Details of Sculptor

Surname

Watson

Alternative Surname

First Name

Musgrave Lewthwaite

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1804

Flourished

Year of Death

1847

Biographical Details

Musgrave Lewthwaite Watson might have become one of the great sculptors of the 19th century, but he died at the age of 43, having completed only a small number of works. He was born at Hawksdale Hall, in the Caldew valley, near Carlisle, on 24 January 1804, the second son of Thomas Watson, a small-holder who had travelled to the West Indies as young man and made sufficient capital to set up as a farmer on his return. Thomas married Mary Lewthwaite and became a partner in the cotton mill of his father-in-law, Musgrave Lewthwaite, at Dalston and had interests in the Dalston forge which was also owned by his father-in-law (CRO LT/20, Covens Textile Mill, schedule of deeds). Musgrave went to a village school at nearby Raughton Head, where the master, Rev R Monkhouse, considered him an outstanding pupil. The boy soon showed his artistic talent and spent much of his time drawing, wood-carving and metal-engraving. He wanted to become a sculptor, but his family insisted on a career in the law and articled Watson to a Carlisle solicitor, Major Mounsey. Mounsey encouraged him to pursue his artistic interests in his spare time, allowing him to study his own significant art collection. He also attended modelling classes at the Carlisle Academy of Arts in Finkle Street, which had recently founded by a small group of local artists, led by the sculptor David Dunbar.
After his father’s death in 1823, Watson left Carlisle for London. There he showed his drawings and models to John Flaxman RA and on his advice entered the Royal Academy Schools, submitting the model of a Shepherdess as his probationary work (54). Watson also studied briefly under Robert William Sievier, together with William Frederick Woodington, and he attended an informal art school started up by a few young sculptors for their ‘mutual improvement’ (Lonsdale 1866, 55). He sent four reliefs and an engraving of Cupid and Psyche, to the second exhibition of the Carlisle Academy in 1824 (40-43). The following year he went to Italy, where he remained for three years, living for much of that time among the French and German students in Rome and studying languages as well as art. Watson had a range of artistic talents: he could etch, carve, design cameos and paint in watercolours, skills which enabled him to support himself during his travels.
In 1828 Watson returned to London. He stayed with Woodington for some months before going back to Carlisle, where he executed a number of statues and busts, including a portrait of the naturalist John Heysham, which was shown in 1828 at the Carlisle Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture (32). Among Watson’s earliest works in his home county is a simple tablet commemorating his former school master, surmounted by a charming, naïve figure of a mourning student (2). A more sophisticated subject, an allegory of the Fates, was used for the memorial to Watson’s father, carved in Rome a few months earlier (1). This was inspired by Fuseli’s painting, The three witches (1783).
Opportunities for sculptors were limited in Carlisle and since Watson’s family remained unsympathetic to his choice of career, he returned to London, where he took studios near the British Museum, first in Museum Street and then in Rathbone Place. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1829, concentrating principally on poetic works including a small terracotta sketch, The madness of Hercules (57) and a bronze statue of Sigismunda (14). His practice failed to prosper and by 1832 Watson was living in penury. His belongings were seized when he failed to pay his rent and a model of Hercules (16) on which he had worked for many months was broken up so that the clay could be sold.
In 1833 Watson found work as a modeller in Francis Chantrey’s studio, but he left when Chantrey refused to increase his wages. He then became an assistant to William Behnes, modelling the figure, but not the head, of Dr William Babington’s statue for St Paul’s Cathedral (3). This was widely considered to be the most successful of Behnes’s statues, praised by FT Palgrave for its beautiful drapery (Palgrave 1866, 223). Watson was again dissatisfied with his earnings and left Behnes to work in the studio of Edward Hodges Baily, where he was more content. He was also employed by William Croggon at the Coade Factory in Lambeth making models for artificial stone ornaments, apparently including friezes for the Wyndham family, statues of Esculapius and Hygeia for a hall in Liverpool and other groups for Dublin (63).
During the early 1840s he was working more or less independently, with a studio at 13 Upper Gloucester Place, Marylebone. In 1842 he completed a frieze celebrating Commerce for Moxhay’s Hall of Commerce in Threadneedle Street, London (38). Shortly afterwards he received the commission that was to be his greatest work, a colossal group of two brothers, Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, for University College, Oxford (24). This commission would have gone to Chantrey, but his death intervened and, on the advice of Allan Cunningham, Watson was called in. Gunnis considered the work to be one of the most important portrait groups of the nineteenth century. Among Watson’s other major works at this time was a relief, The Battle of St Vincent, for the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square (49). He also executed a series of statues, two for Carlisle Assize Courts (19, 22), Elizabeth I for the Royal Exchange (21) and John Flaxman (23), now at University College, London. He continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy, showing a relief of Sleep and death bearing off the body of Sarpedon (46) in 1844. A plaster version of this acclaimed work was later shown at the 1862 International Exhibition at the instigation of John Henry Foley.
The successful years were pitifully short, for Watson died from heart disease at his home in London on 28 October 1847. The stress and physical labour involved in the design and execution of the Eldon and Stowell group had taken its toll on his frail physique. He was buried in Highgate cemetery and his monument, with a portrait medallion by his assistant George Nelson, was erected in Carlisle Cathedral. Watson had married for the Carlisle Journal of 18 February 1832 gives the obituary ‘Near Hampstead, London, on the 29 ult, Ellen wife of Mr ML Watson, deservedly lamented’.
Towards the end of his life Watson destroyed many of the models in his studio that he found unsatisfactory. Other models and sketches were sold from his studio on 14 September 1848. A number of works were unfinished at his death, including the Eldon and Stowell group, Flaxman’s statue and the monument to the 50th Regiment in Canterbury Cathedral (10). These were all completed by Nelson, whilst the relief of the Battle of St Vincent was finished by Woodington.
Watson was a complex personality, who quarrelled frequently with patrons and employers. He was sensitive and intelligent but prone to depression and he became increasingly embittered by professional disappointments. Lonsdale suggests that his advancement may have been hampered by his irregular domestic arrangements, for he lived with the daughter of a Carlisle publican but never married her. Her early death was a further blow. Watson was admired by contemporary sculptors, including Allan Cunningham, John Henry Foley and John Gibson, but he had little success in public competitions and no influential patrons, so many of his works never advanced beyond the model stage. After his death, he was seen as a sculptor of great promise, whose career had been cut short when success was within reach: ‘Alas for the fame of the gifted! Mr. Watson lived long enough to achieve, but not to enjoy, fame. It is the old story over again; genius lives in poverty, and then all at once the world wakes up to the knowledge that a great spirit has gone out of its portals’ (Illus Exhib, 1851, 14). (add inf. Denis Perriam)
EH
Literary References: Athenaeum, 1847, 1154; AU, 1848, 27; AJ, 1856, 193; Lonsdale 1866, passim; Palgrave 1866, passim; Weekes 1880, 297; DNB LX, 1899, 21-2Archit Rev 1967, 406; Gunnis 1968, 414-5; Perriam 1975, 300, 302; Read 1982, passim; Grove 32, 1996, 911 (Stocker); ODNB (Stocker)
Additional MS Sources: Flaxman Papers, 1825, 1843, 1844, Add MSS 39781 fol 235, 39783, fols 285, 291, 293
Will: PROB 11/2072
Collections of Drawings: designs for monuments, VAM P&D, H.6.a
Auction Catalogue: Lonsdale 1866, 223-4