WICK ANTIQUES LTD Busts

A bronze portrait of Sir Winston Churchill by Rufus Martin, 2023 This head and shoulders bronze bust is instantly recognizable as Sir Winston Churchill. He is wearing a British Warm greatcoat with epaulettes and has a half-smoked cigar in the left hand resting on his hip. His right hand is raised in his trade mark V-for-Victory salute. Signed ‘Rufus Martin 1/12’. Sir Winston Churchill (1874 –1965) was a British politician, army officer and writer. He was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but from 1904 to 1924 was a member of the Liberal Party. This portrait of Churchill by Rufus Martin is striking for its juxtaposition of this famous historical subject and the free and contemporary choice of presentation. Churchill’s tenure during the Second World War infused the nation with calm and confidence, providing the British people with strong leadership during its darkest hours. Martin succeeds in portraying Churchill’s unshakeable belief in a successful outcome for the Allies through his defiant stance, unwavering gaze and Victory V gesture. Together with the recognizable “Bulldog” facial features and broad shoulders, this bust captures the subject in terms of character as well as being an accurate physical portrait . Rufus Martin trained at Wimbledon College of the Arts, London, though his aptitude for 3D design and sculpture was apparent from a very young age. His mother, a portrait painter, showed him the portrait sculptures of Augusta Savage, Jacob Epstein and Augustine Rodin, which inspired him to create a bust of his late mentor, Michael Howells. He sculpts ‘intriguing individuals, always hoping to capture some element of their past or current struggles and to create something for the good of the community they inhabit and wherever possible for posterity’ – an ambition he has most successfully fulfilled with this powerful portrait. After leaving college in 2017, with first class honours, Martin has won many prestigious prizes including the Tiranti Prize at the FACE, the Signature Art Award, the Chelsea Arts Club show for ‘Amy’, the True Blue Show, the Salmagundi Open Show, New York, Green & Stone Summer Show, the Chelsea Arts Society Summer Show, RBA Rising Stars, the Royal Cambrian Academy Open, the Binny Mathews & Sons joint show, The Next Big Thing and has been published in the Kings House...

This impressive bronze table bust of the Duke of Wellington is in the form of a classical tribute. He is portrayed wearing Roman leather armour, the breastplate with a central lion’s mask radiating lightning bolts. This is set on a turned socle and square plinth which in turn is raised on a curved simulated marble pedestal, with two recumbent lions above superb quality borders of classical motifs and flowerhead arabesques. The reverse states ‘Wellington L. Gahagan Fecit & Pub’d June 12. 1811’. Height: 22in (56 cm) Width: 25in (63 cm) Depth: 11in (28cm) Provenance: Major Hon Denis Gomer Berry and Lady Pamela Wellesley Berry Richard Gomer Berry, 3rd Viscount Kemsley Lawrence Gahagan (1735-1820) was born in Dublin to a family of talented stone masons and sculptors. He was based in London from around 1757 and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy between 1798 and 1817. He was involved in a major project to help update the interiors of Castle Howard from 1801 to 1811 but he is most famous for his portrait busts. In addition to the Wellington busts...

This plaster bust of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington is a replica of the original marble portrait bust, commissioned, in 1852, by the Duke’s heir for Stratfield Saye, Hampsh...

A plaster bust of a Victorian gentleman by Boehm, this white plaster bust shows an authoritative gentleman with a moustache and whiskers wearing a high collar and bow tie with a wais...

A Victorian white painted terracotta bust of a young woman, wearing a draped shawl over a bodice with a lace trim, her hair elaborately coiffed with a broad plait and multiple ringle...

A charming bust of a child’s head by Edwin Whitney-Smith, dated 1910, the girl has her head slightly tilted forwards as she looks out from under a lock of hair, set on a square block signed on the reverse ‘E Whitney-Smith 1910’. This bronze is a reduction of Whitney-Smith’s original marble piece, a photograph of which survives in the V&A (object number AAD/1990/12/63). Another version can be seen in a 1920s photograph of the artist in his studio owned by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG x194201). Neither the identity of the sitter nor title of the work is known. Edwin Whitney-Smith (1880-1952) was one of the pre-eminent sculptors of his day. Born in Bristol in 1880, he became a student of William Harbutt, the headmaster of Bath School of Art, best remembered today for inventing plasticine. Whitney-Smith showed great promise from an early age, opening a studio in St John’s Wood, London, in 1910. He exhibited over 40 pieces at the Royal Academy and despite not achieving Academician status, even with list of illustrious proposers, he became a dear friend of Sir Alfred Munnings, the famous horse painter, and sculpted his portrait. He was, however, elected to the Royal Society of British Sculptors and his works were generally well-received by critics and the general public alike. Aside from the RA, he exhibited in Bristol, at the Paris Salon and the Scottish Academy and his work attracted the attention of such important patrons as the Courtauld family. One of his most famous works, The Waking Child, is in the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull and another, The Irishman, is in the Tate. One version of his bust of Ernest Bevin, the trade unionist, stands in Tooley Street in Bermondsey to this day. An article in The Sphere, published on the 3rd of May 1924, referred to the sculptor as “a well-known sculptor of smiling children” and mentioned his “famous babies’ heads”.

A Victorian carved walnut figure of Mark Tapley from the novel ‘The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit’ by Charles Dickens’, wearing a soft top hat, a tailcoat and a buttoned w...

A marble and Ormolu bust by Marionnet, showing the white marble head and shoulders of a girl with her hair in a bun and ringlets framing her face, wi...

A fine bronze bust of ‘Dougie’ by Vivian Mallock depicting the head and smiling face of a Vincentian calypso singer with a dark patination becoming lighter at the end of his dreadloc...