ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE
 

ENGLAND

Sculpture

English sculpture has not been discussed in these pages since that of the thirteenth century (see fig. 493). During the Reformation, we will recall, there was a wholesale destruction of sculpture in England. This had so chilling an effect that for 200 years the demand for statuary of any kind was too low to sustain more than the most modest local production. With the rise of a vigorous English school of painting, however, sculptural patronage grew as well, and during the eighteenth century England set an example for the rest of Europe in creating the "monument to genius": statues in public places honoring culture heroes such as Shakespeare, a privilege hitherto reserved tor heads of state.

ROUBILIAC.

One of the earliest and most ingratiating of these statues is the monument to the great composer George Frederick Handel (fig. 844) by the French-born
Louis-Francois Roubiliac (1702-1762). It was also the first to be made of a culture hero within his lifetime. (The next to achieve this distinction would be Voltaire in France, a full generation later; see fig. 866). Roubiliac carved the figure in 1738 for the owner of Vauxhall Gardens in London, a pleasure park with dining facilities and an orchestra stand where Handel's music was often performed, so that the statue served two purposes: homage and advertising. Handel is in the guise of Apollo, the god of music, playing a classical lyre, while a putto at his feet writes down the divine music. But Handel is a most domestic Apollo, in slippers and a worn dressing gown, a soft beret on his head instead of the then customary wig. These attributes distinguish him as a man of arts and letters. Although Roubiliac shows himself in full command of the Baroque sculptural tradition, the studied informality of his deified Handel seems peculiarly English. Touches such as the right foot resting upon rather than inside the slipper (a hint at the composer's gouty big toe?) suggest that he sought advice from William Hogarth, with whom he was on excellent terms. Be that as it may, Handel was Roubiliac's first big success in his adopted homeland, and it became the forebear of countless monuments to culture heroes everywhere (see fig. 972).

844. Louis-Francois Roubiliac. George Frederick Handel. 1738. Marble, lifesize. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
 

Louis-François Roubiliac Louis-François Roubiliac, Roubiliac also spelled Roubillac (baptized Aug. 31, 1702, Lyon, France—died Jan. 11, 1762, London, Eng.), together with John Michael Rysbrack, one of the most important late Baroque sculptors working in 18th-century England. A native of Lyon, Roubiliac is said to have studied in Dresden with Balthasar Permoser, a sculptor of ivory and porcelain, and in Paris with Nicolas Coustou, a French Baroque sculptor. He moved to London about 1730. His first independent commission was a statue of Handel for Vauxhall Gardens in 1737. A year later he opened his own studio. In 1746 he carved a monument of the duke of Argyll in Westminster Abbey, one of his greatest works, though his more dramatic Monument of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale (1761) in the same building is better known. Besides monuments and full-length portrait statues, Roubiliac executed masterly portrait busts, several of which were modeled in terra-cotta for a Chelsea pottery factory (c. 1750)—e.g., the busts of William Hogarth and of Alexander Pope. Outstanding technically, Roubiliac’s likenesses were also admired for their acute observation of the sitter and the perceptive revelation of character. Encyclopædia Britannica

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of John Belchier
1749
Marble
Royal College of Surgeons, London

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. George II King of England
Marble, height: 79 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Tomb of Sir Joseph and Lady Elizabeth Nightingale
1761
Marble
Westminster Abbey, London

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of George Frederick Handel.
Foundling Hospital, London, England

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of Martin Folkes





Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of Jonathan Swift. Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of Arabella Aufrere

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to Mary Myddelton. Parish Church, Wrexham, Clwyd, Wales
 

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to Daniel Lock. Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Statue of Duncan Forbes. Parliament House, Edinburgh, Scotland

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to George Lynn. St Mary, Southwick, Northamptonshire, England

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to Mary, Duchess of Montagu. St Edmund, Warkton, Northamptonshire, England

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to Mary, Duchess of Montagu (details)




Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to Mary, Duchess of Montagu (details)




Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of John Ray.
Trinity College Library, Cambridge, England

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of Sir Francis Bacon
Trinity College Library, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England




Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Monument to Richard Boyle, Viscount Shannon
North aisle, St Mary's Parish Church, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England

 

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of Alexander Pope
Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, New Haven, United States
 

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Bust of Alexander Pope. Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, England
 

Louis-Francois Roubiliac. Statue of Isaac Newton.
Chapel, University of Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge , Cambridgeshire, England