Nigel Kirk: Still a big market for Bryronic artefacts

A marble bust of Byron's Haidee has been discovered near Newstead Abbey. Auctioneer Nigel Kirk has researched its fascinating inspiration.

Lord Byron's eventful life can never be far from one's thoughts when reading his works. Another genius, Oscar Wilde, in one of his most famous observations, tells us that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life."

This superb 19th century life sized marble bust is of great interest because it is of Byron's most beautiful female character, Haidee from Don Juan. She is described in the poem as "nature's bride" and she discovered the shipwrecked Don Juan asleep on an island.

Byron was not exactly on my mind on the day of house visits throughout north Nottinghamshire in the torrential rain a few weeks ago. On ringing a doorbell the lady and gentleman of the house directed me to their garage. There at the back, in the gloom, was this bust, another of a roman emperor, and a pair of magnificent statuary pedestals, all of sculpted marble.

I went on to discover that the family had lived at Papplewick – quite near to Newstead Abbey – in the 1920s and the owner had 'rescued' both busts and pedestals some years ago from the by then very overgrown garden.

Back at the auction house I gently cleaned away the surface dirt and discovered the sculptor's signature. Haidee was carved in Rome by Angelo Bienaime in 1860. The bust could have been sent to England for exhibition and sale, or bought by a well-heeled Byron enthusiast directly from Bienaime's studio.

Byron's great mock-epic, satiric poem both shocked and fascinated his readers. He began writing it in 1818 and after 16 cantos left it unfinished at his death in 1823. Unlike the womaniser who was his namesake, Don Juan is the passive recipient of the charms of a series of powerful women. It is the female sexuality and aspects of eroticism that so scandalised polite society.

But it wasn't just that; Byron has starving sailors resorting to cannibalism, a theme exactly as depicted in Delacroix's masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa, which was painted at the same time.

Haidee and Juan are parted when her father sells him into slavery. She leaves the scene, but for him the action's just beginning – an event from which Byron makes a brilliant allusion to the contemporary 'enslavement' of the Greeks.

Throughout the poem there are parallels with Byron's own life and he also took the opportunity to lampoon the lake poets, Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge.

How extraordinary it is that poets of such brilliance as Byron, Keats and Shelley, and a host of others writers , philosophers, composers and artists should all appear on the world's stage at the same time. No wonder the profound influence of the Romantics has inspired countless others for more than 200 years.

After more than 100 years of atmospheric pollution it is not surprising that Haidee does not look at her best, but I think that this marble bust will respond well to expert conservation. It will be sold by Mellors & Kirk on June 12 and is estimated at between £1,500 and £2,000.

Byronic material is highly sought after by collectors worldwide so it will be interesting to see what will be its next destination.

Nigel is auctioneer at Mellors & Kirk in Nottingham and can be contacted on nkirk@mellorsandkirk.com.

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