Lot 175: AN ENGLISH MARBLE FIGURE OF A NYMPH

AN ENGLISH MARBLE FIGURE OF A NYMPH BY RICHARD JAMES WYATT (1759-1850), ROME, MID-19TH CENTURY Signed 'R.J. WYATT Fecit / ROMAE' 59 ½ in. (151 cm.) high; 25 ½ in. (65 cm.) wide; 17 ½ in. (44.5 cm.) deep

(151 cm.) high; 25 ½ in. (65 cm.) wide; 17 ½ in. (44.5 cm.) deep

19TH CENTURY

Bought from Crowther’s of Syon, April 1986.

Wyatt was a virtuoso carver of life-size figures and groups, and was best known for single female figures. In a tribute following his friend's death, John Gibson said of Wyatt: ‘he acquired the purest style and his statues were highly finished. Female figures were his forte and he was clever in composition and the harmony of lines. No sculptor in England has produced female statues to be compared to those by Wyatt’ (Lady Eastlake's Life of Gibson, p. 130). The present work is known as Nymph coming out of the bath (first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837) and is the pendant to Nymph going to the bath (Royal Academy, 1831). Wyatt subtly conveys the intentions of each nymph whereby, contrary to its pendant, the present figure is shown pulling the robe to her waist as she gazes modestly upwards. Wyatt made copies of his most popular subjects and at least seven versions of one or the other nymph are known. One version was made for Lord Charles Townsend, and Nymph going to the bath is recorded to have been in the collection of Henry Roberston Sandbach (d. 1895), a West Indian merchant of Liverpool and important patron of Wyatt, Gibson and their circle in Rome (today in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). See another sold Sotheby’s, London, 6 December 2011, lot 92 (£32,450). Another example of the present composition, Nymph coming out of the bath, sold Christie’s, Wrotham Park, 2 October 1990, lot 206.