English, probably 3rd quarter 17th century, After the portrait by Gianlorenzo Bernini

Warwick Castle. A brief account of the Earls of Warwick, together with a description of the castle and some of the more notable works of art therein, The Warwick Castle Estate Office, London 1959, p.34: 'The Hall contains a fine lead bust of KING CHARLES I, by Bernini'

This important 17^th century lead bust of Charles I is one of only three versions currently known to exist. Its significance, other than its rarity and quality for a lead sculpture, lies in its dependence, for the physiognomy of the face, on a surviving plaster cast taken from the celebrated marble bust of Charles I by Gianlorenzo Bernini, destroyed in the Whitehall Palace fire of 1698. Bernini’s portrait was itself based on Van Dyck's triple portrait. The two other surviving versions of this bust are in the Royal Collection (RCIN 2141) and the Apothecaries Hall, City, both plaster casts patinated to resemble bronze.

In 1996, Gudrun Raatschen published two re-discovered plaster casts recording just the face of the lost Bernini, in a private collection and at Berkeley Castle (illustrated overleaf). Several were owned by artists after the restoration, for example the sculptor Francis Bird and Jonathan Richardson the elder, who inscribed his ‘K. Ch.I after a Cast from that of Bernini’. The aforementioned busts are worked up versions of these face masks and together they form a coherent group within the corpus of works deriving their inspiration from Bernini’s lost original.

Attributing the bust to a particular sculptor is difficult. Clearly the head derives from Bernini but the truncation is unlike any extant bust by Hubert Le Sueur or Francois Dieussart, nor of the sculptors active in post-Restoration England.  This discrepancy between head and truncation recalls Vertue’s 1728 description of ‘another cast I have but differing in the hair & Shoulders- which I take to be a cast of that very face of the Marble Bust [i.e. the Bernini], but alterd in some other parts by some skillfull Artist'.  Esdaile (1949) suggested as a possible candidate Peter Besnier (fl.1643-c.1693), Keeper of the King’s moulds and models, who was re-instated in 1660 as Sculptor in Ordinary to Charles II. However the lion mask pauldrons, breastplate and sash are of a distinctly different type to those found on his busts (and those of his older brother Isaac), such as the Charles I formerly in the collection of Rupert Gunnis, mentioned by Esdaile (ibid., p.13) and illustrated in Knox, fig.7.

Another possible candidate might be John Bushnell (1636-1701), who trained in Italy before returning to England in 1668/69 and eventually settled at Hyde Park Corner. Katharine Gibson suggested that he based the head of his impressive 1671 Purbeck stone statue of Charles I on Bernini’s bust (Old Bailey, formerly Royal Exchange). Although slightly adapted, comparison with the present bust shows the similarity of the prominent curl set back from the forehead to give height and prominence to the features, directly recalling Van Dyck’s triple portrait. The eyes are similarly incised but look up, rather than down. The head of Arnold Quellin’s later lead statue of Charles I at Glamis Castle (1685-6) is a derivative of these types.

The entry date of the present bust into the collection of the Earls of Warwick is not known.  Why a bust of Charles I might be found there - it was a parliamentary stronghold during the Civil War - is not immediately apparent. The then incumbent of the castle, Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, was a zealous ideologue who commanded Parliamentary forces in the area and fended off a Royalist siege in 1642. However his second son Robert did not share his father’s sympathies. When he succeeded his elder brother as 4^th Baron in 1658, the year of Cromwell’s death, he was already a committed monarchist, for in 1660 he was appointed by the House of Lords as one of the six Commissioners deputed to travel to Holland to invite Charles II back to the throne. The purchase of the present bust in post-restoration London may therefore have been an expedient and tangible witness to his family’s loyalties.

RELATED LITERATURE
G.Vertue, ‘Note Books II’, Walpole Society, XX, 1931, p.50;
K.Esdaile, 'The busts and statues of Charles I', Burlington, XCI, 1949, pp.9-14;
M.Vickers, 'Rupert of the Rhine. A new portrait by Dieussart and Bernini's Charles I', Apollo, CVII, 1978, pp.161-79; 
G.Raatschen, 'Plaster casts of Bernini's bust of Charles I', Burlington, CXXXXVIII, 1996, pp.813-16, figs. 44 & 46a-c;
K. Gibson, ‘The kingdom's marble chronicle’, The Royal Exchange, ed. A. Saunders, London 1997, pp.138–73;
T.Knox, ‘Portrait of a collector: Rupert Gunnis at Hungershall Lodge and his bequest to the V&A’, Sculpture Journal, II, 1998, pp.85–96;
J.Marsden, 'Portrait Busts' in J.Roberts, The King's Head. Charles I: King and Martyr, exh.cat., The Queens Gallery, London 1999, pp.36-41, fig.45