Fergus Gambon
Director
Lot 225
The Tragic Muse: an important Flight, Barr and Barr plate painted by Thomas Baxter, circa 1814
5 June 2019, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £20,062.50 inc. premium
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Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
The Tragic Muse: an important Flight, Barr and Barr plate painted by Thomas Baxter, circa 1814
After the original by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the actress Sarah Siddons depicted as Melpomene, muse of Tragedy, seated on a throne with her attributes of a dagger and cup held by allegorical figures of Pity and Terror standing behind her, a stormy sky in the background, a wide solid gold band around the cavetto, the deep blue border with anthemions and scrolls in raised and tooled gold, 23.5cm diam, impressed crown and FBB mark, printed mark referring to Coventry Street address, inscribed to reverse in Thomas Baxter's hand 'Mrs SIDDONS in the character of the Tragic Muse. The original Picture by Sir J Reynolds P R A'
Footnotes
Provenance
The Marquis of Stafford
The Tragic Muse was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1784 and is now in the Huntingdon Art Gallery, San Marino, California. A later version of 1789 is in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Sarah Siddons was Britain's leading tragic actress, a contemporary of David Garrick and most famous for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth. When she entered Reynold's studio, he is said to have taken her by the hand and asked her to 'Ascend upon your undisputed throne, and graciously bestow upon me some great idea of the Tragic Muse'.
Thomas Baxter was perhaps the greatest ceramic artist of his generation. A great fan of the theatre, he is known to have sketched during performances and even drew Sarah Siddons on the stage. His time in Worcester between 1814 and 1816 was spent teaching painting at his school in Edgar Street and decorating for the Flight, Barr and Barr partnership. One of his pupils was Solomon Cole, also a painter at the factory. Cole gave some personal reminiscences to William Chaffers some thirty or forty years later. These include
'...soon after Baxter arrived at Worcester...he painted a cabinet plate, the subject of which was Mrs Siddons in the character of the 'Tragic Muse', which then the Marquis of Stafford purchased for fifty guineas. A second plate was afterwards painted by Baxter, precisely the same in all respects, which was in the Collection of Mr H Rokeby Price...'
The Rokeby Price plate was sold from the Wentworth Wass Collection by Phillips on 18 June 1980, lot 173 and is now in The Museum of Royal Worcester. The present lot is therefore the example purchased by the Marquis of Stafford shortly after 1814 for the enormous sum of fifty guineas.
