The Baroque Era - England - 5

As aids to writing development with the spread of literacy, so there grew a demand for the storage of books. The first rooms to be designated as libraries were a feature of post Restoration days. In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum has one of the earliest English bookcases. It is made from solid oak, stands on five bun feet and dates from around 1675. Shelves compose the upper and lower parts of this fitted furniture piece, both of which are enclosed by glazed doors. Heavy glazing bars are a feature of bookcases from this period and the more delicate tracery which was eventually to cover the fronts of bookcases was not to be seen until the late 18th century.
Lacquered and japanned cabinets of Restoration days were rectangular in shape and were mounted on elaborately carved stands. Other cabinets stood on chests of drawers and were cousins of the tallboy to be found in the bedroom areas of the house.

Of the vast fund of skill and talent which contributed to English handmade furniture and decorative design in the 17th century, there is no more romantic story than that of the wood-carver 'par excellence', Grinling Gibbons (1648 - 1721). Born in Rotterdam, and much influenced by the Dutch carving style, he became the leader of a highly talented school of wood-carvers which flowered initially in England at the court of Charles II - although Gibbons served successive monarchs equally faithfully. His 'discovery' is the stuff of legend. The diarist John Evelyn has described how, one day when he was out walking near the marshes at Deptford in south-east London, he found Gibbons at work in a thatched cottage. The subject was an elaborate carving of Tintorretto's crucifixion, a priceless work which is today housed on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Gibbons was brought to the attention of Charles II and a long and successful royal connection ensued. The carver most liked to work in soft limewood, but examples of his incomparable carvings are to be found in oak and pearwood. He excelled in natural chains of fruit, flowers, foliage, birds and cherub's heads. One of his finest works is the frame of a portrait of Henry VIII after Holbein at Petworth, Sussex. It is carved in limewood and was executed between 1689 and 1692. Horace Walpole described it as 'the most superb monument to Grinling Gibbons' skill'.

His work abounds in London and neighbouring counties and much of it is documented by contemporary invoices and letters between carver and clients. There is one communication from Grinling Gibbons, dated 1686, to which a dramatic postscript was written two and a half centuries later. The letter was to a church dignitary and concerned an altarpiece or reredos (a screen), which Gibbons carved for the Wren church of St Mary Abchurch in the City of London.

However, in 1940 a German bomb wrecked the church and the Grinling reredos. A salvage team led by a woman verger combed the debris and gathered together 2,000 pieces of the shattered carving. Today, like the church, the reredos has been restored, a tribute to the master craftsman Grinling Gibbons and a remarkable example of links between 17th and 20th century skills.