G.B. Capezzuoli), after
years of study in Flanders, France and Italy.
In 1757 he married Frances Lucas,
and she and her daughter, also named Frances, might be those portrayed in this
picture. Francis Hayman (1708-1776), who had begun as a decorative painter,
started to accept commissions for portraits from a growing middle-class
clientele. As well as his fellow artists, Hayman painted portraits of doctors,
literary men and actors. His pupils included Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788).
The sculptor is standing in front of an easel containing a
modello for a Neo-classical chimney-piece, identified as one of the marble
chimney-pieces executed for the Gallery at Northumberland House, built for Hugh
Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland (1714-1786).
After the house was demolished
in the late 19th century, one of the chimney-pieces was moved to Syon House in
south-west London, and another one is at the V&A.
Image and text above and below adapted from Victoria and Albert Museum Website.
see -
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O50742/the-sculptor-joseph-wilton-with-oil-painting-hayman-francis-ra/
Historical significance: Brian Allen, Francis Hayman,
Published in association with English Heritage (the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood)
and Yale Center for British Art by Yale University Press, New Haven and London,
1987, p.105-6, cat. no. 28
Prov: Morrison family, Yeo Vale, Devon; by descent to Sir
Robert Kirkwood; sale, Sotheby's, March 1985 (43) ; purchased by V & A
Exh: London, Victoria & Albert Museum, English
Caricature 1620 to the Present, 1985 (not in catalogue)
Coll : London, Victoria & Albert Museum
This portrait of the prosperous sculptor Joseph Wilton with
his wife and young daughter can be dated to 1760 (1). Wilton had returned to
England in May 1755 in the company of the Florentine decorative painter
Cipriani, the architect William Chambers and the sculptor Capizzoldi after
years of study in Flanders, France and Italy.(2) In 1757 he married Frances
Lucas and their eldest daughter, also named Frances, who is seen here in the
picture as a two-year-old, was born the following year.
By 1760 Hayman had virtually abandoned portrait painting and
this is one of only two portraits known at present which post-date the Hallett
Family of 1756 (cat. no. 27). Hayman's style and compositional methods had
changed remarkably little since the mid- I 740S and he is still inclined to set
his portraits in an austere panelled room. In this instance the setting is the
sculptor's studio.
Hayman paints Mrs Wilton, on the left in her splendid
turquoise silk dress, in a decidedly French style. The sharp diagonal thrust of
her pose recalls Boucher portraits like those of Madame de Pompadour which
Wilton may well have seen
and admired in Paris.(3). The young Miss Wilton, balanced
rather precariously on a stool by her mother, clutches a sprig of cherries, a
device used by Hogarth in the National Gallery's The Graham Children of c.
1742. A pair of cherries, with its erotic associations, might be seen to
contain a warning against lust, even if the child is unaware of the
implications, and the motif is commonly found in portraits of children,
particularly in Dutch and French art from the sixteenth century onward.(4)
On the right Joseph Wilton is poised in front of an easel
with a modelling tool in his right hand. Mounted on the easel is what appears
to be a clay modello for a chimney piece which on closer inspection is revealed
as a design for one of two giant telamonic chimney pieces which graced the
Gallery of Northumberland House in the Strand until its demolition in 1874.(5)
This would clearly suggest that these chimneypieces were designed by Wilton
although we know that their execution in marble was entrusted to Benjamin
Carter.(6)
It is entirely possible that Hayman played some role in
helping Wilton gain this commission, for the painter's close friend, the
architectJames Paine, with whom he had worked on several decorative schemes in
the north of England (see pp. 55-7), was responsible for the completion of the
Northumberland House Gallery between 1753 and 1757.(7) Hayman himself; however,
seems to have nurtured a special interest in elaborate marble chimneypieces for
fanciful examples, apparently of his own invention, appear regularly in his portraits
and book illustrations.
Other enigmatic sculptural puzzles appear in the painting.
