Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford
- Overview
- Extended Catalogue Entry
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford
by John Michael Rysbrack
terracotta bust, 1738
29 1/2 in. x 22 in. (750 mm x 560 mm) overall
Purchased, 1926
Primary Collection
NPG 2126
On display in Room 3 on Floor 3 at the National Portrait Gallery
Sitterback to top
- Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (1676-1745), Prime Minister. Sitter in 27 portraits.
Artistback to top
- John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770), Sculptor. Artist or producer associated with 15 portraits, Sitter in 7 portraits.
This portraitback to top
Although this bust is signed and dated 1738, it is now thought that Rysbrack made it earlier. Identical in all but medium to a 1726 marble bust at Walpole's country house at Houghton Hall, it is likely that the terracotta bust started life as the marble bust's clay model, which was subsequently fired, signed and dated 1738. More detailed information on this portrait is available in a National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue, John Kerslake's Early Georgian Portraits (1977, out of print).
Linked publicationsback to top
- Smartify image discovery app
- Kerslake, John, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p. 197
- Piper, David, The English Face, 1992, p. 128
- Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 470
Events of 1738back to top
Current affairs
Fetter Lane Society founded in London by the Moravians; a reformed group of Protestants led by exiled Saxon Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorf. He visits Britain to petition the king for protection for Moravian missionaries working in the British colonies. An act to this effect is finally passed in 1749.John Wesley is converted, essentially launching the Methodist movement.
Art and science
Artist Allan Ramsay returns to London from Rome and sets himself up as a portrait painter.Metallurgist William Champion patents a process to distil zinc from calamine using charcoal in a smelter.
International
Methodist preacher George Whitefield arrives in Savannah, Georgia to replace John Wesley; the first of seven visits across the Atlantic which make him one of the most widely recognised figures in the American colonies.Merchant sailor Robert Jenkins presents his pickled ear (cut off by Spanish coast-guards in Cuba in 1731) to Parliament stirring up war fever against Spain and leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear the following year.
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