Details of Sculptor

Surname

Foye

Alternative Surname

First Name

Michael

Initial of Surname

F

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1765-77

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Foye entered the Dublin Society’s Schools in 1765 and in 1767 exhibited two works with the Society of Artists in William Street, Dublin (8, 9). These were followed by bas reliefs of Mercury instructing Cupid and Hercules resting from his labours, for which he was awarded premiums by the Dublin Society (5, 6). By 1770 he was working in the studio of John Nost III and about 2 years later he travelled to Italy, arriving in Florence by 28 April 1772. He studied the ducal collections in Florence, making a cast of Michelangelo’s Bacchus and a copy of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, before proceeding to Rome before Easter, 1773, when he took lodgings in the Strada dei Greci. The following year he was living in the Via Babuino. Foye soon came into contact with Thomas Banks, who described him as ‘a sculptor, a very ingenious, worthy young man; he is doing a copy of the Apollo Belvidere in marble, about five feet and a half high’ (Bell 1938, 17) (1). In November 1776 the English painter Thomas Jones met Foye with Banks, Christopher Hewetson, Nathaniel Marchant and numerous other artists, at the Cafe degli Inglesi (Jones Memoirs 1951, 53). In 1777 ‘Mr Foy, at Rome’ sent a ‘Busto of an artist’ to the exhibition of the Society of Artists in London (3). It is possible that this was the bust of Allan Ramsay now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (4). The last digit of the date on the Ramsay is missing but it was certainly executed during the 1770s. Another bust, in a private collection, was thought to be a representation of Sir William Hamilton but has recently been identified as Sir John Lindsay, a famous naval officer and Allan Ramsay’s brother-in-law (2). Foy also carved a head in relief of the history painter James Durno which appeared in Thomas Banks’s posthumous sale of 1805 (7). He is thought to have died in Rome soon after 1777. (Add inf. Nicola Figgis)
Literary References: Strickland I, 1913, 381; Esdaile 1924 (4), 237; Gunnis 1968, 156; Stainton 1983, 15, 23-4; Ingamells 1997, 379; Wilson 2005, 31-9