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Grinling Gibbons by Godfrey Kneller

Grinling Gibbons (4 April 1648 – 3 August 1721) was an English sculptor and wood
carver known for his work in England, including Windsor Castle and Hampton Court
Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral and other London churches, Petworth House and other
country houses, Trinity College Oxford and Trinity College Cambridge. Gibbons was born
and educated in Holland of English parents,[1] his father being a merchant. He was a
member of the Drapers' Company of London. He is widely regarded as the finest wood
carver working in England, and the only one whose name is widely known among the
general public. Most of his work is in lime (Tilia) wood, especially
decorative Baroque garlands made up of still-life elements at about life size, made to
frame mirrors and decorate the walls of churches and palaces, but he also produced
furniture and small relief plaques with figurative scenes. He also worked in stone, mostly
for churches. By the time he was established he led a large workshop, and the extent to
which his personal hand appears in later work varies.

Contents

 1Life
 2Work
 3Bibliography
 4Notes
 5External links

Life[edit]
Detail from Hampton Court Palace

Detail from Carved Room, Petworth House

Very little is known about his early life. The name Grinling is formed from sections of two
family names. He was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and it is sometimes thought that
his father may have been the Englishman Samuel Gibbons, who worked under Inigo
Jones, but even two of his closest acquaintances, the portrait painter Thomas
Murray and the diarist John Evelyn, cannot agree on how he came to be introduced to
King Charles II. He moved to Deptford, England around 1667, and by 1693 had accepted
commissions from the royal family and had been appointed as a master carver.[2] By 1680
he was already known as the "King's Carver", and carried out exquisite work for St Paul's
Cathedral, Windsor Castle, and the Earl of Essex's house at Cassiobury. His carving was
so fine that it was said a pot of carved flowers above his house in London would tremble
from the motion of passing coaches.
The diarist Evelyn first discovered Gibbons' talent by chance in 1671. Evelyn, from whom
Gibbons rented a cottage near Evelyn's home in Sayes Court, Deptford (today part of
south-east London), wrote the following: "I saw the young man at his carving, by the light
of a candle. I saw him to be engaged on a carved representation of Tintoretto's
"Crucifixion", which he had in a frame of his own making." Later that same evening,
Evelyn described what he had seen to Sir Christopher Wren. Wren and Evelyn then
introduced him to King Charles II who gave him his first commission – still resting in the
dining room of Windsor Castle.
Horace Walpole later wrote about Gibbons: "There is no instance of a man before
Gibbons who gave wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the
various productions of the elements with the free disorder natural to each species."
Gibbons is buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London.

Work[edit]

One of the many bookcase carvings Gibbons made for the Wren Library, Cambridge.

Monument for Admiral Shovell in Westminster Abbey.

Detail from Carved Room, Petworth House

Gibbons was employed by Wren to work on St Paul's Cathedral and later was appointed
as master carver to George I. He was also commissioned by King William III to create
carvings, some of which adorn Kensington Palace today. An example of his work can be
seen in the Presence Chamber above the fireplace, which was originally intended to
frame a portrait of Queen Mary II after her death in 1694. Also in the Orangery at
Kensington, you can see some his pieces. Many fine examples of his work can still be
seen in the churches around London – particularly the choir stalls and organ case of St
Paul's Cathedral. Some of the finest Gibbons carvings accessible to the general public
are those on display at the National Trust's Petworth House in West Sussex, UK. At
Petworth the Carved Room is host to a fine and extensive display of intricate wooden
carvings by Gibbons.
His association with Deptford is commemorated locally: Grinling Gibbons Primary School
is in Clyde Street, near the site of Sayes Court in Deptford. Most of present-day New
Cross and Brockley wards were in 1978–1998 part of the Grinling Gibbons ward.[3]
His work can be seen in the London churches of St Michael Paternoster Royal and St
James, Piccadilly, where he carved the wood reredos and marble font. The Anglican
dislike of painted altarpieces typically left a large space on the east wall that needed
filling, which often gave Grinling's garlands a very prominent position, as here.
In 1682 King Charles II commissioned Gibbons to carve a panel as a diplomatic gift for
his political ally Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Cosimo Panel is an allegory of
art triumphing over hatred and turmoil and includes a medallion with a low relief of Pietro
da Cortona, Cosimos favourite painter. The panel is housed in the Pitti Palace in
Florence. It was recently displayed in the United Kingdom in the Grinling Gibbons and the
Art of Carving exhibition held at the V&A from 22 October 1998 until 24 January 1999.[4]
In 1685 the new king James II asked Gibbons to carve a panel for another Italian ally, the
Duke of Modena Francesco II, brother to his second wife Mary of Modena. The Modena
Panel is a memento mori for Charles II who died earlier that year and includes a
funeral dirge from the play The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses by dramatist James
Shirley: "There is no armour against fate; Death lays its icy hand on kings: Sceptre and
crown must tumble down". It also features a medallion self-portrait of Gibbons. The panel
is displayed in the Estense Gallery in Modena.[5]
St. Peter and St. Paul church in Exton, Rutland has a fine marble tomb by Gibbons,
dating from 1685, showing Viscount Campden with his fourth wife, Elizabeth Bertie, and
carvings of his 19 children.[6]
The famous sculptor of Brussels Peter van Dievoet had collaborated with Grinling
Gibbons, but went back to Brussels after the revolution of 1688.

