Overall: 18.5cm (8.5in) x 5.7cm (14.5in)
Wax. Silhouette relief portrait portrait looking right. Contained in ebonised and gilt metal frame with original convex glazing. Signed and dated to the shoulder C. Andras Jan 1810’ Paper label to the reverse, inscribed in ink in a period hand ‘Lord Wellington / Modelled by Miss Andras / Modeller in wax to / Her Majesty Queen / Charlotte / 80 Pall Mall / Miss Andr—s’. Oval: 10cm (4in) x 8.7cm (3.4in).
The present contemporary bust can be seen as a companion to the wax bust of Nelson that Catherine Andras modelled from life in 1800 and again during his last leave August-September 1805. Such busts were then reproduced in some numbers from a mould. Catherine’s ‘uncle’, the miniature painter Robert Bowyer, had sittings at the same time, causing Nelson to laughingly remarked that ‘he was not used to being attacked in that manner starboard and larboard at the same time’.
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Sir Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852) was raised to the peerage in August 1809 as a result of his victory at Talavera. He remained ‘Lord’ Wellington until May 1814 when he was advanced to his dukedom; having progressed through the ranks of the peerage to become - Viscount Wellington of Talavera, and of Wellington, Somerset in August 1809; Earl of Wellington - 28 February 1812; and Marquess of Wellington, 18 August 1812; and finally Marquess Douro and Duke of Wellington - 3 May 1814.
Catherine Andras (1775-1860) was an orphan in Bristol who came to the notice of the miniaturist and owner of the Historic Gallery, Robert Bowyer. She moved to London in 1799 and boarded with Bowyer, exhibiting at the Royal Academy the same year. In 1802 she was appointed Modeller in Wax to Queen Charlotte, consort of King George III, and was awarded ‘The Larger Silver Pallet’ for her portrait of Princess Charlotte. Wax portraits were seen as a serious alternative to painted portrait miniatures, allowing her build up a successful practice that included word for James Tassie. She exhibited a wax of Wellington at the Royal Academy in 1810 (no.640), and a large group of her waxes were added to the Royal Collection.
In 1806, following the burial of Lord Nelson in St Paul’s, the lay vicars (members of the Choir) at the Abbey, who gained extra income from showing the monuments to visitors, commissioned Catherine to make a life size waxwork head and hand for a 5 foot five inch effigy of the naval hero as a tourist attraction. Catherine was paid over a hundred pounds for her work, and the crowd’s flocked to see it. However the stuffier members of the art establishment accused the Abbey of exhibiting ‘waxen puppets’ for financial gain and were publicly disparaged by the likes of sculptor Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823). Moreover wax modelling was increasingly associated with entertainments of the type offered by Mrs Salmon’s Waxwork in Fleet Street (founded in the 1760s) and Madame Tussaud’s (founded in 1835)