Notable sales

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 20^th 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.