Details of Sculptor

Surname

Shout

Alternative Surname

First Name

Robert

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

c1760

Flourished

Year of Death

1843

Biographical Details

Shout had a business in monumental sculpture and also produced plaster busts, ornaments and casts after works by famous contemporaries. He must have been born around 1760, for in 1835 he gave his age as 75 (Shout/Peel) and he was probably the son of John Shout (1738-81), a mason of Stockton-on-Tees, and his wife Mary (†1814).
By 1785 Shout was working in partnership with his uncle, Benjamin Shout. Their tradecard, printed that year, describes them as ‘Sculptors and Masons’. Shout married his first wife, Lucy, in or around 1794 and their child, Charles Lutwyche Shout, was christened at St Andrew, Holborn, in December that year. Benjamin and Robert’s business was run from 18 High Holborn, where Robert lived, and from 13 Eagle Street, St Andrew’s, Holborn. They remained in partnership until Benjamin’s death in 1811.
Robert’s earliest known design, for an unidentified wall-monument with a sarcophagus in relief, dates from May 1795. The surviving drawings are all signed by Robert Shout alone and he may have been chiefly responsible for the firm’s designs. Neither they nor the works themselves are particularly noteworthy. Most are well-carved wall-monuments with the standard motif of a woman grieving over an urn or column and they often incorporate familiar neoclassical features, such as a sarcophagus with lion’s feet, strigil decoration or a tabula ansata (or winged board) .
By 1798, when Shout published his bust of Nelson (41), the partners were supplying works in plaster for the popular market. The venture appears to have been successful, despite competition from John Flaxman I, and later Humphrey Hopper. Among Shout’s products in plaster were architectural ornaments, particularly lamp-stands (52, 54-6), and busts, sold singly or as a series (43).
Benjamin Shout died in 1811, leaving instructions in his will that his half-share in the business should be sold to Robert, to provide financial support for his own widow and son. The enforced purchase does not appear to have had an adverse effect on Robert’s business, which he probably conducted alone until around 1820. He continued to produce monuments and casts of works by famous sculptors. In 1819 the Annals of the Fine Arts published a puff for the casts which Shout had recently produced of works by Antonio Canova (37-40). These were said to have been taken from the original works and were praised for the ‘delicate precision’ with which every detail had been reproduced. The article concluded by suggesting that Shout had given Canova’s admirers an ‘opportunity of gratifying themselves at a moderate expense’ (Annals of the Fine Arts 1819, 632).
Shelley’s poem, Letter to Maria Gisborne, 1820, not only assumed general acquaintance with Shout’s plaster business, but also hinted that ownership of Shout’s wares reflected taste and perhaps even integrity. Shelley wrote in a poem celebrating Leigh Hunt:
‘his room no doubt
Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout,
With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;’
In 1820 the firm was described in Robson’s London Directory as ‘Robert Shout and Sons … bronze figure manufactrs’. Little is known of Shout’s work in bronze, and the only monument that makes mention of the next generation is signed ‘Shout and Son’ (36). This son, Charles Lutwyche Shout, may have taken control of the family’s plaster business around 1823.
Shout’s wife died in April 1822, and he married Sophia Morton in June that year. In 1835 he was living at Treherne House, West End, Hampstead. In a letter to Sir Robert Peel (in which he fulminated against the high levels of land tax) he described himself as ‘possessed of independent property, consisting of land and houses’ (Shout/Peel). Shout died in September 1843, and was given an obituary in The Builder. He left direction in his will that his name should be inscribed on his first wife’s monument in Hampstead church, but that he should be buried as close as possible to his second wife in Kensal Green cemetery. He left £210 in mourning gifts, provision for his son-in-law Henry Brodie Morton and the residue of his property and estate to his son Charles Lutwyche Shout.
In the following list, monuments to those who died before 1811 are assumed to be by Robert and Benjamin, working in partnership.
MGS
Literary References: Shelley 1824, 65-6; Builder, v.42, Apr. 1 1882, 385; Hughes 1962, 360-1; Gunnis 1968, 350-1; Clifford 1992, 46; Colvin 1995, 867; Curl 2001, 102, 183, 211, 242; Bilbey 2002, 358
Archival References: Shout/Peel; tradecards in Banks coll, BM, 106.27 and Heal coll, BM 106.20; IGI
Wills: Benjamin Shout, proved 11 April 1811, PROB 11/1521/303; Robert Shout, proved 29 September 1843, PROB 11/1986/122
Collections of Drawings: Scrap-book of designs for identified and unidentified monuments and fireplaces, 1795-1819, VAM, P&D 93-H-137, including untraced, and possibly unexecuted designs for monuments to Ann Grigsby of Drinkslow, Suffolk, and John Walgan of Sunderland; a design for a chimneypiece for the Earl of Essex, Cashiobury, Herts, E.3046-1980; two designs for chimneypieces for Sir Robert Peel, Drayton Manor, Staffs E.3049-50-1980