£13,500
By or Studio of Edward Hodges Baily RA (1788-1867) - Portrait Bust of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (1788-1824), statuary marble on marble socle, the latter inscribed in black script: LORD BYRON, 76cm h
Provenance: Bought by the present vendor from a Nottingham collection in the mid-20th c, and as such unseen and fresh to the open market.
Edward Hodges Baily began his long and distinguished career modelling portraits in wax and working in the studio of Flaxman, going on to win the Society of Arts silver medal in 1808, entering the Royal Academy Schools in the following year, and later designing and modelling for the distinguished silversmith Paul Storr and the royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell.
Baily's work soon became part of the national artistic canon and collective memory: his best-known public sculptures include the figure of Nelson surmounting his memorial column in Trafalgar Square, statues and friezes for the National Gallery, bas-reliefs on Marble Arch in Hyde Park, some of which were later removed and installed on the facade of Buckingham Palace, where he also designed figures for the pediment.
The original marble version of this posthumous bust of Byron was exhibited by Baily at the RA in 1826. It's believed that the original model was presented in 1863 to Harrow, the poet-peer's alma mater. In 1827 Baily exhibited two further Byron busts at the Royal Society of British Artists, one of which is possibly the example on display in the British Embassy in Athens, Greece; another might be the one at Byron's ancestral home, Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. Either way it turns a quote from Hobhouse, Byron's close friend, into an axiom: "My dear Byron, nobody thinks of or looks at anything but your head."
Much settled dust and dirt, untouched and undisturbed condition.
Fees apply to the hammer price:
Room and Absentee Bids:
28.80% inc VAT*
Online and Autobids:
30.6% inc VAT*
