Joseph Nollekens. From the Life and Times by J. T. Smith.
[Nollekens, the Sculptor.]
Avarice would appear to have run in the blood of the Nollekens family. "Old Nollekens," the father of Joseph, was "a miserably avaricious man," and when, in the Rebellion of 1745, his house was attacked by the mob, who thought themselves sure of finding money, the old man became so terrified that he lingered in a state of alarm until his death.
Little Joey was described by Mrs. Scheemakers, the sculptor's wife, as "so honest that she could always trust him to stone the raisins." His love of modelling was his greatest pleasure, though he had an idle propensity for bell-tolling; and whenever his master missed him, and the dead-bell of St. James's church was tolling, he knew perfectly well what Joey was at.
As Nollekens grew up, not unmindful of his art, he rose early and practised carefully, and being a true son of his father, was passionately fond of money. He was much employed as a shrewd collector of antique fragments, some of which he bought on his own account; and after he had dexterously restored them with heads and limbs, he stained them with tobacco-water, and sold them for enormous sums.
When he returned from Rome, he succeeded as a smuggler of silk stockings, gloves, and lace; all his plaster busts being hollow, he stuffed them full of the above articles, and then spread an outside coating of plaster at the back across the shoulders of each, so that the busts appeared like solid casts. Pointing to the cast of Sterne, Nollekens observed to Lord Mansfield: "There, do you know that bust, my Lord, held my lace ruffles that I went to Court in when I came from Rome."
His mode of living when at Rome was most filthy: he had an old woman who was so good a cook, that she would often give him a dish for dinner which cost him no more than threepence. "Nearly opposite to my lodgings," he said, "there lived a pork-butcher who sold for twopence a plateful of cuttings—bits of skin, gristle, and fat, and my old lady dished them up with a little pepper and salt; and with a slice of bread, and sometimes a bit of vegetable, I made a very nice dinner." Whenever good dinners were mentioned after that, he was sure to say, "Ay, I never tasted a better dish than my Roman cuttings."
Nollekens married the daughter of Mr. Justice Welch. She was as parsimonious as her husband. Of a poor old woman, whom she allowed to sit at the corner of her house, she would contrive to get four apples, instead of three, to make a dumpling, saying, "for there's my husband, myself, and two servants, and we must have one a-piece." When she went to Oxford Market to beat the rounds, in order to discover the cheapest shops, she would walk round several times to give her dog Cerberus an opportunity of picking up scraps.