To the extreme left, in shadow, is a truncated column behind which stands what
appears to be an elaborate stone or marble-topped table, surmounted by a piece
of has-relief sculpture and a small urn. The relief represents a female head,
as yet unidentified. To the right of Wilton, without any apparent relationship
to the panelling behind, is a curious term-figure, like those frequently
applied to chimney pieces. With its distinctive plaited hairstyle this appears
to be adapted, like the bust in the background of the portrait of Sir Edioard
Littleton, from the so-called Younger Faustina, now in the Capitoline Museum,
Rome (sec notes to cat. no. 22). Wilton presumably made a copy of it, for a
bust of , Fa us tine' by him was among the items at the sale of a 'a man of
fashion' at Christie's on 2 june 1779.
The dense facture of the paint surface and the coarser
drapery painting arc consistent with Hayman's looser style in his later years.
1) I have written about this portrait at length in 'Joseph
Wilton, Francis Hayman and the Chimney-pieces from Northumberland House',
Burlington Magazine, CXXV (April (983) pp. 195-202.
2)SeeJ. T. Smith, Nollekens and his Times ... &tc., 2
vols. (London, (829) I1, pp. 164-182.
3) A comparison with Boucher's portrait of Mme de Pompadour
in the Jones Collection at the V & A (signed and dated 1758) is instructive
(repr. in colour in A. Ananoff & D. Wildenstein, I} Opera Completa di
Boucher (Milan, (980) pI. XLVII I.
4) For an interesting discussion of the theme in French and
Dutch painting see Ella Snoep-Reitsma, 'Chardin and the Bourgeois Ideals of his
Time, 2', Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 24 (1973) pp. 212-217.
5)The chimneypieces fortunately survive: one is in the V
& A and the other is at Syon House. For a discussion of the use of
modellos, etc., see Malcolm Baker, 'Roubiliac's models and 18th century English
sculptors' working practices', Entwurf und Ausfuhrung in der Europaischen
Barockplastick (Munich, 1986) pp. 159-184
6. Allen, loc. cit., p. 200, n. 46.
7. See Peter Leach, 'The Life and Work of James Paine',
unpublished D. Phil thesis, Oxford University (1975) p. 304."
Oil painting, 'The Sculptor Joseph Wilton with his Wife and
Daughter', Francis Hayman, ca. 1760
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Allen, Brian., "Joseph Wilton, Francis Hayman and the
chimney-pieces from Northumberland House" in Burlington Magazine, vol.
CXXV, April 1983, pp.195-202
Brian Allen, Francis Hayman, Published in association with
English Heritage (the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood) and Yale Center for British Art
by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987. :
Checklist of Paintings, Drawings, Book Illustrations and
Prints", pages 171-193:
PAINTINGS/PORTRAITS/IDENTIFIED SITTERS p.171-174, numbers
1-63
This painting is no.63
Brian Allen, Francis Hayman, Published in association with
English Heritage (the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood) and Yale Center for British Art
by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987. Catalogue number 28,
pp.105-107. Cited in full in "History" filed.
Labels and date
British Galleries:
The creation of a Neo-classical interior involved collaboration
between architects and other artists and craftsmen, including sculptors. This
unusual group portrait shows one such sculptor - either Joseph Wilton
(1722-1803) or Benjamin Carter (DIED 1766) - working on a clay model for a
marble chimney-piece. This may be the chimney-piece from Northumberland House
displayed in the Sculpture Gallery on the ground floor. [27/03/2003]
British Galleries Explore Interactive: Joseph Wilton &
His Family by Francis Hayman P.7-1985 [Text and research by Rachel Kennedy,
Curator, British Galleries, December 2000]
History of the painting
The painting has been identified by Brian Allen of the Paul
Mellon Centre and expert on Francis Hayman, as a portrait of the sculptor
Joseph Wilton (1722-1803) together with his wife and eldest child, Frances.
Because of the style of the clothes, the rough age of the child (born 1758),
and the fact that the modello is of one of the chimneypieces for Northumberland
House, Allen has dated the painting to 1760. [Brian Allen, Francis Hayman,
Published in association with English Heritage (the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood)
and Yale Center for British Art by Yale University Press, New Haven and London,
1987. Catalogue number 28, pp.105-107.]
The chimneypiece
The gentleman is standing in front of an easel containing a
modello for a chimneypiece. The chimneypiece featured in this painting has been
identified as one of the marble chimneypieces executed for the Gallery at
Northumberland House for the 1st Duke of Northumberland. After Northumberland House
was demolished in the late 19th century one of the chimneypieces was moved to
Syon and another one is at V&A [A.60 toa-1951].
