Statue of William Shakespeare (Roubiliac)

In 1757, the actor David Garrick commissioned the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac to make a full-size marble statue of William Shakespeare for Garrick's octagonal Temple to Shakespeare, erected near his villa beside the River Thames at Hampton, to the west of London. The sculpture cost 300 guineas and was installed at Garrick's temple in 1758; it remained there until it was bequeathed to the British Museum along with Garrick's books in 1779. The sculpture was transferred to the new British Library in 2005, where it is displayed on a new travertine plinth beside the main staircase in the main entrance hall.

The sculpture depicts Shakespeare standing, leaning with his right arm on a lectern covered with a fringed cloth. His right foot is forward and body leaning to the right, with his hips thrust out awkwardly to the left. His right hand is holding a

The art historian Margaret Whinney describes Roubiliac's bust as having "Van-Dyckian elegance" and notes that "he has greatly ennobled the head".

Design

The body of Shakespeare may be modelled on Garrick himself, and the head was based on the Chandos portrait. Roubiliac worked from a copy of the Chandos portrait that he commissioned from Joshua Reynolds, now lost. The Government Art Collection holds the c.1758 copy of the portrait that Roubiliac made from the Reynolds copy, given by Roubiliac to Matthew Maty, the first librarian of the British Museum, and transferred to the Office of Works in 1946. The posture is similar to the 1740 statue of Shakespeare made by Peter Scheemakers for William Kent's Monument to William Shakespeare in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey

A 1762 portrait of Roubiliac by Adrien Carpentiers, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London, shows the sculptor working on a small terracotta maquette of the Shakespeare statue. A slight different version of the painting, dated to 1769-1761 with callipers added to the stand for the statue, is held by the Yale Center for British Art.

Copies

Several studies of the sculpture survive, and some moulds and plaster busts were sold in the studio sale after Roubiliac's death in 1762. A 42.2 cm (16.6 in) high terracotta

A 57.8 cm (22.8 in) terracotta bust by Roubiliac was acquired by the

• 
  Johan Zoffany, David Garrick and his Wife by his Temple to Shakespeare at Hampton, c. 1762, Yale Center for British Art
• 
  Adrien Carpentiers, Portrait of Louis-Francois Roubiliac, 1762, National Portrait Gallery, London
• 
  Adrien Carpentiers, Louis-Francois Roubiliac Modelling His Monument to Shakespeare, 1760-1761, Yale Center for British Art
• 
  Roubiliac's terracotta bust of Shakespeare, British Museum
• 
  Monument to William Shakespeare in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey

References

• The Shakespeare sculpture at the British Library, Jennifer Howes, Curator of Visual Arts, British Library, 11 November 2013
• Terracotta portrait bust of William Shakespeare , British Museum
• William Shakespeare, Sketch model, Victoria & Albert Museum
• Terracotta bust, Garrick Club
• Plaster bust with bronze finish, State Library of New South Wales
• William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Playwright and Poet, Government Art Collection
• Louis François Roubiliac, Adriaen Carpentiers, National Portrait Gallery, London, ArtUK
• Louis François Roubiliac, Adriaen Carpentiers, National Portrait Gallery, London
• Louis François Roubiliac, Adriaen Carpentiers, Yale Center for British Art, Art UK
• Louis François Roubiliac, Adriaen Carpentiers, Yale Center for British Art
• Sculpture of Shakespeare: Study for statue for David Garrick's Shakespeare Temple, Folger Shakespeare Library
• Bust-of-Shakespeare, Folger Shakespeare Library
• "What place for public statues in the history of art?", Apollo Magazine, Malcolm Baker, 8 July 2020
• Shakespeare Portrayed, Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Sculpture in Britain, 1530-1830, Margaret Whinney, Yale University Press, 1992
  ISBN 0300053185
  , p. 224-226

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