East Riding Museums

This item is in the Burton Constable Hall collections and is included on this database by kind permission of the Burton Constable Foundation. Presumably, William Constable sat for this portrait during his Grand Tour of 1769-71. Although there were a number of British sculptors working in Rome at the time, William’s portrait cannot be soundly attributed to any one of them. The severity of the portrait, with its close-cropped hair in the Roman manner, is tempered somewhat by the sculptor’s attempt at naturalism. However, with the hugely pronounced brows and sagging flesh, the sculptor’s attempts at naturalism have arguably spilled over into caricature. Could this be the work of a minor Italian sculptor attempting to cater for British taste? Located in the Museum.