Michael Rysbrack’s Sculpture Series for Queen Caroline’s Library at St James’s Palace
Resource type
Book
Creator (person)
Marchner, Joanna
Date published
September 11, 2015
Abstract
In January 1738 Michael Rysbrack (1693–1770) received a letter from Isaac Ware, Secretary to the Board of Works, requesting that he should return to the Office of Works a series of portrait busts, still incomplete, which had been commissioned by Queen Caroline of Ansbach. The sculptor was informed that he would be paid in full for the project. Caroline of Ansbach’s commission to Rysbrack was substantial. Had it come to fruition, it would have constituted his longest series of associated portrait busts. It would also have been the largest royal commission for sculpture in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, it was only the project that was blown off course. The work which Rysbrack so diligently returned to the royal family would later meet a series of mishaps too. This has left the art historian with a significant task: to reconstruct the importance of the sculptural series as a whole, and to explore Caroline of Ansbach's ambition in placing the commission.
Editor
Dethloff, Diana
Elam, Caroline
Murdoch, Tessa
Sloan, Kim
Publisher
UCL Press
Related URL
Collection