The two marble chimneypieces are neoclassical in design with
carved putti playing with an eagle [V&A] and a lion [Syon] in the central
section flanked by two 'Barbarian captives'. In addition, the superstructure of
each over-mantle contains terms who lift heavy swags suspended from the centre
of the pediment that originally framed full-length portraits of the Duke of
Northumberland and his wife, Elizabeth Seymour. The Duke's portrait was
completed in 1757 and survives at Alnwick Castle. The full treatment, which
also included sphinxes and trophies, has survived intact at the V & A and
it is this one which features in the painting.
Joseph Wilton
Wilton was in Italy from 1747 to 1755 when he returned to
London and lived with his father at his house in Charing Cross. About 1758 he
erected workshops in what was later called Foley Place, having a large house at
the corner of nearby Portland Street. Wilton obtained a large fortune on the
death of his father and in 1786 he retired, having sold off his business and
premises at public auction (the sale 'of a man of fashion' at Christies on 2
June 1779). He is buried at Wanstead, Essex.
Wilton was employed by the Duke and Duchess of
Northumberland at Northumberland House in the 1760s (see Conclusion below).
Brian Allen suggests that it is possible that Francis Hayman helped Wilton get
the commission for Northumberland House due to his great friendship with James
Paine, the architect of the new picture gallery, built ca1753-7. Certainly
Wilton was in Italy during the time when the Gallery at Northumberland House
was being built and he was known to be acting as an agent for British clients and
received commissions for busts, orders for Carrara marble, etc, while he was
there.
Joseph Wilton's family
In 1757 Joseph Wilton had married Frances Lucas and their
eldest child, a daughter also called Frances, was born in 1758. Their second
child was a boy called George who was born in January 1761. This would suggest
that the family were painted before his arrival.
Recent debate surrounding the painting:
There has been a problem with the identification of the
family in the painting because the chimneypieces were supposedly carved by
Benjamin Carter, who was paid £292 for the two in May 1757, just around the
time the Gallery was completed. (it is not clear which chimneypieces are
referred to in the House Accounts).
Jeremy Wood's main argument is that there is not enough
reason for Wilton, as merely the designer and not the maker, to be shown in a
painting with a model for the chimneypiece.
The main points of Wood's argument follows with my comments
attached:
1. If it is Wilton and the date is 1760 then why be painted
with 'a relatively minor commission' from three years or so ago, which was
executed by another man (ie Carter). This point is echoed by Alastair Laing
(National Trust) who says "…that the whole tenor of the picture suggests
that it portrays the executant rather than only the designer of the
Northumberland House chimneypieces, and we know the supplier to have
been…Benjamin Carter. The female term on the right of the picture similarly
bespeaks a chimneypiece carver rather than a sculptor with the aspirations of
Wilton…….all of which leaves the latter little role in the affair…".
2. More likely to be a painting of Benjamin Carter (died
1766) with his wife Mary and one of their children, possibly their son John who
was born in 1748, which would date the portrait to around 1751/2.
3. That the child could be either a boy or a girl since the
infant's 'coat' was worn by both sexes, eg. 'coat' and cap worn by a boy in
Nollekens's Family Group of 1740 [Elizabeth Einberg, Manners & Morals,
Tate, 1987, pp122-123, no.105].
Pro-Wilton argument:
1. The chimneypieces have actually been attributed to
several sculptors over the years: Peter Scheemakers; Thomas and Benjamin
Carter; Daniel Garrett; and latterly, Wilton. There is also a sketch in the
V&A by the architect Henry Keene [museum number E.912-1921] and Chambers
may well have been an advisor on the design. But Woods' main argument as to why
Wilton would choose to portray himself with the modello in this way is not
convincing for the following reasons:
2. The Duke and Duchess were major patrons of the arts in
the mid-18th century. The Duke of Northumberland had been on the Grand Tour,
was a well-known collector of antiquities and an early patron of Canaletto.
Northumberland House was probably the most important commission of the period
in terms of political and social advancement and the budget involved and was
certainly one that an ambitious young sculptor like Wilton would want to be
associated with.
