Work
Chantrey's works are extremely numerous. The principal are the statues of George Washington in the State-house at Boston, Massachusetts; of George III in The Guildhall, London; of George IV at Brighton; of William Pitt the Younger in Hanover Square, London; of James Watt in Westminster Abbey and in Glasgow (also a bust, plus one of William Murdoch, at St. Mary's Church, Handsworth); of William Roscoe and George Canning in Liverpool; of John Dalton in Manchester Town Hall; of Lord President Blair and Lord Melville in Edinburgh, etc. Of his equestrian statues the most famous are those of Sir Thomas Munro in Calcutta, the Duke of Wellington in front of the London Exchange and one of King George IV in Trafalgar Square. The last of these was originally commissioned, on the express instructions of the king himself, to stand on top of the Marble Arch, in front of Buckingham Palace.
He executed several monuments for St Pauls Cathedral: General Hoghton; General Bowes; General Gore; General Skerrett; Colonel Henry Cadogan. He is also responsible for the memorial to Sir James Brisbane in St James' Church, Sydney.
But the finest of Chantrey's works are his busts, and his delineations of children. The Sleeping Children which depicts two children asleep in each other's arms, forms a monumental design in Lichfield Cathedral, has always been lauded for beauty, simplicity and grace. So is also the statue of the girlish Lady Louisa Russell, represented as standing on tiptoe and cradling a dove in her bosom. Both these works appear, in design, to have owed something to Thomas Stothard; Chantrey knew his own scantiness of ideal invention or composition, and always sought aid from others for such attempts. In busts, he had a ready unconstrained air of life, a prompt vivacity of ordinary expression. He also executed church memorials, of which the Earl of Farnham (1826) in Cavan is a fine example. In Derby Museum there is an unusual bust of William Strutt and in Snaith church there is a notable monument to Viscount Downe by Chantrey. Allan Cunningham and Henry Weekes were his chief assistants, and were indeed the active executants of many works that pass under Chantrey's name. He was a man of warm and genial temperament, and is said to have borne a noticeable though commonplace resemblance to the usual portraits of William Shakespeare.
Read more about this topic: Francis Leggatt Chantrey
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