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James Tassie: Scotland’s Forgotten Sculptor
Flaxman went on to pursue a conventional, and increasingly distinguished,
career in sculpture, producing statues and busts, until, at the time
of his death in 1826, he was described as “the greatest of modern
sculptors”
The older of the pair, James Tassie followed a more commercial path, which began with the invention of a low-melting glass paste that could be used in moulds. The orginal objective was to produce copies of what were then called “antique gems”, more accurately ‘cameos and intaglios’ from ancient Greece and Rome, which were the subject of a collecting mania at the time. Tassie hit on the idea of producing a catalogue of ‘Modern Personages’ – the celebrities of the day. These medallions, in shallow relief, were modelled directly from life and were much more durable than the wax originals from which they were cast. Customers would choose from 423 portraits, ranging from the Tsar of Russia, through Robert Adam, Sir Joseph Banks, Captain Cook, Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Admiral Hood, the Astronomer Royal to the Duke of Wellington. We have a wide selection of Tassie’s work available at present,
which you can
view on these pages. |
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Tel: 0208 467 7040 Fax: 0208 857 1313 Email msim@michaelsim.com 1 Royal Parade, Chislehurst, Kent BR7 5PG |
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In the 1770s there were two very talented young sculptors working
for Josiah Wedgwood, designing and making wax models of classical
friezes, portrait medallions and cameos: John Flaxman and James Tassie. 