Creating a Bust for a Ducal Family

Why should creating a bust for a Ducal family be any different than, for example, one for a non-aristocratic art collector? Well… as artist-in-residence for Belvoir Castle & Estate I feel a tremendous amount of challenge to measure up to the many famous and skilled artists that have preceded me in creating works for this ancient place! “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most challenged sculptor of them all?”

My patron, the Duchess of Rutland (Emma Manners) is right to expect the very best of me…When tackling the first bust of one of the Manners girls, it’s not just about creating another bust of another girl, it is pertinent to think I’ll be adding another layer to the cultural fabric of a very old Ducal estate in the form of contemporary bronze busts…

So I go to work on creating this first bust of Lady Eliza with a great deal of humility. The right kind of humility, not servile but genuine and elevating- the kind that honours all that has gone before me. Those great paintings that hang in Belvoir Castle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Jan Steen, George Stubbs, Matthew Cotes Wyatt, Thomas Stothard and others inspire me to hone my own artist skills ever deeper.