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George Saumarez Smith, ‘Samuel Walldin and Sir Henry Cheere in Winchester Cathedral’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XXIII, 2015, pp. 65–74 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2015 SAMUEL WALLDIN AND SIR HENRY CHEERE IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL GEORGE SAUMAREZ SMITH he main subject of this article is the work of a TWinchester stonemason, Samuel Walldin, and its similarity to that of a highly successful London sculptor of the mid eighteenth century, Sir Henry Cheere. But before introducing these two characters it will be important to establish the context of funerary monuments in Winchester Cathedral during the Georgian period. In modern descriptions of Winchester Cathedral, the eighteenth century is usually dismissed as a period of little change and limited interest.¹ There were however a large number of classical monuments built there from the Restoration up to the accession of William IV which, taken as a group, provide a clear and comprehensive illustration of the heroic age of English sculpture. They also tell us much about the relationship between the leading sculptors in London and their more provincial counterparts. For the purposes of this article, the study of classical monuments in the Cathedral can be bookended by the construction of Inigo Jones’s choir screen around up to its eventual removal Fig. Monument to Bishop Willis (d. ) and replacement in . Jones’s grand Composite by Sir Henry Cheere. façade could be the subject of an article in itself, but its history has already been well documented in the Winchester Cathedral Record . It is important to Of a similar date to the Inigo Jones screen is the remember, however, that throughout the Georgian monument to Richard Weston (d. ), the Lord period this screen stood in a central position in the High Treasurer of England, in the Guardian Angel’s Cathedral and would have lent the interior a much Chapel at the far east end of the Cathedral. Designed more classical character than we see today. by the French sculptor Isaac Besnier, it shows how THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII SAMUEL WALLDIN AND SIR HENRY CHEERE IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL Italian Mannerism passed through France to Cheere was the leading English sculptor and England at the court of Charles I. With a recumbent monumental mason of the mid eighteenth century. bronze figure modelled by the Italian sculptor Born in , he was apprenticed to Robert Francesco Fanelli, the Weston monument was a Hartshorne in and began his own business in strong statement of continental taste, later described , at first and until in partnership with Henry by Pevsner as ‘the most progressive and one of the Scheemakers. He made his name with several grand finest monuments of that time in England’. monuments in the s, with a particular emphasis The construction of funerary monuments on the use of different coloured marbles, and built gathered pace after the Restoration when the rules of up a large workshop in Old Palace Yard in burial changed. Up to that time Cathhedral burials Westminster. He had numerous assistants and from had been reserved almost entirely for bishops and the s his work became more variable in quality, kings, but new laws allowed anyone with sufficient much of the work being carried out by his assistants. status and wealth to be buried there . The fees due His drawing for the Willis monument is now in the depended on location: the most expensive area was at V&A Drawings Collection (Fig. ). The annotations the east surrounded by the tombs of Anglo-Saxon are of particular interest, Cheere identifying the cost monarchs. Thus Sir John Clobery, MP for Winchester of the monument as ‘ £ Cariage Excepted’ [sic]. and a prominent general, was buried close to the east The materials are also specified, with ‘Purple’ for the end in the s and commemorated with a proud, if column shafts and ‘Dove’ for the panel behind the rather pompous, classical monument by the Leicester- figure. The monument is from the earlier phase of born sculptor Sir William Wilson. Cheere’s career, characterised by a mixture of the By the early eighteenth century funerary Baroque and the Classical that had been brought monuments were becoming more numerous, and from Flanders by Michael Rysbrack and Peter some of the smaller chapels had begun to be Scheemakers. The design confirms the particular appropriated for family burials. In the Nicholas influence of Cheere’s business partner Henry family chapel off the south transept, the monument Scheemakers, bearing a strong resemblance to his to Warden Nicholas of was signed by William monument to Sir Francis Page (d. ) in Steeple Woodman, a London sculptor who also signed two Ashton Church, Oxon. monuments in Westminster Abbey. The s and At this time Cheere was much in demand for s saw a shift towards monuments more ambitious producing portrait busts, characterised by their in scale and decoration. Bishop Peter Mews had died attention to