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WALPOLES

Tel: +44 (0)207 7275263

Email: [email protected]

https://www.decorativecollective.com/dealers/walpoles

Item Details

William Pitt when Prime Minister. A fine bronze sculpture, done in 1820, after the design by Francis Philibert Hardenberg, a German born artist working as sculptor and plaster figure maker in England from 1783.


The sculpture standing 11.75 inches high, on a square bronze plinth 4 inches x 4 inches x 1 1/8 inch.


The plinth later engraved in Gothic script "Presented to Dr. Quain as a token of gratitude from Edmund Slocock Obit Jany 22nd 1869". Dr. Quain, likely Sir Richard Quain (1816-1898), given his reputation and standing within the medical profession when this sculpture was gifted in 1869. As a general physician on Harley Street Quain gained many high profile patients from the 1850’s including Benjamin Disraeli. In 1871 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and became the vice-president of the Royal College of Physicians in 1889; appointed physician-extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1890.


An identical bronze sculpture, save that it is gilded and stands on a malacite veneered base, is held in Downing Street, purchased from Gerald Kerin Ltd by the Ministry of Works in 1953. Winston Churchill, prime minister at the time of this acquisition, initially placed it in the Cabinet Room but it was later moved to one of the state rooms by Lady Churchill, where it remains to this day. Hardenberg was also a porcelain dealer and a further version of this figure in porcelain is held in the Athenaeum Collection, London. It shows Pitt with his right hand on his hip whilst carrying a book in his left.


To quote verbatim from the government's biography of William Pitt 'The Younger'. "At just 24 years old, William Pitt The Younger, son of Pitt the Elder, was the youngest Prime Minister in history. He died aged only 46. He was exhausted by the demands of an office whose modern conception he helped to establish, and of a peculiarly threatening international situation which frustrated many of his political goals".


 

  • Period:
    • Price: £3,600.00
    • €4,191 Euro
    • $4,812 US Dollar
  • Location: London