ANTIQUE MARBLE SCULPTURE.
WHITE MARBLE GROUP OF SLEEPING CHILD WITH DOG
BY CHARLES SUMMERS (1827-1878)
Signed and Dated: C. SUMMERS. Sc. Roma 1876.
This carved, white marble group depicts a curly-haired child, partially draped, asleep on a richly carved cot while a small dog sits up expectantly at one side.
Charles P. Summers was a mason’s son from Somerset who trained with Henry Weekes and M.L.Watson and at the Royal Academy. In 1851 he won an unprecedented Silver and Gold Medals, and a grant to study in Rome, also exhibiting at the Great Exhibition in that year – “A Boy Playing with a Shell”. In 1853 he went to Australia and soon gained a formidable reputation as the leading sculptor, casting the first bronze monument (of Burke and Wills, in Melbourne). In 1867 he established one of the finest studios in Rome, from where he continued to send work to Australia, completing four colossal statues of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra for Melbourne in 1878, and exhibiting at the Royal Academy until 1876. Summers died in Paris in 1878 and is buried in Rome. His only son, Charles Francis Summers (1858-1945) also became a distinguished sculptor.
Many of the nearly fifty works which Summers exhibited at the Royal Academy were portrait busts, including those of F.H. Synge, General Sir E. Macarthur, Admiral Sir P. Broke, Colonel Sir A. Clarke and the Duke of Edinburgh (for Melbourne). Amongst his ideal pieces were “Lynceus and Hypermnestra”, “Playmates”, and a statuette of an Australian aboriginal. His statue of “Rebecca” is in the Exeter Art Gallery, a bust of Henry Weekes R.A. is at Burlington House, and a bust of Bishop Perry (1876) is at Harrow School.
The present sculpture is a charming example of Summer’s late Roman work, demonstrating his skill at combining classicism with an appealing genre spirit but without sentimentality.Victorian Sculpture by Benedict Read, 198,. p.120. Dictionaryof British Sculptors 1660-1851, revised ed. Pp 377-8, by Rupert Gunnis
Height: 20” (51 cm)
Width: 25” (64 cm)
Depth: 15” (38 cm)
