Christopher Hewetson

Christopher Hewetson (1739–1799) was a neoclassical sculptor of portrait busts. Born in Ireland, he was active in Rome.

Biography

Hewetson was born in Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland. He studied in Dublin under John van Nost the younger.

In 1765 he arrived in Rome with the American painter Henry Benbridge. He remained in Rome for the remainder of his life with the exception of two brief visits to Naples in 1766 and 1797.

With the assistance of Thomas Jenkins, Hewetson received commissions from numerous British and Irishmen visiting Rome on the Grand Tour. He also sculpted busts of a number of local churchmen. Antonio Canova was at Rome during part of Hewetson's stay.

Hewetson never married. He died at Rome, where he was buried in the Protestant Cemetery.

Works

• Charles Towneley (marble bust, 1769), Department of Medieval & Modern Europe, British Museum,
• Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet (bust, 1769), National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
• Pope Clement XIV (marble busts, two in 1772, one in 1776), several almost identical copies which at various times have been in Ammerdown (Somerset); Gorhambury (Herts); Beningbrough Hall (Yorks); Penrice and Margam castles, near Swansea; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Center of British Art of Yale University (New Haven, USA)
• Thomas Mansel Talbot (marble bust, 1773), Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• Thomas Mansel Talbot (chalk bust), Museo Civico, Bassano del Grappa, Italy.
• Aloysius Gonzaga (marble bust, 1776), Museo di Roma in Palazzo Braschi, Rome
• Maria Maddalena Morelli it:Maria Maddalena Morelli (bust, 1776), Museo di Roma in Palazzo Braschi, Rome
• Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol (marble bust, c. 1778), National Portrait Gallery, London
• Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 8th Baronet of Parlington (bronze bust, c. 1778), Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• Martha Swinburne (marble medallion in funerary monument, 1779), Chiesa di San Tommaso, Rome
• Unknown Gentleman-Robert Adams (c. 1780), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• José Nicolás de Azara (bronze bust, c. 1780), Institut de France, Paris
• José Nicolás de Azara (marble bust, 1781), Protomoteca Capitolina, Rome
• Anton Raphael Mengs (marble bust, 1781), Protomoteca Capitolina, Rome
• Gavin Hamilton (bust, 1784), University Art Collection, Glasgow
• Thomas Brereton-Westfaling, 1740 - 1814 (c. 1785), The Louvre, Paris
• Richard Baldwin (marble monument, 1784), Examination Hall, Trinity College, Dublin
• Cardinal Giovanni Battista Rezzonico (marble monument, 1787), Chiesa di San Nicola in Carcere, Rome
• Gottfried Leibniz (bust, 1787 - 1790), Reception hall of the Technologie Centrum, Hannover
• Anton Raphael Mengs (bronze bust cast by Francesco Righetti, 1792), Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
• Giovanni Pichler (marble bust, 1797), Museo Capitolino, Rome
• Thomas Westfaling (bust), St Mary, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, U.K.
• Mr and Mrs Henry Swinburne (bust), Gascoigne bequest at Lotherton Hall, Leeds
• Alcyone and Ceyx (relief), Gascoigne bequest at Lotherton Hall, Leeds

Bibliography

• Ulrich Thieme – F. Becker, "Hewetson Cristopher", Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Kunstler, (Leipzig, 1924), vol. XVII, p.13.
• C. Pietrangeli, a cura di G. Incisa della Rocchetta, Vincenzo Monti a Roma, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Palazzo Braschi, Roma, 1955, pp. 47, 50, tav. VII.
• V. Martinelli, C. Pietrangeli, La Protomoteca Capitolina, Roma, 1955, pp.8, 36, 73, 78, tavv. VIII e 2.
• Barnes, J. "An unknown bust by Chrisopher Hewetson", Antologia di Belle Arti, s.s., 52-55, 1996, pp. 166-169.
• Breffny, B., and C. Hewetson. "Christopher Hewetson (1737-1798), Irish sculptor". Irish Arts Review, III(3), 52-75.
• Hodgkinson, Terence. "Christopher Hewetson: An Irish Sculptor in Rome", The Walpole Society 34 (1952 - 1954): 42 - 54 at 50 and pl. XVIII.C
• Anne Crookshank in Brian de Breffny, ed., The Irish World: The Art and Culture of the Irish People, (New York, 1977) 146, 147, and 170.
• Brian de Breffny, ed., Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopaedia, (London, 1983) 105 - 106.
• Id., "Christopher Hewetson, Concise Biography and Preliminary Catalogue Raisonné", Irish Arts Review 3 (1986): 52 - 75, no. 17a
• Bowren, E.P., and J.J. Rischel. Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia and Houston, 2000), 228-230, 254-255.
• Esdaile, K.A. "Christopher Hewetson and his monument to Dr. Baldwin in Trinity College, Dublin", Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (December 1947): 134-135.