Simonetti, Achille (1838-1900; Italian/Australian)
Commodore James Goodenough [medallion]
Medium and size unknown
Presented by the sculptor (by 1880)
Unidentified; location unknown
Goodenough (1830-75) was appointed Commodore of the Royal Navy’s Australian station in Fiji in 1873. As the 1880 NGV catalogue puts it, he was “mortally wounded at Santa Cruz, by the Natives, 12th August 1875.” The SLV holds a copy of his 1873-75 journal, published by his widow in 1876.
Simonetti, the son of a Roman sculptor, migrated to Australia in 1871, and spent the rest of his career largely in Sydney, producing monumental sculpture and busts of various local worthies. His marble bust of Goodenough (c.1875), shown at the RA in London in 1876, was donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1877: see comparative photo below. His bronze and marble monument to Captain Arthur Phillip was installed in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens in 1897.
[comparative photo: detail of Simonetti’s marble bust of Goodenough (AGNSW)]
Refs.
NGV 1880, p.32 (“Medallion Casts”)
For Goodenough, see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goodenough-james-graham-3630 (biography by John M.Ward, first published in ADB vol.4, 1972)
For Simonetti, see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/simonetti-achille-4580 (biography by Noel Hutchinson, first published in ADB vol.6, 1976). For his marble bust of Goodenough, see https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/1178/ (with photo reproduced here). For his monument to Arthur Phillip, see e.g. http://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/government—colonial/display/23146-governor-arthur-phillip (all sites accessed 7 Sept.2019)