Details of Sculptor

Surname

Behnes

Alternative Surname

First Name

William

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

c1795

Flourished

Year of Death

1863

Biographical Details

William Behnes was a major portrait sculptor and the master of a large studio, where many notable sculptors received their training. In spite of his considerable success, he was beset by severe financial problems throughout much of his career.
He was born in St Marylebone, London, the son of a piano-maker from Hanover and his English wife. His date of birth is uncertain but his obituary in the Art Journal suggests it was about 1794 (AJ 1864, 83). Behnes himself gave his age as eighteen when he joined the Royal Academy Schools in 1813. His father had come to London after completing his apprenticeship in Germany, perhaps because he already had a link with Britain through his elder brother, a surgeon in the British navy on board HMS Cumberland. When William was quite young he moved to Ireland with his parents and two younger brothers. His father continued to work as a piano-maker but with little apparent success. The sculptor, Henry Weekes who later worked for William, said that the child had been brought up in almost abject misery.
William was expected to follow his father’s trade and began to help in the workshop as soon as he was old enough to handle the tools. It soon became clear, however, that his consuming interest was in drawing and he began to spend his spare time at the Dublin Society’s Schools, where he is said to have distinguished himself by the accuracy and finish of his studies (AJ 1864, 83).
Piano-making in Ireland did not prove profitable, so the family returned to London and settled near the Tower of London, where they continued to manufacture musical instruments. They appear to have moved soon afterwards, for Behnes exhibited from Delahay Street, Westminster in 1815-16 and from Charles Street, near the Middlesex Hospital, in 1817. William and his brother Henry (the family’s middle son, who later changed his name to Henry Behnes Burlowe because he was so ashamed of William) in the meantime continued to study art. William developed a thriving practice as a portrait painter, whose success enabled the family to move to better lodgings in Newman Street in 1818. A change of artistic direction came after informal lessons from the sculptor Peter Francis Chenu, who also lodged in the house in Charles Street. Behnes perhaps later regretted his decision to take up sculpture, saying wistfully near the end of his life ‘I should like to paint a picture before I die’ (AJ 1864, 83). The author of his obituary considered his portraits on vellum ‘among the most beautiful we have ever seen’ (ibid).
Weekes described him as an energetic sculptor, of limited intellect but considerable versatility. His positive qualities led to early success: he won silver medals from the Royal Academy in 1816, 1817 and 1819, a silver medal from the Society of Arts in 1816 and the Society’s gold medal in 1819 for inventing ‘an instrument for transferring points to marble’ (Archives, Society of Arts, quoted by Gunnis 1968, 45). He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1815 until 1863 and by 1818 he was an established and sought after artist.
Behnes was most active as a sculptor of portrait busts and his head of Thomas Clarkson (236) was particularly admired. He also depicted several members of the Royal family (123, 124, 147, 148, 164, 166, 192, 332) and his bust of Princess Victoria was particularly successful (171). On her succession to the throne, the Queen appointed Behnes Sculptor in Ordinary, though this distinction did not lead to further royal commissions.
Behnes was responsible for a number of important monuments. That to Joseph Nollekens (7) has a relief of the sculptor with his commemorative statue of Mrs Howard. Others, particularly to Esther North (6) and John Bourne (21), feature dramatic angels, in a style later widely imitated in Victorian cemeteries. Gunnis thought the monument to Charlotte Botfield (9), which has a relief of her son, Beriah, mourning by her coffin, well carved and very moving (Gunnis 1968, 46). His statue of Dr William Babington in St Paul’s Cathedral (37) was considered particularly successful.
