Francis Gotch

Inscriptionback to top

Obverse embossed: ‘FRANCIS GOTCH. FRS / PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY 1895–1913’.
Reverse embossed, in roundel: ‘DEPARTMENT OF PHYSIOLOGY / UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD’;
signed lower right: ‘A DRURY RA’.

This portraitback to top

This small bronze plaque, modelled in low relief and with a copper-coloured patina, depicts Gotch as Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford. It appears to have been modelled from one of the few known likenesses, a portrait photograph (see ‘All known portraits, Photographs, 1910s’) published with obituary notices. [1] The dates given in the embossed inscription indicate that the plaque was completed after the sitter’s death, which suggests it was created as a memorial, presumably for distribution to colleagues in the university department, although only one copy is currently known.

The larger memorial plaque of Gotch sculpted twenty years earlier for University College Liverpool (‘All known portraits, Paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints, 1895’), shows a thinner, slighter physical appearance, and a crown of unruly curls. While giving an impression of solidity and professional gravitas, in the present work the sitter’s features are finely and softly modelled, with particular delicacy regarding the arm of the spectacles. Both format and handling can be compared with plaque portraits of Sir Augustus Franks (NPG 1584) and Sir Charles Dilke (NPG 1883), while the handling contrasts with the freer style of a near-contemporary profile medallion of George Meredith (NPG 1583).

The circumstances of the present work’s production are currently unrecorded, but the design incorporating the arms of Oxford University on the reverse of the plaque indicates that it related to and was perhaps commissioned for the university department and laboratory that Gotch headed in succession to Sir John Burdon-Sanderson, whose portrait by John Collier hung in the department (see ‘Burdon-Sanderson: All known portraits, 1893’). The size of the present work argues against its being an institutional commission, however, as does the fact that within three years of its execution it was given instead to the National Portrait Gallery. Its dimensions may be due to the use of a ‘reducing machine’; compare for example the similarly sized plaquette of M.H. Spielmann (NPG D7050). This raises the possibility that there was, or is, a larger original version, so far unlocated.

Through his father-in-law, John Callcott Horsley, Gotch had connections with the art world, and was a member of the Arts Club in London. [2] So too was Alfred Drury, sculptor of the present work, who began his career as assistant to Jules Dalou and was responsible for numerous public memorials in this period. A possible agent for the commission (if such it was) is Charles Francis Bell, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum’s fine art collection from 1909 and a trustee of the NPG, from whom the plaque was acquired in 1916. Described as ‘a fierce and acerbic art historian’, [3] Bell may have obtained it from the Physiology Department in order to lodge it in the Gallery, where it was first assigned to the Reference Collection. [4]

Dr Jan Marsh

Footnotesback to top

1) E.g. ILN, 26 July 1913, p.128; Lancet, July 1913, vol.II, p.349.
2) Rogers 1920. Francis Gotch was cousin to the artist Thomas Cooper Gotch, who painted his portrait; see ‘All known portraits, Paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints, before 1895’.
3) Geoffrey de Bellaigue, quoted in Dictionary of Art Historians online
4) NPG RP 1777a; NPG Report of the Trustees 1916–17. No correspondence regarding this accession has been retained or recorded.

Physical descriptionback to top

Head-and-shoulders, profile to left, wearing spectacles, prominent moustache.

Provenanceback to top

Possibly Department of Physiology, University of Oxford; C.F. Bell, by whom presented, 1916.

View all known portraits for Francis Gotch