Ceres

This oak figure of Ceres - the goddess of Agriculture - stands on a base in the form of a fountain, which represents the head of a river-god. This statue was originally purchased at a sale by Sir Henry Wellcome as a figure representing Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. This suggestion is plausible given her patronage of the arts and resemblance between the statue and contemporary portraits.

It has recently been suggested that Laurent Delvaux could be the sculptor of this piece as similar motifs of a radiating sun appear within other examples of his work.

Delvaux (1696-1778) was trained in Antwerp under Pieter-Denis Plumier, with whom he was later to work in London alongside Peter Scheemakers on the monument of John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham in Westminster Abbey. Delvaux and Schneemakers went into partnership and executed monuments and some garden figures. In 1728 they lefty London for Rome where he remained until 1732, before returning to the Netherlands. While in Rome he executed a number of commissions for Italian and British patrons including John Russell 4th Duke of Bedford, who commissioned a number of works inspired by antique sculpture. He was appointed court sculptor in Brussels in 1733, and in 1734 settled in Nivelles where his workshop produced many religious works, including the monumental pulpit at St Bavo, Ghent. After 1750 he was employed by Charles of Lorraine (1712-1780), Governor of the Netherlands, to produce decorative work for his residences in Brussels, Tervuren and Mariemont.