Details of Sculptor

Surname

Sederbach

Alternative Surname

First Name

Victor Alexander

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1755-56

Year of Death

Biographical Details

He was a modeller in terracotta. John Talbot wrote to his architect, Sanderson Miller, in January 1756 about his improvements to Laycock Abbey: ‘The Foreigner who has been here ever since May has executed his Performance in a very Workmanlike manner and your Niches are filled by a set of Inhabitants worthy such Repositories. I presume you are acquainted with the method of making Models for Statues. He proceeds on the same principles, only Bakes them afterwards, by which means they become of a Red Colour and ring like a Garden Pot … I fancy Lord Shelburn will employ him on his arrival at London, where he goes next week; however, as so many of your friends are Connoisseurs, I would advise them seeing his Performances, which are both Easy and not Expensive. His name is sonorous, no less than Victor Alexander Sederbach and yet lodges at one King’s a grocer in Green Street, near Castle Street, Leicester Fields. I am sorry he did not show all his Performances to the Gentleman you sent a note by, but on asking the Reason, was told that someone the day before had Broke a Figure, which made him extremely Captious’ (Letters to Sanderson Miller, 308).
The busts at Laycock are mounted on brackets and the figures are set off by canopied quatrefoil niches (1). The subjects are obscure, though Britton believed them to be ‘allusive to the history of the monastery’ (Britton 1801-1815, 3, 242). They include a half-length bust of Death with arms outstretched. Pevsner published photographs of the works, which he felt to be German or Austrian in style, in the hope that the sculptor of these ‘weird saints and this bust of ferocious death’ would be the subject of future research (Pevsner 1958, 334). The last record of Sederbach is a note in the Miller letters of 1757 recording that Sederbach had an offer of work in Holland.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 347; Pevsner 1958, 332-4