The tomb
with effigy is an important feature of Marochetti's British oeuvre.
Before 1848, in France, his funerary sculpture had been mainly limited to cemetery monuments with portrait reliefs and
angelic figures. In 1840 his first project for Napoleon's tomb had included a
recumbent effigy in addition to an equestrian statue. The second project also
included one, if we are to believe some of the published descriptions, but no
visual evidence of this part of his proposals has come down to us. During his
eighteen years in England, he produced in all nine tomb effigies, if we count
this double commemoration as two. They include effigies which are more or less
relaxed. Symmetry and formalism are very strong in his first essay in the
genre, the tomb of John 1st Earl Brownlow at Belton (Lincs), with its
extravagant coronet and hands clasped in prayer, but this is somewhat bizarrely
mitigated by the Earl's sideways look in the direction of a portrait medallion
of his first wife, which forms part of a nearby monument to her by Antonio
Canova. At the other extreme from this formal and remote approach, are the more lyrical, 'sleeping' effigies, such as that of Princess Elizabeth at Newport (Isle of Wight) and Lady Margaret Leveson Gower, in the parish church of Castle Ashby, Northants. The tomb of
Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, Marochetti's 'swan song' comes as a fitting
climax to this series. It includes one of the world's finest double effigies,
one on which no expense of time, labour or material were spared. Before the
death of Prince Albert on 14 December 1861, Marochetti had firmly established
his credentials in the Queen's eyes, as a provider of sculptural reminders of
cherished beings. A sequence of commissions tells the tale, beginning with the commission
for the retrospective tomb of Princess Elizabeth for St Thomas's church in
Newport (Isle of Wight). Here Marochetti had followed the Queen's instructions,
departing from his own original idea of representing the Princess kneeling, and
succeeeding in producing the simple emotive image she had hoped for. Hardly had
it been erected than the Queen's bosom friend, Victoria of Saxe Coburg,
Duchesse de Nemours, died unexpectedly, and the Queen found herself reminded of
Marochetti's Princess by her friend's body, laid out in her bedroom at Claremont. This inspired her to commission a memorial
bust of "dear Victoire" from Marochetti, for which she provided him
with a death mask and other visual records as aide-mémoires.
Her choice
of artists for the cenotaph and tomb of Albert - Henry de Triqueti for the
cenotaph, Marochetti for the tomb - was obviously dictated by memories of the
various posthumous commemorations for the man she always referred to as
'Chartres', Ferdinand duc d'Orléans, who
had died in a carriage accident in 1842. However, in the case of Albert, it was
to Marochetti that the task of creating the more intimate image for the
'private' tomb at Frogmore was confided, whereas Triqueti who had done the more
naturalistic and pathetic effigy of the Duke, received the commission for the
relatively formal image of Prince Albert as a Christian warrior, for the more public
cenotaph in the Wolsey Chapel, thenceforward known as the Albert Memorial Chapel.
For the
Frogmore tomb Marochetti seems to have envisaged something more bombastic, with
armorials, and a more spreading overall configuration, which could be
reminiscent, he thought, of the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella in Granada
Cathedral. This time it was to the counsels of the Princess Royal that he had
to give heed, and he would have done so, knowing that she herself was an artist
of above average ability. He followed, to her satisfaction, a drawing in which
she had tried to convey the way her father's effigy should look. Queen Victoria wrote in her journal for 20 Feb. 1862, "Vicky had seen Baron Marochetti who had at once adopted her beautiful design for her beloved Father's statue". With a degree
of artistic licence, the royal couple in the effigy as executed are represented
as though asleep, he wearing the robes of the Order of the Garter, she, crowned
and holding her sceptre. Their correct relation of rank is maintained despite
the discrepancy of their actual height in life, by the fact that the dress she
wears is long. Beneath it, her feet make a slight protuberance, level with his
mid-calf. The pair of them seem to float amidst the flowing lines of their costumes,
their heads, torsoes and hands standing out boldly from the lower lying areas.
They do not touch, but their heads, eyes closed, are inclined inward towards
each other.
Somewhat surprisingly,
the precedents for placing angels at the corners of a sarcophagus are harder to
find. The most celebrated chest with angels is of course the Ark of the
Covenant, but the accepted image of this has golden cherubim, facing inward on
the lid. At the Renaissance, winged harpies
and hippogriffs were adopted as corner features for containers of all sorts.
Such time-honoured decorative devices make frequent appearances on tombs, but
angels do not, in the present writer's experience. However, another tomb being
created at almost exactly the same time, and about which Marochetti, if not the
Queen, would certainly have known, has angels placed in a similar fashion,
facing outwards, but with their wings enfolding the sarcophagus behind them. This
was the tomb of the Duchess of Alba, the sister of Empress Eugénie, who died in
November 1860. This was commissioned by Eugénie from the Parisian sculptor,
Charles Gumery, and was erected, after its completion in 1865, in the Monastery
church of Loeches, near Madrid. The angels in this case are portraits of the
Duchess's three children, and of the Prince Imperial, only son of Napoleon III
and Eugénie. Gumery's whole design is more florid and elaborate than the tomb
at Frogmore, but this parallel is certain to have been more than serendipitous.
