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Title:
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11th Duke of Hamilton
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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William Hamilton, 11th Duke of Hamilton, was born in London, son of the 10th Duke of Hamilton and his wife, Susan Euphemia Beckford, and graduated from Christ Church, Oxford. A pretty child, and then a handsome youth, he was often the subject of rather Byronic portraits. In 1843 he married Princess Marie of Baden. Though he was Knight Marischal of Scotland from 1846, and Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire from 1852, he took little interest in politics, and spent much of his time in Baden and in Paris, where he made himself conspicuous by the extravagance of his equipage. He died following a fall after dinner, at his lodgings in the Cite des Italiens in Paris on the 8th July 1863.
The Duke's father had chaired the memorial committee, which had selected Marochetti to execute an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington for Glasgow, inaugurated in 1844. The 10th Duke, although he had made much use of the services of Marochetti's founder, Louis Soyer, had been less fortunate in his patronage of the sculptor himself. However, the presence at Brodick Castle, close to the school at which the statue of the 11th Duke is situated, of Marochetti's bronzes of King Charles I on horseback and two cavaliers supporting lamps, testifies to some continuing interest amongst the family in his work. The 11th Duke's statue was subscribed to by the tenantry of Arran, who were said to be grateful to the Duke for the setting up of a number of schools on the island, though the choice of the sculptor would have been made by a member of the Duke's family, most probably by his widow, Princess Marie of Baden. The intention of the Brodick tenantry to raise a statue to the late Duke was announced in the Dundee Herald on 7 November 1864, though the paper makes no mention of who the sculptor is to be. The statue was only delivered to the island five months after Marochetti himself had died. Its pose possesses a certain interest, in view of the problem the sculptor was having just prior to his death, in creating a suitable seated image of Prince Albert for the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens.
A short newspaper notice, recording the arrival of the statue on Arran, includes the information that Princess Marie (the Duchess) had "supplemented the subscriptions of the tenantry to the extent required". (Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 30 May 1868)
The statue, reasonably successful when viewed in profile, works less well in a frontal view. It certainly did not impress one Victorian observer. Baron Hering. Hering, who was the father-in-law of the sculptor, John Adams Acton, according to his daughter, could not pass the statue "without his fury finding expression in strong language". Mrs Adams Acton recorded her father's judgement on it: "Such a perfect subject and such a vile result!", and added that Marochetti, though a handsome man, was a poor artist, and with this commission "lost the greatest opportunity of his life!". (A.M.W. Sterling, Victorian Sidelghts. From then papers of the late Mrs Adams Acton, London 1954, p.45)
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Material(s): |
Bronze
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Cast |
Genre: |
Portrait Statue (Seated)
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Location: |
Brodick School, Arran, Arran, Arran, Great Britain
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1867 |
Height: |
0 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
5105 |
Acc. No.: |
5105 |
Col. No.: |
5105 |
Number of views: |
3619 |
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