Gibbons’ Ninth Apprentice (Drapers’ Company Bindings Book 1689-1739)
Creator(s): Worshipful Company of Drapers
Date: Entry for 23 May 1696 (contained in booked dated 1689-1739)
Accession Number: DR/FB6
Materials: Work on paper (book)
Location: Drapers’ Hall, Throgmorton Avenue, London EC2N 2DQ
Credit Line (copyright notice for material) : © The Drapers' Company
NOTES ON THE ARTWORK
John Hunt is the ninth and last apprentice that Gibbons takes on 23 May 1696. This apprenticeship is to contracted to last eight years. David Esterly conjectured that John Hunt could be the son of the earlier John Hunt indentured as Gibbons’ second apprentice in 1675. Although the timing is feasible, the Drapers’ entry records John Hunt’s father as being Henry Hunt of Hampton in Middlesex. Nevertheless it does seem an unusual coincidence and therefore very possible that there was a family connection of some kind. Esterly also notes that Hunt went on to have an independent career as a statuary in Northamptonshire and that his apprenticeship could have been in Gibbons’ stone and marble workshop of the 1690s – a very busy period for his work in this material.
Further reading: David Esterly, ‘Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving’, V&A Publications, 1998, pgs 174-6.
John Hunt is entered in the Drapers' Binding Book on 23 May 1696 © The Drapers' Company
