Grinling Gibbons
After Sir Godfrey Kneller German
Artist and engraver John Smith British
Sitter Grinling Gibbons British, born The Netherlands
Not on view
This three-quarter length portrait represents a sculptor acclaimed for his virtuoso carvings in pearwood. He wears a long wig and holds compasses in one hand, the other resting on a cast or copy of Proserpina (part of Bernini's famous sculptural group "Pluto and Proserpina" at the Villa Borghese, Rome). Sir Robert Walpole owned the related painting by ca. 1723 and hung it at Houghton above a fireplace in the Common Parlor in 1736, framed with a carved garland by Gibbons. The third Earl of Orford sold the parinting to Catherine the Great and it is now at the Hermitage; the garland remains in place and is one of the few works at Houghton that survive from the days of the first earl's grandfather.
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