Design for Chimney-Piece with a Deep Mantel Frieze
Creator(s): Grinling Gibbons 1648-1721
Date: Undated, but probably near beginning of period c. 1689-94
Accession Number: SM110/38
Dimensions: 458mm x 267mm w
Materials: Pen and brown ink with grey, yellow and yellow ochre washes over graphite under drawing, with some additions in graphite; on laid paper
Location: Sir John Soane's Museum
Credit Line (copyright notice for material) : © Sir John Soane's Museum
Online Catalogue Entry : http://collections.soane.org/OBJECT273
NOTES ON THE ARTWORK
In this design for a chimney-piece, the drawn-back curtain was probably meant to be carved rather than real, as it is overlapped at the top by a motif of trumpets and laurel leaf crowns. It is also made to meet the edge of the inner field of the overmantel in a straight line, although it projects beyond this at the bottom, to lie across the mantel shelf. Gibbons’s shading suggests that the curtain would be nearly flat at the top, but more deeply carved near the middle of the overmantel. The curtain was certainly meant to be in limewood, with brocade texture as surface detail.
The chimney-piece itself has stronger relief than the other four in this early group of designs. It steps forward at the outer edge of the architrave frame of the fireplace opening, and this line marks the edge of the inner field of the overmantel. It steps forward again for the relief panel. This deeper central section supports the concave-sided pedestal on the mantel shelf. The theme of the chimney-piece is martial triumph. On the fire surround panel is a scene of captives being driven forward to pay homage to a king seated on a stepped dais, covered by a tent-like canopy. The canopy motif is taken up in the overmantel in the curtain frame to the central martial trophy grouping of an oval shield with a garter star, surrounded by symbols of battle and triumph, and below this a crowned pedestal stacked with vases and and other booty. Drawing 110/48 [Design for Chimney-Piece with Console Panels on this website] is either a preparatory sketch for this design, or has been derived from it.
Literature: D. Esterly, Grinling Gibbons, 1998, p. 135; Wren Society, vol. IV, pl. 31, bottom; D. Esterly, Grinling Gibbons, 1998, fig. 109.
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
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Design for Chimney-Piece with a Deep Mantel Frieze © Sir John Soane's Museum
