Monday 19 August 2019

The English 18th Century Chimneypiece.




The English 18th Century Chimneypiece.

I have recently started a parallel blog on a parallel subject - the design and manufacture of the English Chimney piece in the 18th century.

It is a subject that I have been interested in for a very long time - I ran one of the earliest of the new wave of architectural salvage and architectural antiques business in England in Bath from April 1982 until April 1985.

Given that most sculptors of the period also made architectural sculpture it seems a logical thing to add further knowledge to the subject of 17th and 18th century English (and Irish and Scottish) sculpture.

I have also set up another blog in order to post on Church Monuments of the 17th and 18th centuries.
I have, in the past dwelt on the portrait bust in secular situations, but this I believe was rather short sighted given the huge amount of excellent sculpture, particularly portrait sculpture to be found in sometimes long neglected English Churches.



It would be very gratifying to have a few followers on these blogs 






The first few entries in the Chimney Piece blog are on the Chimneypiece in 18th century pattern books.

The images below are from Thomas Malton's  A Treatise on Perspective of 1777.


I have included plate XXXV here because it illustrates a bust mounted in the pediment on a pipe organ.