This series of figures,
commemorating the loyalty of his ancestors, to the royalist cause during the
Civil War, was commissioned by the landowner and Tory MP, William John
Bankes, for his country House, Kingston Lacy in Dorset. They stand in niches
in the South Loggia, recently added to the 17th century house by the
architect, Sir Charles Barry. All three are supported on elaborate pedestals,
based on Andrea del Verrocchio''s Medici Tomb in S. Lorenzo, Florence, the
pedestals concealing hot water radiators This was a project long matured by
Bankes and Marochetti. The two of them had met for the first time before 31
May 1839, probably in Paris. Bankes then became Marochetti''s agent in his
bid to land a commission for a monument to the Duke of Wellington for
Glasgow, and proved especially useful in obtaining sittings for him from the
Duke. Since Marochetti succeeded in gaining this commission, he came to owe
Bankes a debt of gratitude, of which the Kingston Lacy sculptures were a
somewhat belated acknowledgement, even though they were paid for by the
Bankes family.
The circumstances in which these figures were created were somewhat unusual.
As early as October 1844, Bankes considered taking a house close to where
Marochetti was then living, at Vaux-sur-Seine, so that he could supervise the
scheme. It was probably due to pressure of work on Marochetti's side that it
was not embarked upon at that time. Since 1841 Bankes had been, in effect, an
exile from Britain. He had been brought up on a charge of "indecently
exposing himself with a soldier of the footguards in Green Park" and had
fled the country, spending most of the remainder of his life in Venice. In
1848 Marochetti himself left France for England, so that when in 1853 he
finally decided to embark on Bankes's project, the two of them found it
difficult to meet, indeed there is no evidence that they ever did. All the
negotiations were carried out by letter, which makes this Marochetti's best
documented commission.
An extremely detailed contract, dated 18 November 1853, shows the extent to
which the entire project, including the historical sources for the portrayal
of the three figures had been worked out in advance. A series of amateurish
but detailed drawings by Bankes indicates that they were, despite the
geographical constraints, a collaborative effort. The historical aspect of
the scheme was curiously combined with the practical requirements of the
heating system, but both of these things Bankes conceived as "modern",
since the kind of sculpture which he hoped to see Marochetti produce was
something of a novelty in England at the time. Bankes did not live to see the
scheme completed. He died on 15 April 1855, by which time he had seen only a
photograph of the relief of the Siege of Corfe Castle and a
written assurance that the statues of Sir John and Lady Mary Bankes were
ready for casting. Marochetti completed the major features of the scheme according
to contract, negotiating after William's death with his brother George.
However certain ornamental adjuncts, trophies of arms and symbolic
candelabra, which would have given the loggia a positively religious
appearance, were sacrificed, presumably for reasons of economy.
(Sources and further reading on
the Kingston Lacy Marochettis:
Anne Sebba, The Exiled
Collector. William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House.
London, 2004.
Philip Ward-Jackson,
"Expiatory Monuments by Carlo Marochetti in Dorset and the Isle of
Wight, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol.LIII,
1990.
Philip Ward-Jackson,
"Carlo Marochetti and the Glasgow Wellington Memorial, Burlington Magazine, no.1053, vol.CXXXII,
Dec.1990.)
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