Holme Cardwell

Provenance; The residual contents of Bixley Manor by instructions of the executors of Sir Timothy Colman KG.

Holme Cardwell, a native of Manchester, attended the Royal Academy School in London in 1834. Probably aged 19 (although there is some uncertainty over his year of birth, his gravestone registers 20 May 1813), he was recommended to the school by Sir Francis Chantrey RA. Building a considerable reputation for himself, including a silver medal for a model in 1839, he left London for Paris in 1841 to study with David d’Angers (1788-1856). He probably stayed in Paris for three years, training at the Académie Royale, before moving to Rome. In the following years of his career, he was to move between Rome and London several times, settling primarily in Rome. Active within the milieu of British expatriate artists and sculptors in Rome, he acquired many admirers, including the renowned sculptor John Gibson RA (1790-1866). Cardwell exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1837 and 1856. He had a tendency for large or monumental marble groups, including the ‘colossal’ Good Samaritan (Roscoe, op. cit., p. 194), a figure of Sabrina, and a Cupid and Pan. 

The treatment of this neoclassical youth shows similarities to John Gibson, who was an admirer of Cardwell’s work and Joseph Gott, 1785-1860 both of whom were similarly working in Rome in the mid 19th century executing commissions for English aristocracy doing the Grand Tour. Joseph Gott in particular, was renowned for his realistic portrayal of dogs, most especially whippets and greyhounds, which he often incorporated into classical groups as in this charming composition in which an Arcadian shepherd leans languorously on a staff with a dog gazing wistfully up at his master. 

Garden Statuary

Sculpture