Design for Chimney-Piece with Plain Fire Surround
Creator(s): Grinling Gibbons 1648-1721
Date: Undated, but probably near beginning of period c. 1689-94
Accession Number: SM 110/32
Dimensions: 464mm x 291 mm
Materials: Pen and brown ink with grey wash over graphite under drawing; 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/OBJECT264
NOTES ON THE ARTWORK
Design for a chimney-piece with a plain fire surround. The relief border around the portrait frame is arranged as drops and swags of fruit and flowers suspended from ribbons and intertwined at the side with a pair of fronds, and hanging at the centre from a garter star backed by a pair of trumpets and sprays of olive leaves and wheat ears. Above are winged cherubs’ heads, surmounted by a crown in the zone of the cornice. The cornice is marked only by diagonal pencil lines at the angles.
The staining pattern at the top of the sheet corresponds closely with that on the next drawing from the volume in this group of five mainly grey-washed designs, 110/35 [Design for Chimney-Piece with Battle Relief on this website], suggesting that they were grouped together in the volume before its present ordering.
Literature: Esterly, Gibbons, 1998, p. 70; Tipping, Gibbons, 1914, fig. 82; Wren Society, IV, pl. 33, bottom; Esterly, Gibbons, 1998, fig. 41.
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation.
If you have any further information about this object, please contact: [email protected]
Design for Chimney-Piece with Plain Fire Surround © Sir John Soane's Museum
