- 204
English, 19th century
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Description
English, 19th century
a memorial to the poet thomas chatterton (1752-1770)
weathered white marble (4)
width at base: 130cm., 51in.
Thomas Chatterton was the author of the 'Rowley' poems, a collection of pseudo-archaic prose that purported to be by a fifteenth century Bristol monk by the name of Thomas Rowley. The poems brought him both fame and notoriety - he had attempted to pass them off as genuine to Horace Walpole and the publisher James Dodsley - for while exposed, they marked him as a poet of genius: indeed, the controversy over authenticity raged for decades after his death.
In April 1770, aged just 17, Chatterton left his native Bristol to pursue his calling in London, where he received encouragement from Dodsley and produced a burletta, The Revenge, that brought some income. However, his hopes were dashed by the death of a prospective patron and, plunged into poverty and starving, he committed suicide in his garrett at 39 Brooke Street, on 24th August. Chatterton's life, work and tragic death had a powerful effect on the Romantic movement: Keats dedicated his poem Endymion to his memory, Coleridge a 'Monody'' Shelley a stanza of his Adonais and Wordsworth famously referred to him as 'the marvellous boy'.
Chatterton was buried in a pauper's grave with no contemporary monument. Apart from a small statue of him in the grounds of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; a recent commission by that city for a statue of him by Lawrence Holofcener; and a 1783 profile relief that was set up by private enterprise on the estate of Philip Thicknesse in Bath (now lost), no other sculptural memorial survives.
The present work may well relate to Henry Wallis' painting of the Death of Chatterton (1856, Tate Gallery): Wallis' famous depiction of the poet in death, the embodiment of the Romantic hero, bears more than a striking resemblance to the present work, both in posture and detail of clothing. For this reason it is possible to surmise that the present work was a private commission in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Chatterton's death (1845), or his centenary (1870).
a memorial to the poet thomas chatterton (1752-1770)
weathered white marble (4)
width at base: 130cm., 51in.
Thomas Chatterton was the author of the 'Rowley' poems, a collection of pseudo-archaic prose that purported to be by a fifteenth century Bristol monk by the name of Thomas Rowley. The poems brought him both fame and notoriety - he had attempted to pass them off as genuine to Horace Walpole and the publisher James Dodsley - for while exposed, they marked him as a poet of genius: indeed, the controversy over authenticity raged for decades after his death.
In April 1770, aged just 17, Chatterton left his native Bristol to pursue his calling in London, where he received encouragement from Dodsley and produced a burletta, The Revenge, that brought some income. However, his hopes were dashed by the death of a prospective patron and, plunged into poverty and starving, he committed suicide in his garrett at 39 Brooke Street, on 24th August. Chatterton's life, work and tragic death had a powerful effect on the Romantic movement: Keats dedicated his poem Endymion to his memory, Coleridge a 'Monody'' Shelley a stanza of his Adonais and Wordsworth famously referred to him as 'the marvellous boy'.
Chatterton was buried in a pauper's grave with no contemporary monument. Apart from a small statue of him in the grounds of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; a recent commission by that city for a statue of him by Lawrence Holofcener; and a 1783 profile relief that was set up by private enterprise on the estate of Philip Thicknesse in Bath (now lost), no other sculptural memorial survives.
The present work may well relate to Henry Wallis' painting of the Death of Chatterton (1856, Tate Gallery): Wallis' famous depiction of the poet in death, the embodiment of the Romantic hero, bears more than a striking resemblance to the present work, both in posture and detail of clothing. For this reason it is possible to surmise that the present work was a private commission in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Chatterton's death (1845), or his centenary (1870).