FDA-Sc.86-2017
Parts
Object number
FDA-Sc.86-2017
Object type
Identification
Title
Henry Elford Luxmoore
Title Type
assigned by cataloguer
Description
Bronze bust
Comments
Henry Elford Luxmoore was the second son of the Reverend Henry Luxmoore, Vicar of Barnstable, Devon. After graduating from Pembroke College, Oxford, Luxmoore became a schoolmaster at Eton College, where he remained until his death in 1926.
On St. Andrew's Day in 1921, Luxmoore was shown the bust made to honour him. He responded with a speach and later wrote an account of the event: '...You forgive much selfishness and cowardice and heap me with most enviable gifts... There is the portrait in College Hall... the Altar Cross in Chapel... and now this crowning and almost embarrassing distinction of the Bust.
"'What vanity,' you ask, 'can have led the man to sit for a bust?' May I for a moment defend myself? A distinguished and delightful artist told me that my head would be useful to her as a study for her art. She said 'a crooked nose and a crooked mouth' made it insteresting. After a year's repulse I yeilded to a new approach, unconcious of a plot which meanwhile had been capturing the studio. Not till a week ago was this disclosed...
And now here is the Bust! If grim and wrinkled, that is the fault of the subject; but a real work of Fine Art; how conscientious and vivid I can bear witness, and that is the Artist's praise, whom I am proud to have interested and served.'
[Source: Ramsay, A.B. (ed.), 'Letters of H. E. Luxmoore', 1929, pp.293-294]
A similar bust by Kathleen Scott is in the collection of Pembroke College, University of Oxford.
On St. Andrew's Day in 1921, Luxmoore was shown the bust made to honour him. He responded with a speach and later wrote an account of the event: '...You forgive much selfishness and cowardice and heap me with most enviable gifts... There is the portrait in College Hall... the Altar Cross in Chapel... and now this crowning and almost embarrassing distinction of the Bust.
"'What vanity,' you ask, 'can have led the man to sit for a bust?' May I for a moment defend myself? A distinguished and delightful artist told me that my head would be useful to her as a study for her art. She said 'a crooked nose and a crooked mouth' made it insteresting. After a year's repulse I yeilded to a new approach, unconcious of a plot which meanwhile had been capturing the studio. Not till a week ago was this disclosed...
And now here is the Bust! If grim and wrinkled, that is the fault of the subject; but a real work of Fine Art; how conscientious and vivid I can bear witness, and that is the Artist's praise, whom I am proud to have interested and served.'
[Source: Ramsay, A.B. (ed.), 'Letters of H. E. Luxmoore', 1929, pp.293-294]
A similar bust by Kathleen Scott is in the collection of Pembroke College, University of Oxford.
Description
Material
bronze
Production
Person
Date
c.1921
History and association
Associated person
Object history note
Provenance: Presented to Eton College by Claude Kirby of Portcullis House, Badminton, in 1921
