FDA-Sc.1-2017
Parts
Object number
FDA-Sc.1-2017
Object type
Identification
Title
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Title Type
assigned by cataloguer
Description
Painted cast of a bust of a young man with wide collar
Comments
‘One of the treasures of College Library is a plaster cast of Marianne Hunt’s bust of Eton’s most famous poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Given to Eton by the rich Chicago publishing tycoon Marshall Field III in 1939, it came with a glittering provenance… [It] had been sold at Sotheby’s in 1913 to Wilfred Meynell, and later bought by Field, who had himself been educated at Eton. Urged by another OE friend Shane Leslie, Field had then presented it to his alma mater… Originally sculpted in clay by the wife of Shelley’s close friend Leigh Hunt, a few years after the poet’s death, the bust was intended for Shelley’s grave in Rome until it was rejected by his family on the grounds it wasn’t true to life… The Leigh Hunts had a few plaster casts made of the bust and gave them to friends and to admirers. The certainly gave one to Browning… The Eton Shelley bust… was in Browning’s possession or that of his family for over 50 years and was the direct gift of the sculptor and her husband [to Browning].’
[Source: Meredith, Michael, ‘The Two Shelleys’, Eton College Collections Journal, Summer 2018, pp.8-9]
[Source: Meredith, Michael, ‘The Two Shelleys’, Eton College Collections Journal, Summer 2018, pp.8-9]
Other number
FDA-A.481-2016
Description
Dimensions
height (bust): 435mm
width (bust): 265mm
depth (bust): 215mm
height (base): 185mm
diameter (base): 300mm
width (bust): 265mm
depth (bust): 215mm
height (base): 185mm
diameter (base): 300mm
Materials & techniques note
Painted plaster
Physical description
On Wooden base
Production
Person
Hunt, Marian Leigh- (Sculptor)
History and association
Associated object
FDA-A.318-2013 (associated object)
Object history note
Provenance: Collection of the artist; by whom presented to Robert Browning; Browning sale, Sotheby's, London, 1913; from which sale purcahsed by Wilfred Meynell;; purchased by publisher Marshall Field III in c.1938; by whom presented to Eton College in 1939
