Bust of Thomas Baker

Bust of Thomas Baker

Artist	Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Year	1638
Type	Sculpture
Material	Marble
Dimensions	82 cm (32 in)
Location	Victoria and Albert Museum, London
	Coordinates: 51°29′47″N 0°10′19″W / 51.496302°N 0.172078°W

The Bust of Thomas Baker is a 1638 marble portrait sculpture created by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, with much of the bust undertaken by a pupil of Bernini, probably Andrea Bolgi.^[1] It is currently held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, who purchased the bust in 1921 for 1480 English guineas.^[2][3][4]

Baker (1606–58) was High Sheriff of Suffolk and connected to the court of Charles I. He may have been indirectly involved in another Bernini bust, carrying the triple portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck to Rome; it was from this portrait that Bernini carved the now-destroyed bust of King Charles.^[1][2]

References

1. Rudolf Wittkower, Bernini, the Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, 1997 (4th ed.), p.259
2. "Image and description of "Portrait of Thomas Baker"". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
3. Berkeley Daily Gazette, August 1921
4. The Glasgow Herald, 2 August 1921 - This article also suggests that the bust once belonged to the English seventeenth-century painted Peter Lely, who sold it for GB £150