drawing

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Object Type
Museum number: 1852,0214.375
Description: Portrait of Grinling Gibbons, wood carver; head and shoulders, half-right, head nearly to front, eyes slightly to left, wearing long curling hair or wig, cravat and a cloak draped over his shoulder Red and black chalk, heightened with white, on buff paper Verso: Study of a pair of legs Red chalk
Producer name
School/style: British; Flemish
Production date: 1659-1710
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Height: 227 millimetres; Width: 172 millimetres
$Inscriptions
Curator's comments: Stainton & White 1987 As an ad vivum portrait of the celebrated wood-carver and sculptor this drawing is of particular interest. It can probably be dated about 1686-8, when Medina was working in London: Gibbons would have been in his late thirties. He was painted by Kneller about 1690 (Hermitage, Leningrad) and, with his wife Elizabeth, by John Closterman, perhaps a little later. A contemporary description of Gibbons comes from the diarist John Evelyn, who claimed to have "discovered" "that incomparable young man" in 1671, working on a large copy in wood-relief of Tintoretto's 'Crucifixion'. Recalling their first meeting he noted: "I found he was likewise Musical, & very Civil, sober & discreete in his discourse". This drawing belonged to George Vertue (1684-1756), the first historian of the arts in England, and then to Horace Walpole (1717-97), whose 'Anecdotes of Painting, Engraving, Architecture &c &c in England' (1765-71) were based on Vertue's notebooks.
Bibliographic references: Croft-Murray 1960 / Catalogue of British Drawings in the British Museum, XVI and XVII centuries (1); Binyon 1898-1907 / Catalogue of drawings by British artists, and artists of foreign origin working in Great Britain (1); Stainton & White 1987 / Drawing in England from Hilliard to Hogarth (166)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: 1974 July-Dec, BM, Portrait Drawings, no.149 1980 Sep-Dec, Twickenham, Orleans House Gallery, Horace Walpole & Strawberry Hill 1987 June-Aug, BM, 'Hilliard to Hogarth' no. 166 1987 Sep-Nov, New Haven, YCBA, Hilliard to Hogarth no. 166 1988/9 Oct-Jan, London, V&A, Grinling Gibbons 2009/10 Oct-Jan, New Haven, YCBA, Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill 2010 Mar-July, London, V&A, Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill
Subjects
Associated names
Acquisition name
Previous owner: Previous owner/ex-collection: George Vertue (?; cannot be identified with any specific lot in his sales, Ford, 16 March and 17 May 1757); Previous owner/ex-collection: Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (Robins, 13.vi.1842/1270 [? lot 270] but not specifically listed)
Acquisition date: 1852
Acquisition notes: This drawing originally formed part of the two volumes of 'Portraits of English painters collected by Mr Vertue and Mr Walpole', lot 1270 in the sale of the Strawberry Hill collection, London 13 June 1842: see Print Quarterly, December 2000
Department: Prints and Drawings
Registration number: 1852,0214.375

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