The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-12-14 00:00:00

MEMOIR OF SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY

This greatest of British sculptors was the son of a farmer
in Derbyshire, and born at Norton, a village in that county,
on the 7th of April, 1782. Early in life he was destined for
a lawyer, and it was while his friends were conducting him
to Sheffield to be articled for that purpose that his genius
accidentally received that bent in which he afterwards became
so pre-eminent. He happened to arrive in the city a few
hours before them, and, while . gazing in the streets, his
attention was so arrested by the figures in a carver's window
that on their arrival he expressed a resolution to pursue this
profession, and was accordingly apprenticed to the proprietor,
a Scotchman named Bkogers, with whom he remained for
nearly three years. Carving on wood, however, was not his
forte. Before he had attained the age of seventeen he de-
voted himself to modelling in clay, and the nocturnal candle
burning in his chamber, displayed the young student's devo-
tion to that art in which he soon became so proficient, that
after a short interval he entered on the career of a sculptor.
Dublin and Edinburgh were visited by him with this view ;
but in the former he received little patronage, and the latter
was blind to his genius. In the year 1808-9 accordingly he
arrived a friendless artist in London.
The exhibitions of the Royal Academy affords an opportunity
for artists which the members of no other profession possess.
The abilities of a first-rate lawyer or physician may languish
in obscurity, as both are indebted almost exclusively to chance
for occasion of display. But with the artist, it is otherwise :
he has the opportunity, and if he fortunately possesses ability
to substantiate it, his road to fortune is secure. A bust which
Chautrey sent to the academy attracted the attention of Nol-
lekens, who, whatever may have been his foibles, was never
blind to kindred art. He instantly said—" That's a splendid
work, let the man he known ; remove one of my busts and
put it in its place, for it well deserves it." The words proved
prophetic ; the bust, we believe that of John Raffael Smith,
was universally admired ; and Nolleken's admiration was not
confined to mere words. He immediately took the artist
under his protection, and to the last declared, " If you want
a bust Chantrey's the man," when he himself was applied to
on this subject.

The opportunity once secured, Chantrev's genius did the
rest. The busts of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Joseph Banks,
Lord St. Vincent, the Duke of Sussex, Sir W. Curtis,
Wordsworth, Southey, George 111., George IV.. William
IV., Canning, Watt, Northcote, Nollekens, and Wellington,
with a host of others, evince his excellence. Of these, those
of Scott, Watt, and George 111. and IV., are perhaps the
best. His statue to the memory of Lady Louisa Russell is
said not to be equalled by anything of the kind done in Bri-
tain. She is represented as standing on tip-toe, fondling a
small bird in her bosom, and the youthful eagerness, yet na-
tural ease, with which she does it, has long attracted the
admiration of visitors to Woburn Abbey. " The Sleeping
Children," which formerly so rivetted attention at Somerset-
house, and now adorn Lichfield Cathedral, are not less cele-
brated. A mother is said to have wept over the group while
surveying this emblem of infant beauty.
A curious anecdote is told of Chantrey, from which we
may conclude that, although already known to the west end,
his fame had not penetrated the city. When, along with a
number of others, he sent in his model for the statue of Geo.
111., proposed to be erected in the Guildhall, the wiseacres
there intended to reject it, on the supposition that the artist
was a painter; and it was not until Sir W. Curtis sent for
him to be examined on this point, that the preference was
given to the superiority of his design ! Chantrey, we may
add, was a painter, and of no inconsiderable power ; but the
splendour of his chisel threw the execution of his brush into
the shade.

•
Sir Francis was often unlucky about his works. The
statues of General Bowes and Colonel Cadogan, when con-
veyed to be placed in St. Paul's, experienced an accident by
the breaking of a rope, which proved fatal to one, and with
difficulty allowed the other to remain an object of repose to
the eye, wearied of surveying the absurd allegorical groups
in the cathedral. But to another temporary misfortune those
who visited his atelier were indebted for one of their choicest
pleasures. The beautiful statue of Marianne, only daughter
of Johues, of Stafford, the translator of Froissart, was al-
lowed to remain in the hands of the artist, in consequence of
a calamity which overwhelmed the father.
In the year 1819 Sir Francis proceeded to Italy, where he
spent several months in examining the productions of the
ancient masters. In 1801 and the following year, we be-
lieve, he visited the Louvre, for the purpose of studying the
spoils of art which Napoleon had there collected from all
quarters of Europe. What influence these may have had in
forming his taste it is needless to say ; but it may be observed
that both in his designs and his execution he is eminently'
British, and he has formed an English school, if we may so
term it, which is celebrated all over the continent, and is
almost equally esteemed with Thorwaldsen's and Canova's
fltell

In 1826-7 Sir Francis commenced the formation of his sta-
tues in bronze. The statue of George the Fourth, at Brigh-
ton, was the first of his productions ; and it attracted such
general admiration that he was engaged to execute one in
marble for Windsor, and another of larger dimensions in
bronze for Edinburgh. His statue of Pitt in Hanover-square
is considered the finest specimen of his productions in this
branch ; and it must be owned that nowhere, except perhaps
in his sitting figure of Watt, (in marble,) has the inelegant
appearance of modern dress been so artistically concealed.
In person, Sir Francis Chantrey was under the average
height, but possessed a compact form, and a highly intellec-
tual countenance. His disposition was beneficent, and his
conversation eminently engaging. He was possessed of great
energy, although in the sixtieth year of his age, and suffering
from the disease by which he was so suddenly, removed from
the field of his fame.