3. The painting is, in my opinion, crucial to understanding
how Wilton wants to be seen at this time both professionally and socially. By
1760 Wilton is the director of the Duke of Richmond's academy of casts in
London. He has just been appointed carver to the King, and is establishing a
family and successful business. This is a 'conversation piece' painting, it is
not a portrait of an artist 'creating' in his studio, like for example, Andrea
Soldi's contemporary portraits of Roubiliac at work. Wilton's suit and wig with
the trappings of his travels from Italy around him, is a deliberate attempt on
his part to distance himself from the 'hands-on' act of carving. By 1760 Wilton
has a studio to produce works like this for him and it would not be impossible
for him to have contracted out the work to a specialist chimneypiece carver
like Carter.
This is confirmed by recent conservation work by Fran Griffin and
Nicola Costaras (V&A Conservation Dept.) that has revealed that Wilton was
originally wearing an artist's type floppy hat instead of a wig. The wig was
clearly a later addition and suggests that Wilton preferred the look of an
educated gentleman, rather than a man whose profession happened to be as a
sculptor.
In addition, the term on the far right was quite possibly a
copy by Wilton of a roman statue that he'd seen in Rome. The sale of his
collection of casts and sculpture in 1779 lists a 'Faustina' that does look a
little like this.
4. The style of the clothes worn by Wilton and his wife
suggest a date of 1760 and not as early as 1751-2. Admittedly the child's
clothes are unlikely to have been much different and Noreen Marshall says that
it could be either a boy or a girl but given the shaping of the bodice it is
more likely to be a girl. Wood's argument that the child is too large to be a 2
year old (ie Fanny's age in 1760) is undermined by his argument that the
painting is dated 1751/2 when presumably 'John' (Carter's son) would be 3-4
years old and even bigger? Lastly, Wilton was known by contemporaries to be a
very fashion conscious man and had a reputation for his well-dressed appearance
and expenditure on clothes. It is unlikely that the painting dates from 1751.
Also, there are enough portraits of Wilton to be able to
make a fair comparison between them and the man in this painting. Brian Allen
sees a clear likeness and I agree with him. I know of no images of Carter to
make a comparison.
The writer here was obviously not aware of the drawing of Benjamin Carter (below).
5. Wilton and Hayman were good friends but I have found no
information to suggest any social ties between Hayman and Carter. Also, Hayman
was part of the group of men and women who established the Royal Academy along
with Wilton, Chambers, & Reynolds. The Duke of Northumberland was also important
in supporting this new institution.
6. Unfortunately we do not know who commissioned the
painting but as Hayman's portraits tended to be only of people he knew
personally and mixed with socially, it is likely that he painted it for the
Wilton family. The painting was owned by a family living in Devon where Fanny's
daughter's family had settled by 1831 so it is possible that the painting
descended through the Wilton family.
Conclusion
The only documented evidence for Wilton's involvement at
Northumberland House is in 1761 when he was commissioned to make a marble copy
for the Duke from the Duke of Richmond's collection. He also produced a
chimneypiece for the vestibule at Syon in 1767. Clearly Wilton had professional
and probably personal contacts with the Duke during the 1760s and he was in
Rome when the scheme was being commissioned. The term in this painting could
have been one known to have been made and owned by Wilton.
I am convinced that the painting dates around 1760 and not
from an earlier period. I think that the portrait of Wilton is close enough to
other contemporary portraits to make a reasonable identification. Finally,
although it is an unusual painting - I know of no other similar 18th century
paintings showing families in studios - it is not odd for Wilton to be shown
with this modello, given his recent role as director/teacher at the Duke of
Richmond's academy and his connections with Northumberland House and the
painter, Francis Hayman.
N.B.
Fanny posed as 'Hebe' at the RA and her husband, Sir Robert
Chambers (1737-1803), was painted in 1763 by Hayman's pupil John Thomas Seton.
Allen, 1983, note 4, p.195.
Allen , 1983, note 48, p.200.
Provenance:
The Morrison family, Yeo Vale, Devon; Sir Robert Kirkwood,
and by descent until sold Sotheby 13th March 1985, lot 43.
______________________
Benjamin Carter (1719 - 66).
Benjamin Carter (1719 - 66).
John Carter (d.1799). After: Robert Pyle.
Pen and grey ink and grey wash and watercolour on paper
1784.
Image above and text below from British Museum website
British Museum.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=748310&partId=1&searchText=Thomas+Carter&page=1
Detail 1.
