Charity, a female figure
In this marble sculpture, a central female figure holds an infant. Surrounded by older children, each happily engaged in work, this woman is the personification of charity – an idealised representation of the Foundling Hospital’s charitable mission.
Charity was set into a marble chimneypiece created and donated to the Foundling Hospital by Master Mason John Devall (1701–1774). The chimneypiece was located inside the Hospital’s Court Room, where the Governors would meet to discuss Hospital business and administration. Today, Charity can be found inside the Museum’s Court Room Gallery.
Future professions
The Foundling Hospital was established to rescue infants from premature death, and instruct them to become useful, contributing citizens, adding to Britain’s population of traders, domestic service workers, and military forces. This allegorical relief depicts some of the later professions and livelihoods of Foundling Hospital children. In the scene, we see children milk cows, harvest crops, and raise the anchor of a ship, all trades taught to Foundlings.
While living at the Hospital, the boys worked in the gardens and learned to make rope out of hemp. Through various apprenticeship programmes, they would be taught about farming work and husbandry, the care and cultivation of crops and animals. Some boys were even trained in navigation, preparing them for a career in the Royal Navy. In this relief’s scene, the anchor represents a Christian symbol of salvation and foreshadows the role of the Navy in the children’s future lives. Other professions for boys included skilled trades such as clockmaking and blacksmithing and physically demanding manufacturing jobs in cotton, iron, shoe, and toolmaking production. Girls were often apprenticed as domestic servants or in textile work, having learned to sew, knit, and weave in the Hospital.
About the artist
John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770) was born in Antwerp. At the age of twelve, he began training under renown Flemish sculptors. After immigrating to London in 1720, Rysbrack became a successful, prolific sculptor, specialising in funerary monuments, architectural ornamentations, and portrait busts. In 1745, he became one of the first artists to be elected as a Foundling Hospital Governor, beginning his tenure after donating Charity to the institution. Today, Rysbrack is considered one of the most important and influential sculptors of the 18th century.
