Details of Sculptor

Surname

Spence

Alternative Surname

First Name

Benjamin Edward

Initial of Surname

S

Year of Birth/Baptism

c1823

Flourished

Year of Death

1866

Biographical Details

He is believed to have been born in Liverpool, and was certainly baptised there, at St Peter’s, in January 1823. He specialised in ideal representations, often of literary or allegorical figures and produced a small number of portraits.
Spence’s father was the sculptor William Spence and his mother was named Elizabeth. William Spence was a partner, with Samuel Franceys, in the well-known Liverpool firm of monumental masons, Spence and Franceys, and it is likely Benjamin Spence gained his earliest sculptural training within the firm. Certainly when he entered the Liverpool Academy Schools in 1838 at the age of 15 he was already an accomplished stone-carver, and was to have a portrait bust, A student at the Liverpool Academy, exhibited at the annual Liverpool Academy exhibition later that year (35). This was the start of a long relationship with the Academy where Spence exhibited almost annually over the next decade.
In 1844 his statue The death of the Duke of York at Agincourt was exhibited at Westminster Hall, London, and a year later Ulysses was shown at the same venue (5, 6). Both are now lost, but the statue of the Duke of York was deemed worthy enough at the time to be awarded the Heywood silver medal by the Royal Manchester Institution. Such success may have persuaded Spence’s father to send him to Rome later that year at the invitation of John Gibson. Although he initially entered Gibson’s studio, Spence moved soon afterwards to work with Richard James Wyatt, perhaps because of Gibson’s poor opinion of Spence’s abilities. Writing to John Crouchley, on 23 June 1846, Gibson said that Spence was ‘sadly behindhand in his art’, and needed to undertake ‘a regular ABC study of the figure from the antique’. Gibson also complained that Spence was in too much of a hurry to do his own work, and added that he ‘seems to me a very good young man but I do not think he has genius for art’ (NLW MS 4914-5D). Despite this, Gibson and Spence were to remain close, and together they formed the core of the British artists’ colony in Rome in the final years of its influence over British sculpture.
In Wyatt’s studio Spence adopted a soft neo-classical style, not unlike that of Wyatt himself, which suited the production of sentimental subjects popular in mid-19th century Britain. This included Ophelia in 1850 and The angel’s whisper in 1857, the latter taken from Samuel Lover’s parlour ballad of the same name (10, 19). When Wyatt died in 1850, Spence took over his studio in Rome and completed his unfinished commissions.
Although he made a pilgrimage each year to London to visit the Royal Academy annual exhibition, Spence was not a frequent exhibitor at the RA, and he seems to have harboured no serious desire to become an Academician. Most of his work was sold directly from his studio in Rome, or commissioned by well-heeled British visitors to the city. Indeed, Spence only exhibited at the RA six times, showing his first work, Lavinia, there in 1849 (10). Although versions of the statue are sometimes misidentified as the Old Testament figure, Ruth, the subject is taken from James Thomson’s highly influential poem, The Seasons, and was commissioned by Samuel Holme, a builder of Liverpool, who rose to become an alderman and eventually lord mayor of the city. When it was shown at the RA the Art Journal stated that the ‘statue is altogether a work that does great credit to so young a hand’ (AJ, 1849, 95).
Lavinia is also a work typical of Spence’s orchestration of the female figure, which can at times be formulaic. She is depicted in notionally classical dress, with downcast eyes and a demure pose that is undercut by the way her robe falls away to reveal one of her breasts. This compositional device appeared repeatedly in subsequent works, including Innocence, Psyche, and Rebecca at the Well (13, 18, 22). It also underpins one of Spence’s most popular works, Highland Mary, 1852, although in this case the figure manages to remain fully clothed (12). Highland Mary is inspired by Robert Burns’s poem dedicated to his late common-law wife, Mary Campbell. The work was subsequently mass-produced as a Parian ware figure, but Spence also made several replicas including a full-size version in 1853, commissioned by Albert, the Prince Consort, as a birthday present for Queen Victoria.
He carved very few monumental or public works, the principal exceptions being a figure representing Liverpool for the rebuilt Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill, and a memorial to Jonathan Brooks for St George’s Hall, Liverpool, 1856 (14, 16). Only two completed funerary monuments are known. He began a portrait for Gibson’s tomb in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, although was dissatisfied with his first attempt and failed to complete a second. He died of consumption on 28 October 1866 in Livorno. He left a widow, Rosina, the daughter of George Henry Gower, British consul in Livorno.
Although he died young, at 43, Spence’s gentle neoclassical style was already beginning to look old-fashioned by the time of his death since taste had moved on to more realistic forms. This is indicated by the otherwise complimentary obituary published in 1866 by The Art Journal which stated that Spence ‘was not a great sculptor’, and his works were ‘characterised by great purity of feeling ... rather than by much originality of design, or vigorous treatment’ (AJ, 1866, 364). Four years later the sale of the contents of Spence’s studio elicited little interest and notably low prices, prompting The Art Journal to comment: ‘We feel ashamed to note down the prices paid for Spence’s examples’ (AJ, 1870, 221). That said, it is notable that Spence’s The angel’s whisper is one of the few works by a British artist to find a place in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, purchased in 1993.
Michael Paraskos
Literary References: AJ, 1866, 221; AJ, 1870, 364; DNB, 1898, vol. LIII, 334; Matthews, 1911, 134; Stevens, 1971, 226-31; Read, 1982, 199; Read 1996, 40-42; ODNB (Stevens); Cavanagh, 1997, 248-9; McGuigan 2014, 2
Achival References: Letters of John Gibson, NLW MS 4914-5D; Crouchley Papers, Harris M & A G, Preston
Auction Catalogues: Spence 1870
Portrait of the Sculptor: photo, repr Stevens, 1971, 226