Detail 2
Portrait of the artist's father, Benjamin Carter,
sculptor, after a painting by Robert Pyle, 1768;
Full - length, dressed in red
coat, leaning on stone table to right holding bust and looking to right,
standing in sculptor's studio.
Height: 360 millimetres Width: 248 millimetres.
Inscribed on open book in the image "'Mem' This figure
represents Bnj Carter Statuary copied from a painting [same size] of R Pyle
1768 where in are [illeg] other portraits of tradesmen in the building
trade".
Curator's comments - The following text is from S. Lloyd and K.
Sloan, 'The Intimate Portrait' (exh. SNPG & BM, 2008-9), cat. no.
82: Although they have sometimes been described as mere masons, the latest Dictionary of National Biography acknowledges that 'The Carters were one of the great sculpture families in
England and take their place alongside the Stantons, Bacons, and Westmacotts.'
In his autobiographical notebook covering from his childhood up to the year
1778, the architect and antiquary John Carter noted that his father, Benjamin
Carter 'constantly followed the profession of a sculptor under his brother Mr
Th[oma]s. C[arter].', taking over the studio on his brother's death in 1756 and
executing church monuments and fine marble chimneypieces for a number of
important houses.
With his brother and other sculptors, he carved the monument
to Colonel Roger Townshend for the nave of Westminster Abbey, which includes
two figures of Iroquois; the large model on the wall on the left of the present
watercolour may be for this monument.
John Carter studied drawing and music and
made working drawings for the sculptors, but at his father's death in 1766, his
cousin Thomas Carter purchased the business for a small sum from Benjamin's
widow and relocated the firm to Piccadilly.
John Carter had already begun his
'antiquarian pursuits' in 1764 and from 1766 he began to study architectural
drawing and became successful as a recorder of medieval and gothic revival
architecture.
In his notebook, John Carter describes the original painting on
which this drawing was based and repeats the drawing in pen and ink. Benjamin
Carter is shown here holding a small bust but at his feet is a framed drawing
of a chimneypiece inscribed 'C int' and a full size one is visible in the
background on the right with a funerary monument plaque above it and a model
for a funerary figure on the plinth behind. He appears to be leaning on a tomb
monument with a coat of arms on its end and on the side, inscribed in an ornamental
surround, are the words 'HERE/ BENJAMIN CAR' - evidently John Carter's own
tribute to his father who had died by the time he made this drawing. His
notebook records that the figure was taken from an oil painting of the members
of a celebrated club of which Henry Keene the architect was President: 'The
heads of the association were my father sculptor, several masons, as Gayfere
mason Westminster Bridge, Duval &c &c. Robert Pyle a good portrait
painter has done in a Conversation piece the whole number of members in 1766'.
Carter copied his father's figure when the painting was with Mr Gayfere in
Abingdon Street. Waterhouse reproduced the painting (destroyed 1940 at Buxted
Park) and said the setting was the Guildhall at High Wycombe.
The DNB entry on
Henry Keene does not mention the 'celebrated club' but states that the painting
showed 'Keene surrounded by his principal craftsmen, all named. They include
Euclid Alfray (Keene's clerk), Ben Carter (a statuary mason), and Thomas
Gayfere (master mason at Westminster Abbey).'
Apart from the small bust in his
hand, all the sculptural objects in this watercolour were not in the original
oil and were added by John Carter to make his father appear in to be in his
studio. It is worth noting in connection with the origin of this watercolour,
that Henry Keene was one of the earliest architects of the Gothic revival in
England, working with Sir Roger Newdigate on Arbury Hall and other buildings in
the gothic style in the 1750s. If his father worked closely with him, then the younger
Carter's fondness for the style was bred in him from an early age indeed.
SELECTED LITERATURE:
John Carter MS, Kings College
Archives, London, Leathes 7/4 vol.1;
R. Gunnis, ‘Dictionary of British
Sculptors 1660-1851’, 1968, p. 84;
E. Waterhouse, ‘Dictionary of Eighteenth
Century British Painters in Oils and Crayons’ 1988, pp. 290-1;
M. Craske,
'Thomas Carter, Oxford DNB;
J. G. D. Musson, 'Henry Keene', Oxford DNBA sketch
by Carter for this watercolour is in his notebooks at KCL (Leathes 7/4, I, fol.9)
and is reproduced in Bernard Nurse's extensive article on Carter, published
after the above catalogue entry was written:
Bernard Nurse, 'John Carter, FSA: The Ingenious and very accurate
draughtsman', The Antiquaries Journal, 91, 2011, pp. 211-52 (based on papers
and correspondence in King's College London archives), see fig. 2, p. 214.
