This finely carved white marble bust of Edward, Prince of Wales, known as the Black Prince (1330 – 1376), is an outstanding example of the work of John Michael Rysbrack (1694 – 1770), the leading sculptor in Britain during the first half of the 18th Century.

Queen Caroline’s Busts for St James’s Palace:

The bust belongs to a broader context of royal patronage celebrating English historical figures as exemplars of liberty, chivalry, and national heritage. In the mid-1730s, Queen Caroline (1683 – 1737), consort of George II, commissioned Rysbrack to produce a series of terracotta busts of English monarchs and royals for her library at St James’s Palace. These included figures from William the Conqueror onward, though the project focused on Plantagenet and Tudor rulers.

Queen Caroline’s commission to Rysbrack was substantial. Had it come to fruition, it would have constituted his longest series of associated portrait busts. It would also have been the largest royal commission for sculpture in the first half of the 18th Century. The first mention of the project is in June 1735, when The Old Whig noted that ‘Her Majesty has ordered Mr Risbrack to make the Busto’s in Marble of all the Kings of England from William the Conqueror’. Queen Caroline seems to have taken an interest not only in the message of Rysbrack’s sculptural programme but in its preparation too. She visited his studio in 1735, where she saw the busts in progress. She was not, however, to see her project complete. In November 1737, she was taken ill in her library, and died eleven days later, leaving its furnishing unfinished.

Royal British Heroes:

The series included portraits of Edward III, Edward, the Black Prince, and Henry V who had all established places in the Valhalla of royal British heroes, famed for their valour, defending the honour of the nation at Crécy and Agincourt respectively. Caroline’s choice would have been reinforced by the knowledge that they had been venerated by generations of her royal ancestors, and it may have helped that they had trounced the French as, despite the fact since 1713 there had been an Anglo-French rapprochement, relations with the old enemy remained uneasy.

Of the eleven terracotta busts completed, only three survive today in the Royal Collection: those of Edward the Black Prince, Edward VI, and Queen Elizabeth I. The remainder were largely destroyed in 1906 when a shelf collapsed in the Orangery at Windsor Castle.

Edward, the Black Prince:

Edward of Woodstock (1330 – 1376), known as the Black Prince, was the eldest son of Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. Born at Woodstock Palace, he was created Prince of Wales in 1343 and emerged as one of the foremost military commanders of the Hundred Years' War. At sixteen, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, contributing significantly to the English victory. His greatest triumph occurred at Poitiers in 1356, where he decisively defeated the French forces and captured King John II, securing major territorial concessions through the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360. Appointed Prince of Aquitaine in 1362, he governed the duchy but faced rebellions, including the controversial sack of Limoges in 1370. Chronic illness, likely dysentery, forced his return to England in 1371; he died in 1376, predeceasing his father, with his son later ascending as Richard II.

The Black Prince embodied medieval ideals of chivalry and knightly prowess, revered by contemporaries as a model warrior-prince whose victories enhanced English military prestige and reinforced claims in France. His legacy shaped perceptions of English royal and martial excellence.

As an influential patron of the arts and intellectual figure, Queen Caroline planned to use these historical portraits to forge symbolic continuity between the Hanoverian dynasty and England’s medieval and Tudor royal heritage. By including the Black Prince – a celebrated military hero – she emphasised themes of strength, Protestant legitimacy, and dynastic continuity, linking the new German-origin monarchy to England’s storied past.

‘Rysbrack gave each of the busts a vivacity that transcended any engraved or painted source. In the case of the busts that drew on funeral effigies, his subjects are rendered to show all the stateliness and energy of these monarchs in their prime.’

(Joanna Marschner in ‘Michael Rysbrack’s Sculpture Series for Queen Caroline’s Library at St James’s Palace’, Burning Bright: Essays in Honour of David Bindman, London, 2015, pp. 27-35.)

