New Additions
The Trustees of the Faringdon Collection are delighted to have acquired an important Victorian sculpture, Henri de Triqueti’s Portrait medallion of Florence and Alice Campbell (1857). In November 2025, the sculpture was designated as a national treasure by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Cultural Interest and placed under a temporary export bar. The Faringdon Collection, together with a contribution from a descendant of Alice Campbell, raised the necessary funds to purchase the sculpture and it has been placed permanently on display at Buscot Park.
The sculpture was commissioned by Robert ‘Tertius’ Campbell, an Australian entrepreneur who bought Buscot Park in 1859 and turned it into a model of industrial agriculture. It shows his daughters Florence (right) and Alice (left), who were twelve and nine when the sculpture was completed in 1857. Both girls were born in Australia, and moved to England with their parents in 1852. They hold a Greek vase containing a lily, symbolising purity, while grape vines and convolvulus twine around the medallion, symbolising charity, and the bond between the sisters. The girls’ interlaced hands echo the twining of the plants that encircle them. The sculpture stands nearly two metres tall, with the portrait carved in marble, set atop a specially-commissioned rosewood and marble inset plinth.
Tragically, Florence’s life did not live up to the ideals of Victorian womanhood implied by the sculpture. She had a series of relationships with alcoholic and abusive men, and as Florence Bravo, became infamous through the 1876 unsolved murder of her second husband, Charles Bravo. The case has been the subject of numerous books, films, blogs and podcasts, from Agatha Christie to Lucy Worsley. Florence was never indicted for the murder, but the suspicion and shame surrounding her destroyed her life. She drank herself to death at the age of 33, and was secretly buried at Buscot church in an unmarked grave. More information about Florence can be found here.
Alice married John Chalmers in 1874 but was widowed after six years, leaving her with four young children. She married again to John Cooke, a prosperous doctor, with whom she lived in Hastings and had a further three children. Her second daughter, Lilian, was born at Buscot Park.
Henri de Triqueti was a French sculptor who moved to England following the collapse of the July monarchy in 1848. He reestablished a successful career in England through familial connections and important commissions. His most significant patrons were the royal family, and Queen Victoria tasked him with sculpting fourteen marble murals for the Albert Memorial Chapel, Windsor, though sadly Triqueti himself died in 1874 before he was able to complete the commission.
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