Details of Sculptor

Surname

Bennier

Alternative Surname

Besnier

First Name

Peter

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

-1693

Biographical Details

A French sculptor and the brother of Isaac Besnier, who had collaborated with Hubert le Sueur on the monument to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, erected in Westminster Abbey in 1634. Peter Bennier may have been trained in France but was living in England before October 1643, when he was appointed sculptor to King Charles I. He was required to look after the ‘Moulds, Statues and Modells’ in the Royal collection, a duty previously performed by his brother, in return for the use of a house and £50 pa from the privy purse. The Civil War prevented him from taking up his duties and he was deprived of his office during the Commonwealth. At the Restoration he petitioned to be reinstated on the grounds that the late King had granted him the ‘place of sculptor to His Majesty and the custody of his statues, etc, but by reason of the most unhappy distraction befallen since, hee injoyed not the same place, but was reduced into very great poverty and want through his faithfulness and constancy’ (TNA SP 29/2, no 66-1, quotedby Faber 1926, 14). His request was granted on 15 March 1661 (TNA, LC3/25, 113, cited by Gibson 1997 (1), 163) and he held the post until his death, when he was succeeded by Caius Gabriel Cibber.
Bennier is listed as a ratepayer of Covent Garden, 1649-51, and among the Ashburnham Papers is a reference to a tenement occupied by Bennier near Common Street in 1664 (LMA, ACC/0524/045,046,047, 048, cited by Gibson 1997 (1), 163). It has been tentatively suggested that he worked for Hubert le Sueur. He signed the monument with a ‘noble’ portrait-bust to Sir Richard Shuckburgh (1) (Gunnis 1968, 50). The monument to Sir Hatton Fermor at Easton Neston, Northants, has been attributed to him because the bust is similar to the Shuckburgh one and the two families intermarried. In 1655 Bennier was employed at Lamport Hall, Northants, carving shields and ‘pictures’, which were probably statues (Northants RO, IL 3956, cited by White 1999, 11, 12 n 10-11) (2). He also did unspecified work for the crown at Somerset House in 1661-2.
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 50; Colvin V, 1973-6, 255; Whinney 1988, 90, 93, 439 n 16, n 21, 440 n 2-3; McEvansoneya 1993, 532-5; Grove 3, 1996, 875 (Physick); White 1999, 11-12