Edward Saunders, 'Jean Montigny, a Master Smith'

Edward Saunders, ‘Jean Montigny, a Master Smith’, The Georgian Group Jounal, Vol. IX, 1999, pp. 33–43 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 1999 JEAN MONTIGNY, A MASTER SMITH EDWARD SAUNDERS iccadilly, the world-famous London thorough The rate books for the outward of the parish of Pfare, was not always known by that name. Before St. Martin in the Fields shows this very clearly.4 In the West End was developed it was called the Reading 1710 the properties were written up in the order of Road, and after the Restoration, Portugal Street, in progression along the road, with the rateable value honour of the new Queen, Catherine of Braganza. next to each property. So in Bolton Street we find That name survived until the late eighteenth centu John Mountain, i.e.Jean Montigny. At thejunction ry in the collection of mason’s yards and smithies on of what is now Piccadilly we read, ‘round the cor the north side called Portugal Row. It was here, in ner, Portugal Row,’ followed by; Tissue, £20, Legar, 1705, that Jean Tijou set up his shop, shortly to be £18, Andrew Carpenter, £18. Lefevre, £18, Dolman, joined by the London smiths of the next generation: £18, Thomas Robinson, £10, Anthony Redland Thomas Robinson, Richard Booth, Thomas Goff, £20, Elizabeth Gilbert, £30, Richard Farmer, £10. and Jean, or John as he preferred, Montigny, the Ralph Gretrix, £15, Wid. Maurice, £10, David subject of this piece. Cornwall £7, J ohn Lemon, £7, Wid. Winstanley, It is not known when Montigny first arrived in £10. This is followed by Brick Street. England, or where he received his training. The Of these Tissue is Jean Tijou, and Legar, Louis earliest reference we have to the name was in 1705, Laguerre, his son-in-law, the painter. Next door when ajean Montigny married Annjulian at St. was Andrew Carpenter, the sculptor, followed by James, Westminster.1 As far as we can trace there Thomas Robinson, the gatesmith. At the end of were no children to this marriage, and there are none the row was Widow Winstanley, the wife of included in his will of 1754.2 Indeed, the only reason Henry Winstanley, who designed the Eddystone we have for supposing that Montigny ever married Lighthouse and was swept away in a violent storm is a codicil to the will, in which he bequeaths to with his own creation. She too, was probably Eleanor Page, ‘my late wife’s gold repeating watch.’ Tijou’s daughter, as she is described in the probate Jean Tijou was living by Hyde Park Corner as records, as alias Tijou.5 The exact position of early as 1700, as the St. Martin’s parish sexton’s day Portugal Row is fixed by Rupert Gunnis, who says book for March of that year records, ‘Cloden that Carpenter, or Carpentier, had his yard more Tijhou, Hyde Park corner by Stone Bridge, the or less where 94 Piccadilly stands today.6 King’s smith, [died of the] gripes.’ Cloden, the sex In 1710 Montigny chose to make England his home ton’s spelling of Claudine, was probably Tijou’s and applied to become a citizen. The condition of daughter or grand daughter.3 Montigny had proba naturalisation states that the applicants, ‘shall be bly lived close to Tijou for some years, but in 1710 foreign protestants and they shall take and subscribe he moved into a house in Bolton Street, which runs the oath of allegiance and supremacy.’7 In the years northwards from Piccadilly, only a few yards from ahead Montigny did great credit to his adopted country, Portugal Row, where Tijou lived. and those who depended upon him well rewarded. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME IX 1099 33 EDWARD SAUNDERS • JEAN MONTIGNY, A MASTER SMITH Figure 1. John Montigny, design for gates, Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, c. 1708. National Trust. We know so little about individual craftsmen Mr. GervaseJackson Stops demonstrated, that, unless we make a chance discovery, it is almost Montigny was close to the French sources and had impossible to reconstruct their working lives and access to the latest pattern books which enabled relationships. We know that Montigny in his earlier him to produce sophisticated work, which few, if years worked with, and lived close to Jean Tijou. At any, of his English contemporaries could match.8 the same time he knew and was probably friendly In 1708 Ashe Windham of Felbrigg House, with Robert Bakewell of Derby. This is proved by Norfolk, commissioned Tijou and Montigny to Montigny’s will, in which he bequeaths money both make a gate for his garden (Fig.i.). Windham’s to his own foreman, William Yates, and to Benjamin index of payments for that year reads, ‘Mr. Yates of Derby, Bakewell’s foreman (see Appendix). Montigny, Mr. Tjou, for iron gates £20.’9 The gates They were probably brothers, but this cannot be are no longer