John Crome

This portraitback to top

Mazzotti, a native of Lucca, had settled in Norwich and set up a studio in an old Roman Catholic chapel by 1819 exhibiting with the Norwich Society of Artists from 1821. He appears to have worked only in plaster, the Norwich Castle Museum having another copy of the NPG bust, also without inscription but unpainted. There may have been a third copy lent by David Hodgson to the Norfolk & Norwich Fine Arts Association in 1860 and sold at Bacon's Rooms 2 November 1886, 'very much cracked'. The Castle Museum also has plaster busts by Mazzotti of Nelson, Bathurst, Shakespeare and Wesley, and a grisly set of death-masks of convicted Norwich murderers (information kindly provided by Miss M. Allthorpe-Guyton 1978).

Provenanceback to top

Given in 1921 by Professor Sir Charles Scott Sherrington in whose family it had been 'for very many years' (The Sphere, 30 April 1921, p 111).

Exhibitionsback to top

Possibly Norwich Society of Artists 1821 (205), 'Bust of the late Mr Crome'.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Walker, Regency Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, 1985, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

View all known portraits for John Crome