Westmacott lecturing at Somerset House in 1830

George Johann Scharf (1788 - 1860)

RA Collection: Art

In this scene, Scharf depicted Sir Richard Westmacott delivering one of his lectures on Sculpture at the Royal Academy in the Great Room at Somerset House. The audience - not only students of the RA Schools but also Academicians and guests - are seated in rows facing Westmacott who stands on a platform with a group of antiquities. The room is hung with copies after the Old Masters from the RA Collection including the copy after Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper (above Westmacott), Ruben's Descent from the Cross (opposite) and three scenes after Raphael by James Thornhill (The Healing of the Lame Man, The Death of Ananias and The Blinding of Elymas).

Although the print was published in 1850, according to the title it depicts Westmacott lecturing in 1830. Westmacott was the Academy's second Professor of Sculpture, elected in 1827 after the death of John Flaxman RA. He was expected to give six lectures per year for the sum of sixty pounds. According to the Gentlemen's Magazine these were 'treatises of considerable archaeological research, interspersed with practical remarks of great force and shrewdness and accompanied by admirable drawings’ (GM, vol 201, 1856, 510 - see A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851 online: http://liberty.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/sculptor/ browserecord.php?-action=browse&-recid=2896&from_list=true&x=19)

The artist, Scharf, was the father of Sir George Scharf who became director of the National Portrait Gallery.

Related works:

There is a drawing for this print in the British Museum collection, Museum No. 1862, 0614.179 (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/ collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=691717&partId=1) dated 1836.