Rachel Fanny Antonina Le Despencer

Rachel Fanny Antonina Le Despencer

John Bacon the Younger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Antonina apparently spent much of her adult life in an unsuccessful pursuit of the title Baroness Le Despencer. Thus, the inscription on the base was undoubtedly intended to legitimize her claim. Her nom de plume Philopatria, which she adopted for her acclaimed "Essay on Government" of 1808 (she was also the author of anticlerical tracts), appears on the back. The bust was exhibited at Royal Academy in 1820.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rachel Fanny Antonina Le DespencerRachel Fanny Antonina Le DespencerRachel Fanny Antonina Le DespencerRachel Fanny Antonina Le DespencerRachel Fanny Antonina Le Despencer

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.