William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Future Second Earl of Bessborough

Johann Lorenz Natter German

Not on view

His lapidary excellence lead the German medalist Johann Lorenz Natter to Switzerland, Venice, Florence, England, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Russia, where he died. William Ponsonby (1704–1793), an influential parliamentary politician, was an original member of the band of aesthetes known as the Dilettanti Society. Natter presented him sparely, with cropped hair, in the neo-Roman style of budding Neoclassicism. The ground stratum is carved so thin as to be transparent, allowing a delicate play of light. A companion cameo dated 1750 of Ponsonby’s wife, Lady Caroline, née Cavendish, was auctioned at Christie’s in London in 1923 but has left no subsequent trace.

William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Future Second Earl of Bessborough, Johann Lorenz Natter (German, 1703–1765), Onyx, mounted in gold as a pendant, British, probably London

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William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Future Second Earl of Bessborough, Johann Lorenz Natter (German, 1703–1765), Onyx, mounted in gold as a pendant, British, probably London
William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Future Second Earl of Bessborough, Johann Lorenz Natter (German, 1703–1765), Onyx, mounted in gold as a pendant, British, probably London
William Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, Future Second Earl of Bessborough, Johann Lorenz Natter (German, 1703–1765), Onyx, mounted in gold as a pendant, British, probably London

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