Bust of Caroline of Ansbach, Queen of England (1683-1737)

Entry

John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770) spent his apprenticeship in his native city of Antwerp, with the celebrated sculptor Michiel van der Voort (1667-1737).³ In 1720 he left for good, going to England, where his exceptional talent was recognized almost immediately. There, he succeeded in securing many important assignments for busts, monuments, mantelpieces and statues. The lifelikeness of his portrait busts was widely admired and he soon became the most sought-after portraitist of his day. Thanks to surviving letters to his patrons and to notebooks of the chronicler of artists, George Vertue (1684-1756), who wrote extensively about Rysbrack, a great many details are known about his work and life.

Caroline of Ansbach (1683-1737), the consort of the English King George II, was a great patroness of the arts and an avid book-collector.⁴ Around 1735 she decided to build a new library at St James’ Palace for her vast book collection to be designed by the well-known British architect William Kent. She commissioned her favourite sculptor, John Michael Rysbrack, to make ‘Bustos in Marble of all the Kings of England from William the Conqueror’,⁵ which, according to Kent’s design drawing would stand in recesses above the bookcases.⁶ If this dynastic series had been completed in full, it would have been the most extensive sculpture commission from the British royal family of the first half of the eighteenth century.⁷ However, Caroline’s unexpected death thwarted its completion. She had become ill when visiting her as yet not fully equipped library and died shortly after on 20 November 1737.⁸ In January 1738 Rysbrack was paid for his work and he complied with the request to send ‘the modellos of the faces you [Rysbrack] made for working after’ to King George II, who had them erected belatedly in Caroline’s library, as a tribute to his deceased wife.⁹ That year Rysbrack sculpted another set of terracotta busts of the king and his late wife in accordance with the formula of the earlier portraits in the series. They were probably part of Caroline’s original commission. In his notebook for that year George Vertue recorded: ‘the KING … sat to [Rysbrack] at Kensington twice. to have his picture modelled in Clay. the likeness much approvd on – and with good Air. – also a Moddel of the Queen vastly like. Tho’ not done from the life.’¹⁰ The vitality of Caroline’s posthumous portrait, which today is housed in the Rijksmuseum, is indeed striking. Apart from on his own recollection – Rysbrack had met the queen during her life – he probably based the work on existing portraits, such as the profile portrait dating from around 1735 by the artist Joseph Highmore. This painting depicts the queen in exactly the same robes of state, with strings of pearls threaded through her hair and a high jewelled diadem.¹¹

In 1739 Vertue noted that ‘two Marble Bustos the one of his present Majesty from a Model done from the life Mr Rysbrack – and another busto of her late Majesty Q. Caroline both were erected in the new library in St. James Green Park’.¹² These two marble busts after the terracotta models of 1738, are still kept in the Royal Collection.¹³ They are signed but not dated. A drawing made around 1815 and a watercolour of 1819 (fig. a) give an impression of the way the busts were arranged in the library.¹⁴ The marble portrait busts of the royal couple stood facing each other in recesses above the mantelpieces at either end of the large, rectangular room. The terracotta busts of their royal predecessors were not placed in recesses as planned by Kent, but on high brackets above the bookcases at the side walls. Unfortunately, the drawing and the watercolour do not depict the entire space, so we cannot tell how many busts made up the series (at that time). In 1825 the Queen’s Library was pulled down and the busts were moved to the Orangery of Windsor Castle.

Only three portrait busts remain of the former sovereigns, i.e. Queen Elizabeth I, Edward the Black Prince and King Edward VI.¹⁵ There were at least eleven, but in 1906 eight of the terracottas were destroyed when a shelf on which they were being kept at that time collapsed. Thanks to a series of photos taken of the busts round 1874, they are known to have featured King Edward III and his wife Queen Philippa of Hainault, King Henry V and his wife Catherine of Valois, King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, King Alfred, and Henry, Prince of Wales.¹⁶ Bearing in mind what was an illogical (because uneven) number considering the symmetrical arrangement of the space, it is perhaps worth mentioning that, according to Vertue, Rysbrack had embarked on a portrait of King James I in 1734-35. When visiting Rysbrack’s workshop, the queen had said: ‘It reminds me of an executioner. I won’t have it done’.¹⁷ However, it is not impossible that Rysbrack did realize the bust of James I, but in an adapted form, and that it was lost before the photos were taken. It is also possible that by that time even more busts had come to grief, or that, when Caroline died, Rysbrack had not yet got around to making certain busts and that the assignment for them was then cancelled.¹⁸

It is very likely that the Amsterdam terracotta had belonged to Caroline’s eldest daughter, Anna van Hannover (1709-1759), who married the Dutch stadholder Willem IV in 1734. In an inventory dating from 1764 of the contents of the Stadhouderlijk Hof in Leeuwarden where she was living, mention is made of ‘A modelled stone bust of the queen of England, consort of George II’.¹⁹ Anne’s papers in the Royal Archives in The Hague show that Caroline’s death was deeply felt, and perhaps she acquired the bust directly from the artist as a memento.²⁰ Anne would certainly have been aware of Rysbrack’s work, having accompanied her mother on various visits to meet artists and to view art works. The bust was displayed in an usual setting in the Stadhouderlijk Hof: a small cabinet entirely decorated with panels of Chinese lacquer.²¹ This oriental panelling was transferred to the Rijksmuseum in 1881 (BK-16709). A year later, the Queen Caroline’s portrait was transferred to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst in The Hague, and in 1887 to the Rijksmuseum, where it was regarded as a portrait of Anna van Hannover.²² Apparently the true identity of the subject had been forgotten by then.

The 1738 terracotta model of the bust of George II and a second version Rysbrack made in 1739 as a copy after the portrait of Caroline remained in the artist’s possession until his death in 1760. In 1767 they featured in the sale of his estate,²³ where they most probably were purchased by Sir Edward Littleton, a former patron of Rysbrack’s and a great admirer of his work.²⁴ In the end, they were acquired in 1932 by Queen Mary from Lord Hatherton, a descendant of Littleton’s, thus ending up in the Royal Collection.²⁵ Clearly the date of the Rijksmuseum version (1738) was not widely known and the 1739 terracotta portrait of Caroline in the Royal Collection has so far often been entered, erroneously, as the first version.²⁶

The fact that Rysbrack was allowed to keep these models is a strong indication that George II gave him permission to make replicas of the busts.²⁷ At all events, in The Wallace Collection (London) has a second example in marble of Caroline’s bust (h. 68.6 cm)²⁸ and in 2017 a second marble version of George II’s bust (h. 63 cm) was sold.²⁹ Both busts are signed, but undated, and were probably pendants. Around 1758-60 Rysbrack made a variant of the bust of George II, in which the king’s features were adjusted to his, by then, highly advanced age.³⁰

Bieke van der Mark, 2025