The Sculptor [Preparations for the Academy, Old Joseph Nollekens and his Venus]

Rowlandson caricatures Sir Joseph Nollekens, who sculptures of classical gods and contemporary busts helped popularize Neoclassical taste in Britain. The sculptor’s collection of plaster and terracotta casts and antique fragments, brought back from Rome, crowds his studio. Shown in his sixties, Nollekens needs spectacles to work on a clay model of Venus and Cupid intended for the next Royal Academy exhibition, but his lecherous expression and flushed cheeks suggest his undiminished ability to appreciate the nude who perches amidst the statuary. A large sculpted head of Jupiter, a god notorious for his many affairs, also eyes the model and the image suggests high-minded aesthetic pursuits falter when confronted with the attraction of living beauty.

Credit: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959