Details of Sculptor

Surname

Valadier

Alternative Surname

First Name

Luigi

Initial of Surname

V

Year of Birth/Baptism

1726

Flourished

Year of Death

1785

Biographical Details

The leading bronze founder in later 18th century Rome, he specialised in large bronze figures after the antique. These included several casts from works in the Louvre and one of the Dying gladiator, purchased by the 1st Duchess of Northumberland in 1773 for £300 (2). The Duchess obtained two other bronzes (1, 3). Valadier is not known to have modelled portrait busts, but he signed and dated a bronze bust of Sir Thomas Gascoigne of Parlington, Yorks in 1778 (6). At that time Gascoigne was in Rome with friends, Henry and Martha Swinburne, whose unsigned bronze heads relate closely in style to the Gascoigne bust (4, 5). The Swinburnes’ small daughter, Martha, died in Rome and her marble wall tablet by Christopher Hewetson was commissioned and set up in the English College in Rome late in 1778. It is reasonable to assume that Hewetson modelled heads of the Swinburnes and Gascoigne whilst working on the memorial and that Valadier cast them. The Swinburne busts appear in a portrait of Gascoigne by Pompeo Batoni , painted in 1779, at Lotherton Hall, W R Yorks.
Luigi Valadier committed suicide in 1785 but his son, Giuseppe, continued the business until 1827. A sheet of designs for candelabra, drawn by the son, is among the CH Tatham papers in the V&A, suggesting that the sculptor was still producing work for the British market.
Literary References: Friedman 1976 (1), 16-23; González-Palacios 2004, 402-17; González-Palacios 2007, 69-84