Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College History of Art Faculty Research and Scholarship History of Art 1998 Review of Sir William Chambers: Architect to George III, edited by John Harris and Michael Snodin; Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the Victoria And Albert Museum: Sir William Chambers, edited by Michael Snodin David Cast Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/hart_pubs Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Custom Citation Cast, David. Review of Sir William Chambers: Architect to George III, edited by John Harris and Michael Snodin; Catalogues of Architectural Drawings in the Victoria And Albert Museum: Sir William Chambers, edited by Michael Snodin. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 57 (1998): 106-108, doi: 10.2307/991426. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/hart_pubs/7 For more information, please contact [email protected]. have been criticized as excessive and in is apt because of the dramatic mise-en-scene, ans. By making us awarethat working meth- poor taste: Erwin Panofskydid not exempt and also Roubiliac's impresario-like ma- ods account for significant aesthetic differ- them when he wrote that after Gianlorenzo nipulation of the public reception of his ences in the works of sculptors of different Bernini, tomb monuments suffered from monuments. nations, Bindman and Bakeropen the door pomposity, sentimentality, and deliberate The book is of methodological interest to a new understanding of that neglected archaism. But by now even the tombs of because the material benefits from the in- stepchild, architecturalsculpture. Genoa's late nineteenth-century Cimiterio terplay of two approaches. Bindman, an - Betsy Rosasco di Staglieno have found advocates (see H. academic art, cultural, and social historian, PrincetonUniversity Hofstltter in Kunstwerk[January 1971], or wrote the first half, which places Roubiliac J. S. Curl, "Europe's Grandest Cemetery?," in context and covers the of the problem John Harris and Michael Snodin, editors CountryLife, 15 September 1977). A reas- tomb in eighteenth-century England, the SIR WILLIAMCHAMBERS: ARCHTrECT sessment of Roubiliac's monuments is thus career of Roubiliac compared with those TO GEORGEIII in order. of continental and English sculptors, and a New Haven and London: Yale Bindman and Baker begin from mate- thematic study of the imagery. In the sec- rial facts and present a compelling account ond half, Baker, a historian of sculpture at University Press, 1997, ix+ 240 pp., 287 of the work of the leading master of a the Victoria and Albert Museum, examines illus., 76 in color. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN genre which rose to great prominence in the working proceses and, with Bindman 0-300-06940-5. mid-eighteenth-centuryEngland. They find and Tessa Murdoch, catalogues the monu- that new prosperity and social pretensions ments, drawings,and models. Dialogue and Michael Snodin, editor formed the taste for such tombs, which synergy between two viewpoints, consider- CATALOGUESOF ARCH1TECITURAL were informed by contemporary ideas ation and reconsideration of the monu- DRAWINGSIN THEVICTORIA AND about death recorded in some of the most ments in different contexts, and probing ALBERTMUSEUM: SIR WuILAM famous elegaic poetry in the English lan- discussions of each work create a poly- CHAMBERS guage, in mostly forgotten sermons, and in phonic structure that enriches our percep- London: V&A Publications, 1996, 224 sublime oratorios, notably Handel's. The tions of individual monuments and the pp., 103 illus., 9 in color. ?50 (cloth). authors also inquire into the reasons for group as a whole. ISBN 1-85177-1824. Roubiliac's success in this domain. An out- An unexpected payoff is that, by isolat- standing craftsmanin marble, he was clever ing a class of monuments by a single, admit- Sir William Chambers has never been for- and efficient in piecing together the marble tedly brilliant, cosmopolitan, and diverse gotten. The earlynineteenth-century plates of components figures and setting, and sculptor working in England, the authors in William Pyne, History of the Royal Resi- able to finish surfaces beyond the local illuminate vitallyimportant aspects of sculp- dences(London, 1819) and the records of standard.Attention to and lighting settings tural practice on the continent as well. William Sandby,History of theRoyalAcademy were also important factors in Roubiliac's Baker is able to show how Roubiliac's pro- of Arts ([London, 1862], 1: 115) acknowl- dominant It would be position. interesting cedure of making a model of the whole edge his official position in the RoyalAcad- to know how he overhead planned light- monument, including the architectural emy and extensive work on royal resi- ing, but the authors do not speculate about support, which can be traced to his French dences. The account of his life and works this. training, allowed him to make adjustments in the later Dictionaryof NationalBiography