Details of Sculptor

Surname

Lochee

Alternative Surname

First Name

John Charles

Initial of Surname

L

Year of Birth/Baptism

1751

Flourished

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Born on 4 November, 1751, he joined the Royal Academy Schools on 27 October 1772, giving his name as Joannes Carolus Lochees, though he anglicized it soon after. His birthplace and place of training have not been established. In 1772 he was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Academy. The lists do not record the subject of the work (56), but it came in the category ‘academy figure or a bas-relief’.
Lochée began working for Wedgwood before March 1774 and did not initially impress his employers. On 24 March Josiah Wedgwood II wrote to his father ‘now you are in London it would be very kind if you would give Mr Lochée a lecture on modelling and making moulds – you know how he undercuts – and his moulds are in general very bad, sometimes they appear to have had waxes taken out of them – and I believe always they are very full of pin holes’ (quoted in Bindman 1979, 68). By September, however, Wedgwood senior was proposing to Thomas Bentley that Lochée should be employed on the series of Heads of Eminent Men, or possibly on ‘repairing busts and figures ... of this kind we have and shall have enough to employ him constantly’ (quoted in Hodgkinson 1969, 152-3).
The experience of commercial modelling may have sharpened Lochée’s skills for in 1775, when his address was Poland Street, Oxford Road, he won a premium from the Society of Arts for a ‘Model of an Infant Representing Statuary’(1) (RSA Transactions, vol 2, 1784, 126). The next year he exhibited two busts at the Royal Academy (2, 3).
It was not until 1785 that Lochée showed again at the Academy, from 11 Rupert Street. Royal favour followed: in 1787 Lochée presented a bill to the Prince of Wales for a wax portrait and a cameo (22, 44), a bust of William Henry, Duke of Clarence (8), and models for portraits of several other princes (61). Lochée’s tradecards, which survive in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, affixed to the reverse of wax portraits, advertise his status as a royal sculptor. One describes him as ‘Portrait modeller to Prince William Henry,’ and another as ‘Lochée, No 11 Rupert Street Haymarket, Portrait modeller to their Royal Highnesses Prince William Henry, Prince Edward, Prince Ernest Augustus and Prince Augustus Frederick’ (quoted in Hodgkinson 1969, 152).
In 1787 Lochée was again employed by Wedgwood to model a large number of modern worthies for medallions. These included Dr Denman ‘the famous midwife’ and Mr Dennis O’Kelly ‘famous on the turf’ (Wedgwood Archives quoted in Gunnis 1968, 241). Lochée also appears to have re-used his portraits of the royal princes for the series (20, 28, 61).
Two of the medallions, those of William Pitt and Count Pinto, the Portuguese ambassador, are discussed in letters in the Wedgwood Archives (32, 35). The prime minister’s secretary wrote to Wedgwood on 16 November 1787 to ask ‘what time it would be convenient for Mr Lochée to call in Downing Street’ (Wedgwood/Lochée L1/25, Joseph Smith to Wedgwood, 16 Nov 1787). Lochée himself refers to the portrait of the Count in a letter dated 3 December, directed to ‘Mr Boyle at Mr Wedgwood’s’ (Wedgwood/Lochée L1/27, Lochee to Mr Boyle, 3 Dec 1787). Lochée’s difficulties with the English language point to the sculptor's foreign origins: ‘I forgot to mention in my lettre’ he says, ‘that I have been to the portugaiso embessador this morning wich is know wiser satisfied with the Likeness, but dont like to have it dress to much in the fashion so have been oblige to altered the hair.’
He was employed to model plaques from the gems at Stowe, where he also modelled portraits of the Marquis and Marchioness of Buckingham (23, 26). A letter from Charles Peart written on 26 March, 1788 to Byerley, Wedgwood’s agent, tells him that ‘Mr Waldin the artist at Stowe wishes me to inform you that Mr Lochée last November applied to him from Mr Wedgwood for the portrait of the Marquis of Buckingham which Mr W obtained and gave Mr Lochée every assistance possible and gave him also the Marquis’s mask in Plaister’ (Wedgwood/Lochée L1/58, Peart to Byerley, 26 March 1788).
Lochee also provided the models for 10 cameos produced in paste by James Tassie. These are listed in R E Raspe’s descriptive catalogue of Tassie’s works, published in 1791. They include several subjects that Lochee had previously modelled for Wedgwood, including Count O’Kelly, Mrs Barwell, and the Princess de Lamballe (15, 38, 40).
His abilities extended beyond small-scale wax portraiture. Between 1788 and 1790 he exhibited six busts at the Royal Academy. In 1787 he carved a marble portrait of the Duke of York and Albany, with ermine, sash and lace cravat (5). This was the subject in two contemporary prints, a medium that Lochée also utilised to publicise his bust of the Duke of Clarence in 1788 (8). His bust of Sir William Herschel, commissioned by Sir William Watson and taken from a plaster life-mask, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1788 (9), and the bust of the playwright R B Sheridan, 1790 (14), was engraved in 1794. Busts of Sheridan, thought to be by the sculptor, are in the royal collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Harrow School and Pittsburgh Museum of Art.
In 1789 Lochée was awarded a silver medallion by the Society of Arts for his bust of George, Prince of Wales (11). This was engraved by Sharp as the frontispiece for volume 10 of the Society’s Transactions in 1792, and shows the prince in cravat and full wig, his torso decorated with star and medal. Curiously the extant marble version lacks some of these embellishments and, as it is inscribed ‘Logee’, it is possible that this is a later copy.
Despite these apparent successes Lochée was declared bankrupt in March 1791 (Univ Mag 1791, 238). There appear to be no further records of his artistic activities in England.
MGS
Literary References: RSA, Transactions, vol 2, 1784, 126; vol 8, 1790, 231; vol 10, 1792, frontispiece; Graves V, 1905-6, 79; Gunnis 1968, 241; Hodgkinson 1969, 152-160; Pyke 1973, 80-1; Bindman 1979, 68; Pyke 1981, 25-6
Archival References: RA premium list; Wedgwood/Locheé