James Sherwood Westmacott

This moving statue of the recumbent Magdalene was executed by Westmacott whilst he was living in Rome in 1849. Naked from the waist down, with trailing tresses of hair, Westmacott's Magdalene references Antonio Canova's versions of the subject, his 1809 Repentant Magdalene (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) and his 1819-1822 Recumbent Magdalene (private collection; exhibited Christie's London, July 2022). 

James Sherwood Westmacott was born into the famous British sculpture dynasty in 1823, training first in Edinburgh, then in Neuwied and finally at the Dresden Academy, where he was awarded a medal for his Victory (1845). He went on to execute statues for the House of Lords, although he focused later in life on ideal works. According to Sullivan, 'Westmacott gave two addresses in the Royal Academy catalogue [of 1849], Lauriston Cottage, Whetstone... and Rome. He signed some of his works from the Eternal City: the Canova-esque Penitent Magdalene and the statue of Geoffrey de Mandeville. His stay in Rome cannot have been a long one, however, for the following year he was back in London' (op. cit., p. 1351).

As well as Canova, Westmacott's Magdalene reflects the influence of his uncle Sir Richard Westmacott (1755-1856), one of the most celebrated Neoclassical British sculptors, who executed the monumental bronzes Achilles for the Wellington Monument (Hyde Park, 1822). The younger Westmacott would almost certainly have been introduced to the leading British sculptor active in Rome at the time of his visit, John Gibson (1790-1866). The present Magdalene's restrained classicism undoubtedly speaks the same visual language as Gibson's own late Neoclassical statuary, which stood in contrast to then flourishing Romantic movement in Italian sculpture at the time. Compare, for example, Gibson's 1838 Narcissus (Royal Academy of Arts, London) which shows a strong debt to both Canova and Thorvaldsen. A further Neoclassical comparable is found in François-Joseph Bosio's Salmacis (1822), musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. LP 1307), itself inspired by a model of a nymph from the Borghese collection (which is today also held in the Louvre, inv. no. MR 309).

The present marble, which is dated 1849, appears to be unique and is almost certainly the same Magdalene exhibited by Westmacott at the Royal Academy in 1850.