Early Georgian Portraits Catalogue: Rysbrack

John Michael Rysbrack (1693-1770)

Sculptor; second son of Peeter Rysbrack, landscape painter and etcher of Antwerp; studied under Van der Voort; came to England, 1720; employed by James Gibbs, the architect (q.v.) with whom he continued to collaborate after he himself had won recognition; in a working life spanning some fifty years his considerable output included busts of important sitters such as Gibbs, Pope, George II (q.v.) and statues, from history as well as life, decorative sculpture such as the chimney-piece in the Foundling Hospital, restoration of antiques and monuments to, among others, Gay and Newton in Westminster Abbey.

1802 Attributed to John Vanderbank, c.1728
Oil on canvas, 49 ½ x 39 ½ in. (1258 x 1004 mm); brown eyes, dark brown eyebrows, large nose, shaven head; reddish-brown velvet cap and velvet coat in deeper shade of brown, white shirt open at neck; his left elbow on a pedastal on which there is a classical female head, a rolled paper in his hand, in his right hand a porte-crayon, black cloth draped over his right forearm and behind his body; dark brown background.

NPG 1802 appears to be related to the engraving of 1734 by Faber junior with the same head lettered J. Vanderbank pinx. 1728. In the latter the sitter points with his left hand to a classical head different from the one in the oil and reminiscent of that shown in 'A Conversation of Virtuosis' by Gawen Hamilton (seebelow, Groups); in his right hand he holds a pair of dividers, his elbow resting on the bust; the drapery is more prominent and the diagonal line has become a marked feature of the composition. An x-radiograph of NPG 1802 shows only a slight alteration in the bottom left-hand corner, suggesting that unless there are changes not revealed by x-radiograph, the engraving must be after a lost version.

Condition:the face is rubbed; buttonholing indistinct, some re-painting possibly by another hand.

Collections:bought through Leggatt's, Peel Heirlooms sale, Robinson, Fisher and Harding, 6 December 1917, lot 89; acquired, 1839, by Sir Robert Peel 'at Sir Wm Beechey's sale, Portrait of Rysbrack by Vanderbank for two Pounds!!'. [1]

Appearance

On a visit shortly before the sitter's death, Charles Rogers described him as ‘. . . of a middle Stature, fleshy, but not fat; towards the latter part of his life his head was considerably bowed down to his breast, & he was rendered very unwieldy by his dropsical disorder'. [2]

Iconography

Apart from a drawing attributed to Jonathan Richardson the elder acquired, 1942, by the Victoria and Albert Museum, [3] the oil by Vanderbank was the only portrait known until two versions of a type by Soldi appeared in the salerooms in 1970. Both approximately 45 x34 ½ in., virtually identical and signed and dated 1753, they show the sculptor at work on the model of his celebrated statue of Hercules [4] at Stourhead. [5] The first, provenance unknown, was lot 94 at Christie's, 10 April 1970; the other was at Sotheby's, 24 June 1970, lot 109, as from the C. Fairfax Murray collection. A self-portrait terracotta bust was executed for the sitter's patron Dr Cox Macro [6] and delivered to his home in Suffolk, 1735. [7]

Rysbrack appears in Hamilton's 'Conversation of Virtuosis' (NPG 1384, under Groups below) and also, apparently, in 'An Assembly of Artists', a work of little iconographic content formerly attributed to Hogarth, now in the Ashmolean Museum. [8]

In addition to the above, Vertue mentions in 1732 a self-portrait bust and in 1752 a portrait by I. Whood finished by Vanhaecken, 'another picture of Mr Michael Rysbrack. sculptor drawn & painted by Mr. Isaac Whood who lately dyd some years before he began that portrait of Mr Rysbrack which was thought more like than that of Vanderbank—as it truely is. therefore it is lately finisht the posture hands &c. by Mr. Van achen . . .'. [9]

Notes

1. Sir Robert Peel, Day Book, July 1839 (Surrey Record Office); also Mrs Jameson, Private Galleries of Art, 1844, p.377 (124).
2. Webb, p.191, citing Prints in Imitation of Drawings, 1778.
3. Accessions, V & A, 1942, p.31.
4. Started presumably in 1744 when described by Vertue, III, pp.121-22 (with sketch).
5. Gunnis, p.334. Connoisseur, vol.186, 1974, pp.181-83.
6. Webb, pp.180-81.
7. Ibid, p.224. Country Life, CLIX, 1976, p.1692, pl.1.
8. Exh. 'Paintings and Sculpture in England 1700-1750', Liverpool, 1958 (22).
9. Vertue, III, pp.57, 162; the 1732 list of Rysbrack's work is retrospective.