Richard Westmacott

Life and career

Westmacott studied with his father, also named Richard Westmacott, at his studio in Mount Street, off Grosvenor Square in London before going to Rome in 1793 to study under Antonio Canova. Westmacott devoted all his energies to the study of classical sculpture, and throughout his life his real sympathies were with pagan rather than with Christian art. Within a year of his arrival in Rome he won the first prize for sculpture offered by the Florentine Academy of Arts, and in the following year he gained the papal gold medal awarded by the Academy of St Luke with his bas-relief of Joseph and his brothers. On returning to England in 1797, he set up a studio, where John Edward Carew and Musgrave Watson gained experience.

Westmacott had his own foundry at Pimlico, in London, where he cast both his own works, and those of other sculptors, including John Flaxman's statue of Sir John Moore for Glasgow. Late in life he was asked by the Office of Works for advice on the casting of the relief panels for Nelson's Column.

Westmacott exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1797 and 1839. His name is given in the catalogues as "R. Westmacott, Junr." until 1807, when the "Junr." was dropped. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1805, and a full academician in 1811. He was professor of sculpture at the academy from 1827 until his death. In 1852 when contacted by the Corporation of London about a possible sculpture commission, Westmacott replied that he had not been active as a sculptor for some years.

Works

Among Westmacott's works include: the reliefs for the north side of Marble Arch; the Greek revival pedimental sculptures of figures representing The Progress of Civilisation on the British Museum; the Achilles of the Wellington Monument, London; and the Waterloo Vase, now in Buckingham Palace Gardens.

The Waterloo Vase was sculpted from a single piece of Carrara marble, earmarked by Napoleon to represent his military victories. Following the French defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, the vase was presented unfinished to George IV in 1815 by Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany. George IV later commissioned Westmacott to complete the piece.

His statue of Horatio Nelson, Birmingham was the first statue of Nelson unveiled in Britain. There are other monuments to Nelson by Westmacott at the Bull Ring, Birmingham, in Barbados, while that at Liverpool was modelled and cast by Westmacott, to a design by Matthew Cotes Wyatt. In Liverpool there is also an equestrian statue of King George III sculpted by Westmacott, which was unveiled in 1822. He was responsible for the statue of the agriculturalist and developer Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford in Russell Square, and that of the Duke of York on top of the column in Waterloo Place.

Westmacott's sculptures of poetical subjects were in a style similar to those of the contemporary Italian school: his works of this type included Psyche and Cupid for the Duke of Bedford; Euphrosyne for the Duke of Newcastle; A Nymph Unclasping her Zone; The Distressed Mother and The Houseless Traveller.

Westmacott also sculpted the memorials to William Pitt the Younger, Spencer Perceval, Charles James Fox and Joseph Addison in Westminster Abbey; the statue of Fox in Bloomsbury Square; and those to Sir Ralph Abercromby, Lord Collingwood and Generals Edward Pakenham and Samuel Gibbs in St Paul's Cathedral. The Abercromby monument is considered by some critics as the most original composition of Westmacott's entire career. The idea to create a memorial to a British military hero by showing his death in action was a bold departure from the more common use of allegorical figures and personifications of virtue. The memorial, a free-standing marble group on an oval base, showed Abercromby falling dead from his charging horse into the arms of soldier and established Westmacott's reputation for originality. His memorial to Pitt in Westminster Abbey, commissioned in 1807, shows a male figure representing anarchy writhing in chains at Pitt's feet, a reference to Pitt's suppression of revolutionaries by press censorship and other means.

Westmacott's other church monuments include those to Lt. General Christopher Jeaffreson (died 1824) in St.Mary's Church in Dullingham; to Commander Charles Cotton (died 1828) at St. Mary's Church in Madingley; to William Pemberton (died 1828) at St Margaret's Church in Newton, South Cambridgeshire; to Sir George Warren (died 1801) at St. Mary's Church, Stockport in Greater Manchester, depicting a standing female figure by an urn on a pillar; to Rev. Charles Prescott (died 1820), in St. Mary's Church, Stockport, showing a seated effigy and to Mary Henson (died 1805) in Bainton parish church, showing a seated figure against an urn. A bust of David Garrick by Westmacott is in Lichfield Cathedral.

He created a sculptural group for the marble arch of the Cumberland Gate to Hyde Park.

Personal life

Westmacott lived and died at 14 South Audley Street, Mayfair, London where he is commemorated by a blue plaque. Two of his brothers, George, who was active between 1799 and 1827, and Henry, (1784–1861) were also sculptors. In 1798 Westmacott married Dorothy Margaret Wilkinson. Their son, also called Richard Westmacott, followed closely in his footsteps also becoming a notable sculptor, a Royal Academician and professor of sculpture at the academy.

Westmacott is buried in a tomb at St Mary's Church, Chastleton in Oxfordshire, where his third son Horatio was rector in 1878.

Selected public works

1800–1809

1810–1819

1820–1829

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1830–1839

1840 and later

Other works

• Life-sized marble relief monument to John Yorke, 1801, St Andrews Church, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
• Memorial sculpture group, erected 1821, to Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn, died 1808, Church of St Tegal, Llandygai, Wales
• Memorial to Rev. John Chetwynd Talbot, 1827, St Mary's Church, Ingestre, Staffordshire
• Memorial to Dr. John Wooll, c. 1833, Utah
• Memorial plaque, with portrait medallion, to Francis Bauer, 1840, St. Anne's Church, Kew,

References

Sources

References

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