John Deare
Encyclopedia
John Deare was a British neo-classical sculptor. His nephew Joseph (1803-1835) was also a sculptor.
Schools, where he won a gold medal for a Miltonic
subject (1780). Meanwhile he also served an apprenticeship to the London carver Thomas Carter from 1776 to 1783, when he completed it and began sculpting as a freelancer, especially for his old master as well as for John Bacon
(whose work he admired) and John Cheere
. Independent commissions included the reliefs The War of Jupiter and the Titans in plaster for Whitton Park's pediment and The Good Samaritan (post-1782) for the Liverpool Dispensary. Deare was himself admired by his contemporaries, particularly by Joseph Nollekens
. However, his only surviving early works are those he produced to be made in ceramic by Derby for clocks by Benjamin Vulliamy
.
The Royal Academy gave him a pension for a three year stay in Rome (on the condition he sent back a work to the RA's annual exhibition), starting in 1785, where he starting drawing the classical sculpture collections at (among others) the Villa Albani and the Capitoline Museums
, probably joined the Adamiani sect (insisting God be worshipped naked) and set up an artistic circle including Robert Fagan
, Charles Grignion, Samuel Woodforde
and George Cumberland
. For his exhibition piece he modelled in plaster The Judgement of Jupiter (with over 20 figures and emulating history painting of the time, it was the largest 18th century relief by a British artist) but the Academy argued with him over its size and it was not sent to London (a marble version, commissioned by Sir Richard Worsley
in 1788, is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
). His next relief was Edward and Eleanor (drawn from a play by James Thomson). He also acted as an agent for Thomas Hope and the earl of Bristol
in their acquisition of works by his friend John Flaxman
and for Henry Blundell
and John Latouche
in acquiring works by Canova (all four of whom also bought works by Deare), and also financed himself on the expiry of his pension by carving copies of classical sculptures for British Grand Tour
ists, by restoring classical sculptures for collectors and by producing chimneypieces for patrons that included one at Frogmore House
for the Prince of Wales
(employing Joseph Gandy and other architects for the latter purpose).
By his death in Rome in 1796 (after sleeping on a block of marble hoping for inspiration and catching a chill) Deare had married an Italian woman, who he left with their children as a widow and for whose benefit Deare's friends such as Vincenzo Pacetti
and Christopher Hewetson
posthumously disposed of his studio contents. Three days after his death he was buried in Rome's Protestant Cemetery
.
Life
Born to a jeweller in Liverpool, John Deare in 1777 he enrolled at the Royal AcademyRoyal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
Schools, where he won a gold medal for a Miltonic
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
subject (1780). Meanwhile he also served an apprenticeship to the London carver Thomas Carter from 1776 to 1783, when he completed it and began sculpting as a freelancer, especially for his old master as well as for John Bacon
John Bacon
John Bacon was a British sculptor.Born in Southwark, he was the son of a cloth worker from Somerset. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a manufacturer of porcelain at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china, but was promoted to modeller...
(whose work he admired) and John Cheere
John Cheere
John Cheere was an English sculptor, born in London. Brother of the sculptor Sir Henry Cheere, he was originally apprenticed as a haberdasher from 1725 to 1732.-Life:...
. Independent commissions included the reliefs The War of Jupiter and the Titans in plaster for Whitton Park's pediment and The Good Samaritan (post-1782) for the Liverpool Dispensary. Deare was himself admired by his contemporaries, particularly by Joseph Nollekens
Joseph Nollekens
Joseph Nollekens was a sculptor from London generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century. He was also a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768.-Life:...
. However, his only surviving early works are those he produced to be made in ceramic by Derby for clocks by Benjamin Vulliamy
Benjamin Vulliamy
Benjamin Vulliamy , was a clockmaker responsible for building the Regulator Clock, which, between 1780 and 1884, was the official regulator of time in London.- Biography :...
.
The Royal Academy gave him a pension for a three year stay in Rome (on the condition he sent back a work to the RA's annual exhibition), starting in 1785, where he starting drawing the classical sculpture collections at (among others) the Villa Albani and the Capitoline Museums
Capitoline Museums
The Capitoline Museums are a group of art and archeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The museums are contained in three palazzi surrounding a central trapezoidal piazza in a plan conceived by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536 and executed over...
, probably joined the Adamiani sect (insisting God be worshipped naked) and set up an artistic circle including Robert Fagan
Robert Fagan
Robert Fagan was an Irish painter, diplomat and archaeologist.-Career:The son of Cork immigrants, Fagan was born in London. As an archaeologist he traveled to Italy and was involved in the excavations near Laurentum, which resulted in the discovery of the Venus at the Capitoline. Fagan then...
, Charles Grignion, Samuel Woodforde
Samuel Woodforde
Samuel Woodforde was an 18th-century British painter.Woodforde was born at Castle Cary, Somerset. He was the second son of Heighes Woodforde, an accountant of Ansford and Anne. He was a lineal descendant of the painter Samuel Woodford, and nephew of the diarist, James Woodforde...
and George Cumberland
George Cumberland
George Cumberland was an English art collector, writer and poet. He was a lifelong friend and supporter of William Blake, and like him was an experimental printmaker. He was also an amateur watercolourist, and one of the earliest members of the Bristol School of artists...
