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Lot Essay
The present bust was acquired by Charles Watson-Wentworth, the second Marquess of Rockingham, either commissioned directly from the sculptor, Joseph Wilton, or bought from Wilton’s stock of busts made all'antica. In 1986 the bust was sold at Christie’s from Wentworth Woodhouse alongside two other busts after the antique of the Pseudo-Seneca and an unknown Man (after the so-called Demosthenes or Aratus or Lysimachus in the Farnese collection), the latter of which is signed by Wilton. Both busts now reside in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the bust of the Preudo-Seneca has since been attributed to Wilton.
In 1991 Nicholas Penny (Penny, op. cit., p. 20) argued that the present bust, the two Getty busts, and a fourth 'bust of a bearded Immortal’ also signed by Wilton and dated 1758, sold in 1949 (Henry Spencer and Sons of Redford, lot 470), constitute a set of busts, which correspond with the 'four busts in Marble’ in the 'Grand floor center room’ of Rockingham House, London, in the Rockingham inventory of 1 July 1782 ('An Inventory...', op. cit.). Of similar size and each on an identical square-waisted socle, the four busts were likely later moved to Wentworth Woodhouse, where the present bust was photographed in the 1986 catalogue in situ in the Sculpture Gallery.
In 1991 Nicholas Penny (Penny, op. cit., p. 20) argued that the present bust, the two Getty busts, and a fourth 'bust of a bearded Immortal’ also signed by Wilton and dated 1758, sold in 1949 (Henry Spencer and Sons of Redford, lot 470), constitute a set of busts, which correspond with the 'four busts in Marble’ in the 'Grand floor center room’ of Rockingham House, London, in the Rockingham inventory of 1 July 1782 ('An Inventory...', op. cit.). Of similar size and each on an identical square-waisted socle, the four busts were likely later moved to Wentworth Woodhouse, where the present bust was photographed in the 1986 catalogue in situ in the Sculpture Gallery.