detail in the modelling of drapery. As in and was commemorated with a small well as portraiture, commissions for sculptors in this Corinthian aedicule in the Guardian Angels Chapel. period came from two other sources: funerary In contrast is the large and sumptuous monument to monuments for churches and cathedrals; and marble Bishop Willis, who died in , in the south aisle of fireplaces for grand houses. As the century the nave (Fig. ). Willis is shown at rest, reclining on progressed, funerary monuments and fireplaces a veined black marble sarcophagus looking towards began to share certain characteristics and many the heavens, his arm supported on a pile of books monuments resemble fireplaces mounted high up on and a cushion. Tall Composite columns, their shafts the wall. The main difference in design was that a in single pieces of pavonazetto marble, rise to either monument needed some form of visual and physical side to support a pediment. The monument is support at the base. prominently signed on the base of the figure by From earlier in the eighteenth century, wall Henry Cheere. monuments had usually been supported by a shelf THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII SAMUEL WALLDIN AND SIR HENRY CHEERE IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL with a shaped panel underneath whose profile resembled the outline of pendant swags or drops, often supported by winged cherubs. As a design challenge it had no direct classical precedent and had been evolved to solve a specific problem associated with wall monuments: that of an architectural composition appearing to float or hang in space. James Gibbs was the only English architect who had really tackled this problem in print: his Book of Architecture , published in , showed numerous funerary monuments including several designs for wall tablets with a shaped substructure. In the late ’s Henry Cheere developed a distinctive design for the supports of wall monuments that became a visual trademark for his workshop (Fig. ). It consisted of a central semi- ellipse with an acanthus scroll beneath; to either side were concave sweeps leading to squared pendant blocks supported by upright stylised flowers. Further curved sweeps on either side led up to the main shelf support, sometimes also supported by short console brackets. In the centre there was space for a shield, often painted with a family coat of arms, strung with garlands of fruit and flowers or decorated with palm fronds. This very particular type of wall support appears in a drawing in Fig. Design for a monument to Richard Willis, Cheere’s hand for a Design for the Monument to Bishop of Winchester by Henry Cheere. George Carpenter (d. ) at Owslebury near © ( Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Cat. Ref. ) Winchester (Fig. ). During the s and s this form of wall support became prolific and widespread, being found as far afield as the Kings Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts, and most monuments of this date with this design are attributed to Cheere’s workshop or to his pupils. On this basis a brief look at the wall support of the monument to Catherine Eyre (d. ) in the Chapel of St Alphege in Winchester Cathedral might certainly suggest Cheere’s authorship; it is signed, however, by a local mason called Samuel Walldin. Walldin was the younger son of a farmer, also Fig. Wall support typical of Henry Cheere’s workshop called Samuel Walldin. Born in , he was c. –. (drawing by the author ) apprenticed aged sixteen to a Winchester THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII SAMUEL WALLDIN AND SIR HENRY CHEERE IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL Fig. Design for a Monument for Lord Carpenter Fig. Monument to Thomas Knollys (d. ), (d. ), drawing by Henry Cheere. St Boniface, Nursling, Hants. (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Cat. Ref. ) stonemason called John Blake but did not take up his freedom until thirty years later. Little is known of his life during this period but we can get some sense of his training by looking at his first signed works. The earliest of these is the Knollys monument of in St Boniface, Nursling near Southampton (Fig. ). This is in the form of a wall tablet, enclosed by an architectural framework similar to a door surround or fireplace and sitting on a shallow block decorated with a Vitruvian scroll or wave pattern (Fig. ). The tablet is framed by an architrave which springs at the bottom from stepped scrolls, similar to those Fig. Detail of monument to Thomas Knollys, frequently used by Cheere. At the top the architrave St Boniface, Nursling, Hants. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII SAMUEL WALLDIN AND SIR HENRY CHEERE IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL Fig. Monument to Catherine Eyre (d. ), Fig. Monument to William Eyre (d. ), Chapel of St Alphege, Winchester Cathedral. Chapel of St Alphege, Winchester Cathedral. has stepped shoulders supported by small console brackets hung with swags of flowers.

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