The collector Earl & his modern marbles: Thomas Howard & Francois Dieussart: Charles Avery elucidates the puzzles that surround the Earl of Arundel's patronage of the talented itinerant Flemish sculptor Francois Dieussart

Apollo, June, 2006 by Charles Avery

The beginnings of Lord Arundel's patronage of the sculptor Francois Dieussart are shrouded in mystery. A fully-trained carver from an unknown artistic background in southern Flanders, Dieussart (c. 1600-61), a French-speaker, went to Rome in 1618, presumably to further his knowledge in the vibrant atmosphere for sculpture created by papal patronage. (1) Bernini was carving the great mythologies for Villa Borghese and was emerging as a portraitist of talent. His novel types of bust seem particularly to have impressed Dieussart, who was commonly called 'Il Vallone'--'The Walloon'. This was presumably to distinguish him from the other sculptor called Francois who arrived from the Low Countries in the same year, namely Duquesnoy, who was known by the Italians (and later by the English too) as 'Il Fiammingo'--'the Fleming'. Dieussart's earliest work (lost, but paid for on 3 January 1619) was an ivory carving of the Assumption for Marcantonio Borghese, and so he moved in the same circles as Bernini, if at a humbler level. He went on to carve, also in ivory, a Virgin and Child, a Crucifix and a Woman of Samaria (none so far identified). Between 1622 and 1628 Dieussart rose steadily through the ranks of the Flemish confraternity in Rome, carving several works in ivory and marble for their church. By the early 1630s he was accepted into the main Italian academies too. (2)

The present story starts with a letter sent by the Earl of Arundel's agent in Venice, Francesco Vercellini, to Floriano Damini, chaplain to Alvise Contarini, who--having once been Venetian ambassador to London, where he had met Arundel--was currently posted to the Roman embassy. Dated 6 and 16 September 1633, it is the first document to connect sculptor and patron. (3) But it refers to a memorandum (memorialle) submitted by 'Sig[nore] Fran[cesco] Diussart Vallone scultore' to Contarini and evidently passed on by him to Arundel, the Earl Marshall, which--annoyingly--has gone missing. It may be inferred from the letter that Dieussart, via the prestigious intermediary Contarini, had recommended his services to the prospective patron, claiming that he had been sounded out by one Baldovino Brivel, a merchant (and judging from his name--Baudouin--quite possibly a fellow-countryman of Dieussart's), about his readiness to come over to England.

Embarrassingly, Arundel could not recall the episode. Vercellini remembered only approaching another sculptor, Clemente Coltreci of San Lorenzo in Lucina (today unknown), 14 years earlier and then again three years prior to the date of the letter. He had ascertained that Coltreci was 'one of the best in Rome at restoring statues of the sort [i.e. antique fragments] which His Excellency had in great quantities'. Even so, Arundel was under no obligation to Coltreci, any more than to Dieussart, and he did not care which of them came, as long as he met his conditions. He wanted a sculptor who was good at both producing original work and restoring statues, bas-reliefs and other ancient marbles. The latter role was far more prestigious then than it sounds today, for antiquities were so highly regarded that it was a privilege to be allowed to supply missing parts.

Vereellini's next paragraph begins firmly:

   Take care to get a decent, obedient man who is up
   to the job. His travelling expenses will be met and
   when he has arrived here [presumably meaning
   London, not Venice?] he will be given a room and
   a studio. For his living expenses and salary for the
   work he does, whether making new sculpture or
   restoring old, he will be paid 20 to 25 scudi
   monthly, with ten of them dependent on the
   quality of his work.

   It is essential that the sculptor be
   commissioned to send over a quantity of spare
   marble for restoring figures and other carvings.
   Pieces of porphyry, serpentine, alabaster, oriental
   granite and other pieces of broken remains; these
   can be bought very cheaply in Rome. The said
   marbles can be consigned to the aforesaid Mr.
   Baldovino, who will pay for them.

What had given Dieussart the temerity to approach the English grandee in the first place? He had not long reached Rome at the time when Vercellini had initially investigated the mysterious Coltreci, '14 years ago', i.e.c. 1619, and so would not have been known or--probably--been willing to depart so soon. In fact, he did not leave Rome until after March 1635--18 months after Vercellini's letter--as we know from an export licence granted to him then (see below). However, between these dates, on 29 January 1626, one William Smith, a painter who acted in Rome for Lord Arundel, had applied for a licence to export from the State of the Holy Church some 70 pictures and a quantity of other works of art. (4) These included a 'modern', life-size, bronze bust of Socrates; four crates of various 'modern' plaster casts of legs, torsos, heads and busts; another crate with various plasters and 'modern' terracotta figures; various fragments of stone-carvings, including friezes, garlands and bas-reliefs, five small alabaster vases and some modern vases; a restored statue of Athena; a Diana; a bust of Apollo; and a draped portrait statue of Lord Arundel, nine palmi high.