BY SHOUT, EARLY 19TH CENTURY

The fashion for lighting rooms with figurative lamps in plaster, bronzed in the Roman manner, proliferated from the end of the eighteenth century. This pattern of the 'vestal virgin' was identified with the Egyptian style, exemplified by the interiors of the Duchess Street mansion-museum created around 1800 by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d. 1831). Most notable among the firms producing such figures were Robert Shout, Humphrey Hopper, Francis Hardenberg, and James Deville. The Garrard's Act of 1798, passed to protect the individual makers, dictated that all subsequent works had to be signed and dated (see T.Clifford, 'The plaster shops of the rococo and neo-classical era in Britain', Journal of the History of Collections, no.1, 1992, pp. 39-65). A bill-head dated 1806 advertised the studio and spacious showrooms of Robert Shout (d. 1823) at 18 High Holborn as having 'a large assortment of figures and tripods for holding lamps or candles Likewise several hundreds of figures from the Antique' (A. Coleridge, 'The 3rd and 4th Dukes of Atholl and the firm of Chipchase', The Connoisseur, February 1966, p. 101, and T. Clifford, op.cit, pp. 63-64).