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Title:
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The Death of Richard Coeur de Lion
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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The statue
of Richard Coeur de Lion, exhibited in plaster at the Great Exhibition of 1851,
was erected in Old Palace Yard, outside the Houses of Parliament in 1860.
Marochetti envisaged four bronze relief panels for the granite pedestal supporting
the statue, none of which were present at the time of the inauguration. In May
1864 he presented his estimate of £25,000 for four subjects: the Coronation
of Richard in Westminster Abbey, the Taking of Ascalon, Richard
as Prisoner, and the Death of Richard. He thought that these panels
should be "alto rilievos in the style of the Ghiberti doors on the
Battisterio [sic] in Florence". In his letter to the Office of Works he
described the deathbed scene more fully as "the death of the King and the
pardon granted to the man who wounded him". After quite a long delay, the
answer came back that the government would accept only two reliefs, the Taking
of Ascalon and the Death of the King, and that it would pay £750 for
each relief. The casting of the statue had been paid for by public
subscription, and the British government was only in exceptional circumstances
in the habit of paying for such public monuments. At this point Marochetti was
considered by many to have had more than his fair share of public money. His
reaction to thus being offered only a fraction of what he had asked is not
recorded.
This plaster
model represents a more compact version of the deathbed scene than the one
eventually cast in bronze, and was probably designed to fit on one of the
narrow ends of the pedestal. With a smaller cast of characters, it contains the
same central action within a format with far less horizontal extent. The resemblance
of Marochetti's final composition for this scene, to a painting by the Devon
artist, John Cross, which at that time hung inside the Palace of Westminster,
was pointed out in one contemporary report, and it is even stronger in the case
of this preliminary design. However there are important differences, such as
the inclusion in Marochetti's versions, at the head of Richard's bed of the minstrel
Blondel, and the representation of the archer who shot the king, in
Marochetti's version, as a mature bearded figure, whereas in Cross's painting,
he is shown as the boy that some accounts claim he was. The king in
Marochetti's second version is a much more stately and composed figure than the
twisting, agonized semi-nude giant in this preliminary version.
(for a full
account of the statue, see the entry for it on this website and P.Ward-Jackson,
Public Monuments of Historic Westminster, Liverpool, 2011, pp.167-172)
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Material(s): |
Plaster
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Cast |
Genre: |
Relief (Historical)
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1864 |
Height: |
0.98 metres |
Width: |
118 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
5800 |
Acc. No.: |
5800 |
Col. No.: |
5800 |
Number of views: |
2605 |
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