there, but a drawing of a gate at the proved until their place of birth has been established. house is almost certainly the one they supplied. As young man Bakewell moved up to Derbyshire This shows a simple well-proportioned gate, set in 1707 to commence work on Thomas Coke’s between hedge rows, which suggests the formal garden arbour at Melbourne Hall. He was then parterre garden, opposite the orangery which Ashe a mature craftsman working in the company of had just built. An almost identical gate to the one in London and Wise and John Nost. This suggest that the drawing was erected at Latimer House, Church it was at Hampton Court they first met, and it was Lane, Chiswick (Fig.2.), in the early eighteenth cen under Tijou they acquired their skills, not only on tury.10 This is of interest, because Montigny had the anvil, but also in drawing and design. As the late connections in Chiswick and died there in 1757.11 THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME IX 1Q99 34 EDWARD SAUNDERS • JEAN MONTIGNY, A MASTER SMITH Figure 2. Gate, Latimer House, Church Lane, Chiswick. J.Starkie Gardner. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME IX 1999 35 EDWARD SAUNDERS • JEAN MONTIGNY, A MASTER SMITH Figure 3. Gates, Wotton House, Bucks. Country Life. So little of Montigny’s proven work has Stowe, later 1st. Viscount Cobham.14 Among the survived. However, of the two examples that are archives of Stowe House, Bucks.,15 is a letter from known, one has only recently been discovered. Temple to his steward at Stowe, Mr. Claridge, Wotton House, Bucks., was built by Richard March 12th.1711. When Mr. John Montigny brings down Grenville between 1704 and 1717.12 Pevsner says that the ironwork I desire you will see it weighed and having the entrance front is preceded by a forecourt closed computed the weight at tod. a lb. pay him what it amounts by splendid gates and iron railings (Fig.3). In the to deducting £20 which I have paid him in London. interior there is a contemporary wrought iron stair Sir Richard Temple’s ironwork weighed in all balustrade. He adds that in the parish church of I2cwt. 2qts. lolbs.. This included two side panels, All Saints, Wotton Underwood, the iron screen is a two gates, and the ornamental head.16 Clearly these splendid piece of Georgian wrought iron work, with were substantial gates, and the price paid, rod. a lb., wrought iron Corinthian pilasters and probably was twice the usual cost, signifying that they were comes from the house.13 The name of the architect high quality work. But although Sir Richard Temple is not known, but in 1710 Richard Grenville married paid for the work it was never taken to Stowe. This Hester Temple, the sister of Sir Richard Temple of is confirmed by a receipt among the Temple papers THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME IX 1999 36 EDWARD SAUNDERS • JEAN MONTIGNY, A MASTER SMITH Figure 4. Staircase balustrade formerly at Cannons House, Middlesex, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Country Life. Rec’d 20th Aug 1712, of Mr. Jacob, the sum of 13s for August 1726. One further payment of £37 for lanterns the ironwork of Richard Temple, which Mr. Richard is recorded to Montigny, but no date is given.17 Grenville Esq., had paid for being brought from The one piece of work by Montigny which is Henley to Wotton by his teams, I say received known for certain to have survived from Cannons, by me, Will Collett, 13s. and confirms him as a master of the art, is the stair The second example is from Cannons House, case balustrade now in the Metropolitan Museum, Middlesex, built by James Brydges, 1st Duke of New York (Fig.4). Apparently this was not for the Chandos. In April 1721, Montigny was paid £200. main staircase, but the one in the west wing leading Later, in August 1723, Montigny, backed byJohn to the Duke and Duchess’s bed chambers. In 1747 Nost, refused to abate his charges relating to the it was transferred to Chesterfield House in Mayfair, railings surrounding the equestrian statue of King reaching its final home in New York. In a Country George for which Montigny was paid £45 14s. In Life article in 1971 Gervase Jackson Stops discussed September 1724, he was offered £260 to settle a larger the influence ofjean Tijou on English craftsmen demand, but refused. In August 1726, he was paid including Jean Montigny.18 He wrote of the £540 for the work done between October 1725 and balustrade that ‘its design appears to have been THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME IX 1999 37 EDWARD SAUNDERS JEAN MONTIGNY, A MASTER SMITH developed from an engraving of so called panneaux de remplissage in an important French treatise, Charles d’Aviler’s Cours d’ Architecture, published in Paris in 1710’.

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