Memorial to Robert Manners, Chapel of Haddon Hall, Bakewell, Derbyshire

Robert Manners was the son of the 8th Duke of Rutland, he died aged nine in 1894. Alfred Gilbert was summoned to Belvoir when Lord Haddon died to take his death-mask and suggested that his mother should carry out the monument: ‘Her training in sculpture at that time was very slight, but she set to work to master the medium, and found some solace for her grief in her difficult task.’ Her daughter Lady Diana Cooper wrote in The Light of Common Day, 1959, p.47, that she spent thirty years on the base of the monument and designed other family tombs as well. A marble copy of the tomb was finally set up in the Chapel at Haddon Hall and another plaster cast is at Belvoir Castle. The sarcophagus-like base is decorated with coats of arms and medallion portraits of the boy's parents, brother and three sisters, inscribed with their names. The inscription on the original plaster model reads -For ever wilt thou grieve and he be fair.’ And, at the foot of the base: ‘Hope of my eyes, Something is broken that we cannot mend, With Grief, Remembrance, Pride and Love, I decorate, his Memory, Dear dear little Boy, You give us all Perpetual Benediction. Entirely designed and modelled by his Mother.’

www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rutland-recumbent-figure-of-lord-haddon-n04914/text-catalogue-entry