A small wax figure of an old lady by Catherine Andras, and a portrait of Revd. Mr Bruce D. D. of Belfast, offered by Mr Adams through Mr R. B. Armstrong, now accepted.
Minutes of NGI board meeting held on 9th March 1910
'An Old Lady’ arrives at the National Gallery of Ireland
A brief note in the minutes of a National Gallery of Ireland board meeting on 9th March 1910 records the acquisition of a miniature portrait in wax by Catherine Andras (1775-1860). Like most wax portraits, it was held in a private collection before being gifted to the Gallery. Wax miniatures are unfamiliar to many; most of these works remain in private collections or in museum storage, hidden from the public eye. The presence of this small sculpture on display among the works of famous painters is quite intriguing.
The ‘Old Lady’ in question would ultimately be identified as a Dublin-based woman named Rose Bruce. This information emerged with the discovery of a second, identical wax portrait, currently in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. The New Haven sculpture features an inscription offering further details about the sitter, written by her son Robert. This note underlines that Bruce loved her children and ensured they were moral and well-educated, after losing her husband before she turned forty.
The hand carved effigy of Rose Bruce, widow of Samuel Bruce...This exemplary woman, left a widow when little more than 38 years of age, with 5 sons and two daughters...giving the most liberal education and some accomplishments to all her children.
Autograph manuscript by Robert Bruce, accompanying the New Haven wax portrait of Rose Bruce
An Artist in Wax
The artist Catherine Andras was born in Bristol in 1775. Orphaned, she began working in a toy shop, which may have led to her later career in wax portraiture. Andras moved to London and started working under the guidance of the miniaturist Robert Bowyer. She was later adopted by Bowyer and his wife. Andras was best-known for producing monochrome profile portraits in wax. This particular portrait of Rose Bruce reveals a versatility and skill in waxwork that was apparent from the beginning of Andras’s career – she was only twenty-four years old when she sculpted it. Artist and sitter met in Bristol in 1799, when Bruce was visiting one of her five sons, Robert Bruce. The portrait was produced from life, and can be qualified as one of the most fascinating surviving works completed by Andras.
Art, Female Hobby or Curiosity?
Wax miniatures have historically been disregarded for several reasons. The cost of production, ease of reproduction and availability of materials have impacted the accessibility of these sculptures. It also impacted their status as cheaper art for the masses, similar to the silhouette portraits popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. The presence of women artists in wax portraiture may have resulted from this accessibility of materials, and might also have contributed to the medium being underappreciated in art history.
Wax portraits have nonetheless featured in the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) exhibitions. Andras exhibited multiple times at the RA between 1799 and 1824, and received awards and recognition. In 1802 she received royal patronage as the Modeller in Wax to Queen Charlotte, an important royal patron for female artists at the time.
The popularity of wax portraits increased steadily in the 18th century, and the interest in this art form grew in both England and Ireland. The most important Irish wax sculptor at the time was Samuel Percy (1750-1820). While Andras was mostly known for her monochromatic profile relief portraits, Percy promoted himself as an expert in sculpting front-facing portraits. Despite their assigned strengths, they have both proven to be extremely versatile in their work. The National Gallery of Ireland holds several works attributed to Percy in its collection, including a wax portrait of Francis Rawdon Hastings. Intriguingly, the Hastings waxwork was presented to the Gallery by the same Mr R.B. Armstrong who is recorded in the March 1910 board minutes in relation to the donation of the Rose Bruce wax portrait.
Casting the Portraits
The high relief, front-face portraits discussed above are the most elaborate type of miniature wax portraits produced at the time. Remarkably, some of Andras’ moulds for low relief profile portraits have survived – together with finished pieces – in the collection of the V&A museum in London. The moulds establish with certainty the casting method for this type of wax portrait. The process of creating a front-facing and three dimensional model – such as the portrait of Rose Bruce – would have been complicated and time-consuming. This justified the higher price and less frequent production of this portrait type. The work also increased significantly if the model was made using coloured wax, rather than being sculpted in one colour and then painted. Sometimes, the casting did not stop at the wax models. Andras was associated with the Tassi family, who were responsible for the production of casts in glass, known as pastes. Some of the profile reliefs of famous individuals carved by Andras were later copied in larger quantities by William Tassi. Her designs have also been reduced in size and used for social club pins.
Waxworks at the National Gallery of Ireland
Displaying this wax portrait at the National Gallery of Ireland invites us to discuss the place of women in art; both as sitters and as artists. It also provokes questions about the long established and often unchallenged hierarchy of art mediums. The skill displayed by Andras in this wax portrait deserves to be recognized, regardless of personal tastes for ‘higher’ art forms. Interest in researching waxwork portraiture remains peripheral, but close examination of these fragile works of art reveals that they are not as straightforwardly simple as they seem.
Further Reading
Lowell Libson Ltd. British Art. Lowell Libson Ltd. 2016.
Bolton Ethel, Wax Portraits and Silhouettes,Stanwood and Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Detroit: Gale Research. 1974.
Graves, A. Royal Academy of Arts v. 1, London: Henry Graves & Co. Ltd. and George Bell and Sons 1905.
Murrell, Vernon J. Some aspects of the conservation of wax models. Studies in Conservation 16, no. 3, 1971.
Le Harivel, Adrian, Dillon, Susan, Catalogue of the sculptures, National Gallery of Ireland, 1975.
Ord-Hume Ruth. Mr. Percy : Portrait Modeller in Coloured Wax : The Miniatures and Tableaux of Samuel Percy. Woodbridge Suffolk: ACC Art Books. 2020.
Pyke, E.J. A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, Oxford, 1973.
Roscoe, I. A biographical dictionary of sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851, Yale University Press, 2009.
Strickland, W.A Dictionary of Irish Artists. Volume 2 L to Z. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2021.
Strobel, Heidi A. “Royal ‘Matronage’ of Women Artists in the Late-18th Century.” Woman’s Art Journal 26, no. 2, 2005.
Wood, Henry Trueman. “THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS. VIII.—The Society and the Fine Arts. (1755-1851.) (Concluded).” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 60, no. 3109 (1912): 764–72.
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:13057491
https://www.nationalgallery.ie/visit-us/self-guided-tours/through-lens-tour-sculpture
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O97025/lord-thurlow-mould-andras-catherine/
Gabriela Lojewska, Trinity College Dublin, M.Phil. in the History of Art and Architecture, 2024