Grinling Gibbons: Master Carver
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Paul Rabbitts
?Paul Rabbitts is a landscape architect and parks manager who has designed, managed and restored urban parks for over twenty-five years. He is the author of the only history of Regent's Park and Richmond Park and wrote Bandstands and London's Royal Parks for Shire.
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Grinling Gibbons - Paul Rabbitts
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE ORIGINS AND GENIUS OF GRINLING GIBBONS
BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT
OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE
CHAPELS, CHURCHES AND A CATHEDRAL
COUNTRY HOUSES AND STATELY HOMES
LATTER DAYS
FURTHER READING
PLACES TO VISIT
INTRODUCTION
WRITING IN ONE of the earliest biographies of Grinling Gibbons in 1914, Grinling Gibbons and the Woodwork of his Age, Henry Avray Tipping states that Gibbons requires no introduction and is already a household name, being known ‘in the sphere of the Decorative Arts in England’. Tipping also refers to him as a designer and sculptor. Yet there has been considerable debate throughout our finest periods of architecture on the role of these craftsmen, whether they were joiners, carpenters, stonemasons or other similarly skilled workmen.
In Saxon times, the carpenter was the principal lead in all matters related to building and furnishing. This continued through the Middle Ages where the carpenter maintained a dominant position, until the beginning of the fifteenth century when joiners and carvers began to be mentioned, and a broad distinction arose between those who used wood simply and constructively and those who used it for more elaborate details. The London carpenters led the way, establishing themselves as a guild with a coat of arms in 1466 and eventually receiving a Royal Charter of Incorporation in 1477. However, a hundred years later, Queen Elizabeth I gave the same privileges to joiners and ceilers. Their charter called them the mystery of Junctorum et Celutorum and the ‘junctor’ elaborately joined pieces of wood with glue or nails and by means of grooves, dovetails and framing. He became the maker of a vast array of furniture including the dresser, the court cupboard, the light chair and the joined table, all of which proliferated under Elizabeth I. A fashion also emerged for the replacement of plain boarded walls with framed wainscoting, which was beginning to be introduced in many of the smaller manor houses and included mantelpieces and door frames and cases. However, if further ornamentation was required, the joiner would call in the other branch of his craft – the ceiler – who was also a woodworker. Tipping explains that ‘to ceil was to cover bare walls and ceiling rafters with ornamental woodwork, and must be derived from the Latin verb, celare, to hide or cover up’. However, the charter of incorporation from the Elizabethan era also described him as a caelator, or carver in bas-relief, of classical Rome. The work of the time was often described by many as clumsy and not especially refined and, in most cases, the same person was both the joiner and ceiler.
The work of Inigo Jones had an immense influence on seventeenth-century architecture and he laid the foundations for the glorious joinery that distinguished the Stuart period. This became the age of the joiner rather than the carpenter. Friction remained between the two crafts of joinery and carpentry, and their respective livery companies were frequently at loggerheads in the early part of the seventeenth century. In 1632, a committee of aldermen attempted to define the sphere of each craft but failed to satisfy the carpenters, and the rivalry continued well into the seventeenth century. This came to a head in 1672 when the Company of Joiners and Ceilers petitioned the Lord Mayor and aldermen to attempt to enforce the rules laid down in 1632, which were ‘daily broken by the carpenters’. Over time, and especially during the period of the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral, the carpenters were limited to plain constructional work. The abundance and excellence of joiners’ work increased considerably over the time with the joiners’ craft assuming larger and more sumptuous proportions while the forms of furniture multiplied and became more