(fl. 1765 - 77), sculptor; Dublin Soc. Schools 1765; exh. SA, William St., 1767, 1768, 1770; awarded premiums Dublin Soc. 1768, 1770; trained under John Van Nost from 1770; exh. SA 1777 (from Rome).
1772 - 7 [Dublin] Florence (by 28 Apr. 1772), Rome (by Easter 1773 - 1777) [London]
Comparatively little is known concerning Foy's six years in Italy. He spent some time studying the Grand Ducal collections in Florence, before proceeding to Rome; he was allowed to make a cast from Michelangelo's Bacchus, but not of the Apollo de' Medici,1 and he made a copy of Titian's Venus of Urbino for William Constable.2 He reached Rome in 1773,3 sometime before Easter, when he was living in the Strada dei Greci; in 1774 he stayed in the Via Babuino.4 Thomas Banks soon found him a congenial companion: in July he wrote that since his own arrival in Rome (in September 1772), Foy had appeared, 'a sculptor, a very ingenious, worthy young man; he is doing a copy of the Apollo Belvidere in marble about five feet and a half high'.5 On 27 November 1776 Foy was amongst the group of artists whom Thomas Jones met at the Cafe degli Inglesi.6 Foy sculpted a bust of Allan Ramsay c.1775 as well as a relief of the head of James Durno (which appeared in Thomas Banks's posthumous sale in 1805).7 In 1777 'Mr Foy, at Rome' exhibited 'A Busto of an Artist' at the SA.
1. SP 105/321, f.199 (Tavanti, 28 Apr. 1772). 2. Borroni 1985, 41; 1987, 125, 146. 3. Hayward List, 15, 24. 4. AVR SA, S.Lorenzo in Lucina and S. Maria del Popolo. 5. Bell, Banks, 17. 6. Jones Memoirs, 53. 7. Hayward List, 24.
N. F.