SKINFLINT SCULPTOR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1940, Page 6

SKINFLINT SCULPTOR

GENIUS WITH MARBLE & CLAY. Joseph Nollekens was born in London. A little bow-legged man with a huge head and a nose humorously described as being like the rudder of an Antwerp packet boat, he was a genius with marble and clay. He was working in the Piccadilly studio of an Antwerp sculptor when only a boy. His master was Peter Scheemakers. Nollekens saved enough money to take him to Italy where he restored antiques. Employed by wealthy men to find ancient sculptures, he would add new limbs and heads to old marble, staining the new work with tobacco water to make it look mellowed, and charging high prices for his treasures. It was while in Italy that Joseph carved his first bust, having David Garrick as his model. From that time on Little Nolly was much sought after by distinguished people who wanted him to carve their portraits. Over a long period he was making many thousands of pounds a year, and when he died at 85 he left a fortune of £200.000.

He ought to have lived in comfort the greater part of his life but he was too miserly for that, and the way in which he and his ill-tempered and parsimonious wife tried to save a penny her and there, as if they had hardly a shilling in the world, is almost, unbelievable. His wife is said to have fed her dogs by taking them round the butchers’ stalls in Oxford Market; and the sculptor is known to have pocketed the nutmegs provided with the hot negus served at Academy dinners. Whenever he dined at a friend's house he would steal a little of the food, and at a time when he was earning about £lOO a week he would wrangle with his cobbler over the price of a few nails in his shoes. Misshapen, often unscrupulous, this amazing man with a genius for making marble come to life, takes his place among some of the most remarkable of all our oddities, the skinflint sculptor whose work will long endure.