Details of Sculptor

Surname

Sartini

Alternative Surname

First Name

Anthony

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1785-99

Year of Death

Biographical Details

His tradecard of 1785, decorated with an urn and an angel holding a trumpet, carries the information on an oval medallion ‘Sartini Figure maker/ No 34/ New Compton Street/ St Giles’ (BM Banks, 106.26). He is described in the Universal British Directory,1790-1, 1, 278 as Anthony Sartini ‘Paris Figure-Maker, 34 New Compton Street’ (Clifford 1992, 62).
He appears to be the ‘Mr Sartine’ who was working for Charles Horwell as a modeller in 1787. After modelling a figure for Horwell, apparently for a Vulliamy clock, he was taken on by Joseph Lygo and William Duesbery as a figure-modeller for the Derby porcelain works. He was paid ‘cash in full for moulding 2 figures £3 13 6’ on 15 March 1790; for ‘moulding a figure £1 2 6’ in June 1790; and received ‘cash in full for plaister figs £2 6s’ on 24 September 1790. The relationship appears to have turned sour five years later when Lygo wrote to Duesbery: ‘I have been with Mr Sartine about the plaister casts and he is sorry the price does not meet your approbation as it is the same he charges to all the artists but rather then they should come back he will take two guineas for them but not one farthing less’ (Bricknell 1995, 31, 33, 40, 83).
One of the ‘artists’ for whom the modeller worked was John Flaxman RA, who recorded regular payments to ‘Sartini’ made between 1796 and 1799 for plaster moulding. The first was a payment for ‘Moulding, casting etc £10 6s 6d’ (Flaxman Papers BL Ad MS 39791, fols 135-42).
Literary References: Clifford 1992, 62-3 Bricknell 1995, passim