Hogarth's Dog, Trump
- Object:
- Place of origin:
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
Roubiliac, Louis-François (after, sculptor)
Chelsea Porcelain factory (maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 53a, case 1
- Download image
Object Type
Trump was the pet dog of the artist William Hogarth (1697-1762), and porcelain figures of the pug were probably intended for sale to admirers of Hogarth's paintings and prints. They would probably have been displayed in libraries or other domestic interiors. Trump has a much longer muzzle than the pugs of today.
People
Hogarth depicted Trump prominently in the foreground of his self-portrait of 1745 (now in Tate Britain). A combative personality, Hogarth identified strongly with his pet, and as a result was himself depicted as Trump in Pug's Graces, a caricature of 1753 by the watercolour painter Paul Sandby (1730-1809). The sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac (1705-1762) modelled the original terracotta on which this small sculpture is indirectly based. The manager of the Chelsea porcelain factory, Nicholas Sprimont (1716-1771), was a friend of both Hogarth and Roubiliac.
Design & Designing
Roubiliac's original terracotta of Trump remained with Hogarth's widow until her death in 1790, while plaster casts of the pug were sold among the sculptor's effects in 1762. The Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) made versions in Black Basalt. He based these on a cast bought in 1774 from the London plaster shop of Richard Parker. The Chelsea factory probably also based its version on a commercially available plaster.
Physical description
Figure of Hogarth's dog 'Trump', soft-paste porcelain.
Place of Origin
London, England (made)
Date
1747-1750 (made)
Artist/maker
Roubiliac, Louis-François (after, sculptor)
Chelsea Porcelain factory (maker)
Materials and Techniques
Soft-paste porcelain
Dimensions
Height: 13.2 cm approx., Width: 26.5 cm
Object history note
After an original by Louis-François Roubiliac (born in Lyon, France, 1705, died in London, 1762)
Made at the Chelsea porcelain factory, London
Descriptive line
Porcelain figure of Hogarth's dog 'Trump', Chelsea Porcelain factory, 1747-1750
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Baker, Malcolm and Richardson, Brenda, eds. A Grand Design : The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1997. 431 p., ill. ISBN 1851773088.
Acquired in 1966 at a time when the Museum was showing a new interest in the mid-eighteenth-century Rococo style, this appealing piece links Nicholas Sprimont's Chelsea porcelain factory to the painter William Hogarth and the sculptor L. F. Roubiliac. An icon of Englishness, the figure combines a popular English animal subject with the names of two major figures in the history of English art.
The figure of Hogarth's much-loved pet dog Trump is based on a lost terra cotta by Roubiliac that was originally associated with the sculptor's bust of Hogarth (now in the National Portrait Gallery). Casts and moulds of pugs and dogs are recorded at the sale that followed Roubiliac's death in 1762; some of these must have passed into the hands of Richard Parker, a dealer in plaster casts, who subsequently sold a "Pug Dog" to Josiah Wedgwood.
By linking Hogarth, Roubiliac, and Sprimont, a silversmith who transferred his skills to porcelain at his Chelsea factory, Trump provides a vivid illustration of the interconnections among a group of artists who congregated at Slaughter's Coffee House and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy in London's Soho district, and who were seen as pioneering the Rococo style in England.
The figure of Trump intersects a number of points of scholarship significant to the Museum's collections: archival research on English sculpture (for example, establishing that Sprimont was the godfather of Roubiliac's daughter); interpretation of the decorative arts in terms of a sequence of period styles; a more recent focus on the consumption of luxury objects and its relationship to social history; and a renewed interest in such a piece as evidence of the relationship between the porcelain factories and the London plaster shops. In addition, the discovery of documentation indicating Roubiliac's interest in using Chelsea porcelain in one of his monuments in 1745 has prompted a reappraisal of the relationship between this important sculptor and the equally important Chelsea porcelain factory.
Lit. Mallet, 1967; Snodin, 1984, cat. E4; Baker, forthcoming
HILARY YOUNG
Exhibition History
Precious: Objects and Changing Values (The Millennium Galleries, Sheffield 02/04/2001-24/06/2001)
A Grand Design - The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 12/10/1999-16/01/2000)
Labels and date
British Galleries:
The dog was made after a model by the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac. It is likely that this model was bought from one of the London plaster shops, which sold plaster chimneypiece and library ornaments. Such plasters were often copied by the English ceramic factories. [27/03/2003]
Associated names
William Hogarth
Subjects depicted
Dog
Categories
Porcelain; Ceramics; Figures & Decorative ceramics
Collection code
CER
