Christopher Hewetson (1737–1798)

The Irish-born sculptor Christopher Hewetson moved within an elite circle of artists and scholars who were at the centre of intellectual life in Rome in the closing decades of the 18th century. He associated with Anton Raffael Mengs, Gavin Hamilton and Johannes Pichler, and particularly with the influential Thomas Jenkins, who served as effective banker to Grand Tourists in Rome. Hewetson established a reputation for himself as the pre-eminent portrait sculptor in Rome in the 1770s and 1780s. His career was advanced with a commission for a Bust of Pope Clement XIV in 1771. He went on to sculpt portraits of many of the leading visitors to Rome, including the Duke of Gloucester and John Campbell, Lord Cawdor. Malcolm Baker has noted that Hewetston’s works betray a unique sensitivity in the depiction of facial phsyiognomy and, particularly, hair. According to Baker, Hewetson adopted different formats for his busts, ranging from the Baroque (Clement XIV) to the Roman Republican (Cawdor, bare chested) (Baker, op. cit.). Later in life, Hewetson’s star was eclipsed by the rise of Canova, but he did not resent his rival’s success. Instead, after losing two commissions to the younger sculptor, he hosted a dinner in Canova’s honour in 1787. Hewetson died in Naples in 1798. He is regarded as the greatest Irish sculptor of the 18th century.

The sitter of the present bust is unidentified. A number of further identified busts are listed by Roscoe (op. cit., p. 612). With his elegant fur-lined cloak it is possible that he represents a scholar or perhaps one of Hewetson's German patrons; his marble Herr von Kniphausen, for example, is untraced.

RELATED LITERATURE
T. Hodgkinson, ‘C. Hewetson: An Irish Sculptor in Rome’, The Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 34, 1952-1954, pp. 42-54; B. de Breffny, ‘Christopher Hewetson’, Irish Arts Review (1984-1987), vol. 3, no. 3, Autumn, 1986, pp. 52-75; M. Baker in E. P. Bowron and J. J. Rishel (eds.), Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Arts, Philadelphia, and MFA, Houston, 2000; I. Roscoe, E. Hardy and M. G. Sullivan, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851, London, 2009, p. 608-611