Details of Sculptor

Surname

Burlowe

Alternative Surname

First Name

Henry Behnes

Initial of Surname

B

Year of Birth/Baptism

1801/2?

Flourished

Year of Death

1837

Biographical Details

A sculptor of portrait busts and the younger brother of William Behnes, Burlowe was the second of three sons of an impoverished German piano maker and his English wife and was probably born in London in 1801-1802, though one source suggests that the birth took place in Dublin in 1796 (Thieme-Becker, 3, 204). Burlowe was certainly brought up in Dublin, but by 1813 the family had returned to London, where the brothers assisted their father in his trade as well as studying art. The Art Journal noted that ‘Henry Behnes first, then William, formed the resolution of settling definitively to sculpture as their profession’ after receiving informal lessons from Peter Francis Chenu, a fellow lodger in the family home in Charles Street (AJ, 1864, 83). Henry entered the Royal Academy Schools in October 1821, aged 19, and was awarded a silver medal two years later. Around that time he adopted the name Burlowe so that his works would not be confused with those of his famous brother and perhaps because he was ashamed of William, whose dissolute life-style was well known.
In the 1820s Burlowe established a practice as a sculptor of portrait busts and he had some notable sitters, including the auctioneer James Christie II, the poet John Clare, the engraver John Pye and Henry Bathurst, Bishop of Norwich (4, 6, 13, 17). His bust of Samuel Carter Hall, editor of the Art Journal, suggests scientific pretensions for it is signed ‘HB. BURLOWE / SCULPTOR / AND PHRENOLOGIST’ (26). Burlowe exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831 and 1833 and at the Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street, in 1831, giving his address as 10 Lower Southampton Street. During this period he also executed his two known monuments (1, 2).
He went to Rome c1834, where he received many commissions from English visitors to the city. E V Rippingille later recalled seeing a female head, thought to be the first work executed by Burlowe in Rome (24). He was surprised and delighted by its individuality and sophistication and commented that it was executed ‘in a style directly opposed to that which was prevalent among the artists of Rome generally, being much broader and bolder’ (Rippingille 1859, 202). Greenwood has noted that Burlowe’s busts, with their ‘lively naturalism, and a varied treatment of facial contours’, differ markedly from the neoclassical works of established British sculptors in the city such as John Gibson and Lawrence Macdonald (ODNB).
In 1837 most of the English residents fled Rome to escape the cholera epidemic, but Burlowe chose to stay, against the advice of his friends, ‘as he had so many busts in progress and he could not afford to leave them’. He was convinced that ‘if a person took care to purify his stomach, there was little danger of being attacked by the malady’ (AU, 1840, 193). He contracted cholera and by the time his plight was discovered by the artist Charles Lambert, he was already dying. He was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Monte Testaccio, Rome, shortly after his death on 4 September 1837 and a monument was later erected to his memory. His death was recorded in the Norwich Mercury on 30 September 1837.
The Art Union obituary noted that ‘No person ever had more friends, or earned them, and merited them better… A more upright, manly or “straight-forward” person never lived; and it will not be too much to say that no one with means so limited ever did more good to those who required assistance’ (AU, 1840, 193). One of his friends was Anna Jameson, the writer and art historian, who described Burlowe as ‘my best friend, the dearest to me on earth’ (cited by Thomas 1967, 144). The Art Journal observed that, although he was ‘in every way superior to his brother as a man’, Henry was William’s ‘inferior as an artist’ (AJ, 1864, 84), but S C Hall believed that ‘he would certainly have attained distinction’ if he had lived longer (Hall II, 1883, 238).
EH
Literary References: AU, 1840, 193; Rippingille 1859, 201-2; AJ, 1864, 83–4; Palgrave 1866, 225; MacPherson 1878, 65, 177; Hall II, 1883, 238; Thieme-Becker, 3, 204; DNB; Hutchison 1960-62, 174; Thomas 1967, 144-5; Gunnis 1968, 70; Read 1982, 69; Bilbey 2002, 227; ODNB (Greenwood)
Additional MS Sources: Behnes/Clare; Behnes Papers