— Calvert, Sculptor and Wax Modeller

(fl. 1767-1783)

Sculptor and Wax Modeller

From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913

He was a pupil of James Moore, a sculptor in London, and in 1767 exhibited at the Free Society of Artists a bas-relief in Portland stone of "The Death of Socrates," and two drawings. Deserting sculpture for the stage he made his debut in December, 1770, as Jaffier, in the tragedy of "Venice Preserved," at Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, under the management of Mossop. Although favourably received Calvert did not long remain an actor; he left the boards and applied himself to the study of wax-modelling under Cunningham (q.v.). He was, no doubt, "the gentleman who takes likenesses in miniature profile," who advertised in the "Hibernian Journal" (9th April, 1777), from 64 Dame Street, between Crow Street and Temple Bar, as doing "likenesses modelled in wax by the only pupil the late ingenious Mr. Cunningham ever had." Of his subsequent life and career as an artist nothing is known, except that in 1783, being then resident in London, he exhibited a number of works in coloured wax with the Society of Artists, including one of Lewis, the actor.

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