Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, 1st Bt

Inscriptionback to top

Signed by the artist lower right: ‘T.B. Wirgman’;
signed by the sitter lower left: ‘J.E. Boehm’.

This portraitback to top

Theodore Blake Wirgman, graphic artist and printmaker, was born into a Swedish family in Louvain, Belgium, and studied at the RA Schools, London, and then with Ernest Hébert in Paris.[1] On returning to England he worked for the Graphic (1875–1901) and it is possible this careful drawing was preparatory to a magazine illustration.

Boehm is shown working on a maquette for the statue of Sir Francis Drake, a bronze commissioned by the Duke of Bedford for Tavistock, Devon, in March 1882.[2] The drawing is undated but Boehm was enthusiastic and began work on the Drake commission in April.[3] There are differences between the model in Wirgman’s drawing and the finished statue as cast in 1883 (e.g. Drake’s costume, the socle for the globe); Wirgman probably shows an early discarded design which indicates a terminus ante quem of 1882. Boehm seems to be modelling in clay; it was his use of terracotta, a relatively unusual medium among British-trained sculptors at the time, which attracted attention when he began exhibiting in 1862.[4]

Carol Blackett-Ord

Footnotesback to top

1) Houfe 1978, p.502.
2) Boehm also made a reduced version of the statue for Woburn Abbey: the plaster model was exh. RA 1883 and cast in bronze 1884–5; Woburn Abbey. This model (which is larger than the model in NPG 5414) can be seen in the photographs of Boehm in his studio by J.P. Mayall (see ‘All known portraits, Photographs, c.1883’).
3) Stocker 1986; Stocker 1988, pp.133–4.
4) Spielmann 1891a, p.134. See RA 1862 (1132), Bust of a Gentleman.

Physical descriptionback to top

Whole-length, standing to left.

Conservationback to top

Conserved, 1981.

Provenanceback to top

Abbott & Holder (1977), London; purchased by the NPG from Covent Garden Gallery Ltd, 1981.

Exhibitionsback to top

Wirgman exhibition, a show of drawings from scrapbooks, Abbott & Holder, London, 1977 (no handlist).

View all known portraits for Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, 1st Bt