Details of Sculptor

Surname

Wyatt

Alternative Surname

First Name

Richard James

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1795

Flourished

Year of Death

1850

Biographical Details

A member of the Wyatt family of architects and sculptors, Richard James Wyatt was the fourth son of the carver Edward Wyatt and Ann Maddox. He was born above his father’s shop in Oxford Street, London on 3 May 1795 and was apprenticed in 1809 to J C F Rossi, who gave him a good practical grounding. Whilst with Rossi, Wyatt carved a number of marble chimneypieces and simple memorial tablets, the stock in trade of an English sculptor (1, 2). He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1812 and in 1815 won the silver medal for the best model from life. His first life-size classical group, a Judgement of Paris (14) was exhibited in 1818, when he was perhaps formulating an ambition to go to Rome and complete his training under Antonio Canova. Sir Thomas Lawrence, who had met Canova in London in 1815, recommended Wyatt to him and the Italian apparently intimated that he might find Wyatt a place in his studio.
In 1820 Wyatt left England for Paris where he spent a period in the studio of the distinguished sculptor, Baron François-Joseph Bosio. Bosio was known for the smooth, warm surfaces of his statues and probably taught Wyatt something of his technique. He arrived in Rome early in 1821 with letters of introduction to Canova both from Sir Thomas Lawrence, and from a cousin, the architect, Sir Jeffry Wyatville. Canova took Wyatt into his studio, where he met another ex-patriot sculptor, John Gibson, who had already been in Rome for four years. They became lifelong friends. After Canova died in 1822 Gibson and Wyatt worked briefly under Bertel Thorvaldsen before setting up independently in studios opposite one another in the Via della Fontanella Barberini. Gibson, who was five years older than Wyatt and acted as his protector, described Wyatt at this time as ‘remarkably modest, retiring and very shy, an excellent judge of art’ (Matthews 1911, 134) The two young sculptors formed part of the expatriot community in Rome which included Joseph Gott, William Theed II and George Rennie.
Wyatt was known for his extraordinarily long working hours. He rose early and breakfasted daily with Gibson at the Caffé Greco at 86, Via Condotti, the haunt of writers, musicians and artists visiting the city. The two sculptors read the newspapers before walking on the Pincio and returning to their studios for a day’s work. Wyatt often remained in his studio until after midnight. In his early years he worked without assistants. Gibson noted that it was his habit to make a preliminary model which he put away for six or more months, before assessing its potential. If it then pleased him he translated it to a small plaster model and then to a full-size plaster model with scale-marks to guide the marble-carver. Even at the end of his career when he was in high demand, he finished his works himself, unlike many of his contemporaries who left all the marble carving to assistants.
Soon after setting up on his own Wyatt had the fortune to receive an order from the Duke of Devonshire, who visited Rome in 1822 with Sir Jeffry Wyatville. This was for a marble version of Wyatt’s plaster of Musidora, a subject from Thomson’s Seasons, that would be re-interpreted endlessly by sculptors over the next 20 years (15). It was dispatched to Chatsworth in 1824. Though the Duke was well pleased with his statue, it was several years before further commissions came to Wyatt. In 1829, the year Wyatt had a riding accident which left him lame for life, an unidentified visitor, who contributed to the Literary Gazette, saw several works to the studio ordered by English clients (5, 16, 18). By 1830 he was in considerable demand for ideal statues and groups and from 1831 until his death he exhibited a new work every year at the Royal Academy, though he had a poor opinion of the way sculpture was displayed there. He was proposed for membership of the Academy by his friend Charles Eastlake, later director of the National Gallery, but the proposal was over-ruled by Sir Francis Chantrey on the grounds that Wyatt was not a British resident. Since the qualification had been waived in John Gibson’s case, Chantrey’s opposition was probably caused by jealousy. The hostility was mutual: the outspoken Wyatt felt Chantrey lacked taste and was a poor carver of draperies. Wyatt also expressed a poor opinion of the sculptors who had supplied monuments for St Paul’s Cathedral, particularly Sir Richard Westmacott RA.
Wyatt’s art came to maturity during the 1830s. He was responsible for some fine monuments and busts, but it was as a virtuoso carver of life-size figures and groups, particularly single female figures, that he became best-known. He made copies of his most popular subjects, often several years after completing the original work. The statue of a Nymph going to the bath (19) was repeated at least seven times for British clients over a 13-year span and he produced two variants, Nymph at the bath and Nymph coming out of the bath (28, 34) both of which were replicated. Another popular subject, a Nymph of Diana, was re-worked with various animals, a leveret, a leveret and greyhound and a dead bird (18, 26, 47).These groups were based on antique originals but also responded to the contemporary enthusiasm for the depiction of animals. Wyatt’s portrait busts were noted for their realism, particularly the head of Lord Selsey, (64), now lost but considered a striking likeness by a contemporary, Lady Anne Murray, and the portrait of the Marquess of Anglesey, which presents the sitter with stern features and the heroic aura of a Roman general (63).
