A WHITE WAX PORTRAIT RELIEF OF BISHOP PERCY

Thomas Percy (1729-1811), English antiquarian, poet and churchman became Protestant bishop of Dromore (Ireland) in 1782. He achieved literary fame as the editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (3 vol., 1765), a collection of 176 English and Scottish ballads, which sparked a rediscovery of medieval English poetry and inspired romantic poets in Germany as well as England. He died at his home in Dromore, Co. Down in 1811.

Edward Law (or Laws) was born in Sheffield in 1798. He is known to be active in the production of wax reliefs around 1826/7 including examples of Sir Isaac Newton and Shakespeare. He died in 1838.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
E. J. Pyke, A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, Oxford U.P., 1973, p.76-77.