How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
This would appear to be a bust carved in Italy (not only on stylistic grounds; English sculptors in the eighteenth century seem to have signed their works much more consistently than Italians), and therefore probably of a Briton on the Grand Tour. Not only does the sitter have a ‘Roman’ nose, apparently so characteristic of the Londonderry Stewarts, but he bears a strong resemblance to Batoni’s portrait inscribed as that of Alexander Stewart, and signed and dated 1773 in the drawing room at Mount Stewart. This is the only known record of Alexander Stewart having made the Grand Tour – but then the same is true of the Mengs portrait of 1758 of his elder brother, Robert, later 1st Marquess of Londonderry. We thus have no knowledge of his itinerary, but this bust seems neither to be the product of Rome nor of Florence, but rather of Turin, which, because of its court, was a standard stopping place en route to the south for travellers visiting Italy.
Title
Alexander Stewart of Ards (1743–1831)
Date
c.1773–1775
Medium
Carrara marble
Measurements
H 53.3 x W 25.4 x D 24.2 cm
Accession number
1221031
Work type
Bust
