HENNING, JOHN,
an eminent modeller and sculptor, the discoverer of intaglio, son of
Samuel Henning, a house carpenter and cabinet-maker from Galloway,
was born at Paisley, on 2d May, 1771. His education was simple
enough, consisting only of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and at
the age of thirteen he was put to the trade of a carpenter. He
acquired a knowledge of history by reading the works of Rollin and
Hume to his mother while she sat beside him sewing. The voyages of
Cook, Anson, and Byron made him anxious to be a sailor, and to
qualify himself for a seafaring life, he studied geometry,
trigonometry, and navigation. When nearly seventeen years old, he
had packed up his clothes for flight, when his mother’s illness
caused him to delay his departure, and his bundle being discovered,
his father lectured him so severely that he entirely abandoned the
idea of going to sea. He had ere this time begun to attempt the
pencil, his efforts being confined to that small degree of
architectural drawing required by his father’s business. He was
first led to try that peculiar art, namely, of modelling, in which
he afterwards excelled, from the following circumstance. Having
previous to his marriage gone to visit Edinburgh, as he himself
informs us, on August 16, 1799, he got lodgings with a carpenter who
was then working for Mr., afterwards Sir Henry, Raeburn, the eminent
painter, and accompanied him to the house of the latter on the
following day. Being ushered into a room he recognised a portrait of
General Macdowall, but on looking at it again, it did not strike him
so forcibly as a likeness. He resolved to attempt a portrait
himself, and try to model a head in wax. On his return to Paisley,
he took for his first model a bench comrade, A. Woodrow by name. It
turned out a strong though a coarse likeness, and he was teased by
some of his acquaintances to model their portraits. He did so,
working in the evening, and thus gradually improved in his finish.
In his own immediate neighbourhood the fame of the untaught artist
soon began to spread. Sitters came to him, tradesmen of Paisley,
country farmers, and afterwards country squires. Of these he took
medallion portraits in wax. He still worked, as a carpenter, under
his father, whose business fell off, in consequence of the war,
until, out of fifteen or twenty journeymen, the only one that Samuel
Henning had remaining was his steady and diligent son, who worked at
the same business till he was nearly thirty years old. In the
following year happened the circumstance which decided his fortune,
of which the following is his own simple account: “Early in 1800,
being in Glasgow, on business for my father, I had been obliged to
stay the night at the house of a friend. Modelling being my hobby at
the time, I always carried wax and tools in my pocket. I did
medallions of my friend and his wife during the evening. He showed
them to his master, James Monteith, Esq., whereupon Mr. Monteith
proposed to sit to me. I wrote stating that having no intention of
following modelling as a profession, I felt sick at the idea of
being dragged into public notice, by practising an art to which I
was not competent.” These objections were overruled by Mr. Monteith,
who appointed a day for the sitting. “This,” he continues, “was the
2d of May, my birthday. I took my way to Glasgow in a very uneasy
state of mind. On seeing me. Mr. Monteith said, ‘I am too engaged to
sit, but I have nine sitters ready for you.’ At this my trepidation
increased, and I went away with him, feeling very miserable. As we
trudged along, a gentleman accosted Mr. Monteith, and while they
stood talking, I slipped into a close. It was not a thoroughfare, or
I think, from the humour I was in, that I should have run away, and
so have done with modelling for ever.” But this was not to be. The
turning point in John Henning’s career was his introduction to Mr.
Monteith. From that time he relinquished the carpenter’s tools for
those of the sculptor. About 1802, he removed to Edinburgh, where he
remained for nine years, and his proficiency in his art as a
modeller of busts and medallions, his attainments as a linguist, his
general literary taste and extensive information, secured him the
patronage and esteem of many of the most distinguished philosophers
and literary men of that time. In the list of afterwards celebrated
characters whom Henning numbered among his sitters were a set of
young lawyers then just rising into notice, Lord Jeffrey, Lord
Murray, Lord Brougham, and Francis Horner. Mrs. Siddons, also, when
visiting Edinburgh, had a medallion taken by Mr. Henning, probably
one of the best likenesses extant of this great actress. From this
portrait we may date an after-phase of the sculptor’s fortune. Among
his acquaintances and friends he ranked Sir Walter Scott, Adam
Fergusson, Dugald Stewart, the Rev. Archibald Alison, father of Sir
Archibald Alison, baronet, Mrs. Grant of Laggan, Professor Wilson,
and many of the most eminent members of Edinburgh society at that
period.
In July
1811, Mr. Henning visited London for the first time, being then in
his 41st year. His friend, Francis Horner, took him to
the galleries of the marquis of Lansdowne and Earl Grey, where he
made various drawings and studies. As he was preparing to return to
Scotland, a casual street meeting induced him to visit the Elgin
marbles, then newly brought over from Greece, and placed in a
stable-like apartment in the corner of Burlington House. They struck
him with wonder, and having procured a letter of introduction to
Lord Elgin for permission to draw or model from the marbles, he thus
relates the result: “His lordship called on me, saying it was
customary to bring a letter from an academician. I answered: ‘My
lord, I cannot understand why noblemen or gentlemen should not dare
to allow an individual to draw or model from works of art in their
possession; I call this the popery of art, and I protest against
such slavery.’ His lordship left me. The following morning he came
again, accompanied by President West, who praised my drawings and
models very much. Lord Elgin then said he was going to give me leave
to draw from the marbles. Mr. West replied, ‘To Allow Mr. Henning to
draw from your lordship’s marbles would be like sending a boy to the
university before he had learned his letters.’ This produced a
solemn pause. Lord Elgin coloured; the president looked abashed, and
I mustered my dancing school science, and bowed them out right
gladly. His lordship then returned, in a few minutes, and said
good-humouredly, ‘You are a very odd man not to comply with custom.’
