Lot 150: A CARVED MARBLE BUST OF GEORGE W. WATSON TAYLOR, M.P. (1771-1841)

A CARVED MARBLE BUST OF GEORGE W. WATSON TAYLOR, M.P. (1771-1841)
BY JOHN GIBSON R.A. (1790-1866), 1819
Depicted facing to dexter and with classical drapery about the shoulders; on a circular marble socle signed and dated to the reverse 'I GIBSON F. ROMA 1819'
25½ in. (64.8 cm.) high; 31 in. (78.7 cm.) high, overall

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
E. Eastlake, Life of John Gibson, R. A. Sculptor, London 1870, p. 41.
T. Mathews, The Biography of John Gibson, R.A., Sculptor, Rome, London, 1911, p. 35.
R. Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors, London 1951, pp. 171-172.
D. Bilbey and M. Trusted, British Sculpture 1470 to 2000, London, 2002, p. 271.

George W. Watson Taylor, M. P., Erlestoke Park, near Devizes, Wiltshire, 1820-1832.
George Robins & Co., sale on the premises, 25 July 1832, lot 172.
Leigh Underhill Gallery, London, c. 1980s (as unidentified).
Private Collection, Texas, USA, c. 1980s-2005 (as unidentified).
Osuna-Lennon Gallery, Washington, DC, 2005.
Peyton-Wright Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium
This highly enigmatic and classicising portrait of a man by John Gibson is, on the basis of documentary research and by comparison to contemporary portraits, accepted as representing the early 19th century collector and member of parliament, George Watson Taylor.

Upon arriving in London in 1815 the aspiring sculptor was introduced to his first major metropolitan patron by the auctioneer James Christie. Gibson documented his meeting in a letter, stating that 'to Mr. Christie I was indebted for an introduction to Mr. Watson Taylor, then one of the most liberal patrons of art. After looking at my drawings Mr. Watson Taylor expressed his desire that I should model a bust of himself this I completed to his satisfaction and that of his lady then requested me to execute the busts in marble.' (Eastlake, op. cit., pp. 34-35).

According to Gibson's letters and detailed autobiographical notes it appears that he met Watson Taylor at the end of 1815 and within a few months had executed the model of the bust. In a letter exchange between Watson Taylor and Gibson's first benefactor, William Roscoe, dated 19 October 1816, the former mentions that the model was still being 'finished, or retouched.' It is next mentioned in October 1817 when, against Watson Taylor's pleas, Gibson left for Rome but assured his patron that he would execute the marble busts directly from the models, which were already in Rome. In a subsequent letter of August 1818, Gibson wrote that he had nearly finished Mrs. Watson Taylor's bust in marble and by sometime in 1819 it was signed and finished. Watson Taylor's bust is also dated 1819. Although the socle of the present bust is probably a replacement, the inscription evidently represents an attempt to retain all the information on the original socle.

Unlike Gibson's busts of Watson Taylor's four children, the one offered here omits the name of the sitter, thereby explaining why it remained unrecognised until recently. Despite this omission one can still establish the identity of the sitter by comparing it to an engraving of Watson Taylor in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and, more importantly, a portrait of the same man painted in 1820 by Sir Martin Archer Shee P.R.A. (1769-1850) and sold at Christie's, London, 1 Mar. 1991, lot 32 (see comparative illustration). In these portraits one can see the same facial details such as the elongated face with rounded chin, broad nostrils and thin lips. The attribution of the bust to Gibson is corroborated by stylistic similarities with the bust of Mrs. Watson Taylor (offered in Christie's London, 29 Sept. 1988, lot 301) and the bust of his son, John Walter Watson Taylor in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Bilbey, op. cit., p. 271, no. 414). Compared to the former, one can see a very similar treatment of the classicising drapery, as well as a similar modelling to the eyes, lips and cheeks, and in the case of the latter, a similar treatment of the very broad strands of hair.

George Watson, as he was known before his marriage, was born into an entrepreneurial family that settled in Jamaica at the end of the 18th century. There, in 1810, he married the Hon. Anne Taylor who, by 1815, had inherited the family's entire sugar plantation then valued at one million pounds. At that point, he found himself in control of vast wealth and an estimated annual income of £95,000. Between 1816 and 1832 he was also an active Member of Parliament for Newport, Isle of White, Seaford, East Looe and finally Devizes. With his new wealth also came a passion for entertaining and collecting art and it was as a result of this that he met the young Gibson and commissioned the six busts. Watson Taylor became one of the greatest arbiters of taste in the early 19th century in England. However, the sugar price slump of the 1820s spelled disaster for him and eventually spurred his bankruptcy in the spring of 1832 with estimated debts of £450,000. A number of auctions were subsequently held between 1823 and 1832 culminating with George Robins & Co's sale on 25 July of the entire contents of the family home, Erlestoke Park, including Gibson's six portraits of the Watson Taylor family. Lot 172 was described as 'A BUST in statuary marble, of GEORGE WATSON TAYLOR, Esq. M.P. sculptured by J. GIBSON'. The rediscovery of this marble bust is significant because it represents both an important early work of a major neo-classical sculptor, and a portrait of a celebrated collector of the early 19th century.

We are indebted to Dr. Doug Lewis for his research into the history of this bust.