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Notes
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This bust appears similar in date to its pendant, also in the hall (NT 1221031), but is stylistically less distinctive, and shows an older-looking man. He bears, indeed, some resemblance to the signed and dated portrait by Mengs of Robert Stewart, of 1758; but Robert Stewart was only 19 when that was painted, whereas the sitter in this bust is appreciably older. Since Mengs’s portrait is the only evidence that we have for the 1st Marquess’s presence in Italy in 1758, may it not be that he made a second, equally unrecorded, tour with his younger brother, Alexander (whose presence in Italy is likewise only attested by Batoni’s signed and dated portrait of him, and – if it is correctly identified – by the bust that serves as a pendant to this one), in 1773 (?).
Tours of Italy and the Continent, to distract or recover from grief, were not uncommon (see for instance, Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s); and the company of a younger brother, who might otherwise not have been able to afford a tour in the style of a gentleman, or to have his portrait painted by Batoni, would have been the most natural thing in the world. Since each brother may have wanted a bust for himself, or to give to the other, there would have been no compulsion to make the busts pendants – or even for them to have gone to the same sculptor to have them carved. The two brothers went, after all, to different painters in Italy – admittedly, fifteen years apart – even though both having themselves painted in ‘Vandyke’ dress.
Title
Robert Stewart (1739–1821), 1st Marquess of Londonderry, MP
Date
c.1773–1775
Medium
Carrara marble
Measurements
H 55.9 x W 26.1 x D 24.8 cm
Accession number
1221032
Work type
Bust