Roubiliac rebuilt a chancel to accommo- in the spatial relations of figures with each (vol. 4 [1887], 26) was at once respectful date the Montagu tombs at Warkton, with other, with architectural components, and and comprehensive, even if the author, the a for plan indirect lighting possibly based with the viewer.The single-figure studies of connoisseur Cosmo William Monkhouse, on central European models, which he the Flemish-born and -trained Rysbraeck was prepared to cite the critical remarks of would have known from a recon- plausibly result in quite different spatial concepts James Fergusson in his History of Modern structed Central in his European trip youth. and less subtlety in the placement of fig- Stylesof Architecture(London, 1862, 4: 323) Moreover, he designed ingenious supports ures than Roubiliac could achieve. An- and voice a certain hesitancy about the for his figures. Among the most striking is other enlightening contrast is with models range and extent of what he referred to as a form used in the Duke of Montagu's for sculpture on the Town Hall of Amster- Chambers's architectural imagination. In monument that the authors compare to a dam, in which Netherlandish sculptors recent years more has been written; an German or Austrian stove. In the astound- squared the models for enlargement, with- unpublished thesis in 1949 by Heather Mar- ing Nightingale monument, a couple's rus- out taking the intervening step of making tienssen; a chapter, shared with Robert tic under the arch of a idyll, sheltering full-scale plaster models to set in the in- Adam, in John Summerson's great history is cut short when Death looms grotto, fatally tended places tojudge of the effect. French of English architecture; a monograph by from a up suddenly crypt, coming from and Italian practice included the making John Harris. And Howard Colvin's grow- the bowels of Westminster to aim a of such Abbey full-size models, which allowed ad- ing inventory of buildings and designs reg- dart at the wife's breast. deadly (Bindman justments to be made. isters the remarkable expansion in the re- discusses the latter monument most inter- It is currently a commonplace to de- cord of Chambers's work in architecture as a rare estingly example of Evangelical- bunk "national styles" as ideologically and kindred activities,including furniture, Methodist A art.) comparison with theater loaded inventions of modern art histori- interiors, and designs for silver and clocks. 106 JSAH / 57:1, MARCH 1998 Yet, for all this attention, Chambers's bers himself had designed for the Royal Soane, and John Pollard Seddon. A series place in the history of architecture is not Academy (reviewed in JSAH 56 [1997]: of essays lay out, clearly and interestingly, fixed, or, like Somerset House, it has to be 212-214). The firstvolume, edited byJohn the history of the collection and how it was ever discovered and rediscovered. As Sum- Harris and Michael Snodin, commemo- assembled. The inventory covers some 864 merson observed, Chambers was a profes- rates and comments upon the material drawings, by or after Chambers, running sional man, "conservative, balanced and included in the exhibition: portraits, travel from those of his earliest student days in civilised,"conducting a well-regulatedbusi- sketches, architectural drawings, designs the 1750s to later sketches for Somerset ness (Architecturein Britain 1530-1830, 6th for silver and furniture and various other House, Kew Gardens, and many other rev. ed. [London, 1977], 424). And, how- objects that were part of Chambers's vast projects, some not identifiable. Perhaps ever partial or acrimonious he was to his practice. After a general introduction by the most suggestive and interesting item is colleagues, his work to establish the social Harris,fifteen chapters cover many aspects the so-called Franco-Italian album of 525 position of the architect within the Royal of Chambers's life: his contacts with Swe- drawings, 507 by Chambers, which date Academy was of immense importance for den and his work at Svartsj6and Ulriksdal, from his years of study in Italy and France the profession, both during his lifetime the designs for the royal gardens being between 1749 and 1755 and which stand, and later. Extraordinarilywell traveled for discovered only in 1993; his studies in Italy as Janine Barrier suggests, as one of the his time, he had an association with the and France; his excursions into various major documents of early European neo- Swedish East India Company that took him types of buildings; his interiors; his interest classicism. The loose sheets are a mixed from Cape Town and Bengal to Canton in silver and ceramic and furniture; his bunch: copies after familiar older Italian and Madras. And thanks to studies in professional relationships with craftsmen designs, many of course by Palladio, plus a France and Italy and his friendship and like John Yenn and Matthew Boulton and predictable range of Roman palaces-- the work with architectsCharles de Wailly,C.