Details of Sculptor

Surname

Sarti

Alternative Surname

First Name

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1822-51

Year of Death

Biographical Details

There are numerous references to works by plaster modellers of this name, who were presumably members of the same family. At Joseph Nollekens’s sale of 4-5 July 1823, a ‘Sarti’ bought a number of casts and terracottas after the antique, as well as figures by Michael Rysbrack and Nollekens. Sarti took a mould of the ‘antique dog’, then owned by Noel Jennings and now in the British Museum.
In 1826 a ‘Sarti’ received a payment of 10s for unspecified work for John Flaxman RA (Flaxman Papers BL Ad MS 39791, fol 135-42). Flaxman produced an undated pencil drawing inscribed ‘Portrait of Sarti’, which shows a young man with a naked muscular torso. J T Smith records that Sarti had a business in Greek Street in 1828, and that he offered for sale 52 varieties of Fiamingo’s children.
An ‘Angelo Sarti’ of Dean Street, a one-time employee of Sir Richard Westmacott, was employed by the British Museum in 1835 as its first official formatore (Jenkins 1992, 34, 36). His first task was to mould a new set of casts from the Elgin marbles. Sarti’s business was apparently taken over by James Loft, though another account suggests that William Scoular ‘purchased the business of Sarti, a well-known Italian figure-maker’ (Redgrave 1878, 384).
A ‘P Sarti’ of Dean Street signed a number of busts at Wimpole (3), and the same man (described as a ‘modeller’) received a payment from the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1835 (1). He is also responsible for at least one work in marble (2).
The will of Antonio Sarti of Spur Sreet, Leicester Square, ‘modellist’ was proved on 12 February 1851. He appointed Samuel Wells of Kew and Selina Isabella Sarti as his executors. The latter had ‘for many years’ had ‘the management of my business’ at the same address. Sarti described himself as a ‘subject of the Grand Dukedom of Florence’ and left property in London and Tuscany. This included ‘anatomical and other models, plates and prints and specimens of considerable value’, which were to be sold or used in the meantime for profit. His estate was to be divided in thirds between his wife, Susan and Selina Isabella Sarti, and a child who was living in Florence under the care of Sarti’s sister, Carolina (PROB 11/2128/156).
Literary References: Jenkins 1992, 34, 36 Clifford 1992, 62-3
Archival References: GPC