AN ENGLISH WHITE MARBLE BUST OF GEORGE IV

Joseph Theakston was apprenticed to John Fisher and went on to work for John Flaxman RA and E.H. Baily. In 1818 he began working for Sir Francis Chantrey where he was chiefly responsible for the carving of draperies. In his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1842 (Vol 17, pt 1, 672) Theakston is described as 'perhaps the ablest drapery or ornamental carver of his time'. The year before Theakston produced the current lot he supplied a marble chimneypiece incorporating a small bust of George IV at the top in the Grand Hall of Buckingham Palace.
The current lot is almost certainly the bust recorded and discussed in The Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, Ingrid Roscoe, Emma Hardy and M G Sullivan, Yale University Press, 2009, pp 1233-1235, where it is listed as untraced and described as 'of either George IV or William IV'. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy, (1235) and was carved at Snelston Hall, Derbyshire for Theakston's patron John Harrison.