Details of Sculptor

Surname

Gosset

Alternative Surname

First Name

Isaac

Initial of Surname

G

Year of Birth/Baptism

1713

Flourished

Year of Death

1799

Biographical Details

One of the most successful wax-modellers of the 18th century, Gosset was born on 3 May 1713, the son of Jean Gosset and Susanne D’Allain. He was descended from a family of Normandy Huguenots who had fled to Jersey at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and later settled in London. Vertue says that Gosset was brought up by his uncle, Matthew Gosset, in a house in Berwick Street, and he is thought to have trained the young man in carving and modelling. Isaac married Françoise Buisset on 17 December 1737. The first of their five children was born in 1743.
Gosset worked initially with his brother Gideon as a frame-carver, a business he continued to practice intermittently throughout his career. In 1774, presumably in this capacity, he was appointed ‘Joyner of his Majesty’s Privy Chamber’. He worked for many of the most notable painters of the day, including William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough and Allan Ramsay.
By the 1740s Gosset had begun to gain a reputation as a wax modeller and was producing profiles ad vivum of notable sitters including members of the Stanhope and Murray families (1, 2). In 1752 Vertue commented that the ‘Ingenious’ Gosset (a complimentary term repeated in his obituary) had popularised the art, as his skill ‘has been so universally approvd on for likeness’ (Vertue III, 160). By this date Gosset had already modelled the profiles of several members of the Royal Family (10-13) and other ‘people of quality, learned men etc’ (Vertue III, 160).
Gosset’s working practice was to carve the portrait and then produce moulds from which he cast copies in a white or honey-coloured wax composition. The composition was thought by the Gentleman’s Magazine to have been invented by Gosset himself and an advertisement for the sculptor’s commemorative wax of General James Wolfe (32) suggests that the colour and texture were intended to be ‘in imitation of ivory’ (Whitley 1928, 2, 246-7). In 1752 Vertue recorded that the original models were offered at 4 guineas each and the copies at 1 guinea, and that they were ‘sold all over the town and country’ (Vertue, III, 160). By the 1760s, Gosset was sufficiently in demand to increase the price of the copies to £1 10s 6d.
His work was valued and utilised by his artistic peers. Anne Seymour Damer worked initially in wax, in imitation of Gosset. Louis François Roubiliac was sent Gosset’s wax portrait of Thomas Winnington by relatives of the deceased who wanted a good likeness for a bust monument (9). In 1772 Gosset, who had modelled the subject, gave Richard Hayward advice on the physiognomy of Baron de Botetourt, for a statue at the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg, Virginia (38). A merchant from Virginia, John Norton, who was acting for the House in London, sent 4 copies of the wax portrait to notables of the House in 1772. Since they were small and relatively cheap, Gosset’s works were used as gifts on other occasions, for instance by Thomas Hollis, who donated 13 portraits to the University of Leiden (16-25). These works show Gosset’s skill in historical portraiture: Hollis, who was a noted Whig, chose to commission a series of British worthies who embodied his own commitment to civil and religious liberties.
Gosset showed at the Society of Artists, 1760-78. He was awarded a special exhibition by that Society in 1768, and became a director in 1772. He also exhibited at the Free Society in 1761, but appears not to have exhibited at the Royal Academy. Several of his models were adapted for reproduction by Wedgwood, including Princess Augusta (121), Frederick, Prince of Wales (10), William, Duke of Cumberland (13), George III, and Queen Charlotte (126). James Tassie reproduced Gosset’s portrait of Professor Francis Hutcheson (124) in enamel paste.
He died in December 1799 at his home in Edward Street, Portman Square, where he had lived since 1774. He bequeathed £4,000 to his son, the Reverend Isaac Gosset, who was also made his sole executor and residuary legatee. His daughter, Elizabeth Ann, was granted an annuity and gifts of money were made to three French charities in London, including the French Hospital in Old Street, where Gosset had once been a director.
In its obituary, the Gentleman’s Magazine commented that Gosset modelled portraits ‘in the most exquisite manner’ and was ‘one of those ingenious men, so rarely met with, who are at the same time equally amiable and inoffensive’ (GM vol 69, 1799, 1088). During his lifetime his work was admired by royalty and the nobility, and was noted and recommended by Vertue, Mrs Delany, Horace Walpole and the philosopher and historian David Hume.
Gosset’s reputation remained high throughout the 19th century, and his works were bought, amongst others, by the writer and collector, Peter Cunningham. More recently, Gunnis, who was a keen collector of waxes, described Gosset as ‘one of the best of the eighteenth-century wax-modellers’. Yet, apart from a family memoir, there is still no full-length notice of this very successful sculptor, whose skilful work in a cheap material forms an interesting case study in 18th-century aesthetics and commercial innovation.
MGS
Literary References: HWC, vol 12, 271; N&Q, vol 11, Jan 27 1855, 66; vol 6, 3rd series, Dec 24 1864, 516; Gosset 1888-91, 540-68; DNB; Graves 1907, 103-4; Norton 1937, 225-6, 245, 264-7; Gunnis 1968, 175-6; Pyke 1973, 56-58; Pyke 1981, 18-9; Murdoch and Hebditch 1985, 313-17; Simon 1994, 444-55; Strien 2000, 4-34
Portraits of the Sculptor: anon (?Jean Etienne Liotard), c1772, pastel, private coll, Murdoch and Hebditch 1985, 215, repr
Will: PROB 11/1334/46-7