Works included in this catalogue
* Summers (C.F.) Roman Peasant (Male) {1880} Loc? [SC]
* Summers (C.F) & Lombardi (G.B.) Shunammite Woman {1884} Bendigo [SC]
C.F.Summers trained in Rome with his father, Charles Summers, and collaborated with him on the pair of Roman peasant busts donated to the Melbourne collection in 1880: see also * Summers (Charles) Roman Peasant (Female) {1880} Loc? [SC].
Aged only 19 or 20 when his father died (see note below), Charles Francis Summers subsequently led a long and successful independent career, often collaborating with other sculptors including the Lombardi brothers (see separate entries). There are examples of his mature work in Ballarat and elsewhere, especially in Rotorua, New Zealand.
NB C.F.Summers’ birth-date is usually given as 1858, but I am reliably informed by Jennie Maggs, an independent researcher on both Charles and C.F.Summers, that the latter was born on 25 Nov.1857 (but only baptised and the birth registered in 1858). Ms Maggs emphasizes that he was one of the first Australian-born sculptors.
Refs.
For C.F.Summers, see Radford, Early Australian Sculpture (1976), text (unpaginated) and cat.nos.57-61; and http://www.rotoruamuseum.co.nz/visit-us/taking-the-cure/summers-sculptures/…
Advice from Jennie Maggs re the artist’s date of birth received by email, July 2019