Talk About A Master
Decorative Wood Carver
Grinling Gibbons (1648 – 1721) late 17th – early 18th
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He was the most famous English decorative wood-carver, responsible also for much stone ornamentation at Blenheim, Hampton Court, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, and for church monuments, door cases, and chimneypieces in marble. Born in Rotterdam on April 4, 1648 of an English mother, he settled in Deptford, England in or about 1667 and was discovered there by John Evelyn in 1671. Evelyn, impressed by Gibbons carved relief of "Tintoretto’s Crucifixion", introduced him to Charles II. Soon after, Gibbons was commissioned to carve limestone festoons of fruit, flowers, and game for the new suite of Royal apartments by Hugh May at Windsor Castle. His work for William and Mary at Kensington Palace and Hampton Court was to be still more elaborate. William appointed him to be master carver in 1693.
At St. Paul Cathedral, Gibbons carved the choir stalls, thrones, and the great organ screen. The latter was removed in 1860. For Wren’s exterior he carved in stone most of the panels below the lower windows. In Wren’s St. James’s, Picccadilly, London, one may still see Gibbons’ carved wood reredos and organ case and his marble Adam and Eve font. His Carved Room at Petworth, Sussex, is enough in itself to convince the visitor that Gibbons’ skill, as a woodcarver has never been equaled.
Much woodcarving has been falsely attributed to him, and the peapod is not, as was once thought, his exclusive sign manual.
He died at his house called the King’s Arms in Bow Street, on August 3, 1721, and is buried in the crypt of St. Paul’s Convent Garden, London.
