11 Facts About Mary Thornycroft

Mary Thornycroft was a British sculptor who sculpted many different busts, fragments and statues.

Mary Thornycroft frequently choose infants and children as her subjects and was commissioned by Queen Victoria to create a number of statues and portraits of her children and other members of the royal family.

The daughter of sculptor John Francis and his wife Mary, Thornycroft was born at Thornham in Norfolk.

Mary Thornycroft studied sculpture under her father, and first exhibited a work, a bust of him, at the Royal Academy in London in 1835, aged 21.

Gibson's recommendation marked the beginning of a sequence of royal commissions for Mary Thornycroft lasting from 1844 to 1877.

Mary Thornycroft created busts of the Queen in 1840, of the Duchess of Gloucester and, in 1846, of the Prince of Wales.

Mary Thornycroft executed a number of busts of private individuals, as well as a few ideal statues.

Mary Thornycroft was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy from 1835 until 1871 and at the British Institution from 1845 to 1864.

Mary Thornycroft's style was naturalistic with details that displayed the personal expressions of her subjects.

Mary Thornycroft worked with her husband on a frequent basis making attribution of individual pieces sometimes difficult.

Mary Thornycroft gave sculpting lessons to Princess Louise, who was one of Queen Victoria's daughters and who became a notable sculptor in her own right.