Wyatt’s debt to his masters in Italy is evident in his works of the 1830s. The Musidora, Ino and Bacchus, Flora and Zephyr, and Shepherd boy protecting his sister from the storm are all reminiscent of Canova’s ideal works (15, 17, 25, 27). The model for the group of the Shepherd boy was apparently coloured, and since it prefigures Gibson’s first attempts in polychromy by three years, it suggests that Wyatt had some interest in experiment. His monument to Charlotte Buller (6) is reminiscent of Canova’s monument to the Marchesa di Haro, 1806-8 at Possagno: it is a death-bed scene with a recumbent effigy attended by two mourners, one kneeling and the other leaning over her. The relief tablet to Ellen Legh (7) is more ambitious: she is met by an angel pointing to Heaven and turns away from her husband who mourns, hand on brow, holding their child. The influence of Thorvaldsen, whose plaster models were accessible to Wyatt, is evident in Wyatt’s statues of children (20, 23, 24), which owe debts to the Dane’s statue of Lady Georgiana Russell, 1815, at Woburn Abbey. The source for Wyatt's relief tablet to Ellen Legh is probably Thorvaldsen's monument to Philip Bethman-Hollweg, 1814, at Frankfurt-am-Main. Wyatt's monument has an angel leading Mrs Legh away, while her grieving husband is left behind with the baby. It has been described by John Martin Robinson as ‘a masterpiece with its perfect composition and austerely understated emotion’ (Robinson 1979 (2), 166).
He reached his zenith in the 1840s. In 1841 he visited England for the only time since settling in Rome, the city he so loved. The Prince Consort commissioned a statue of Penelope for the entrance to the Queen’s apartments at Windsor Castle (41), the first of five works for or bought by Queen Victoria (26, 40, 41, 46, 47). Wyatt’s obituary in the Art-Journal in 1850 singles out the Penelope as the work most admired by his friends in Rome.
In 1848, the year of revolutions, there was a major political upheaval in Rome, culminating in Garibaldi’s triumphal entry into the city and an upsurge of Italian nationalist feeling. English artists suffered: Gibson left the city and Wyatt was asked to release his studio in the Via della Fontanella. Though he took a new one in the Via dei Incurabile he never moved there. The proposed eviction upset him greatly and further distress was caused by bombardment of the city by the French, and then by a grenade which exploded in his studio, inflicting minor injuries on him and destroying some of his plaster casts. When Queen Victoria heard from Gibson of the misadventure she ordered another statue from Wyatt as recompense.
Wyatt died on 28 May 1850 from a neglected cold, which led to a throat infection and subsequent suffocation. He was buried in the English cemetery in Rome and his funeral was attended by nearly 50 artists and friends. Gibson carved his tombstone with a medallion portrait and the effusive epitaph ‘His works were universally admired for their purity of taste, grace and truth of nature. The productions of his genius adorn the Royal Palaces of England, St Petersburg and Naples as well as the residences of the nobility and gentry of his own country’ (Matthews 1911, 136).
He died intestate but is computed to have executed works in his lifetime worth at least £20,000. The Liverpool sculptor Benjamin Spence took over his studio in the Via dei Incurabile and he and Gibson completed Wyatt's unfinished works, a Nymph of Diana for the Queen, Lord Charles Townsend’s version of A Nymph taking a thorn out of a greyhound’s foot and a version of the Nymph coming out of a bath for Mr Foot of Read Hall, Lancs (26, 46, 34). The few statues left in the old studio were sold at Christie’s on 22 June 1861. His personal possessions, including the Royal Academy silver medal won in 1815, went to his niece. In 1851 a number of casts of his statues were shown at the Great Exhibition, as well as the Glycera from the Royal collection and The Infant Bacchus (40, 44). He was awarded one of the four first-class gold medals retrospectively.
During his later years Wyatt was much revered, particularly for the delicate beauty of his female figures, his mastery of composition and the excellent surface finish of his works. Since his largely aristocratic patrons continued to clamour for Wyatt’s figures in the tradition of Canova over a 20-year span, his style developed astonishingly little. The declining interest in neoclassicism in the later 19th century inevitably led to a loss of enthusiasm for his work, which is still current. The only recent survey of his life and achievement forms a part-chapter in John Martin Robinson’s biography of the Wyatt family, subtitled ‘An Architectural Dynasty’.
IR
Literar References: A J, 1850, 246-7; 1854, 352; Matthews 1911, 110-12, 130-36; Gunnis 1968, 448-9, Linstrum 1974, 18; Penny 1975 (1), 322; Robinson 1979 (2), 160-73; Read 1982, 37; Grove 33, 448-9 (Robinson)
Archival References: Wyatville/Canova, 5 Feb 1821; GPC
Miscellaneous Drawings: ‘Tuning’ (two figures with lyre and pipe, for a relief), NPG, c1850
Portraits of the Sculptor: John Partridge, 1825, NPG (3944/19) George K Childs, engraving, nd, AJ, 1850, 246; attrib S Pearce, oil on canvas, nd (Robinson 1979 (2), repr 96)
Auction Catalogue: Wyatt, R J, 1861