Details of Sculptor

Surname

MacDowell

Alternative Surname

First Name

Patrick RA

Initial of Surname

M

Year of Birth/Baptism

1799

Flourished

Year of Death

1870

Biographical Details

MacDowell was a largely self-taught sculptor of Irish origins who worked throughout his career in London and is best known for his poetic female figures. He was born in Belfast on 12 August 1799. MacDowell described his father as a tradesman who lost his livelihood when he sold his business and properties to invest in an unsuccessful commercial venture. He died soon after, when Patrick was still very young, leaving his widow ‘in possession of little more than the house she lived in’ (AJ, 1850, 8). In 1807 MacDowell was sent to a boarding school in Belfast run by an engraver called Gordon, who encouraged his early interest in drawing, allowing him to study his collection of prints. His mother brought him to England in 1811 and during the next two years he continued his education with a clergyman in Hampshire, before being apprenticed to a coach builder in London. This craft had little appeal for him, but MacDowell was not allowed to pursue his interest in art since his family considered it too precarious a way of making a living.
His opportunity for a more congenial career came after he had served four and a half years of his apprenticeship, when his master became bankrupt. MacDowell took lodgings in the house of Peter Francis Chenu in Charles Street, Mayfair and there he made sketches from Chenu’s collection of casts. The coach builder then decided to move to Ireland and tried to pressurise MacDowell into leaving with him. MacDowell refused and finally succeeded in having his indentures cancelled. After leaving Chenu’s house he continued to draw and model the human figure and eventually executed a small figure of Venus holding a mirror (10). MacDowell showed this work to Chenu, who was so delighted with it that he bought it. Chenu’s encouragement spurred him to further efforts and he continued to model small figures, some of which he was able to sell.
In 1822 MacDowell exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy (42). By 1826 he had set up a studio at 57 Seymour Street, near Euston Square, and submitted a design in the competition for a public statue commemorating the naval officer and political reformer John Cartwright (11). MacDowell’s model was selected but he did not execute the work because the subscription failed to raise sufficient funds. A statue from MacDowell’s model was produced by George Clarke of Birmingham, who agreed to carry out the work for the sum which had been raised, but became bankrupt soon after. The Cartwright family were much taken with MacDowell’s work and gave him patronage. MacDowell later wrote, ‘I can never forget the great kindness of that benevolent and amiable family, who were unwearied in their efforts to serve me in my profession at a time in my life when their kindness was most useful to me’ (AJ, 1851, 8). In 1830 he entered the Royal Academy Schools on the recommendation of John Constable.
When not occupied with portrait commissions, MacDowell turned to ideal subjects. His first attempt, a small group, The loves of the angels (12), was inspired by a poem by a fellow Irishman, Thomas Moore, was followed by a subject from Ovid, Cephalus and Procris (14), which was commissioned in marble by E S Cooper, the MP for Sligo. His Girl reading (15), a charming, sentimental genre work, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837, attracted considerable attention and made his name. MacDowell later recalled that Sir Francis Chantrey was impressed by the work and ensured that it was prominently displayed in the exhibition. After seeing it, Sir James Emmerson Tennent, a Belfast politician and writer, commissioned busts of himself and his wife (61, 96) and introduced MacDowell to Sir Thomas Wentworth Beaumont. Beaumont, a wealthy politician and art collector, became MacDowell’s most important patron. He commissioned several major new ideal works (16-19, 25), as well as a marble version of Girl reading. (It was probably this version which appeared in the RA exhibition of 1868). In return, MacDowell agreed not to accept outside commissions over the next three years without first consulting Beaumont. He carved another marble version of Girl reading for Sir Francis Egerton, later the Earl of Ellesmere, with Beaumont’s permission. Around this time MacDowell moved to a new studio at 75 Margaret Street, Westminster, where he remained for the rest of his life.
He continued to prosper during the 1840s and 1850s. In 1841 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. He then travelled, at Beaumont’s expense, to Rome, where he remained for eight months ‘visiting every church, palace, and museum, famed for its treasures, whether in painting or sculpture’ (AJ, 1850, 9). In 1846 he was elected an Academician, submitting a Nymph as his diploma work (21). This draped female figure has been seen as typical of MacDowell’s ‘sweet, soft manner - infinitely pretty and ladylike’ (Crookshank 1966, 312). In 1844 he exhibited Girl at Prayer (17) at the Westminster Hall exhibition organised to select artists to decorate the new Palace of Westminster. MacDowell won commissions for four statues of historical figures, Almeric and William de Warrenne for the chamber of the House of Lords (34, 36), and William Pitt the Elder and Younger for St Stephen’s Hall (32, 33). In 1853 the Corporation of London commissioned a statue of Lea (29), a subject from Moore’s Loves of the Angels, as one of the series of figures from English literature to decorate the Egyptian Hall in the Mansion House.