. For his exhibition piece he modelled in plaster The Judgement of Jupiter (with over 20 figures and emulating history painting of the time, it was the largest 18th century relief by a British artist) but the Academy argued with him over its size and it was not sent to London (a marble version, commissioned by Sir Richard Worsley
Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet
Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet was an English antiquary and politician.- Early life :Worsley was born on 13 February 1751, Appuldurcombe, the son of Sir Thomas Worsley, 6th Baronet . Worsley succeeded his father as baronet on 23 September 1768...
in 1788, is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
). His next relief was Edward and Eleanor (drawn from a play by James Thomson). He also acted as an agent for Thomas Hope and the earl of Bristol
Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol
Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, PC , known as The Earl-Bishop, was Bishop of Cloyne from 1767 to 1768 and Bishop of Derry from 1768 to 1803.- Life :...
in their acquisition of works by his friend John Flaxman
John Flaxman
John Flaxman was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...
and for Henry Blundell
Henry Blundell (art collector)
Henry Blundell was an English art collector.-Life:Blundell was born at Ince Blundell, Lancashire. A Catholic, like his friend and fellow collector Charles Townley he was thus barred from the British university system and was educated at the college of the English Jesuits at St Omer and...
and John Latouche
John La Touche (politician)
John La Touche was an Irish Whig politician.La Touche represented Newtownards in the Irish House of Commons from 1796 to 1798, Newcastle in 1798, and Harristown from 1797 until the Act of Union in 1801. Subsequently La Touche became a Member of Parliament in the new Parliament of the United...
in acquiring works by Canova (all four of whom also bought works by Deare), and also financed himself on the expiry of his pension by carving copies of classical sculptures for British Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
ists, by restoring classical sculptures for collectors and by producing chimneypieces for patrons that included one at Frogmore House
Frogmore House
Frogmore House is a 17th-century country house standing at the centre of the Frogmore Estate, amongst beautiful gardens, about a half a mile south of Windsor Castle in the Home Park at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is a Grade I listed building.-Early tenants:The original house on...
for the Prince of Wales
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
(employing Joseph Gandy and other architects for the latter purpose).
By his death in Rome in 1796 (after sleeping on a block of marble hoping for inspiration and catching a chill) Deare had married an Italian woman, who he left with their children as a widow and for whose benefit Deare's friends such as Vincenzo Pacetti
Vincenzo Pacetti
Vincenzo Pacetti was an Italian sculptor and restorer from Castel Bolognese, particularly active in collecting and freely restoring and completing classical sculptures such as the Barberini Faun — his most famous work— the Hope Dionysus and the Athena of Velletri and...
and Christopher Hewetson
Christopher Hewetson
Christopher Hewetson was a neoclassical sculptor of portrait busts. Born in Ireland, he was active in Rome.-Biography:Hewetson was born in Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland. He studied in Dublin under John van Nost the younger....
posthumously disposed of his studio contents. Three days after his death he was buried in Rome's Protestant Cemetery
Protestant Cemetery, Rome
The Protestant Cemetery , now officially called the Cimitero acattolico and often referred to as the Cimitero degli Inglesi is a cemetery in Rome, located near Porta San Paolo alongside the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale Egyptian-style pyramid built in 30 BC as a tomb and later incorporated...
.
Works
- The Judgement of Jupiter
- Edward and Eleanor (1786, marble version of 1790 for Sir Corbet Corbet now in a private collection).
- Marine Venus, marble relief, purchased in 1787 by Sir Cecil Bisshop for Parham ParkParham ParkParham Park is an Elizabethan house in Cootham, between Storrington and Pulborough, West Sussex, South East England, originally owned by the Monastery of Westminster and granted to Robert Palmer by King Henry VIII in 1540....
, Sussex, drawing on classical and 16th century Mannerist sculpture - Cupid and Psyche, marble (1791) for Thomas Hope (plaster version, Lyons House, co. Kildare)
- The Landing of Julius Caesar in Britain (1791–4; Stoke Manor, Stoke PogesStoke PogesStoke Poges is a village and civil parish in the South Buckinghamshire district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the south of the county, about three miles north of Slough and a mile east of Farnham Common....
, Buckinghamshire), the subject chosen by its commissioner John Penn - Portrait bust of John PennJohn Penn (writer)John Penn was an Anglo-American writer, a part proprietor of the Province of Pennsylvania , and a governor of the Isle of Portland.-Life:John Penn was the son of Thomas Penn and his wife Juliana John Penn (aka "John Penn, Jr."[sic], "John Penn of Stoke") (22 February 1760, London, England – 21...
(Eton CollegeEton CollegeEton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
).
Classical copies
- Apollo BelvedereApollo BelvedereThe Apollo Belvedere or Apollo of the Belvedere—also called the Pythian Apollo— is a celebrated marble sculpture from Classical Antiquity. It was rediscovered in central Italy in the late 15th century, during the Renaissance...
, commissioned in 1792 for Attingham by Lord Berwick - Faun with a Kid (Prado Museum, Madrid), acquired by Lord Cloncurry (private collection)
- Bust of Ariadne (c.1789, now in the Capitoline Museum, Rome), for John Latouche