The question remains as to which sculptor originated the idea.
(see Revue Artistique et Littéraire, vol. IX, 6th
year, 1865, p.220)
The progress of the various features of the tomb is recorded in the Queen's journal. She saw a preliminary model by Marochetti for a recumbent statue of Prince Albert on 28 Jan 1862, and wrote "it had quite the effect as if he were lying sleeping peacefully". She recorded the sculptor's willingness to conform to the design of the Princess Royal three weeks later, on 20 February, so we may assume that he then made the necessary changes to his model. When exactly the Queen first saw the effigy of Albert in a state anywhere near completion is unclear, but on 22 July 1862, she wrote that she and Prince Leopold had "looked again at the beautiful monument by Marochetti of my beloved Albert, which is now completed & full of comfort to me, - of peace, blessedness and beauty". On 18 November, Princess Alice and Princess Louise were late to lunch, because "they had been to Marochetti's studio, where they saw my recumbent statue, which by my desire he had been making now, in order that it should correspond with that of my adored Albert". When the new Royal Mausoleum was consecrated on 17 Dec. 1862, Prince Albert's coffin was placed inside the monument, and a plaster cast of his effigy alone, put into position above it. On 4 March 1862, again at Marochetti's studio, the Queen recorded, "we saw our monument, with my statue, as well as my Darling's & the 4 angels (unfinished) supporting it. The only fault is its being too high & the statues look too far apart, both of which must be rectified". By 11 May 1864, she recorded that Marochetti was "getting on very well" with the marble statue for the Mausoleum. On 23 Feb. 1864, she saw "the model of the sarcophagus, with the 4 kneeling angels at the corners, which are now cast in bronze and are magnificent". With the Duchess of Roxburghe, she was again at the studio on 9 March 1866, where they saw "our own recumbent statues in marble. The Dss of Roxburghe was quite over come at seeing mine". Another visitor to the studio, who saw the tomb in progress was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, W.E. Gladstone, who recorded in his diary going there with the Duchess of Sutherland, and seeing the "fine Altar Monument of Prince Albert". (The Gladstone Diary, H.C.G. Matthew ed., vol.VI, Oxford, 1978, p.162. Entry for 20 Nov. 1862)
There are
various precedents for the double effigy in which a couple's attachment, or
protective attitude to one another, is displayed. Quite a number are to be
found in the repertoire of British sculptors between the 15th and the 19th
centuries. However, the solution found here seems unique in its combination of
emotive effect with a certain restraint. The restraint would have been in part
due to Albert's effigy having been designed to stand alone, as it did, for over
thirty years, until the Queen died, and her effigy was retrieved, it is said
with difficulty, from storage, to join his on the tomb chest. In his image of
Albert, Marochetti had caught up, in the Princess Royal's estimation, with
William Theed. Comparing Marochetti's 1849 bust and the one by Theed of 1859,
she had told her mother that, though she thought Marochetti's was the finer
work of art, Theed's was the better likeness. When she saw the effigy she
decided that this time Marochetti had surpassed Theed, and produced an image
that was moving, and a fine likeness. Of course it needs to be taken into
account that by this time there were many more photographic and painted images
of Albert to refresh the memory than had been the case in 1848. The image on
the tomb is a more mature one than in Marochetti's bust, more mature also than
the youthful, 'Ruritanian' Prince of Marochetti's seated statue of 1862, for
Aberdeen. That also had been approved by the Princess Royal, in the teeth of some
fairly adverse criticism. What it was about the other seated Albert, commissioned
from Marochetti as the central feature of the National Memorial to the Prince,
which, shortly after the sculptor's death caused it to be rejected as
unsuitable, we will never know, since no record of it remains. In all Marochetti was called upon to produce five commemorative sculptures of Prince Albert following his death, including, in addition to those already mentioned, the wall tablet for St Thomas, Newport (Isle of Wight), and the equestrian statue for Glasgow. This would have been a considerable augmentation of an already heavy work load. The marble effigy of Albert was only completed in 1868, after Marochettis' death. According to the obituaries of the sculptor Robert Glassby, who worked as Marochetti's assistant for four years, it was he who completed the carving of the effigy (Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 11 November 1893, p.4). A report in the Windsor and Eton Express of Saturday 25 January 1902 gives some idea of the effect produced by the Queen's effigy, when placed in the mausoleum. "Side by side, and never before Wednesday seen together, are the two recumbent Royal figures, stretched upon it [the sarcophagus]. The pure white marble effigy of Queen Victoria, executed by Baron Marochetti is a striking presentment. Her Majesty is shown in the flowing robes that she wore on occasions of State. Clasped together are the sovereign's hands, in which she holds the sceptre, which was the symbol of her august sway, while on the monarch's head is the Imperial Crown." (for further reading see, E. Darby and N. Smith, The Cult of the Prince Consort, New Haven and London 1983. and P. Ward-Jackson, "The French Background of Royal Monuments at Windsor and Frogmore", Church Monuments, vol.VIII, 1993, pp.63-83)
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