Rysbrack’s depiction of the Black Prince:

Rysbrack based the design of the Black Prince, as he did with most of the series, on George Vertue’s engraved portraits. Vertue based his portrait on the effigy of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral. This effigy was likely commissioned by the Black’s Prince’s son, Richard II, around the mid-1380s (possibly a decade after the Black Prince's death in 1376), and was constructed with the direct involvement of a professional armourer. This ensured exceptional fidelity to contemporary plate armour: the effigy replicates details such as the exact positioning of rivets, straps, and fittings so closely that experts describe it as matching the actual armour (which still hangs above the tomb) with complete fidelity. The effigy shows him in full plate armour, with a drooping moustache and long hair flowing from under his helmet. It is likely that Rysbrack visited Canterbury to see the effigy, as his finished bust is in many ways closer to the effigy than to Vertue’s portrait.

‘What is impressive about Rysbrack’s representation of the Black Prince is the accuracy of informed historical observation’

(Katharine Eustace, 2005)

Rsybrack’s bust presents the prince in heroic, idealised form, turned slightly to his right in three-quarter view. He wears a suit of armour with prominent lion masks at the shoulders, evoking the strength of Hercules, and a helmet surmounted by a coronet of stylised foliate motifs. The modelling of the face is exceptionally sensitive: the determined expression, moustache, and finely rendered features convey both martial valour and noble dignity. Details that are soft and difficult to see in Rysbrack’s terracotta bust are crispy portrayed here. The carving of the armour details and drapery edges in the present bust showcases Rysbrack’s mastery of marble as a medium, achieving a luminous surface that captures light and imparts a sense of timeless grandeur.

A Royal Commission by Prince Frederick

The present marble version, executed around the same period, was probably commissioned by Queen Caroline's eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707 – 1751), for the Octagon Temple in the garden of Carlton House, Pall Mall, London.

Contemporary reports, including a notice in the General Evening Post (22–24 July 1735), document Prince Frederick’s commission to Rybrack of two marble busts of Edward, the Black Prince and Alfred the Great, and a voucher exists among the Duchy of Cornwall papers dated 1736, for: ‘Work done by Michael Rysbrack for His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, 2 bustows of King Alfred and the Black Prince £105…’. In The Craftsman it was noted that Prince Frederick’s intent was to honour Alfred as the founder of English liberties and to model his conduct after the Black Prince. Coming so soon after his mother, Queen Caroline’s, commission of the terracotta busts of the Black Prince and Alfred the Great, it is evident her son was aware of her commission and inspired by it. Rysbrack was paid £105 for the marble busts in 1736. These two busts were placed in niches on the exterior of the octagonal temple or possibly by its staircase of the octagonal temple in the garden at Carlton House, his London residence.

Prince Frederick was passionately fond of music and the arts. He had arrived in London from Hanover in December 1728, becoming very popular as ‘a people’s Prince’ but he soon lost the favour of his father and mother due to his profligate lifestyle. He acquired Carlton House between St James and Pall Mall in June 1732. It had been built for Henry Boyle, Lord Carlton in 1709. Prince Frederick immediately had the house altered by William Kent, who may have been involved in the commissioning of Rybrack, who was a regular collaborator and friend of Kent.

The inclusion of the busts of King Alfred and Edward, the Black Prince in niches on the Temple has been seen as an overtly political statement by Frederick and of his political alignment with Richard Temple, First Viscount Cobham’s Patriot Whigs who had split from the Whig Party after the excise act promoted by Robert Walpole in 1733.

Lady Archibald Hamilton, the Mistress of Prince Frederick :

It is not known what happened to the two busts, and no bust of King Alfred in marble survives. The present bust is the only surviving bust in marble of the Black Prince and it is first documented in an inventory of the State Bedroom at Warwick Castle in 1806 as ‘Marble Bust of Edward the Black prince’. It was repeatedly included in inventories at Warwick Castle, where it remained until its sale at Sotheby’s in 2005. In the Sotheby’s sale catalogue Katharine Eustace proposed the most likely provenance trail was that Prince Frederick’s bust arrived at Warwick Castle through his mistress and adviser, Lady Archibald Hamilton, whose daughter Elizabeth became the Countess of Warwick.