He had many commissions for public statues, including three of Sir Robert Peel, in Leeds, London and Bradford (80, 83, 84). However, one writer in the Art Journal considered these ‘by no means comparable with his busts’ and thought his last statue, of Sir Henry Havelock (87), executed for Trafalgar Square and replicated for Sunderland, ‘the least worthy of all’ (AJ, 1864, 84).
He exhibited at the major international exhibitions, showing a colossal statue of Sir William Follett (56) and a statuette of Lady Godiva (74) at the Great Exhibition in 1851 and Cupid with two doves (70) at the International Exhibition of 1862.
Behnes’s financial problems appear to have begun in 1823 when he moved into premises in Dean Street, Soho, which were unsuited for a workshop. The expense incurred in trying to adapt the house and build on a modelling room high enough to take statues of heroic proportions crippled him financially. His problems were not helped by his extravagant habits and he fell into the hands of moneylenders. Weekes later recalled that he became neglectful of his pupils and the courtesies expected by clients. He became an alcoholic and his reputation for probity came into question. In 1861 he was declared insolvent.
Most of his works were executed in Osnaburg Street, where he lived from 1833 until his banktuptcy. He was still playing an active public role as late as 1856, when he was one of a group of sculptors who sent a letter to the Daily News protesting at the lack of opportunities for British sculptors to carry out major public commissions.
During his final years he lived alone in miserable lodgings in Charlotte Street, where his health deteriorated. He died of ‘paralysis’ in the Middlesex Hospital on 3 January, 1864 after being found ‘literally in the gutter with threepence in his pocket’ (Hall II, 1883, 238). He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery, and a committee was formed, with George Cruikshank as its secretary, to raise money for a monument and bust over his grave and for a bronze bust to be presented to the National Gallery. Insufficent funds were raised and instead a modest classical sarcophagus tomb in Portland stone was made by his last pupil, Morton Edwards.
Behnes’s many significant pupils and assistants included John Carew, John Graham Lough, Musgrave Lewthwaite Watson, Henry Behnes Burlowe (his brother), Henry Timbrell, Timothy Butler, Henry Weekes, Alfred Gatley, Edward and John Henry Foley, Neville Northey Burnard, Thomas Woolner and George Frederick Watts. Woolner later claimed to have learnt more by working with Behnes than during his studies at the Royal Academy Schools and his mature style owes clear debts to the crisp, characterful drapery style of Behnes’s Botfield monument (9) and his statue of Babington (37) in St Paul’s.
Behnes was much admired by contemporary critics and younger sculptors. Palgrave praised the powerful modelling and grace of his work, although he thought that Behnes lacked ‘poetic inventiveness’ and was critical of the draperies on some of his statues (Palgrave 1866, 219-220). Weekes wrote that his busts showed ‘greater freedom of handling, less mannerism, more variety, and greater difference of character’ than those of Sir Francis Chantrey. Weekes and Palgrave particularly praised his portraits of children. Behnes was never elected to the Royal Academy despite his achievements, probably because of the irregularities that characterised his personal life.
EH
Literary References: Farington, XIV, 5119; Passavant 1836, v2, 284; Hall II, 1883, 238-9; AJ 1864, 83-4; Palgrave 1866, passim; Redgrave 1878, 35-6; Weekes 1880, 2-3, 294-317; Graves I, 1905-6, 166-9; DNB, II, 131-2; Gunnis 1968, 45-8; Physick 1969, 41; Potterton 1975, 36; Penny 1977 (1), 11, 106, 161, 178; Read 1982, passim; Stafford 1982, 4-11; Whinney 1988, 464, n.11; Read and Barnes 1991, 21; Bennett 1998, 130; Grove 3, 1996, 509-10 (Greenwood); Dawson 1999, 69, 79-81; Curl 2001, 226, 236-7, 242; ODNB (Stocker)
Archival References : RA premium list
Additional MS Sources: Behnes Papers; Peel Papers, 1841, BM Add MSS 40493; Behnes/Hone; Behnes/Panizzi
Miscellaneous Drawings: Two portraits of Frederick Marryat, exhib Victorian Exhibition, New Gallery, London, 1892, 406 and 506, both subsequently engraved; portrait of Sydney, Lady Morgan, NPG 1177, engraved by H Meyer; portrait of Princess Anne Feodorowna of Leiningen, s&d 1828, VAM P&D E.438-1949; the seven ages, an allegorical composition attributed to Behnes, VAM P&D, E.51-1948; study for a large monumental sculpture, HMI/LMG 34.1/1988