Height overall: 29cm (11.3in)
Patinated bronze. A Victorian portrait bust of Oliver Cromwell after Edward Pearce. The Lord Protector, looking right, attired in plate-armour embossed with a winged thunderbolt, and a baldrick across the right shoulder; his head inclined to the right.
Edward Pearce’s portrait bust of the country gentleman turned soldier, statesman, regicide and Lord Protector of Great Britain was made in 1672. The present 19th century reduction of Pearce’s model was produced as the companion to the similarly scaled bust of Charles I after Hubert Le Sueur ( fl.1590-1658). Victorian sentiment for historical lost causes created the interest that inspired such organisations as the Jacobite Legitimist League and the Society of King Charles the Martyr (founded 1894).
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Edward Pearce (c.1630-95 aka Peirce) was a freeman of the Painter-Stainers’ livery company. He produced an earlier bust of Cromwell and one of the poet Milton who served as Cromwell's Secretary for Foreign Tongues. After the Great Fire of London (1666) Pearce was employed by Sir Christopher Wren on a series of commissions, including stone and wood carvings for St Clement Danes, St Matthew Friday Street, St Swithin's Cannon Street, St Andrew Holborn, the Grocers' Hall, the Royal Exchange, the Monument, Hampton Court, Chatsworth and Oatlands Park.
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) rose to power after his election as a Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, whence he became an outspoken critic of Charles I. His subsequent military leadership, astute politics and unwavering Puritanism were decisive factors in the victory of the English Parliamentary cause. Along with 58 other politicians, he signed Charles I’s death warrant in 1649 at the end of the Second English Civil War. He then led the brutal crushing of rebellion in Ireland in 1649 and led the New Model Army to victory against the Scots and the future Charles II in 1651. Emerging as a head of state when the 'Rump' Parliament was dissolved in 1653, he was created Lord Protector. During this time, he pursued an aggressive anti-Spanish foreign policy, failing to take Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) but succeeding in taking Jamaica from Spain. He refused the crown in 1657.