Anne Spencer, Countess of Sunderland (1683–1716)

David Le Marchand

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Le Marchand was a carver of the Dieppe school who transferred to London ca. 1705. He executed three nearly identical, signed busts of the sitter, perhaps for different family members. Anne Spencer, second daughter of the first Duke of Marlborough, became Countess of Sunderland after her marriage in 1700. She is noted for her great beauty and influence in politics, and between 1702 and 1712 she served as a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. This half-bust is identifiable as Anne Spencer on the basis of similarities to Godfrey Kneller's painted portrait of her, which displays an elongated rectangular face with high forehead, lightly swelled chin and slender nose.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art