Lot 282: Hiram Powers (American, 1805-1873): A carved white marble bust of Thomas Henry Sutton Sotheron-Estcourt M.P. (1801-76)

executed Florence circa 1863 and signed to the reverse H POWERS Sculp, raised on a turned socle, 76cm high

Footnotes

• Thomas Henry Sutton Sotheron-Estcourt PC DL JP (1801-1876), known as Thomas Bucknall-Estcourt until 1839 and as Thomas Sotheron from 1839 to 1855, was a British Conservative politician. The eldest son of Thomas Grimston Estcourt, MP for Devizes he was educated at Harrow and Oriel College, Oxford.
  
  Estcourt was elected as MP for Marlborough in 1829 and then again in 1835 as MP for Devizes. He then switched to North Wiltshire in 1844, and continued in the Commons until 1865. Sotheron resumed the name Estcourt in 1855, and entered Lord Derby's second government in 1858 as President of the Poor Law Board. The next year, he became Home Secretary,
  
  Sotheron-Estcourt married Lucy Sarah, daughter of Admiral Frank Sotheron, in 1830. In 1839 he assumed by Royal licence the surname of Sotheron in lieu of his patronymic in order to inherit his father-in-law's property. However, in 1853 he resumed by Royal licence the surname of Estcourt in addition to that of Sotheron. He retired from public life in 1863 after a paralytic seizure and died in 1876, aged 74.
  
  Arguably one of the greatest American sculptors of the 19th century, Hiram Powers first achieved international recognition for his near life-size figure of 'The Greek Slave' in 1844. It became one of the most famous Orientalist works of art in the world and was taken on a tour of America in the late 1840's, as well as holding pride of place in the United States contribution to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.
  
  Powers was a Swedenborgian or 'New Churchman' believing that 'the legitimate aim of art should be spiritual and not animal' and that 'the natural body was merely a veil over the soul and spiritual body'. This belief inspired him to create 'ideal' sculpture representing an archetypal beauty. However he also produced a number of portrait busts whilst working in Italy.