You may not be familiar with Carlo Marochetti, born in Turin in 1805, where his father was professor of eloquence at the university; nice.
However he was largely educated in Paris and is a prolific sculptor in bronze. We treat today with three of his many works. First Richard the First; this is unusual as Carlo made it in plaster and A N Other cast it in bronze. Secondly a work, or rather four, you will know: the “Landseer” lions at the foot of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square. Landseer designed the lions and Carlo cast them in bronze. Not having the Almanach de Gotha to hand, I cannot say how he became a Baron but he did and inherited his father’s chateau outside Paris to boot, so a cut above the average artisan sculptor.
A few days ago I was early for lunch at the Travellers’ Club and saw this bronze near the top of the Duke of York’s steps by, of course, Marochetti.
Colin Campbell, Field Marshall Lord Clyde, was born in 1792 so had many opportunities to biff enemies of the Empire: the First Opium War, the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, etc.
The best bit of this work is Britannia sitting side-saddle on her lion and it is much easier to appreciate at almost eye level than the Field Marshall aloft on a pillar.
Since you ask, lunch was excellent. The dining room, I expect it’s called the coffee room, is upstairs giving me an opportunity to use the extra oak handrail fitted to the main staircase for the benefit of Prince Talleyrand.
Why did Prince Talleyrand need an extra handrail?
A good question to which I have no answer.
With his club foot, he had always had a limp, and I believe the rail was a special accommodation to his age and infirmity. He had something of a “comeback” in politics when Louis-Philippe sent him to London in 1830 as Ambassador to shore up the legitimacy of the “Citizen King.” “Old Talley” worked to further the interests of the regime and to keep the UK and France aligned. When he left his post four years later, he was eighty.