3-003-695 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Bust of Cromwell by M. Noble, in the exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1861. '...although several portraits exist of [Oliver Cromwell] by Walker and Mascall, and one by Lily, none of them are considered exactly to fulfil traditional descriptions of the countenance of this extraordinary man...as evidence of the grossness and vulgarity of taste attributed to him by his adversaries, it is recorded of him that he ordered one of the artists who was about to paint him to represent every pimple, hair, and other excrescence, under penalty of receiving nothing for his labour on default. Under these circumstances an attempt to produce an ideal presentment of the hero of our Republican period conformable with all the written accounts of him, assisted by existing portraits, was a task both of interest and difficulty; and such Mr. Noble has attempted in the bust before us...In this head, which displays a noble breadth of treatment, the artist has endeavoured to combine the wisdom of the legislator, the firmness of the ruler, and the heroism of the soldier, and yet preserves the general type of acknowledged likeness...This bust is the result of a commission from Mr. T. B. Potter, of Manchester, who intends to present it to the Peel Museum at Salford'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.