of children. The most celebrated of all his works is probably the group of sleeping children in Lichfield Cathedral, the daughters of Mrs. Robinson, whose reminiscences of them as they lay in bed locked in one another's arms suggested to Chantrey the idea of the monument. The actual design has been attributed erroneously to Stothard. To this artist have also been ascribed the designs for Chantrey's monument to Miss Johnes of Hafod (1812), and for the small statue of young Lady Louisa Russell (on tiptoe and caressing a dove) at Wobum (1818), but the indebtedness of Chantrey to Stothard probably did not exceed that which must always happen when two such good artists are such good friends. Another very beautiful work is 'Lady Frederica Stanhope with her infant child in Chevening Church' (1824).
To give a list of Chantrey's busts would be to catalogue the names of most of the distinguished men of his time, but among the most celebrated were those of Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, James Watt, and Porson. Of Scott he executed two, one in 1820, and the other in 1828. The former was moulded and pirated, thousands being dispersed at home and abroad. A copy of it is in the National Gallery. He made a present of the original to Scott ; and the words of Lockhart with regard to it probably contain much of the secret of Chantrey's success in his art. He calls it 'that bust which alone preserves for posterity the cast of expression most fondly remembered by all who ever mingled in his domestic circle.' The bust of 1828 was bought by Sir Robert Peel. He also executed many important statues. Among these were three which were equestrian — Sir Thomas Munro (at Madras), Wellington (Royal Exchange), George IV (Trafalgar Square). These are characteristic of an artist who, though the friend of Canova, preferred the art of Thorwaldsen. They are all graceful and unaffected, not without dignity, but a little tame. Of his other statues, that of William Pitt was thrice repeated in bronze ; one of the copies is in Hanover Square. At the British Museum is Sir Joseph Banks ; at Liverpool Town Hall, Roscoe and Cunning ; in Westminster Abbey, Sir John Malcolm and Francis Horner; at Glasgow, James Watt ; at Manchester, John Dalton ; in Christ Church, Oxford, Dean Cyril Jackson ; in the Old Parliament House, Edinburgh, Viscount Melville ; in Northampton Church, Spencer Perceval ; and at Windsor, George IV .
Among his rare works of an ideal kind were a head of Satan, a stone mezzo-relievo of Plenty, executed about 1816 for the entrance of Sheaf House (Mr. Daniel Brammall's), Sheffield, and afterwards removed to the library of Mr. F. Young of Eardcliffe, and 'Penelope looking for the bow of Ulysses,' at Woburn.
In 1806 Chantrey made a tour through Yorkshire with somefriends, making sketches by the way of landscape and comic incident. In 1814 with Mr. Dennis, and in the following year with his wife and Stothard, he went to Paris and saw the great collection in the Louvre before its dispersion. Here he met Canova, and made an acquaintance which was afterwards renewed in London. On this occasion he procured good casts of the Laocoon, the Antinous, and other celebrated pieces of sculpture, which he afterwards allowed young artists to study at his house. He also went to Holland, it was his habit to preserve graphic records of his journey in his sketch-books, and it was probably the slight contents of one of these books which furnished the contributions by Chantrey to Rhodes's 'Peak Scenery,' published in 1818, with engravings by W. B. and G. Cook, and lately (1885) republished by Murray of Derby. The drawings were in pencil and not of sufficient importance to make it necessary to enter here into the question how much artistic merit was added to them by the engravers or others.
In 1819 he went to Italy and devoted his time to study in the galleries. Here he met Thomas Moore and visited with him Canova's gallery. He also purchased marble at Carrara.
In 1815 Chantrey was elected an associate and in 1818 a full member of the Royal Academy, to whose interests he was always devoted. He was knighted by William IV in 1835, and was honorary D.U.L. of Oxford and an honorary M.A. of Cambridge, F.R.S. and F.S.A. His fame and popularity were uninterrupted when he died suddenly of spasm of the heart on 25 Nov. 1842. He was buried in his native village in a tomb previously prepared by himself. At his death he was worth 150,000l.
He was childless and left the reversionary interest of the bulk of his property, after the death of his widow, to the Royal Academy, to make some provision for the president and to found the iiind known as the Chantrey bequest, with the view of establishing a national collection by the purchase of the most valuable works in sculpture and painting by artists of any nation residing in Great Britain at the time of execution. Although only a few years have elapsed since the first purchases were made by the Royal Academy out of the Chantrey fund, the collection already contains some fine works. It is at present housed at the South Kensington Muaeuin.
