Design for Chimney-Piece with Console Panels
Creator(s): Grinling Gibbons 1648-1721
Date: Undated, but probably dating c. 1693-94
Accession Number: SM 110/48
Dimensions: 384mm x 237mm
Materials: Pen and brown ink over graphite under-drawing, with green-brown wash and sketched 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/OBJECT290
NOTES ON THE ARTWORK
Design for a chimney-Piece with console panels. This drawing is the least complete of these five sketch designs but shares their vocabulary and drawing techniques. Gibbons‘s sketch technique is exemplified here in the loose handling of the foliage in the two console-like reliefs left and right of the mid-height panel.Gibbons adopts the formula used in 2 and 3 (110/51 and 33 [Alternative Designs for Two Chimney-Pieces and Design for Chimney-Piece with Garlands on this website]): a mid-height panel above the fire surround in two loosely drawn but clearly expressed alternatives, and above this a taller overmantel with a sculptural display. However he also sketched a higher mantel shelf cornice, suggesting the alternative formula found in 4 and 5 (110/42 and 46 [Design for Alternate Chimney-Pieces and Design for Chimney-Pieces with Putti and Foliage]): a high mid-height panel and high mantel shelf cornice, with a relatively low overmantel area for an upper sculptural display. The mantel shelf cornice itself is identical to those on the other five drawings and is a version of the coved cornice used as a crowning feature on many of Gibbons‘s chimney-piece designs. The loosely drawn overmantel composition has a knotted drapery panel like that in 110/52 [“Design for a Chimney-Piece with Cherub”], and within this the outlines of an armorial display, comprising a cartouche motif in a radiating group of arms with a helmet. at the top and a concave-sided base below. The arrangement is especially close to the overmantel trophy in 110/38 [Design for Chimney-Piece with Deep Mantel Frieze], and the sketch could either be derived from this proposal or (conceivably) be preparatory for it. If so, then this entire group of sketch designs are amongst the earliest of Gibbons‘s chimney-piece designs in the Hampton Court Album.
Literature: Wren Society, IV, pl. 39, bottom.
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 Console Panels © Sir John Soane's Museum
