35.5cm (13.5in) x 8.5cm (3in) x 8.5cm (3in)
Provenance: Meldon Park, Northumberland.
Patinated bronze. Modelled as an Officer of Life Guards in Mounted Review Order of 1815, comprising helmet with bearskin crest, single breasted jacket, pantaloons and Jack boots; raised on square naturalistic base and integral square plinth inscribed ‘Presented to 2nd Lieut. J.C.B. Cookson, The Life Guards, by his brother officers on his marriage on 1st December 1926’.
Colonel John Charles Blencowe Cookson, DSO, (1904-1987), was the son of Colonel PB Cookson, of Meldon Park, Morpeth, Northumberland. He was commissioned into the Life Guards in the 1920s, and served during the Second World War with 102nd (Northumberland Hussars) Anti-Tank Regiment. During the attempt by British, Indian and Commonwealth forces to relieve Tobruk in November 1941 (Operation Crusader), Cookson played a courageous role in repulsing enemy tanks that were endeavouring to break through the rear of 7th Armoured Division, after Rommel ordered his ‘dash to the wire’. For his initiative, leadership and the destruction of five German tanks Cookson was awarded an immediate DSO. He was afterwards Lieutenant-Colonel, 81st Anti-Tank Regiment, RA, 1942-44, and Honorary Colonel Northumberland Hussars, 1964-1970.
The sculptor Charles Curry (fl. 1910-30) carried out work for the prestigious London silversmith and Royal Warrant holder Carrington & Co. The firm produced Curry’s model of the Duke of Marlborough in silver as well as bronze. The firm’s principal John Carrington was a Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company.