This bust representing Joseph Nollekens (1737-1823) two years before his death is made by Alexander Goblet in ca. 1821. Alexander Goblet was for many years principal carver in Nollekens's workshop. The bust, which gives a happier portrait of the sculptor than that suggested by his embittered biographer, J.T. Smith, reveals a close knowledge of the master's style. Goblet exhibited busts of Nollekens in the Royal Academy in 1816 and 1822 one of which appeared in the Nollekens sale of 1823.

Alexander Goblet (1764-1823) was principal carver and assistant to Nollekens.

Nollekens was a prolific sculptor of portrait busts and operated a thriving workshop in London. He spent eight years in Rome from 1762 to 1770, where he worked with Bartolomeo Cavaceppi restoring and copying antique marbles. One of these copies, his group of <i>Castor and Pollux</i>, is in the Museum's collection (Museum no. A.59-1940). He probably perfected his modelling of clay while he was in Rome and started to experiment in making small figures or groups. These occasionally became models for large-scale finished marbles, but many, like this one, still in his studio at his death, were simply studies in their own right, which he called <i>pensieri</i> (thoughts). Joseph Nollekens was one of the most successful sculptors in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, particularly of portrait busts and church monuments. On his return to England he became the leading sculptor in London, and was quickly overwhelmed with commissions. One of his former studio assistants, J. T. Smith, was to write a vituperative biography of the sculptor after his death, in which he condemned him as a miser, ridiculing his odd personal habits and the squalor in which he lived. However, he admitted that Nollekens worked exceptionally hard, and that his portrait busts in particular were unrivalled.