_____________________________
Benjamin was the younger brother of Thomas Carter I and the uncle
of Thomas Carter II, with whom he worked in partnership, 1756-66. He was
christened in Datchet, Bucks, on 8 July 1719.
Nothing is known of his training
or early career, except that he supplied chimneypieces for Longford Castle,
Wilts, in 1739 (4). He appears to have worked with Thomas I from 1751 until his
brother’s death in 1756 and was rated on a property next door in Piccadilly.
Thomas I clearly considered Benjamin competent enough to take over the
business, because under the terms of his will he left his brother all the
‘working shops’ and utensils, and the lease of his house, rated at £24.
Benjamin was also given the option to buy ‘all the drawings, models, marble and
Portland stone’. Benjamin seems to have wasted little time in consolidating his
position. By 28 September 1756, he had entered into co-partnership with Thomas
Carter II, who began to pay annual rates of £10 on the property next to
Benjamin in 1758.
One of their first collaborative commissions was on 3
chimneypieces for the London house of Thomas Bridges at 18 Cavendish Street
(6-8). The partners both signed receipts for payments for this work, completed
between May and September 1757 at a cost of £210. The architect Henry Keene
supervised the contract, endorsed the designs and guaranteed that the entire
commission, including the polishing, would be approved by him personally.
Benjamin appears to have been one of the team of craftsmen employed by Keene,
which included the carpenter John Phillips (who was Thomas Carter I’s
executor), the mason Thomas Gayfere and the carver Thomas Dryhurst. In 1760
Carter, Gayfere, Dryhurst and several other craftsmen were the subjects of a
conversation-piece commissioned from the painter, Robert Pyle, as a gift for
Keene. The central figure is Keene himself, pointing to a plan on the table for
an unidentified building. Carter, in a wig and coat, appears to be challenging
Gayfere, for the two craftsmen face each other, leaning awkwardly over the
backs of their chairs.
In 1752 Carter provided the model for a lion which later
became a local landmark above the central elevation of Northumberland House,
London (3), then being refurbished by Keene.
The Carters completed two fine
chimneypieces for the house in 1757 (5). The cross-members had relief tablets,
one carved with putti draping a lion with festoons and the other, putti draping
an eagle. Each massive overmantel was supported by caryatid figures, variants
of the Farnese Captives. The two sculptors received a handsome sum, £292, for
their work.
The taste for classically-inspired ornaments was well served
by the Carter workshop. In 1761 Benjamin modelled plaster reliefs for Henry
Hoare’s Pantheon at Stourhead at a cost of £268 (24). These reliefs, long
thought to be by Michael Rysbrack, included a Roman Marriage Ceremony and a
Triumphal Procession of Bacchus, both after engravings in Montfaucon’s
L’Antiquité Expliquée, 1721. A number of other payments to Carter appear in the
Hoare Accounts including a pedestal of coloured marbles for the ‘Florence box’,
and another, for an unknown site, of ‘Sienna, Genoa green, and black
marble’(25). They have not survived and were probably destroyed when the house
was gutted by fire in 1902.
In 1763 the partners supplied slabs of marble to Horace
Walpole and his architect, Richard Bentley, for a pair of commodes at
Strawberry Hill (28). There is a curious reference among Walpole’s letters
which indicates that this was not his first contact with the sculptors. In July
1755 Bentley suggested that Walpole should ‘traffic with Carter’ personally and
Walpole responded acidly ‘do you think I can turn broker, and factor, and I
don’t know what?’ (Lewis 1937-83, vol 35, 231).]
