Richard Phene Spiers

This plaquette is the reverse of the plaquette of R. Phene Spiers (Mus. No. 1021-1905), by the medallist Edouard Lanteri, dated 1905.

It depicts a copy of one of the capitals of the Erechtheion, to the left of which are a laurel shrub and a pair of dividers: on the right is a pile of books with parchment and inkpot. In the background is a view of the Acropolis.

Lanteri, a sculptor and medallist, was a native of Burgundy, and initially trained under Aimé Millet (1819-1891) and M. Lecoque de Boisbaudran, and later at the École des Beaux-Arts under Eugène Guillaume (1822-1905) and Pierre-Jules Cavalier.
Lanteri settled in England from 1872, and was naturalised in 1901. At the age of 23 he became chief assistant to Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm a position he held until Boehm's death in 1890. In 1874 Lanteri was appointed Master of Modelling at the National Art Training School (now Royal College of Art), and in 1900 became the first Professor of Modelling. During 1905/6 he supervised students working on the figures of Fame, Sculpture and Architecture for the Exhibition Road façade of the Museum. Lanteri wrote a three volume guide to modelling published in 1902, 1904 and 1911.

Richard Phene Spiers was an English architect and author (b. 1838, d. 1916). He first studied at King's College London and later at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and occupied a long mastership at the Royal Academy. He travelled widely (France, Spain, Egypt, Syria and the East), where he recorded architectural data and made many water-colour sketches.