How a would-be garden ornament turned out to be lost work by master sculptor worth £21,000
IT’S always a moment for excitement and celebration when a long lost work of art is rediscovered and put back in the limelight. The latest, a sculpture by a protégé of Antonio Canova found in a house clearance in Essex, might have ended up in a general sale had it not been for the diligence of the auctioneers.
The 2ft 2in (64cm) high, painted terracotta figure of a dancing bacchante with what looks like a leopard at her feet was inscribed on the base “J Gibson 1812”. Thankfully it was recognised at Colchester auctioneers Reeman Dansie as a work by John Gibson, arguably the most successful British sculptor of his generation.
The previously unloved work – its elderly owner had resisted requests from his family to put her outside as a garden ornament – was not in the best condition.
She had a broken arm, although still attached, and various scuffs and scrapes, but last month four telephone bidders battled it out with others on the internet before the victor, a suitor in the shape of a
UK dealer, won her for £21,000, a multiple of her anticipated price.
Italian sculptor Canova is regarded universally as the greatest of all the Neoclassical artists. How his pupil John Gibson (1790-1831) rose from a lowly Welsh background to be taken in to study in the master’s studio in Rome was literally a dream come true.
Gibson was the son of market gardener, born in Gyffin, near the walled town of Conwy, famous for its castle, and was clearly a gifted artist. At the age of seven, he is said to have drawn pictures from memory on his slate during lessons – and was beaten for it by his teacher.
When John was aged nine, William, his father, had plans to emigrate.
The family left for Liverpool where they were to catch a boat to a new life in America, but fortunately his mother had a change of heart.
They settled in the city and John and his brothers, Solomon and Benjamin who also became sculptors, were put into school. Encouragement came from their mother, however, and an artist and print seller in the city who gave them materials to copy the drawings in his shop.
John left school at 14 to be apprenticed to a Liverpool cabinetmaker, but the boy hated it. However, he did take a shine to wood-carving and excelled at producing decorative mouldings for the furniture his masters, Southwell & Wilson Co, were producing.
He subsequently met the sculptor F.A. Legé, who was working for the Franceys, a firm of Liverpool carvers ,and Gibson became entranced with the idea of working in stone. He copied some of Legé’s models and the Francey partners were so impressed, they paid £70 to buy Gibson out of his apprenticeship. While working for them, Gibson met his first patron, the wealthy Liverpool MP, abolitionist, banker, lawyer and connoisseur collector William Roscoe (1753-1831) who commissioned him to carve several pieces, including a relief of Alexander the Great, for his library at Allerton Hall.
Roscoe encouraged the young sculptor to study ancient Greek and Roman art and Gibson also attended anatomy classes where he watched surgeons dissecting human bodies, giving him an intimate knowledge – literally – of muscle and bone essential in his work as a classical sculptor.
Gibson first exhibited models and their associated drawings at the Liverpool Academy in 1810 and in 1816, his carved relief of Psyche being carried by Zephyrs, was accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy.
Gibson’s last work in Liverpool was a mantelpiece for Sir John Gladstone, the father of four-time prime minister William Ewart Gladstone.
He completed his apprenticeship in 1817 and moved to London to seek his fortune and immediately joined a circle of well-known and influential artists including Yorkshire sculptor and draughtsman John Flaxman (17551826) who like Gibson had risen from humble beginnings. In his early years, Flaxman had found work modelling reliefs for Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood’s blue and white jasperware.
By then, however, Flaxman had established himself as a leading figure in Neoclassicism and had himself spent seven years working in Rome, partly funded by Wedgwood. Encouraged by Flaxman, Gibson made the journey to Rome with an introduction to Canova who welcomed him with a generous offer of support, both in terms of finance and studio.
Under Canova, Gibson studied modelling and life drawing in Canova’s studio, at his academy and at the Academy of St Luke, where he also studied Greek and Graeco-Roman sculpture.
By 1821, Gibson had established his own studio in the Via Fontanella, where he completed his first work, the life-size “Sleeping Shepherd Boy”, a subject he re-interpreted several times.
His first commission was for the group “Mars Restrained by Cupid” for the Duke of Devonshire, done in 1819 and now at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, followed by “Psyche Borne by Zephyrs”, a reworking of the RA piece but in marble for the connoisseur Sir George Beaumont.
By the 1830s, Gibson was the leader of a group of English sculptors working in Rome, but even though he was a full member of the Royal Academy in 1836, he resisted suggestions that he should return to London where his fame would have meant greater financial reward.
He won numerous commissions from English collectors visiting Rome, including several wealthy industrialists and merchants.
Henry Sandbach, a shipping heir, and his wife Margaret, a granddaughter of William Roscoe, bought many of his works, including “Hunter and Dog” and “Aurora” for Hafodunos Hall, the Gothic revival mansion they had built in Llangernyw near Abergele, North Wales.
Gibson’s own words best sum up his life. Writing in his autobiography, he said: “I worked on all my days happily, and with ever new pleasure, avoiding evil, and with a calm soul, making images, not for worship, but for the love of the beautiful.”
He died and was buried in Rome, leaving his £32,000 fortune to the Royal Academy.