Lot 364: WORKSHOP OF JOSEPH NOLLEKENS (1737-1823), ENGLISH, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

WORKSHOP OF JOSEPH NOLLEKENS (1737-1823), ENGLISH, EARLY 19TH CENTURY A WHITE MARBLE BUST OF LORD GEORGE AUGUSTUS HENRY CAVENDISH, 1ST EARL OF BURLINGTON (OF THE SECOND CREATION) (1754-1834) wearing a loose mantle, inscribed in pencil, F. Faulkes on the back 68cm., 26¾in.

Devonshire House Inventory, 1892, possibly p. 37, in the South Sitting Room 'Bust of Cavendish'
Simon Upton, 'The World of Interiors', Private Chatsworth, October 2001, p. 248

This is one of two marble busts of the sitter. The other version remains in the Devonshire Collection. One may have been created for the sitter, the other for his brother the 5th Duke of Devonshire. George, 1st Earl of Burlington was the younger son of William, 4th Duke of Devonshire, and his wife Lady Charlotte Boyle. He married in 1782 Lady Elizabeth Compton, daughter of the Earl of Northampton and his wife Lady Ann Somerset. It is through this connection that Compton Place, where he and his wife lived in Sussex, passed into the Cavendish family. Lord George inherited the very considerable fortune of Henry Cavendish the scientist in 1810. By that time, because of the accumlated interest, it amounted to £1,750,000, making Lord George one of the richest men in England. It was this that enabled him to purchase Burlington House in 1815, which he acquired from his cousin the 6th Duke. Lord George was enobled at the coronation of William IV in 1832 taking his maternal family title as The Earl of Burlington (of the second creation). His elder son William predeceased him so the title passed to his grandson William who in turn became 7th Duke of Devonshire in 1858.