Details of Sculptor

Surname

MacDonald

Alternative Surname

First Name

Lawrence

Initial of Surname

M

Year of Birth/Baptism

1799

Flourished

Year of Death

1878

Biographical Details

A Scottish neoclassical sculptor, MacDonald spent most of his working life in Rome. He was born at Bonnyview, Findo-Gask, Perthshire, on 15 February 1799, the son of Alexander MacDonald and Margaret, née Morison. His father was an impoverished, half-blind violinist, his mother a nurse. MacDonald was schooled in Gask and apprenticed to a local mason, Thomas Gibson. An early commission was for carved decorative work for Robert Graeme of Garvock House (195). P R Drummond, a local historian, met MacDonald in 1816 and subsequently wrote a long memoir of the sculptor. His impression was that the young man was ‘naturally somewhat impassioned and self-asserting’ (Drummond 1879, 112).
MacDonald went to Edinburgh in 1822 and enrolled at the Trustees’ Academy. Whilst studying he also worked for the architect James Gillespie Graham as a decorative carver. That winter he left Scotland for France in the company of the Oliphant family of Gask. MacDonald and the young laird of Oliphant continued on to Rome, where MacDonald set up a studio in the Corso. He stayed for three years, becoming an early member of the British Academy of Arts in Rome (founded 1821) and attracting the patronage of Scottish visitors, such as the Duke of Atholl and Sir Evan McGregor (45, 47). Scottish tourists apparently regarded the commissioning of a bust by MacDonald as ‘an indispensable corollary to a short stay in the city’ (Drummond 1879, 116).
He returned to Edinburgh in 1826 and exhibited a number of works at the Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland (later to become the Scottish Academy). His exhibits included several busts of notable patrons and friends, and the statue of a Boy slinging, carved in Rome in 1823 (4). In 1827 he succeeded Samuel Joseph as the most influential sculptor involved in the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. MacDonald carved a bust all’antica of its founder, George Combe (64), who acknowledged a great debt to Macdonald for directing his quasi-scientific studies towards the philosophy of art. MacDonald received his own phrenological analysis and Combe subsequently drew comparisons between the sculptor’s cranial development and that of Raphael.
Many of Edinburgh’s leading scientific and literary figures were absorbed with cranio-psychology, and MacDonald’s connections with this group no doubt encouraged the Edinburgh journals to give him enthusiastic notices. In 1829, when Macdonald held a special exhibition of his Ajax and Patroclus (6), an engraving of the work featured on the front page of the Scotsman. When Charles Maclaren, the newspaper's editor, fought a duel with the editor of the Caledonian Mercury, Macdonald acted as his second. Their dispute was partly occasioned by a heated response in the Scotsman to criticism of MacDonald’s work in the Caledonian Mercury. Macdonald made his own contribution to the world of letters with a couple of competent poems, published in Edinburgh journals.
In 1830 he held another special exhibition of ideal statuary and portraits at 70 Princes Street, which led the Edinburgh Literary Journal to compare him to Canova. This was followed by yet another special exhibition the following year in Pall Mall, London, again featuring busts and ideal subjects. This received favourable reviews in the New Monthly Magazine and the Literary Gazette: the Gazette opined that MacDonald ‘promises to be – or, rather, he already is – one of the most distinguished ornaments of the British school of sculpture’ and that his busts ‘are full of character; and are executed in a most bold and masterly manner’ (Lit Gaz 1831, 187). In spite of his high reputation in Edinburgh and London, MacDonald returned to Rome in September 1832, where he worked for the rest of his career. His journey appears to have been supported by a subscription fund organised by George Combe. Drummond later expressed his opinion that the sculptor’s departure was dictated by the Scottish preference for less elevated works of popular literary subjects, particularly by James Thom and John Greenshields. In Scotland at this time a sculptor with MacDonald’s ambition would certainly have found it difficult to procure either the patronage or the necessary workshop assistance to conduct a career founded exclusively on ideal works.
In Rome, where skilled labour and marble were cheaper, MacDonald met a steady stream of touring patrons for his classicising portrait busts. With these works he hoped to extend his connections and find patrons for ideal sculpture. This policy had some success, for Macdonald executed several ideal subjects for patrons who also commissioned busts. These included a statue for Viscount Powerscourt of Eurydice stung by a viper, a disrobing female attempting to fend off the attentions of a thin snake coiled around her ankle (17). MacDonald also carved a statue of a young girl attaching a letter to the leg of a small bird for John Marshall (16) .