Jane, Lady Archibald Hamilton (1704 – 1753) was born the daughter of James Hamilton, 6th Earl of Abercorn. In 1719, she married Lord Archibald Hamilton, a naval officer and politician. In 1736 she took an official role in Prince Frederick’s household after his marriage to Augusta of Saxe-Gotha when she was appointed as Augusta’s First Lady of the Bedchamber, Mistress of the Robes, and Keeper of the Privy Purse. She was described as strict in her duties and influential in managing the princess’s household and wardrobe. By this time, she had also become Frederick’s mistress, a relationship that reportedly began around 1733-36 and lasted until about 1742, when she was succeeded by Anne Vane and later others. Contemporary accounts portray her as a dominant figure in Frederick’s life, effectively governing his household and exerting significant influence over him; one source notes she ‘governed the Prince’ for several years. Lord Hervey noted that Frederick was infatuated with her. Her husband, Lord Archibald, was compensated for the affair with government positions, including as cofferer to the Prince of Wales.

Her life with Frederick was marked by court intrigue and patronage. As his mistress, she facilitated gifts and favours on behalf of the royal couple, such as a silver clock presented in 1740 to Susannah Strangways Horner. Interestingly, at Warwick Castle there are a pair of paintings of Prince Frederick and his wife Augusta, by John Richardson and Charles Philips, which were gifted to the Earl of Warwick, by the Earls’ father-in-law Lord Archibald Hamilton, Lady Hamilton’s long-suffering husband. Rysbrack’s bust may well have been a present and that is why it was given such a prominent position at Warwick Castle in the State Bedroom.

The Duke of Argyll at Adderbury House:

There is a second bust of The Black Prince carved in marble by Rysbrack recorded in early inventories. This was commissioned by John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll and 1st Duke of Greenwich (1680 – 1743) in 1731 for Adderbury House. It was commissioned as one of a six busts by Rysbrack in a programme of military heroes. Two of these busts were in fact carved by Louis-François Roubiliac (1702 – 1762), as his earliest documented works, The prince de Condé and The vicomte de Turenne, recorded in the French periodical Le Pour et contre in 1733 (Antoine François Prévost, Le Pour et contre 1, no. 14, Nov.1733).

Some of the busts from Adderbury, including Rysbrack’s bust of The Black Prince, were sold from the house on 15 April 1777, when they were added to the sale ‘of a nobleman gone to France’ held by Walsh, Clayton & Co, lots 58-64, including two busts by Rysbrack: lot 59 a ‘Ditto [A busto in statuary marble] of Edward the Black Prince, finely executed, by Rysbrack’ and lot 60 a ‘Ditto [A busto in statuary marble] of the Apollo Pythius, a fine copy, by ditto [Rysbrack]’. The bust of Turenne was incorrectly described as being by Bouchardon (lot 58).

It is not known who acquired the Adderbury bust of The Black Prince in 1777, but it is possible that it could have been Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick, who was actively buying art for Warwick Castle, and was patron to several artists including Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Ramsay. This is an alternative explanation for the presence of The Black Prince bust in the inventory in the State Bedroom at Warwick Castle in 1806. The Warwick Castle bust is the only known bust in marble of The Black Prince that survives and it may either be the bust commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales or the bust commissioned by the 2nd Duke of Argyll, but the familial links between the Prince of Wales and Elizabeth Greville suggest this path is more likely.

The Temple of British Worthies:

A third bust of The Black Prince from the 1730s was carved by Pieter Scheemakers (1691 – 1781) circa 1781, for The Temple of British Worthies at Stowe, commissioned by Lord Cobham after he resigned from official politics following the 1733 Excise Bill. This bust was carved as part of a series of portraits of those famous for their actions in either military or political service to their country including celebrated explorers, ranging from King Alfred, The Black Prince, Queen Elizabeth I, and King William III to Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, John Hampden and Sir John Barnard. These busts completed an earlier set carved by Rysbrack, and Scheemakers heavily based his bust of The Black Prince on Rysbrack’s earlier bust. This bust survives at Stowe today.