Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1242946
Date first listed:: 21-Mar-2011
List Entry Name:: Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens
Statutory Address:: Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1242946
Date first listed:: 21-Mar-2011
List Entry Name:: Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens
Statutory Address 1:: Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Buckinghamshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Stowe
National Grid Reference:: SP 67663 38001

Reasons for Designation

Yes, list

Details

1129/0/10010

STOWE GRECIAN VALLEY Statue of a sleeping shepherdess in Stowe landscape gardens 21-MAR-11 II Garden statue on a pedestal in limestone. Sculptor unknown.

DESCRIPTION: an almost life-size statue of a sleeping shepherdess on a low rectangular base, mounted on a high pedestal, which has a stepped and moulded base, with moulded sunk panels to the sides and a deep, moulded cornice. The shepherdess is depicted seated on the base of a tree stump, resting her head on her right hand with her elbow propped up on the stumps. She has a long, loose dress, a belt and is wearing a bonnet. A leather water bottle is resting on the tree stump behind her.

HISTORY: The statue, one of a pair, the other being that of a sleeping shepherd dates from the early-mid C18. It seems likely that they can be attributed to the patronage of Viscount Cobham (1675-1749) at Stowe, and formed part of one of the many statuary groups that were assembled here in the first half of the C18. An annotation made prior to 1750 in a copy in the Bodleian Library of the 1748 edition of Benton Seeley's guide to the gardens, 'A Description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stowe in Buckinghamshire', describes a circle of statues arranged around a Rotunda in the Western Garden which included a shepherd and 'shepardesse'. At the time the Rotunda and Queen Caroline's Monument were sited close together and the group is probably that mentioned in Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson's 'A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain' (3rd ed. 1742) which, referring to Stowe, states 'Her late Majesty's Effigies is erected on Four Ionick Columns...It is situated on a neat Amphitheatre of Slopes, with Pastoral Figures each way from it'; Referring to Queen Caroline's monument, William Guilpin in 'A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Cobham at Stow in Buckinghamshire' (written in 1748) states 'Her late Majesty is the principal Figure in the Scene, and around her a merry Company of Nymphs and Swains enjoying themselves in the Shade'. It therefore seems likely that this statue, and her partner, were part of this group of Arcadian statuary positioned around Queen Caroline's monument in the Queen's Theatre, at some point between its erection around 1725 and the early 1740s.

Following the removal of the Queen's Theatre feature in the 1750s, the statues seem to have been moved to form part of the group surrounding the Dancing Faun statue which was located in a grassy glade as part of the 'Grecian Valley', originally laid out by Capability Brown (his first known commission) between 1747 and 1749. The Circle of the Dancing Faun remained a feature of the Grecian Valley at least until the early decades of the C19 eventually being included in the large scale sales of statuary that occurred in 1848 and again in 1921-22. It seems probable that the shepherd and shepherdess were relocated to the grounds of the Cobham Arms Hotel (Grade II) in West Street in the mid-C19. In 1975 they were installed in the grounds of Castle House (Grade I), where both statues were listed at Grade II, in 1994. In 2007, following a donation to the National Trust, the statues were moved once again and re-sited in the Grecian Valley in Stowe landscape gardens, part of a Grade I Registered landscape.

SOURCES Bevington, M, Stowe, The Garden and the Park (1994) Pevsner, N and Williamson, E, The Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire, 1994, pp.660-87. Robinson, John Martin, Temples of Delight: Stowe Landscape Gardens (2nd ed. 1994). Website: Stowe Landscape Gardens (http://faculty.bsc.edu/jtatter/stowe.html) accessed 27 May 2010

REASON FOR DESIGNATION: The statue of a sleeping shepherdess in the 'Grecian Valley' at Stowe landscape gardens is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historic Interest: as an example of early-mid C18 decorative garden statuary with an Arcadian theme and illustrative of aspects of C18 English art and garden design, of which Stowe was supremely influential; * Group Value: as a matching pair with its accompanying statue of a sleeping shepherd.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 507863
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.