Walpole was involved in the preliminary stages of Carter’s
most notable project, the monument to Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Townshend
erected in 1761 in Westminster Abbey (2). Lady Townsend asked Walpole to
recommend an artist to design a monument for her ‘brave son’ and Walpole, whose
talents did not include draughtsmanship, provided a drawing himself (Lewis
1937-83, vol 40, 166-8). It was not used, but the monument as realised was an
exemplary instance of collaborative practice. It was designed by Robert Adam,
the low relief of the dying hero was modelled by Luc-François Breton, and the
work’s construction seems to have been directed by the two Carters, who also
probably carved the handsome caryatid figures supporting the sarcophagus. These
take the form of North American Indians and allude to Townsend’s death at the
battle of Ticonderoga in 1759. The monument was signed by both Carters and by
the German sculptor, John Eckstein, who was employed by the workshop to carve
the relief from Breton’s model. The architect, Matthew Brettingham, felt that
there was ‘nothing equal to it in the Abbey’ (Fleming 1962 (2), 169).
In the 1760s the Carters were employed extensively by Robert
Adam to execute his designs for chimneypieces at Bowood (15-19), Lansdowne
House (13) and Syon House (23). At Syon they collaborated with ormolu
manufacturers to execute Adam’s designs for opulent fireplaces, charging £144
6s 6d for designing and modelling ornaments, carving mouldings to encase the
metalwork and ‘fitting and working the ornaments together’ (Harris 2001, 78).
Their assistant, Robert Staveley, was responsible for setting up the Bowood
chimneypieces, and also worked for them at Ashburnham Place, Sussex (12).
The precise nature of the Carter partnership is unclear but
it seems likely that Benjamin was in control for in 1763 the workshop was
advertised in Mortimer’s Universal Director under ‘Carter, Benjamin, Statuary,
Hyde Park Corner’ (p 6). He died late in 1766 and was buried in Datchet,
leaving his share of the business, including all the ‘stocks and effects’ to
his son John and wife Ann, who also inherited his household goods; he also made
provision for three younger children. One of his executors was the marble
merchant Edward Chapman Bird.
Benjamin’s son, John Carter (1748-1817), was the
celebrated and eccentric antiquary, draughtsman and writer, noted for his
championship of medieval sculpture and architecture. He later claimed that from
the age of 12 he had prepared designs for assistants in his father’s workshop.
MGS
Literary References: GM, April 1812, 82, pt 1, 341; Smith
1828, II, 307; DNB; Smith 1945, 556; Fleming 1962 (2), 169; Gunnis 1968, 84;
Lewis 1973, vol 35, 231; vol 40, 166-8; Haskell and Penny 1981, 170; Allen
1983, 200; Harris 2001, 78
Archival References: IGI; Poor Rate, St George, Hanover
Square, WCA, 1751 (C240), 1757 (C298), 1758 (C300); Carter/Keen Accounts;
Archives, Marquess of Lansdowne; Ashburnham Archives; Hoare Private Accounts
1750-66, passim; 1752-78, I May 1759
Wills: Thomas Carter, 3 Sept 1756, PROB 11/824 fol 313-5;
Benjamin Carter, 13 Nov 1766, PROB 11/923 fol 173-6.
Miscellaneous Drawings: design for a chimney-piece, signed,
sold as part of an album of chimneypiece drawings, Marlborough Rare Books, cat
81, 25 November 1977, lot 68 (repr)
Portraits of the Sculptor: Robert Pyle, Henry Keene and his
Craftsmen, 1768, formerly at Buxted Place, Sussex (destroyed); Smith 1945,
556-7 (repr);
John Carter, after Robert Pyle, nd, pen, ink, wash and
watercolour, BM, PDB, 1908, 0714.48 (illustrated above)
For the John Carter Sale see - http://collections.soane.org/b6295
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Poor Low resolution images above from
The Eighteenth-Century English Chimneypiece - Alastair Lang.
Studies in the History of Art - Vol. 25, Symposium Papers X: The Fashioning and Functioning
of the British Country House (1989), pp. 241-254 (14 pages) Published by: National Gallery of Art
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42620700?seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents
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Illustration from the Graphic 7 February 1874.
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Some Portraits of Joseph Wilton.
NPG
Image Courtesy Art UK
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Louis Francois Roubiliac
Plaster
Royal Academy
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Image Courtesy Art UK
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The Artist with Joseph Wilton and a Student
1760 - 65.
John Hamilton Mortimer (1740 - 79).
oil on canvas.
76 x 63.5 cms.
Royal Academy
Image Courtesy Art UK
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