In 1844 Bertel Thorvaldsen died and Lawrence took over his studio in the Palazzo Barberini. His brother, John MacDonald, worked as an assistant. Lawrence sent work regularly to the Academy exhibitions in Edinburgh and London and maintained a clientele among the ever-increasing numbers of well-heeled British visitors to Rome. Apparently he was a man of tireless energy, often to be seen taking his coffee at 5.30am. He is known to have turned out nearly 100 busts in the years before his death, most of them classical in style. The female sitters are often robed in shifts and have hair plaited in a bun on the crown of the head, sometimes with ringlets falling onto their shoulders. In 1850 Macdonald carved the statue of Emily, Countess of Winchelsea and Nottingham (1), regarded by Gunnis and Greenwood as his most successful work. She is a classically dressed, elegant figure reclining on a day-bed, perusing a manuscript. When Macdonald visited Scotland in 1853 Drummond recalled that the sculptor moved with the air of a rich and successful man, his fingers ‘bedizened with gems, the gifts of his admirers’ (Drummond 1879, 126).
MacDonald’s work was not admired universally. In 1854 a writer signing himself ‘Fiorentia’ visited his studio during his tour of the Roman workshops and compared the ‘insipid’ works of MacDonald unfavourably with those of John Gibson. Fiorentia noted that the studio contained images principally of ‘the peerage done into marble, a plaster galaxy of rank and fashion’ in which a ‘potent family likeness’ pervaded all. He found ‘no flights of genius, no rude bones or vulgar sinews, but nature toned down to suit the fastidious notions of sickly countesses’. Even the handful of statues had an ‘abominably genteel ball-room look’. The writer concluded: ‘had Macdonald devoted himself to ideal works he might probably have achieved a very fair success, although by no means commensurate with the reputation with which that stupid flock of sheep, English [sic] tourists, have endowed him’ (AJ 1854, 351-2).
In 1867 MacDonald was made an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1872 the Prince and Princess of Wales visited his studio in Rome. He seems in later years to have become a favourite sculptor of American visitors to the Eternal City. On 4 March 1878 he died and the Art Journal reported that ‘A large number of American artists and other gentlemen attended the funeral of the deceased sculptor at the cemetery near the Porta San Paolo.’ The marble medallion portrait on his tombstone in the Protestant cemetery was carved by his son, Alexander MacDonald, who was born in Rome in 1847 and assisted his father before pursuing his own successful career as a sculptor.
A year after his death Drummond wrote that MacDonald had left ‘a world of uninterrupted successes’ (Drummond 1879, 126). This verdict appears to be close to the truth. MacDonald enjoyed a good reputation with fellow Scots, who held him in high esteem, both before and after his permanent immigration to Rome. He continually offered assistance to young Scottish sculptors such as Patric Park, John Hutchison (1833-1910), who modelled his bust, and William Brodie. In addition he won the regard of English, Italian and American patrons. Although Gunnis was inclined to agree with Fiorentia, and felt that MacDonald flattered his sitters until they appeared ‘too noble, too handsome and too distinguished to be true’ (Gunnis 1968, 248-9), more recent writers have concentrated on the reasons for MacDonald’s success. Greenwood has drawn attention to the careful execution, idealised form and high finish of the works, which are characteristic of the late neoclassical movement and reflect a move from severity to ‘measured elegance’ (Grove 1996, 878).
MGS
Literary References: Lit Gaz 1831, 187; Passavant 1836, vol 2, 283-4; Le Grice 1844, I, 77-82; II, 201-17; AJ 1854, 350-55; Builder 1866, 92; AJ 1878, 136; Drummond 1879, 109-126; Gunnis 1968, 248-9; Pearson 1981, 14-23; Busiri Vici 1981, 96-100; Read 1982, 132-3, 171, 199; Pearson 1991, 65-71 (Smailes); Grove 1996, 878 (Greenwood); ODNB (Greenwood); JKB 2006, 180
Archival References: GPC; Letter from W Somerville to Charles Babbage, 29 April 1842, BL, Ad MS 37192, vol 11, 1812-1843, f71
Portraits of the sculptor: John Hutchison, marble bust, 1860, Royal Scottish Academy (repr ODNB); Alexander MacDonald, marble bust, 1870–1878, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome; Alexander Macdonald, marble medallion on tombstone, 1878, Protestant cemetery, Rome