Earl of Orkney bust goes under the hammer today

A marble bust of Field Marshal George Hamilton (1666-1737), who was given the title 1st Earl of Orkney, is to be auctioned at Sotheby’s today, Thursday.

The 83-centimetre-high bust, valued between £250,00 and £350,000, is by the great 18th-century sculptor Michael Rysbrack and was, until recently, on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Hamilton was created Earl of Orkney in 1696. From 1707, following the Act of Union, he sat as one of the 16 representative Scottish peers in the House of Lords until his death.

He was also appointed to the Privy Council in 1710 and later became Governor of Edinburgh Castle and Gentleman of the Bedchamber to George I, attending the famous evening on the River Thames on 17 July, 1717, when Handel’s Water Music was first performed for the King.

As a young man, Orkney held a commission as captain in the Royal Scots, the first Regiment of Foot, the British army’s premier infantry division.  He swiftly established a reputation for himself as a first class officer, playing a crucial role in William III’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690.

According to Sotheby’s: “This magisterial portrait bust of George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, is an important and rare early work by one of the greatest 18th-century British sculptors, the Flemish born Michael Rysbrack.

“Lord Orkney was a second in command to John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, during the War of the Spanish Succession, playing a leading role at the Battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

“A respected and highly capable general, this self-effacing Scot, was, later in life, created the British Army’s first Field Marshal.

“Rysbrack’s portrait presents Orkney in the all’antica guise of a classical general, marking him out as the embodiment of liberty and civic virtue, the cardinal ideals of the 18th-century British aristocracy.”

It will be auctioned at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master Sculpture and Works of Art.