Having burdened my readers with multiple posts about Chatsworth last week, and particularly about the garden statuary, I am now able to say, thanks to information supplied by the Chatsworth archive, that none of the statues I photographed are from the original garden layout. The original statues were presumably cleared away in the fashion for the picturesque later in the eighteenth century. Those that are in the garden now were all bought by the sixth Duke who was a passionate and knowledgeable collector of sculpture both for his Sculpture Gallery and outdoors.
Diana and Apollo are recorded as being on the South Lawn in the sixth Duke’s diary on 20 February 1841. They were bought from Francesco Bienaimé on 2 March 1841 (£100 each):-
The two Pugilists, Creugas and Damoxenos, are copies after Canova:-
The Shepherd Boy is after Thorvaldsen and there is another, smaller version in the collection:-
Adonis was bought as part of a job lot in Carrara and is also in the manner of Thorvaldsen. As the Duke records in his diary on 8 November 1846: ‘I saw and settled the next 5 statues, Minerva, Telemarco, the Adonis of Thorwaldsen, & the two danzatrices of Canova’:-
I am posting for good measure two views of the Broad Walk to give a sense of the beauty of the setting:-