HUGIJENOT ARTISTS DESIGNERS AND CRAYPSNEN IN GREAT ...

175.
Le Marchand also executed a small ivory bust in the round of Isaac
Newton which appears in the portrait of the sculptor by Highmore.
Both the portrait and the bust originally belonged to Matthew Raper,
the 'sound scholar and as able a mathematician' who presented the
bust of Newton to the British Museum in 1765. It is probable that Mat:hew
Raper's father of the same name had commissioned the ivory bust, which is
signed and dated 1718The portrait of Le Marchand shows the same bust,
and was probably painted about 1723, and the very fine ivory relief of
the patron's son, the donor of the bust, aged fifteen, which is signed
and dated 1720, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum 'ate1L,.k)k1,1he
young Matthew is shown standing in a 1±brar, dcmni. rating a preposition
in geometry on a table with his left hand, and holding a pen in his right.
The detailed rendering of the tripod table, the bookcase with a volume
inclined accross a gap, and even the wooden planks of the floor boards,
and the almost indulgent rendering of billowing drapery, are the
equivalent of the court portraiture of Rigaud, as Terence Hodgkinson has
pointed out.
The fact that David Le Marchand cai from a family of Dieppe
history painters has already been noted, but it is significant that the
Dieppe Museum has recently acquired a half length portrait of a woman
which is signed 'g.le Marchand fecitf2It is probable that the Le Marcharid
family also painted portraits. Were it not for the fact that the name David
Le Narchand occurs several times in the Huguenot records, it would be
tempting to throw doubt on Le Marchand's claim as a Huguenot, particularly
as he did not come over to England until 1697 .1 ?he ivory relief portrait
of aFrench aristc rat, and the small bust in the round of Louis XIV,
which is da1d 1700, suggest that Le Marchand was receiving official
French'patronage before he came to Englandt 1 However, it is possible that
coming from the protestant stronghold of Dieppe, he was attracted by
rumours of a healthier patronage in England, and decided to emigrate,
and either to revert to his former faith or to abjure his catholic faith.
Matthew Raper also gave the British Museum an ivory relief
by David Le Marchand of S{r Christopher Wren in 1765, inscribed with
the sitters name and the initials 'D.L.M.' on the reverse. Miether
fine relief of the architect is in the National Portrait Gallery '1at ik8)4
and as Le Marchand also executed a relief' portrait of Thomas Guy, who