Height overall: 72cm (28in)
Painted plaster bust after Joseph Nollekens, R.A. (1737-1823), portrayed togate. Considered one of Nollekens ‘stock pieces’, his bust of Fox was one of his most popular selling pieces.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was a champion of liberty. He conducted a long and brilliant vendetta against George III and was thus almost always in political opposition and, in fact, he held high office for less than a year altogether. He achieved two important reforms, steering through Parliament a resolution pledging it to abolish the slave trade and, in the 1792 Libel Act, restoring to juries their right to decide not merely whether an allegedly libellous article had been published but also what constituted libel in any given case and whether or not a defendant was guilty of it.