Hubert Le Sueur

Hubert Le Sueur (c. 1580 [He witnessed a baptism at Saint-Sulpice in 1602. (Geoffrey Webb, "Notes on Hubert Le Sueur-I" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 52No. 298 (January 1928), p. 10.] - 1658) ["Praxiteles" Le Sueur, he liked to style himself, according to Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, "Taste and the Antique" 1981:31.] was a French sculptor with the contemporaneous reputation of having trained in Giambologna's Florentine workshop, [In Henry Peacham, "The Compleat Gentleman", (London) 1634, see note below.] who assisted Giambologna's foreman, Pietro Tacca, in Paris, finishing and erecting the equestrian statue of Henri IV on the Pont Neuf. He moved to England and spent the most productive decades of his working career there, providing monuments, portraits and replicas of classical antiquities for the court of Charles I, where his main rival was Francesco Fanelli.

Career

Henry Peacham ["The Compleat Gentleman" 1634, describing the Charles I equestrian monument, "that great Horse with his Majesty on it, twice as great as the life" noted by Lionel Cust, "A Marble Bust of Charles I by Hubert le Sueur" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 20 No. 106 (January 1912) p 192 and quoted by Webb 1928:15. Webb quotes Sir Balthazar Gerbier's draft for a contract for the sculpture (p 16).] was informed that Le Sueur was a pupil of Giambologna in Florence. Though he is not otherwise documented in Florence, in Paris he was recorded as "sculpteur du Roy" at the baptism of his son at Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois in 1610, when a royal secretary and the daughter of another served as witnesses. In London he and his second wife were of the Huguenot congregation in Threadneedle Street. ["Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London", vol. vii, noted by Cust 1912:] . He worked with Pietro Tacca's assistants [Tacca sent the bronze to Paris in 1614; it was completed in 1618.] on the equestrian bronze of Henri IV on the Pont Neuf, a project that gave him technical skills that were put to use in his equestrian Charles I. Since Inigo Jones had passed through Paris in July 1613, in the train of Lord Arundel, on their way to Strasbourg, Katherine Esdaile suggested [Esdaile 1935:178.] that Jones was the one who convinced Le Sueur to go to England. The earliest occasion on which Le Sueur received an official commission in England was for twelve figures against the frieze of the grand catafalque— both figures and hearse designed by Inigo Jones— in James I's funeral, 1625. [Katharine A. Esdaile, "New Light on Hubert Le Sueur" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 66 No. 385 (April 1935, pp 177-184) p 177.] In 1631 he was dispatched to Rome to arrange to have moulds taken of classical antiquities, to complement the "Borghese Gladiator", moulds of which had been obtained for Charles, and which Le Sueur cast in London for the Privy Garden at Whitehall. [Now on the East Terrace, Windsor Castle. As a great favour, the 4th Earl of Pembroke was permitted to have Le Sueur make a second cast, for the centre of his parterre garden at Wilton House.] On a recommendation of Sir Bathazar Gerbier, he cast the famous bronze equestrian statue of the king, made in 1633 [According to the inscription on the hoof of the horse's left foreleg.] for Richard, Lord Weston, Lord High Treasurer, at Roehampton, which has been relocated since 1678 at Charing Cross, London (on a small traffic island at the entrance to The Mall). In 1634 he made for the king a cast of the "Diane Chasseresse" then still at Fontainebleau. [Now at Windsor Castle. (Haskell and Penny 1981:196). It was alluded to by Peacham, 1634] Le Sueur created a market for the portrait bust, initiated and epitomized by a series of bronze busts and one marble bust of Charles I (1631), now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the only work in marble by Le Sueur known to exist. [Sculptural enrichments on the tomb monuments are in general applied bronzes; marble sculptures in Le Sueur's tomb monuments are attributed to his assistants.] A bust of Katherine, Lady Dysart, was formerly at Ham House. There are bronze sculptures by Le Sueur for tombs in Westminster Abbey, on the screen by Inigo Jones in Winchester Cathedral, where Le Sueur provided the bronze reclining figure for the tomb of Lord Portland. [Equally in contexts supervised by Jones, in the Banqueting House, the colossal bust of James I is by Hubert Le Sueur, and on Jones' porch for Old St. Paul's, Le Sueur's sculptures were lost in the Great Fire of London (Esdaile 1935).] At Oxford are his lifesize bronze standing figures of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria, made for Archbishop Laud, 1634, now at St John's College, [Geoffrey Webb, "Notes on Hubert le Sueur-II" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 52 No. 299 (February 1928, pp. 81-89) p 82.] and of the Earl of Pembroke, formerly in the forecourt at Wilton House, now in the Bodleian Library. [The apocryphal legend that it follows a drawing by Rubens was engraved on the pedestal when it was given to the Bodleian in 1723. (Webb 1928:16).]

With the beginnings of the English Civil War, English court patronage dried up, and Le Sueur returned to Paris in 1643, produced four busts of Richelieu for the duchesse d'Aiguillon, and disappeared from art history.

His known pupils were both of Huguenot extraction as was Le Sueur himself: Ine was Peter Besnier (or Bennier), was appointed sculptor to the king after Le Sueur's departure; another was John Poultrain, or Colt. [Esdaile 1935.]

elected works

*"Bust of King Charles I", dated 1631, by Hubert Le Sueur (V&A Museum, no. A.35-1910) [Signed and dated 1631; discovered in a collection in The Netherlands (Lionel Cust, "A Marble Bust of Charles I by Hubert le Sueur" "The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs" 20 No. 106 [January 1912:192] ).]
*"Equestrian sculpture of Charles I", 1633; at Charing Cross, London.

Notes