Grinling Gibbons masterwork
... as I was walking neere a poore solitary thatched house, in a field in our parish, nere Says Court. I found him shut in, but looking in at the window I perceiv'd him carving that large cartoon or crucifix of Tintoret, a copy of which I had myselfe brought from Venice, where the original painting remaines. I asked if I might enter; he open'd the door civilly to me, and I saw him about such a work as for ye curiosity of handling, drawing, and studious exactnesse, I never had before seene in all my travells. I questioned him why he worked in such an obscure and lonesome place; he told me it was that he might apply himselfe to his profession without interruption ...
The writer was John Evelyn and the craftsman was Grinling Gibbons, then unknown. The "obscure and lonesome place" was Deptford.
Evelyn tried to get Charles II to buy the carving but it was eventually sold to Sir George Viner for £80. It is uncertain what happened to it in the following 80 or 90 years.
It has been at Dunham since 1758.
(For the print see: www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_data...)
Grinling Gibbons masterwork
... as I was walking neere a poore solitary thatched house, in a field in our parish, nere Says Court. I found him shut in, but looking in at the window I perceiv'd him carving that large cartoon or crucifix of Tintoret, a copy of which I had myselfe brought from Venice, where the original painting remaines. I asked if I might enter; he open'd the door civilly to me, and I saw him about such a work as for ye curiosity of handling, drawing, and studious exactnesse, I never had before seene in all my travells. I questioned him why he worked in such an obscure and lonesome place; he told me it was that he might apply himselfe to his profession without interruption ...
The writer was John Evelyn and the craftsman was Grinling Gibbons, then unknown. The "obscure and lonesome place" was Deptford.
Evelyn tried to get Charles II to buy the carving but it was eventually sold to Sir George Viner for £80. It is uncertain what happened to it in the following 80 or 90 years.
It has been at Dunham since 1758.
(For the print see: www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_data...)