HUGIJENOT ARTISTS DESIGNERS AND CRAYPSNEN IN GREAT ...

176.
had appointed Moses Paper, Matthew's uncle, as a Trustee of his residuary
estate, it seems that Le Marchand moved in the Paper's circle.tt is
not surprising to find that Le Marchand was also pa'ronized by his
fellow Huguenots in this country. An ivory relief portrait of
Daniel Garnault(Plate ik6) was sold at Christie's 13 December, 1976,
according to a label on the reverse, Daniel Garnault was a treasurer of
the New River Company.
It seems that Le Marchand, in the tradition of painted portraiture,
worked on his model from the life. The antiquary, William Stukeley records,
in his Diary for 11 July, 1722,'I sat to Mr.Marchand cutting my profile
in basso relievo in ivory"it is plausible to suggest that Le Marchand's
family background, with its tradition of painting, influenced his work in
ivory, restilting in a more detailed and at the same time, more lively
image than is to be found in ivories based on engravings.
Another Dieppe artist who may have practised as a painter as
well as an ivory carver is Jacques Constantin, who entered the French
Hospital in February, 1732/33, described himself as a painter of 78,
'qui par Grand Maux Dyseux dont ii a Est afflige depuis bien des annees
Ayant Empesch de Gaiier sae ce qui le reduit dana une Extreme Pauvrete
Estant malade & tres Inuirme'. It is tempting to connect this artist
with the otherwise unknown Jacobus Constantin who signed the allegorical
portrait of James II, an ivory relief, in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The relief probably dates from the year of King James II's coronation,
1685, when Jacques Constantin would have been 31, if the age he gave
to the French Hospital was correct. The fact that the painter is known
to have come from Dieppe, a centre of ivory carving, helps to establish
this claim. To confuse matters, however, another painter, R.A.Constantin,
is recozded as working in England during the second decade of the eighteenth
century.
An alternative media for fine portrait reliefs, which may often
have been used by ivory carvers and medallists when working from the life,
was wax. Antoine Benoist, who has no Huguenot connections, came to
England in 168k, to model wax busts of James II and his courtiers°
Some fifty-five years later Matthew Gosset, a member of the family from
St. Sauveur or St.Lo in Normandy, who had settled in England, produced