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[1] Design for a chimney-piece with a plain fire surround and an overmantel with a blank rectangular portrait frame surrounded by swags, drops of fruit and flowers, fronds and wreaths
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Reference number
SM, volume 110/32
Purpose
[1] Design for a chimney-piece with a plain fire surround and an overmantel with a blank rectangular portrait frame surrounded by swags, drops of fruit and flowers, fronds and wreaths
Aspect
Elevation, incomplete on right side
Scale
About 1 foot to 1 inch
Inscribed
In ink by George Dance, bottom right, Gd, and by C19 hand, (32)
Signed and dated
- Undated, but probably near beginning of period c. 1689-94
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink with grey wash over graphite under drawing; on laid paper, laid down, top 55 mm with pinkish brown staining, blotching and erosion of paper in places; 464 x 291
Hand
Gibbons
Watermark
Strasbourg Lily/4WR, with three-lobed intermediate florets (same as 110/38); countermark: combined PVL (Piet van der Ley), as 110/35, 36, 37
Notes
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, 2 (110/35), suggesting that they were grouped together in the volume before its present ordering (see Introduction).
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, 2 (110/35), suggesting that they were grouped together in the volume before its present ordering (see Introduction).
Literature
Esterly, Gibbons, 1998, p. 70; Tipping, Gibbons, 1914, fig. 82; Wren Society, IV, pl. 33, bottom; Esterly, Gibbons, 1998, fig. 41
Level
Drawing
Exhibition history
Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 22 October 1998 - 24 February 1999
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 us: drawings@soane.org.uk