I said, ‘My lord, I never will to what seems to me absurd custom; it
has long been my confirmed opinion, that academies, from their
selfish spirit of exclusion, have not always been promoters of art,
but sometimes have actually retarded willing students: to-day has
shown me an instance of this which I never can forget.; “ This frank
reply appears to have pleased Lord Elgin, for Mr. Henning received a
cordially-granted permission to copy from the marbles. “I began to
draw,” he says, “on August 16, 1811, which fixed me in the mud,
dust, and smoke of London. I was so fascinated with the study, that
I was there by sunrise every morning except Sunday, and even the
cold of winter did not mar my darling pursuit.”
In 1812,
his medallion of Mrs. Siddons was brought by that lady under the
notice of the princess of Wales, afterwards the unfortunate Queen
Caroline, and in consequence he had many interviews with her royal
highness and the Princess Charlotte, the latter of whom he modelled
repeatedly. When looking over his drawings from the Elgin marbles,
the Princess Charlotte asked him if he could reduce a special group
in ivory, restoring all the mutilations of the original. He
succeeded, and afterwards seventeen more were executed by him in a
similar manner for the marquis of Lansdowne, the duke of Devonshire,
&c. He then commenced the chief labour of his life, the restored
friezes of the Parthenon, which occupied him “twelve long years,
from the morning’s dawn to the gloaming.” At first the material used
was ivory, on which he worked in relief, but an incident occurred
which caused him to change this plan, while he made, at the same
time, a valuable discovery. Poverty obliged him, as he himself
expressed it, “to act the dominie” in his own household. One day,
when giving his youngest son a lesson in arithmetic, he observed the
latter amusing himself by cutting a head in the slate with a tool
that he himself used to carve ivory with. “The same acuteness,” says
his biographer, “which has converted many a child’s toy into a
mighty instrument 9in the hand of science, caused John Henning to
reason upon, and apply the experiment. The result was the discovery
of intaglio. In this manner the friezes were done, first cut in
slate, and then cast. Thus, this man, almost uneducated and unaided,
save by the powers of his own strong and active mind, produced a
work which is known throughout Europe as the best, – indeed, the
only effort at reproducing these glorious remains of Grecian art.
The value of Mr. Henning’s work was early proved by that most unjust
but most decisive test – imitation. No sooner were the friezes
completed than they were pirated by innumerable modellers, who,
buying the original, were enabled to take from it cast after cast,
at an expense comparatively trifling. These inferior reproductions
were sold everywhere, with Mr. Henning’s name appended, by which not
only was his name injured, but he was deprived of nearly all the
profits of his indefatigable industry. Before long a firm at Paris
brought out a series of anaglyptic engravings from Mr. Henning’s
frieze, the artist’s name in the first issues not being even
mentioned. This omission was afterwards reluctantly rectified,
though the engravings were of a character little likely to do
justice to the work; yet, in spite of this inferiority, the firm
boasted in 1835 that they had sold 12,000 copies.” [Biographical
Sketch in Art Journal for April 1849.]
Henning’s
Elgin friezes were succeeded by the Cartoons and the Transfiguration
of Raffaelie, engraved in intaglio; works of transcendent merit
which, for their minuteness of detail and beauty of execution,
elicited the warm encomiums of Canova and Flaxman. In this
undertaking he was assisted by his sons, now growing up, and
following art as a profession. Other works in relief were executed
by the same united hands; among these were the friezes on Hyde Park
gate, of which John Henning, Jun., furnished the designs; those on
the Athenaeum clubhouse, London, and a diplomatic box engraved in
steel, after Flaxman. These works, together with numberless
medallions and busts, occupied the sculptor till 1846. Then,
advancing in years, and unequal to much exercise of his art, Mr.
Henning began to consider a play whereby he might reap from his long
pirated works the benefit which was his due, and which he
unfortunately required. He agreed with his friend, Mr. A. R.
Fairbairn, an eminent engraver, to commence an undertaking whereby
the latter was to make anaglyptic engravings of the Restoration of
the Parthenon friezes, thus securing for Mr. Henning a correct
interpretation of his work, as well as the advantage of copyright.
The series were to be published by subscription, the sculptor and
engraver making an agreement that secured to both due remuneration.
Thereupon, Mr. Henning revisited his native place, where he resided
for several months with his two sisters. He was received by his
townsmen in a manner that might well gladden his heart. Subscribers
were quickly obtained. The town council of Paisley unanimously
presented him with the freedom of the town, and he was entertained
at a public dinner presided over by the provost. On that occasion,
his old friend, Professor Wilson, went from Edinburgh to do honour
to the man who forty years before had followed his lowly trade of
carpenter within the precincts of the town. The engravings were
commenced, but before the second plate was finished, Mr. Fairbairn’s
death put an end to the undertaking. Mr. Henning himself died at
London, 8th April 1851, in his eightieth year. In bas
relief, Count Cignari, an accomplished Italian nobleman,
declared that Mr. Henning surpassed all ancient or modern artists.
To Mr. Henning’s labours Great Britain is indebted in no small
degree for the progress which has been made in the art he cultivated
and adorned. For the materials of this sketch we have been mainly
indebted to an ably drawn up memoir of Mr. Henning in the Art
Journal.
