Richard Westmacott
Encyclopedia
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
(15 July 1775 – 1 September 1856) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
.
Life and career
He studied under his father, Richard Westmacott the Elder, before going to RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 1793 to study under Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova was an Italian sculptor from the Republic of Venice who became famous for his marble sculptures that delicately rendered nude flesh...
. Upon returning to England in 1797, he set up a prodigious studio (John Edward Carew
John Edward Carew
John Edward Carew was a notable Irish sculptor during the 19th century. His most prominent work is the Death of Nelson - one of the four bronze panels on the pedestal of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.-Life:...
and Musgrave Watson
Musgrave Watson
Musgrave Lewthwaite Watson was an English sculptor of the early 19th century.Watson was born in Cumberland, being christened on 8 March 1804 at Hawksdale, near Dalston. His parents were prosperous farmers, who also owned an iron-forge...
gained experience here) and began exhibiting at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
, where his diploma work, Jupiter and Ganymede, can still be seen. He was made a Royal Academician in 1811 and was professor of sculpture at the RA from 1827. He received his knighthood on 19 July 1837.
Notable works
Among his works are the reliefs for the north side of Marble ArchMarble Arch
Marble Arch is a white Carrara marble monument that now stands on a large traffic island at the junction of Oxford Street, Park Lane, and Edgware Road, almost directly opposite Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park in London, England...
, the sculptures of figures representing 'The Rise of Civilisation' on the pediment of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, and the Waterloo Vase
Waterloo Vase
The Waterloo Vase is a great urn, 15ft high and weighing 20 tons, fashioned from a single piece of Carrara marble. Since 1906, it has been used as a garden ornament in the garden of Buckingham Palace, London....
now in Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...
Gardens. The enormous urn was sculpted from chunks of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
earmarked by Napoleon for a trophy commemorating his imagined victory in the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
and then given to George IV
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
as a gift from the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Westmacott also sculpted memorials
Church monument
A church monument is an architectural or sculptural memorial to a dead person or persons, located within a Christian church. It can take various forms, from a simple wall tablet to a large and elaborate structure which may include an effigy of the deceased person and other figures of familial or...
to Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
and Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
; and to Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
at Bull Ring, Birmingham, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
(Nelson Monument, Liverpool
Nelson Monument, Liverpool
The Nelson Monument is a monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson, in Exchange Flags, Liverpool, England. It was designed by Matthew Cotes Wyatt and sculpted by Richard Westmacott. It stands to the north of the Town Hall and was unveiled in 1813.-External links:...
) and Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
. The statue of Horatio Nelson, Birmingham
Statue of Horatio Nelson, Birmingham
The Statue of Horatio Nelson by Richard Westmacott Jr., RA stands in the Bull Ring, Birmingham, England.-Subscription:This bronze statue was the first publicly funded statue in Birmingham, and the first statue of Horatio Nelson in Britain...
was the first statue of Nelson in Britain. The Duke of Bedfordshire, a statue in Russell Square
Russell Square
Russell Square is a large garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is near the University of London's main buildings and the British Museum. To the north is Woburn Place and to the south-east is Southampton Row...
of the agriculturalist and developer Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford was an English aristocrat and Whig politician, responsible for much of the development of central Bloomsbury.-Life:...
is by Richard Westmacott. In addition, noted memorial sculpture, tablets, and other works of monumental masonry included his Memorial to Lt. General Christopher Jeaffreson (d.1824) in St.Mary's Church in Dullingham
Dullingham
Dullingham is a village and civil parish in East Cambridgeshire, England. It is situated south of Newmarket and east of Cambridge.-History:...
.; Memorial to Commander Charles Cotton (d.1828) at St. Mary's Chuech in Madingley
Madingley
Madingley is a village near Coton and Dry Drayton on the western outskirts of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.Known as Madingelei in the Domesday Book, the village's name means "Woodland clearing of the family or followers of a man called Mada"....
; Memorial to William Pemberton (d.1828) at St Margaret's Church in Newton, South Cambridgeshire; Memorial to Sir George Warren (d.1801) at St. Mary's Church, Stockport, Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
, depicting a standing female figure by an urn on a pillar; and his Memorial to Rev. Charles Prescott (d.1820), showing a seated effigy. in St. Mary's Church, Stockport.
Personal life
Westmacott lived and died at 14 South Audley Street, MayfairMayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
, London (commemorated by a blue plaque
Blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
). His son, Richard Westmacott (the younger)
Richard Westmacott (the younger)
Richard Westmacott - also sometimes described as Richard Westmacott III - was a prominent English sculptor of the early- and mid-19th century.Born in London, he was the son of Sir Richard Westmacott , and followed closely in his father's...
, followed closely in his footsteps becoming a notable sculptor, Academician and RA professor of sculpture.
Westmacott is buried in a tomb at St Mary's Church
St Mary's Church, Chastleton
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is an Anglican church in the village of Chastleton, Oxfordshire, England. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of Oxford.It was built in about 1100 AD and enlarged in 1320.-History:...
at Chastleton, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, where his third son Horatio was rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
in 1878.