Details of Sculptor

Surname

Sievier

Alternative Surname

First Name

Robert William

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

1794

Flourished

Year of Death

1865

Biographical Details

A man of parts who showed a talent for engraving and sculpture as a young man and in later life started his own manufacturing business. He was born in London on 24 July 1794 and became a competent draughtsman at an early age. In 1812, while living at Clarendon Square, Somer’s Town, he was awarded the Society of Arts silver medal for a pen and ink drawing and, intending to become an engraver, he studied under John Young and then Edward Scriven. He was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1818 and produced many successful engravings after famous artists.
To improve his depiction of the human form Sievier learnt to model in clay and he also studied under the anatomical lecturer, Joshua Brookes. By 1823 he had largely given up engraving and was concentrating on sculpture. One of his early works was a statue of a Sleeping Bacchante, which became part of the Grittleton House collection (39). That year Lord Chancellor Eldon sat for his bust (62). Other portrait commissions followed and Sievier’s gift of seizing the likeness and characteristic expression of his sitters brought him many distinguished clients including Lord Harcourt, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Sir Thomas Lawrence (52, 60, 83). In 1842 Prince Albert and Frederick William IV, King of Prussia both sat for him (94, 95).
In 1833 Sievier and Richard Westmacott III were commissioned by the 6th Duke of Devonshire each to make a chimneypiece for the new dining room at Chatsworth. Both followed a Bacchanalian theme and incorporated two life-sized figures (104). The Duke was disappointed with the results, noting ‘They are clever and well-executed, but do not nearly approach the idea I wished to see realized. I wanted more abandon and joyous expression. I find these Baccanali too composed and sedate’ (Chatsworth Handbook, 1845, 83).
Sievier exhibited many times between 1822 and 1844 at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the Royal Society of British Artists, showing principally busts, but also groups and a statue of Dr Jenner (3). He became a director of the General Cemetery Company in 1832 and in 1834 provided one of his first and most celebrated monuments in Kensal Green cemetery to the fraudulent doctor, John St John Long. This has a statue of Hygeia, the goddess of Medicine, beneath a domed canopy (19).The memorial to Sievier’s family in the same cemetery is a touching depiction of family affection (38). Sievier’s early training as an engraver is evident in many of his monuments which have scenic low-reliefs and whole scenes set in a small space. That to Robert Chessher, 1831, for example, has a relief of a graveyard with each tomb and gravestone minutely delineated, shadowed by weeping willows (14). The pedestal for the statue commemorating Lord Harcourt, 1832, presents battle scenes illustrating episodes in his career (16) and the Rev James Lyon is depicted on his monument administering communion to his parishioners (27).
Charles Abraham was one of Sievier’s pupils, as he stated in a letter to the Sidney Morning Herald on 3 March 1845, ‘... I must be content to bear the responsibility of being and to be judged of as the pupil of no mean artist, R. Sievier Esq., at present Manager of the Polytechnic Institution, London’. Nothing is known of Sievier’s connection with this post, but he had a lifelong interest in scientific matters and in 1831 took out a patent for ‘the use of covered rubber threads for the manufacture of bags and ropes’. In 1841 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and by 1845 had ceased his artistic pursuits and started an India rubber works on his land in Holloway, North London, where he produced elastic fabrics and experimented in the manufacture of carpets. He also took an interest in electric telegraphy. Sievier and his wife Ann Eliza had a son, Robert Moore Sievier, born in 1827, who studied sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools in 1845. Sievier died on 28 April 1865 at 35 Rochester Road, Camden Town, and was buried with his parents in Kensal Green Cemetery.
Sylvia Allen
Literary References: Graves 1875, 491; Graves VIII, 1905-6, 123; Bond 1958, 91; Gunnis 1968, 351-2; Redgrave (1878), 1970, 304-5 ; Johnson 1975, 423; Croot 1985, 29-37; Curl 2000, 53, www.royalsoc.ac.uk
Archival References: GPC
Will: PPR, will with two codicils, 22 January 1866, fol 55, effects valued at under £200, revoked by decree 5 February 1867 and another will dated 18 January 1860 deposited at the PPR September 1867
Miscellaneous Drawings: ‘from the battles of Le Brun’, silver medal, Soc of A, 1812 (RSA Transactions, 1812, vol 30, 25)