JOHN CHEERE (1709-1787)

A RARE LEAD FIGURE OF A HAYMAKER, CIRCA 1745.

Comparative literature:
J.T. Smith, Streets of London, London, 1854, p. 11.
J. Davis, Antique Garden Ornament, Suffolk, 1991, pp. 58-65.
During the eighteenth century masked balls, or fête-champêtres, set in the Arcadian setting of aristocratic country houses or at Ranelagh or Vauxhall pleasure gardens, became immensely popular with fashionable society. The most prevalent costumes were of romanticised rural figures such as milkmaids, shepherds and shepherdesses.
Like any successful practioner in the luxury trades, John Cheere, the leading sculptor in lead in England, kept abreast of this rococo taste for naturalism by extending his range of garden figures to include commedia dell'arte and other rustic figures. J.T. Smith (Smith, loc, cit.) described a visit to John Cheere's workshop: 'The figures were cast in lead as large as life and frequently painted to represent nature. They consisted of mowers whetting their scythes, haymakers resting on their rakes...'.
There is a lead statue of a Mower whetting his scythe at Bicton Park in Devon (Davis, loc. cit, plate 1:27). An identical version of this Mower, attributed to Cheere, was sold at Summers Place Auction, 20 May 2008, lot 67 for more than £50,000. The current figure is highly comparable in dress, stance and facial detailing to these two figures of Mowers and almost certainly is one of the 'haymakers resting on their rakes' described as being in Cheere's studio.