FRANCIS JOHN WILLIAMSON (BRITISH, 1833-1920):  A MARBLE PORTRAIT BUST OF MONEY WIGRAM DATED 1881 depicted 'all' antica' wearing a toga, looking slightly to sinister, with large curly sideburns, the reverse signed 'F.J. WILLIAMSON SC. ESHER, 1881' and 'MONEY WIGRAM ESQE', on a cylindrical socle, 77cm high The present bust is dated and so we know that Williamson carved it in 1881; what is more complex is whether it depicts Money Wigram the elder (1790-1873) or Money Wigram the younger (1823-1881). Unusually, it depicts the sitter in a manner more fashionable in the early 19th century, when the Neo-Classical style was still in favour and it was usual for sitters to be depicted in the Antique style, resembling Roman emperors and imbued with all of the associated connotations of the classical tradition. Williamson depicts the man in this style to allude to the past, yet his facial characteristics and hair appear to be realistically carved to reflect his actual appearance and the fashions of the day. The elder Money Wigram was an important and prominent merchant and shipbuilder; he was named after his father's friend and business associate William Money, and in many way this was a fitting name as he lived a financially successful life; his shipping line was instrumental in developing the Australian trade routes that flourished through the 19th century and he even became one of the Directors of the Bank of England. We can compare the present bust to a photograph of the elder Money taken on 23 October 1862 by Camille Silvy, which is now in the National Portrait Gallery  (NPG Ax61787), the facial hair certainly looks similar but in our portrait he looks younger and fuller in the face. Could the sculptor have been commissioned to produce a commemorative bust of the sitter some eight years after his death, in the style of sculpture fashionable during his early life? Or could the bust depict his son, also named Money Wigram, who died that year? If so, is this purely coincidental or, as seems most likely, was this bust a memorial sculpture commissioned and produced straight after his death? Francis John Williamson was at one point thought of as Queen Victoria's favourite sculptor. A pupil of John Henry Foley, he worked in his studio for fourteen years and was exhibiting at the Royal Academy from the age of twenty. His talent attracted the attention of Queen Victoria and she commissioned him to produce a memorial to Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold at Claremont in 1870, so pleased was she with the work that numerous commissions to produce portraits of the royal family followed. in 1877 he produced the famous jubilee bust of Queen Victoria which was widely reproduced.