BY JOHN MARRIOTT BLASHFIELD, CIRCA 1860

This Flora statue of the spring and flower deity was executed in the mid nineteenth century by James Marriot Blashfield (d.l882). It was copied from the marble antiquity known as the Capitoline Flora, discovered in 1744 at Hadrian's Villa, and placed in the Capitoline Museum after being bought the same year by the Pope. Within months of its discovery, Jean-Franois de Troy, director of the French Academy in Rome, wrote that it was 'undeniably on of the most beautiful draped figures in Rome' and he was asked by the Pope for a cast of it in addition to the one that he was encouraged to make for the Academy. Replicas were in great demand almost as soon as it was discovered. In 1750 a full-scale marble version was carved for Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire and by 1770, there was yet another in the Duke of Richmond's collection at his house in Whitehall.

It was displayed in Paris from l798 to l8l5 before returning to the Capitoline Museum in l8l6. Blashfield, the celebrated terra cotta manufacturer, published 'An Account of the History and Manufacture of Ancient and Modern Terra Cotta', London l855. He added to it his Catalogue of Five Hundred Articles, an illustrated booklet that warranted the ability of his work to 'stand both heat and frost'. In l858, he moved from London to Wharf Road, Stamford, Lincolnshire, where he adopted the stamp featured on this statue until l872. Blashfield took pride in the handfinishing of his moulds, some of which had been acquired in the late l840s from Mrs Coade's Manufactory (see J.P.S. Davis, Antique Garden Ornament, Woodbridge, l99l, pp.l75).

For more information about J. M. Blashfield, see the introductory note preceding lot 125.