Lot Essay
The present work is a marble version of the plaster model that Watson submitted in 1842 as a late entry for the competition to sculpt a statue of Sir David Wilkie, to be erected on the stairs of the National Gallery. Although his effort was favoured by many fellow artists, the judging committee eventually awarded the commission to Samuel Joseph. Joseph's almost identical plaster model is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Shortly before his death in 1847, Watson is said to have destroyed a number of works that did not satisfy him. However, a plaster sketch of the Wilkie model was spared and was sold in the sale of the remaining items of the sculptors studio, held on 14 September, 1848. The present statue is the first evidence that the work was actually carved in marble.