Design for Chimney-Piece with Herm Figures
Creator(s): Grinling Gibbons 1648-1721
Date: Undated, but datable 1689-94
Accession Number: SM 110/30
Dimensions: 420mm x 259mm
Materials: Pen and brown ink over graphite under-drawing with pink, greenish-yellow and grey washes and 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/OBJECT298
NOTES ON THE ARTWORK
Design for a chimney-piece with herm figures. The pair of figures flanking the fire opening and the curved pediment in the centre of the mantel shelf suggest the influence of a design by Pierre Collot, published in 1633 (Esterly, 1998, fig. 81). If this is the source, Gibbons has transformed it by classicising the centre pediment and setting above a relief of sea gods. The sketch of this relief is probably intended to represent Neptune and Galatea, as it has affiinities with the composition of his 1701 marble relief of this mythical encounter, now at Dalkeith House, Lothian, Scotland (Esterly, 1998, fig. 211). Within the pediment is the infant Hercules strangling a serpent, and above a vase of flowers in ink and yellow wash (for gilded wood).
The cresting at the top of the overmantel consists of horns, oak and bay leaves, and palm fronds, with a rope of small flowers connecting to a knot of ribbons suspending the side drop. The drop is divided into three groupings, irregularly spaced, suspended by ribbons, in a gently tapering overall form. A pair of exotic birds is perched on the mantel shelf. The sketching in graphite proposes caryatid figures for right side of the fire surround, in more casual poses than the term figures on left.
Design for Chimney-Piece with Herm Figures © Sir John Soane's Museum
