ITALIAN, ROME, 18TH CENTURY AFTER THE ANTIQUE | Pair of Busts of Roman Emperors

Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1797-1861), Stowe House, Buckinghamshire;

his sale Christie and Manson, 15 August 1848, lots 1242-1243 'A Roman Imperial bust - the head of rosso antico, the drapery of oriental alabaster - 17 inches high ... The companion Bust' (R. Berkeley, Esq. £16 5s 6d each);

where acquired by Robert Berkeley (1794-1874), Spetchley Park, Worcestershire

Inventory, 1893, ‘2 small cinquecento busts 17”, 16½” respectively’ in the Inner Hall;

‘Spetchley Park -I. Worcestershire, The Seat of Mr. R. V. Berkeley', Country Life, 8 July 1916, p. 47, illustrated in the Entrance Hall;

Inventory, 1949, 'A Pair of marble and alabaster carved busts of Romans' in the Hall

The present busts epitomise the Grand Tour taste for mixed marble all'antica busts. The use of rosso antico, a marble prized in antiquity and used for the celebrated Fauno Rosso in the Capitoline Museums (bequeathed by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746), is both typical of the aesthetic and elevates the present busts to a level of sumptuousness befitting a great house. The busts adopt generic imperial features, but may be partially inspired by portraits of the Emperor Nerva; compare with his portrait bust in the Museo Massimo alle Terme in Rome (inv. no. 106538). There is also a resemblance to Domitian. It is unknown how the present busts arrived at Stowe, but they may have been acquired by the 1st Marquess of Buckingham on his Grand Tour in 1774.