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Lot 1007
Description:
ROMAN MARBLE TORSO, 1ST CENTURY B.C. - 1ST CENTURY A.D.
bronze pin behind neck and a collector's seal (?) behind his left hip, the figure stood with head to the right and the ties of a taenia (?) reaching to the shoulders as seen from behind, the right arm lowered, the left arm raised stretching the muscles of the torso, with Addison Gallery label underneath
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Provenance:
Sir Francis Cook, 1st Baronet, 1st Visconde de Monserrate (1817-1901), Doughty House,
Richmond, Surrey, England,
By descent to his son Sir Frederick Cook, 2nd Baronet (1844-1920),
By descent to his son Sir Herbert Cook, 3rd Baronet (1868-1939)
By descent to his son Sir Francis Cook, 4th Baronet, (1907-1978),
Sold by him and the Trustees of the Cook Collection in 1948 to
Bert Crowther, Crowther's of Syon Lodge, Isleworth,
Private Maryland and Massachusetts Estate Collection, purchased during "European trip," summer
1949, according to family notes - Dimensions: 15 x 12 x 5 1/2 in. (38.1 x 30.5 x 14 cm.) above a wooden base
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Exhibited:
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1951
The Walters Art Gallery, 1951
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, October, 1951-1952
The Fogg Art Museum, Ancient Art in American Private Collections, Dec. 28, 1954 - Feb.
15, 1955, no. 166 -
Literature:
Adolf Michaelis, 'Ancient Marbles in Great Britain,' Cambridge, 1882. Michaelis
mentions his visits to Doughty House in 1873 and 1877, p. 619. Described on p. 632, no.
43, "torso of Herakles (?), quite nude. He rests on the l. leg; the l. arm was originally
stretched out from the body horizontally and probably rested on something, as we may
infer from the stooping position of the body. The r. leg was somewhat advanced, the r.
arm lowered. Indistinct traces in the neck hardly suggesting hair, perhaps of a skin."
Photographed in situ at Doughty House, circa 1905 (Room XIII, Lower staircase), from
an album in the possession of the heirs of the late Brenda, Lady Cook. Photograph @
Robin Briault, courtesy of the Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art
Library, Washington, D.C.
Eugenie Strong, "Antiques in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bart., at Doughty
House, Richmond," Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 28, 1908, no. 10, pp. 12-13, pl. VI,
described as Greek. "On the left shoulder are traces of a taenia (?), of hair (?), or of a skin
(?). Possibly a Heracles (tentatively suggested by Michaelis). The right arm was lowered,
the left extended and somewhat raised to rest on a pillar or other object. The motive points
to the fourth century, but the hard exaggerated rendering of the muscles is characteristic of
a later date."
A note in the Cook Collection Archives circa 1948 has "Crowther" referenced to the
present torso (ie. Bert Crowther, Ltd. Syon Lodge, Isleworth).
D. K. Hill, "A Fine Greek Fragment," Bulletin of Walters Art Gallery, 1951, vol. 3, no. 8
"One Man's History of Art," Life Magazine, June 4, 1951, pp. 67-68
"Ancient Art in American Private Collections," Exhibition at the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, 1954, p. 28, no. 166
Elon Danziger, "The Cook Collection, its founders and its inheritors," Burlington Magazine,
July 2004, pp. 444-458
John Somerville, ‘Francis Cook, 1st Viscount of Monserrate (1817-1901); Patron and Art
Collector' pp. 103-115, ed. Monserrate Revisited, The Cook Collection in Portugal (Lisbon,
2017)
Catalogue note:
Sir Francis Cook (1817-1901) was a British textile magnate, a renowned art collector, and
one of England's wealthiest men. He assembled one of the most important art collections
of the 19th Century for his Georgian mansion Doughty House, in Richmond, Surrey (West
London). In addition, he kept a number of works at his Moorish style summer palace
"Monserrate," at Sintra, Portugal. While better known for his extraordinary collection of
paintings, he initially began buying European works of art, starting with Renaissance
plaquettes, and antiquities in the 1850s to decorate his homes. According to E. Danziger,
while awaiting construction of his palace at Monserrate, he began collecting "Greek,
Roman and Etruscan marble, bronzes and ceramics." He likely began buying paintings
some ten years later, through his dealer/agent and advisor Sir John Charles Robinson
(1824-1913), formerly of the South Kensington Museum, who advised him for thirty
years. In addition to the paintings, he also sold Cook many sculptures and decorative
works of art (Danziger, pp. 445, 449).
Until his death at the age of eighty-four, Sir Francis was still active as a businessman and
art collector. In his will, he divided his art collection between his two sons. He left the
larger share of the collection including the Old Master paintings, antique sculptures and
marbles to his eldest son Sir Frederick Cook and his heirs, to be held in a trust. The
collection then went by descent to Sir Francis's grandson Herbert, and by descent in 1939
to his great-grandson, Sir Francis Cook, 4th Baronet, just as war was engulfing Europe.
While the intention was to keep the collection together, after Herbert's death, the Cook
trustees hired C. Kaines Smith as Curator of the collection, to discreetly find buyers for
some of the paintings to satisfy death taxes and to honor the financial bequests in Sir
Herbert's will.
While most of the treasures had been moved out of the house for safekeeping, Doughty
House was hit by a bomb during the summer of 1944, that badly damaged the roof of the
galleries. "Renewed financial pressures (including heavy taxes), together with managing a
vast art collection without a proper house, led to new discussions about the fate of the
collection" (Danziger, p. 457). Ultimately, the trustees convinced the great-grandson, Sir
Francis, 4th, to reduce his collection to the best one hundred pictures; they began inviting
inquiries from dealers including Seligmann, Agnew, Duveen and Rosenberg & Stiebel. Doughty House was sold in 1949 (Danziger, p. 456).
Many of the antiquities and sculptures went to leading museums around the world
including the Getty, which holds five works from the Cook collection (see the "Mazarin
Venus" and "Crouching Aphrodite"), the Metropolitan Museum, "bronze portrait bust of a
young boy, ca. 50-68 CE," the Ashmoleon Museum, "marble statue of Apollo," and the
British Museum, "Graeco-Syrian sarcophagus." The Walters Museum, Baltimore holds
the magnificent "Byzantine agate and gold vase" formerly owned by Emperor Charles V,
as well as Rubens.
Old Master paintings from his collection included Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi,"
which appeared at auction in 2017, van Eyck's "Three Marys at the Sepulchre," Museum
Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Diego Velazquez's "Old Woman Cooking Eggs,"
National Gallery of Scotland and Antonello da Messina's "Christ at the Column," Musee
du Louvre. Twenty-one highly important paintings from the Cook Collection are held by
the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. including the "Adoration of the Magi,"
tondo by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, as well as works by Crivelli, Mantegna, Titian,
Sebastiano del Piombo, El Greco and other major old master painters.
We are grateful to John Somerville, Keeper of the Cook Collection Archive, for his help cataloging
this lot.
This item has been sent through The Art Loss Register and has No Match status -
Condition:
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|---|---|---|
| $0 | $99 | $10 |
| $100 | $499 | $25 |
| $500 | $999 | $50 |
| $1,000 | $1,999 | $100 |
| $2,000 | $4,999 | $250 |
| $5,000 | $9,999 | $500 |
| $10,000 | $19,999 | $1,000 |
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