Details of Sculptor

Surname

Westmacott

Alternative Surname

First Name

James Sherwood

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1823

Flourished

Year of Death

1900

Biographical Details

He was born in London on 27 August 1823, the son of Henry Westmacott and Eliza, née Brodie Stewart. According to his contemporary, William Hooe, Westmacott was educated first in Edinburgh and then at the German city of Neuwied on the River Rhine. He subsequently studied sculpture at the Dresden Academy under Professor Ernst Rietschel, and in 1845 won a medal from the Academy for a figure of Victory, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in London the following year (12).
Westmacott showed at the Westminster Hall exhibition of 1844 and his figures of King Alfred and Richard I won him favourable notice (10, 11). The Literary Gazette remarked that both works evinced ‘much knowledge of the figure and spirit of execution’ (Lit Gaz 1844, 467). Alfred’s statue was singled out for attention by the German critic, Dr Forster, and by the Art Union, who called it ‘one of the most elegant and impressive statues we have ever seen’ (AU 1844, 215). In 1847 Westmacott was chosen to execute two of the statues commissioned for the House of Lords of barons who had signed Magna Carta (23, 24). Formidable in their chainmail and both grasping weapons, these were cast in zinc and coated with copper by Messrs Elkington, who were later to produce bronze replicas of Westmacott’s Satan overthrown (14).
In 1849 Westmacott gave two addresses in the Royal Academy catalogue, Lauriston Cottage, Whetstone, Middx and Rome. He signed some works from the Eternal City: the Canova-esque Penitent Magdalene (78) and the statue of Geoffrey de Mandeville (23). His stay in Rome cannot have been a long one, however, for the following year he was back in London, living at 1, St John’s Place, Lisson Grove.
Westmacott produced many miniature statues of biblical and literary subjects in the 1850s. Examples of the former are Ruth at the well (15), and of the latter, The Peri at the gates of paradise from Thomas Moore’s Lalla Rookh (18). This has a single winged female figure and was praised in the Press as an accurate realisation in sculpture of the verse, ‘perfectly fulfilled by the language of sorrow which is pronounced by the lineaments, and written on every tournure of the composition’ (AJ 1855, 184). The work was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1855 and at the International Exhibition of 1862, when it was reproduced in the Illustrated London News and again in the Art Journal. In the latter it was lauded as ‘a favourable example of the delicious sentimentality which is now suffused into the marble illustrations of our popular lyrics and dramas’ (AJ Cat 1862, 323).
In 1857 Westmacott was responsible for extensive work on the reredos in Newcastle Cathedral, which has numerous statues of various sizes, within an ornate Gothic frame (58). His monuments are relatively few in number, although well-carved and composed with decorum. That to Sir Gilbert East has the inscription written diagonally on a sail apparently before the wreck of a ship (5); the brackets take the form of sea shells. Louisa Brockman's monument has figures of Hope and Religion (4).
During the 1860s Westmacott appears to have been principally concerned with ideal works, most of them statuettes and two of his portraits were exhibited with lines from Byron (51, 52). Occasionally he won commissions for poetic works on a grander scale, for instance the cup-bearing statue of Alexander the Great, a contrapposto figure provided for the Mansion House, London (28) and the seated, heavily-draped figure of Chryseis (32).
The Art Journal recorded in 1860 how ‘in the last few years’ Westmacott ‘has come prominently before the public’ (AJ 1860, 172), and they illustrated and commented upon his work regularly over succeeding years. The Fountain nymph (25) was praised as a satisfactory rendering of the subject, L’Allegro for its originality, and the reliefs of Mercy and Truth for their ‘fine feeling’ (66) (AJ 1860, 172). The Illustrated London News was also alert to Westmacott’s talents and illustrated his works on nine occasions. He exhibited at the Royal Academy until 1885.
Westmacott’s studio was at 21 Wilton Place in 1858, the home also of his cousin, Richard Westmacott III. By 1876 he was at 49 Hugh Street, Eccleston Square. In 1881 he was living in Clapham, where the census records him as having three daughters, Fanny, Alice and Violet, and one servant. He died in Union Road on 16 September 1900, and was buried in Norwood cemetery. A side altar in St Peter, Manor Street, Clapham forms a memorial to him and was donated by his son-in-law and daughter, Mr and Mrs O’Leary.
MGS
Literary References: AJ 1853, 152; 1860, 172; Graves 1875, 1852; Hooe 1880, 24; Graves VIII, 1905-6, 235; Gunnis 1968, 422; Read 1982, 245-6; Bilbey 2002, 429
Archival References: Archives, Artists’ Annuity Fund; GPC
Collections of Drawings: Album of 34 drawings on 20 sheets, dating 1844-1856, HMI 22/1992, (Friedman 1993, 90)