“Marquis of Lorne” by Henrietta Montalba

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Marquis of Lorne

Henrietta Montalba

1880

Marble

Source: Gosse 49

This is another of Montalba's portraits admired by Marion Hepworth-Dixon (1856-1936). Although it is not illustrated in her article, she proclaims it to be "informed with learning, distinction,and above all style, a quality without which a piece of sculpture is but sorry and cumbersome furniture" (216). [Commentary continues below. Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee

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Hepworth-Dixon is particularly impressed by the appropriateness and handling of the Marquis's garb or, as she puts it, Montalba's "treatment of its draperies. That bugbear of the modern sculptor, nineteenth-century dress, is tackled with skill and the uncommon sense called common. An open collar, a fur cap, and a befrogged fur-lined overcoat, an everyday winter dress in Canada, is a costume picturesque enough to satisfy the aesthetic sense without violating the probabilities; and it is in this garb that the late Governor-General of Canada is happily presented to us" (216).

The Marquis would have been a congenial subject: he was the husband of Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, Princess Louise, a good friend of the Montalba sisters.

Bibliography

Gosse, Edmund. "Living English Sculptors II." The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine Vol. 31 (November 1885): 39-50 (see p. 50).

Hepworth-Dixon, M. "Henrietta Montalba: A Reminiscence." The Art-Journal (new series 1894): 215-217. HathiTrust, from a copy in the Getty Research Institute. Web. 2 August 2024. [Full text in the Victorian Web.]

Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. "Montalba, Henrietta Skerrett (1856–1893), sculptor." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.. Web. 2 August 2024.

Created 2 August 2024