Details of Sculptor

Surname

Plura

Alternative Surname

First Name

Joseph I

Initial of Surname

P

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

1756

Biographical Details

He was the son of Carlo Giuseppe Plura (†1737), an Italian sculptor and wood carver who worked in Turin and who may have been the Plura recorded as a stuccoist working at Castle Howard in 1711. He probably trained in Turin at the Carlo Emmanuele III Sculpture Academy and may have completed his studies in Paris. By 1749 he had settled in Bath and married the daughter of John Ford, a local building contractor. Plura probably worked as an assistant to Prince Hoare at Bath as there is some evidence that he carved Hoare’s statue of Beau Nash in the pump room (3). This was completed in 1752 and the following year Plura set up business on his own, taking the lease on a statuary yard in Bath on 1 October 1753. By May that year he had carved the coat of arms for the pediment of the grammar school, for which his father in law was the contractor, and in 1755 he completed the five busts of worthies which surmount the façade of the building (5, 6).
His most significant work is a group of Diana and Endymion, inscribed ‘Jos: Plura Taurinensis Fecit Bathoniae 1752’ (4). This depicts Endymion asleep with his dog at his feet, while Diana gazes fondly at him, caressing his hand and shoulder. The protagonists are attended by two putti bearing torches of love. The work must have been on view in Plura’s studio in Bath for Ivory Talbot of Lacock Abbey wrote to his friend the architect Sanderson Miller on 13 August 1754, ‘When at Bath fail not to see a piece of sculpture of Endymion on Mount Patmos, the performance of Mr Plura, a statuary’ (Warwick County Archives, CR.125.B, letter 405).
By April 1755 Plura had moved to London, taking a studio in Oxford Row, near Poland Street, where the Diana and Endymion group was displayed, together with two tables of ‘Diaspero and Antico’ marble. He was evidently disappointed by his progress in London for in April 1755 he approached the ambassador of the King of Sardinia about his prospects should he return to Turin. The following month word was sent from Turin that employment could be found for him in the service of the King, though the terms would be settled after his return when his abilities could be judged. Plura took some time to consider this offer but eventually decided to accept. The ambassador in London wrote to Turin on 18 March 1736 that Plura had intended to leave England for Piedmont in April but he had died that very morning ‘d’une fievre maligne’ leaving a widow and three young children, one of whom was Joseph Plura II.
Literary References: Fleming 1956, 178-81; Gunnis 1968, 309; Sumner 1996, 61