Stoning of St Stephen, c. 1680, in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

St Michael and All Angels Church, Badminton, has a monument by Gibbons to Henry
Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort (1629–1700). He was buried alongside his ancestors in
the Beaufort Chapel in St George's Chapel, Windsor,[7][8] but the monument was moved to
Badminton in 1878.[9] The monument by Gibbons is now on the north side of the chancel
at St Michael and All Angels Church, Badminton, and consists of an effigy of the Duke
in Garter robes, reclining on a sarcophagus and a plinth with relief of St George and the
Dragon. There are twin Corinthian columns with embossed
shafts, acanthus frieze, cornice with flaming urns, and the Duke's arms and supporters.
At the top, 25 ft from the ground, is a tasseled cushion supporting a coronet; on the plinth
are full-length female figures of Justice and Truth. Above the Duke's effigy, parted
curtains show the heavenly host with palms and crowns. The Latin inscription displays
the names of his family and the many offices he held.[10]
Gibbons also made the monument for Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, a British naval
hero killed in a disastrous shipwreck in 1707. Shovell's large marble monument can be
seen in the south choir aisle of Westminster Abbey.[11]
Gibbons' work very often includes carvings of peapods. A myth states that he would
include a closed pod in his work, only carving it open once he had been paid. If the pea
pod was left shut it supposedly showed that he had not been paid for the work.
In Popular Culture In the first episode of the British television comedy Doctor in the
House, it is mentioned by one of the professors to the students that the interior
decorations for St. Swithins were done by Grinling Gibbons.

Bibliography[edit]
 The Carved Cartoon: A Picture of the Past, Austin Clare 1873
 The Work of Grinling Gibbons, Geoffrey Beard, John Murray 1989 ISBN 0-7195-
4728-8
 Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving, David Esterly, V&A Publications
2000 ISBN 1-85177-256-1

Notes[edit]
1. ^ V&A exhibition information, accessed 18 January 2013
2. ^ "Grinling Gibbon", Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 30 September 2009.
3. ^ London Borough of Lewisham
4. ^ Ashley-Smith, Jonathan (October 1998). "The Cosimo Panel" (pdf). V&A Conservation
Journal (29): 4–6. ISSN 0967-2273. Retrieved 8 September2017.
5. ^ Easton, Bob. "Grinling Gibbons – Wait, There's More – at Modena". Retrieved 8
September 2017.
6. ^ "TOMB OF VISCOUNT CAMPDEN AT EXTON CHURCH". World Monuments Fund.
7. ^ St George's Chapel, Windsor: The Beaufort Chantry Archived 24 November 2014 at
the Wayback Machine, 19 July 2013
8. ^ For the inscription see Ashmole's Berkshire, iii. 163 (Seccombe 1898, p. 245)
9. ^ Seccombe 1898, p. 245.
10. ^ St. Michael and All Angels, Great Badminton (webpage), 19 July 2013
11. ^ "Sir Clowdisley Shovell's tomb and memorial in Westminster Abbey". Retrieved 29
January 2010.