|
Title:
|
Tomb of John Cust, 1st Earl Brownlow
|
Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
|
The extremely authoritarian and conservative Earl Brownlow died on 15 September 1853. His elaborate obsequies, "orchestrated" by the London firm of Holland and Sons, have been described in detail by Tim Knox ("The obsequies of a Victorian grandee", Apollo, April 1999, pp.45-49). His effigy by Marochetti was commissioned by his son for the church at Belton, which is, in effect, a family mausoleum, one of the most remarkable of its kind in the country. It stands in front of the colossal statue of Protestant Religion,which the Earl had commissioned in 1814, as a monument to his first wife, Sophia Hume. Canova's figure holds a portrait medallion of the first countess, and the head of Marochetti's effigy is slightly turned towards this image, as if to emphasize the preference which the Earl always felt for his first, rather than his second wife. Also, it was because Sophia was the niece of the vastly wealthy 7th Earl of Bridgewater, that Earl Brownlow was able, shortly before his death, to establish his family's claim on the Bridgewater fortune.
Apart from the intimate touch of the turned head, the effigy of Earl Brownlow is emphatically formal and ceremonious in its presentation. He is shown with hands clasped in prayer, coronetted and wearing his robes of state. Knox has described it as "a triumph of marmoreal millinery". It was the first funerary effigy which Marochetti had ever executed, the first of a rather considerable series, culminating in the great double effigy of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, which he created for the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore. Indeed it was Queen Victoria who was to commission his next effigy, the poignant historical image of Princess Elizabeth, for St Thomas's Church, Newport, in the Isle of Wight. When faced with the task of quoting a price for this effigy to the Keeper of the Privy Purse, Marochetti confessed that the effigy of Lord Brownlow was the only comparable thing he had ever done, and gave £1000 as the sum he had received from H.C. Cust, the Earl's son for his father's tomb.
|
|
|
Material(s): |
|
Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
- |
Genre: |
Unassigned
|
Location: |
Belton (Lincs), Church of St Peter and St Paul, , ,
|
Colours: |
|
Year: |
1856 |
Height: |
0 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
|
Key: |
2271 |
Acc. No.: |
2271 |
Col. No.: |
2271 |
Number of views: |
2425 |
|
|