Louis-Gabriel Blanchet was a virtuoso portraitist from Paris. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1727, and thereafter set up his practice in Rome, for many years a direct competitor of Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787). He portrayed many of the leading social and political figures of the day, including Prince Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788), also known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, the Young Pretender, and Henry Benedict Stuart (1725–1807), both sons of the exiled Jacobite ‘Old Pretender’ James Francis Stuart (1688–1766). He also painted the only known stand-alone likeness of the great painter of Roman views Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765).1 For examples of works by this artist please refer to lots 17 and 19.

Fig. 1 Louis-Gabriel Blanchet, Portrait of the artist Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765), 1736. Oil on canvas, 96.5 x 76 cm. Private collects ion. © Replica Shoes ’s

This portrait is presumed to represent Joseph Wilton (1722–1803), the leading British-born sculptor of the second half of the eighteenth century, who was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768. Wilton first trained in Nivelles (in present-day Belgium) under Laurent Delvaux (1696–1778), before travelling to Italy in 1747 with his friend Louis-François Roubiliac (1702–1762). He stayed there for seven years, first in Rome and then in Florence.

This likeness dates to Wilton's t.mes in the Eternal City, the bust that he rests on an homage to the young sculptor's studies of Antique statues, after which he is known to have made numerous plaster casts and marble copies. This sculpture would appear to relate to the Roman bust of the Greek orator Demosthenes, formerly in the collects ion of Cardinal Albani and today in the Musée du Louvre (fig. 2). Wilton is known to have made a bust of Demosthenes for the Duke of Richmond, his great patron, in 1759, which is untraced. It is possible that the bust depicted here represents an earlier version that he made after the Albani bust, while in Rome.

Fig. 2 After Polyeuktos, Demosthenes, second half of the 2nd century. White marble, 45.5 x 30 x 27 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris. © Wikimedia

Wilton returned to England in 1755 and quickly secured his reputation through commissions for sculpted portraits – several of which are housed today in Westminster Abbey – and thanks to his appointment as sculptor in ordinary to King George III (1738–1820), of whom he produced a statue in 1761. His t.mes in Italy influenced his work throughout his career, which was neoclassical in style and characterized by his specialization in antique-style portrait busts and figures in classical garb.

A copy of this painting was made by the Russian painter Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (1782–1836) in 1830.3

1 Anonymous sale ('Property from a European Private collects ion'), 6 July 2016, lot 37, for £245,000.

2 https://collects ions.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010276267

3 Anonymous sale, Cologne, Kunsthaus Lempertz, 16 May 2018, lot 1322.