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Marble, on an integral square marble socle carved with the Pembroke coat of arms and inscribed ‘VNG. GP. SERVERAY’
82 cm overall
PROVENANCE
Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke, by descent to his son;
Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke;
Placed on the monument to the 9th Earl of Pembroke in St. Mary’s Church, Wilton, Wiltshire, before 3 July, 1754 (when seen by Dr. Richard Pococke);
The bust and parts of the monument moved to the new Church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas, Wilton, Wiltshire in 1845;
Bust sold (following the grant by the church court of a faculty for removal) by 17th Earl of Pembroke (heir-at-law of the 9th Earl of Pembroke, and therefore owner of the bust) in 1997 (via Sotheby’s) to Professor Ian Craft, by whom sold, 2005, to Private collection, London;
By whom sold to a private collection in the UK, 2017.
EXHIBITED
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in the Sculpture in Britain Galleries 2005-2017.
Together with Michael Rysbrack, Louis-François Roubiliac was the most important baroque sculptor working in 18th century Britain. He came to London in 1730 and was quickly absorbed into the city’s Huguenot community, which helped him pick up his earliest work. His first independent commission came in around 1737 when he executed the celebrated monument to George Frederick Handel for Vauxhall Greens, today in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Roubiliac’s greatest monuments - which mark the pinnacle of 18th century British sculpture - can be seen in Westminster Abbey, and some of his finest portraits - which for the first time in the British sculptural tradition depicted their sitters in a noble, yet unidealised, way - can be seen in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Unsurprisingly, his most important portraits were reserved for the English aristocracy, with this ostentatious portrait of Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke being one the finest Roubiliac ever carved. With an unbroken provenance from the year it was carved for Wilton House, Wiltshire, in around 1749, this portrait recalls the commanding pose of Michelangelo’s portrait of Brutus, which unusually depicts the sitter heroically staring into the distance rather than engaging with its onlooker.