Grinling Gibbons

Grinling Gibbons , born the April 4th 1648 and deceased the August 3rd 1721, was a sculptor English.

Of English origin, Grinling Gibbons was born however in Holland with Rotterdam in 1648 when his/her parents resided for their business, and died in 1721. From the religious point of view, it was a Quaker.

It began its training with Rotterdam and returned then in England. It began its career in the Yorkshire, but went well quickly to London where it was recommended to Charles II by Sir Peter Lely which had noticed its talent. It was named Master sculptor of the Crown. Gibbons one was also protected from the principal architect of its time, Sir Christopher Wren.

He was especially a virtuoso of the woodcarving, decorated flowers and shells which one would believe alive, he decorated the Palais with Blenheim.

Its marble and bronze work is fewer, of him for example the monument of Sir Cloudesley Shoved (1707) to the Abbaye from Westminster in London. He also collaborated with Arnold Quellin and also had in his workshop the sculptor of Brussels Pierre van Dievoet which currently modelled the statue of Jacques II bronze (1686) with Trafalgar Square.

There exists a very beautiful portrait of Grinling Gibbons by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), preserved at Moscow with the Musée of the Hermitage.

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