JOSEPH BONOMI THE YOUNGER
(1796-1878)
Study of a sculptor’s hand
Provenance
Private Collection, UK
The son of the Italian born architect Joseph Bonomi (1739-1808), Joseph Bonomi jr was a sculptor, draughtsman of Egyptian antiquities and curator of the John Soane’s Museum in London from 1862 to 1878. He sent sculptures to the Royal Academy in London at a very tender age, and his name appears in the catalogues of its exhibitions from 1809 to 1838.
The long inscription by the artist’s hand on the recto describes the subject of the drawing:
Mr Nollekens says that this hand
is not by MAngelo that is by a
sculptor named Plumera Flemming
for whom Mr N’s master worked for
and when Plumera died Skimaker [sic] his master
bought his models among others
this hand which Mr. N. has drawn at Skimaker’s
from when he was a boy and when
Skimaker died this was sold
Among the things it got in the hands
Of brockers and Mr Conway
he bought it and now calls
It MichaelAgnolo this
Mr Nollekens told me
on 20th of July 1815
Drawn this from a
Cast that I bought
At the sale of Mr
Westall in 1815
Bonomi
In this inscription Bonomi mentions the sculptor Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823) and his master Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781), whose name he misspells. Scheemakers spent two years in Rome before moving back to London in 1730. He soon gained a reputation as the foremost sculptor working in the Classical style. The third artist mentioned, ‘Plumera Flemming’, is very likely Pieter-Denis Plumier (1688-1721), a Flemish sculptor who lived in Rome and Antwerp before travelling to London in 1721. In the months preceeding his untimely death he employed Scheemakers to work on the ambitious monument to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham (1722, Westminster Abbey, London), along with himself and Laurent Delvaux.