LETTERS Sir Alfred Gilbert
Sir: The scandal of the sale of replicas of figures commissioned by the future Ed- ward VII for the tomb of his son the Duke of Clarence hinged not on Alfred Gilbert's honesty, but on his ethics (Letters, 13 July). No law prevented a sculptor's selling replicas of figures commissioned for an (unfinished) royal tomb without the King's knowledge or consent. Alfred Gilbert's contemporaries asked whether it was prop- er that statues intended by a royal patron for a family memorial should be seen to be for sale on Bond Street before the tomb had been dedicated.
In my life of Alfred Gilbert (Yale University Press, £19.95) I write that the sculptor initially balked at the mere thought of the sale of these figures, but then colluded in the scheme. This is true. Cecil Gilbert states that Alfred Gilbert's contemporaries were not shocked by these sales; that there is no evidence that the King objected to their sale; and that the King did not object to the publication of photographs of them. This is fiction.
In 1926 Lady Helena Gleichen received a letter from Alfred Gilbert's future biog- rapher Isabel McAllister asking for help in her campaign for Gilbert's reinstatement at court. Lady Helena wrote: 'I took the letter over to the King's secretary, who said he was afraid that there was nothing doing with the King, as he was absolutely set in his belief that Gilbert had behaved disgracefully about the Duke of Clarence's tomb at Windsor, and that as King Edward had said he would never have anything to do with Gilbert again he was not going against that decision. Gilbert had been accused not only of not completing the Clarence tomb, but of having sold the figures separately to a dealer, having re- ceived money for them from the King.' Apparently Edward VII and George V knew nothing of the copyright act of 1814.
What about members of the Royal Academy? M. H. Spielmann wrote to McAllister regarding Alfred Gilbert's rein- statement as a Royal Academician in 1926. He asked her why Gilbert could not simply deny the rumour that he had sold these figures because the Royal Academicians 'believe to be a fact, that although G. took away the figures from the tomb in spite of the King's wish . . . those figures were in due time reproduced and offered for sale in Bond Street.'
Cecil Gilbert does not deny that these tomb figures were sold with Alfred Gil- bert's co-operation. If Alfred Gilbert be- lieved their sale to have been justified, fine. But his biographer asks: why did he not say so? Why did he tell two separate — and contradictory — lies about the epi- sode? Thus: 'What really happened was, that in order to find means to carry on my
work, I was forced to part with studies pertaining to it.' Studies? The St Elizabeth of Hungary (private collection) is made of ivory and bronze while the same figure on the tomb (HM Queen Elizabeth II) is plain bronze with a face painted to look like ivory. Years later Gilbert came up with another tale. A 'Belgian youth' pirated the casts, he said, adding 'no one who knew my work could ever have taken those things as mine.' Does Mr Gilbert say that the figures are not by his grandfather?
When Alfred Gilbert asked permission from the King to publish photographs of the tomb, Edward VII forbade him to do so. The King refused through his equerry Sir Dighton Probyn who wrote to Alfred Gilbert: 'The King asks — why publish a "discredit" which the unfinished condition of the Memorial certainly is?' It is worth bearing in mind that at this date the King- did not know of the existence of the casts Gilbert had sold to the dealer Dunthorne. Cecil Gilbert states that the King did not object to the publication of photographs. What else does Probyn's letter mean?
I agree that Isabel McAllister's life of Gilbert is honest. It has the transparent honesty of a press release. But this is not her fault; she wrote from ignorance: Alfred Gilbert deceived her. After his death she wrote of her final disillusionment with the man to whom she had devoted the latter half of her life. She had learned from the • actor Martin Harvey that Alfred Gilbert had taken silver meant for a commemora-
tive bell presented by the Lyceum's com- pany to Sir Henry Irving: 'AG said to me, he gave this "Bell" to Irving, as a present from himself!! Mr Harvey says "No"! They never even got the plaster model, — at Irving's death, there was no "Bell" left — or any trace of it!'
I agree that I used material selectively — to present Alfred Gilbert in the best possible light. I did not discuss the angry disillusionment of another early biog- rapher, Joseph Hatton, from whom Gil- bert took money; or that of another bene- factor, the sculptor John Tweed. When I get down to the many monetary scandals in Alfred Gilbert's life, I give a general survey after treating several of these epi- sodes in detail. They are repetitive and all follow the pattern of the Frankau, Aldenham, and Rutland scandals, There is much, much more.
Richard Dorment
31 Aldridge Road Villas, London W11
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