Despite his success, MacDowell appears to have felt, like many others, that public patronage of sculpture was too limited. In 1855 he was one of twenty-two sculptors who signed an open letter addressed to the first commissioner of works, objecting to the way in which the first Wellington memorial competition had been handled and complaining of a general lack of opportunities for talented British sculptors.
Works by MacDowell were displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and at the international exhibitions held in Dublin (1853), Paris (1855) and in London (1862). Four of his works were lent by collectors to the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857 (17, 25, 26, 31). The statue of Eve (23) was one of several works shown more than once. It appeared at the Great Exhibition and at the Dublin Exhibition two years later and was admired by many commentators as a chaste depiction of nude female form.
Like most successful sculptors of the mid-century MacDowell was responsible for large numbers of portrait busts, many of them exhibited at the RA, and a number of statues of major public figures, including several for Irish cities (28, 35, 39, 41). None of these has survived. Late in his career he provided statues of Leibniz, Cuvier and Linnaeus (99) for the façade of 6 Burlington Gardens in London, which was built as the headquarters of the University of London. It was designed by Sir James Pennethorne in a renaissance revival style and decorated with statues by Joseph Durham, William Theed II, Matthew Noble and others.
MacDowell’s most important work is the colossal group of Europe on the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London (40). He was originally to have provided one of the smaller groups and was asked to execute Europe only after the elderly John Gibson turned down the opportunity. A first model was completed in November 1864 and found to be generally satisfactory, though some modifications were required. MacDowell’s suggestion for figures of France and England holding between them an olive branch or festoon symbolising peace was rejected, for practical and intellectual reasons: it was felt that an olive branch would be difficult to realize in stone and that the symbolism did not reflect contemporary political reality. An improved model was approved in 1865. In October 1867 MacDowell completed the full-size model and was recorded as making progress in carving the central figure of Europe.
On 7 December 1870, soon after work on Europe was completed, MacDowell died. He had recently retired as an Academician, but had received honorary retired status. Two other members of his family, possibly sons, appear to have followed the same career, for a P MacDowell junior and R C MacDowell exhibited a few works at the RA between 1858 and 1865. They have fallen into obscurity.
Contemporary critical responses to MacDowell’s work varied greatly. Henry Weekes enthusiastically described him as ‘an artist that England may well be proud of’ who appeals ‘to our best and noblest feelings’ (Weekes 1851-2, 65). J M Graham did not value his talents so highly, declaring that ‘without any very elevated sentiment or feeling, MacDowell’s works in poetic sculpture were mostly devoted to the representation of the female form. They were not equal to the masterpieces of Baily or Wyatt, but sufficiently attractive to the popular eye’ (Graham 1871, 459). The writer of his obituary in The Athenaeum observed ‘his designs were generally graceful, occasionally charming; but some of them were rather trite’ (Athenaeum, 24 December 1870, 847). Writing in the early-20th century Strickland considered MacDowell’s works within the context of his generation. He judged them among the best in a period dominated by a devitalised neoclassical style. His works were neither as original nor as influential as those of his near contemporary, John Henry Foley. More recently the scholars Potterton and Penny have both singled out for praise his monument to the Earl of Belfast, in Belfast Castle Chapel, a moving depiction of a bereaved mother at her young son’s deathbed (9).
EH
Literary References: AJ, 1850, 8-9; 1871, 41; ILN, 31 Dec 1870, 681; DNB, XXXV, 1893, 66-7; Weekes 1880, 297-8; Strickland II, 1913, 59-63; Crookshank 1966, 309, 311-12; Physick 1969, 41-2, 193; Potterton 1975, 58; Harbison, Potterton and Sheehy 1978, 219-24; Ormond and Rogers 2, 1979-81, 140; Bayley 1981, 55, 100-113; Read 1982, passim; Grove 19, 1996, 879 (Turpin); Murphy 1999, 64-73; Brooks 2000, passim; ODNB (Turpin)
Additional MS Sources: Biography Handbook Papers, 1860, Add MS 28511 fols 100, 102; Layard Papers, 1866, Add MS 38993 fol 26; Peel Papers, 1842-1846. Add MSS 40520 fols 102, 104, 40581 fol 236, 40589 f. 199; Manc Inst Letter Book, 1849-50, 89, 101, 135, 219, 224
Will: PPR, 21 January 1871, fol 41, effects under £300
Portraits of the Sculptor: woodcut, AJ, 1850, 9; woodcut after a photograph, ILN, 31 Dec 1870, 681; Maull and Polyblank, photograph, NPG album of photos, 1949
Auction Catalogues: MacDowell 1871