British picture framemakers, 1610-1950 - G
A selective directory, 3rd edition December 2012 (*revised entry, **new entry). Contributions are welcome, to Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk
IntroductionResources and bibliography
*Thomas Gabb, parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London 1746, 1758, parish of St Marylebone 1782. Gilder.
Thomas Gabb (active 1746, d.1783) of St Martin-in-the-Fields took as apprentices Robert Ansell (qv) in 1746 and Thomas Gabb, presumably his own son, in 1758. In 1763, Gabb received a bequest of £60 from his friend, the carver, Jean Antoine Cuenot (qv). Gabb described himself as a gilder of St Marylebone in his own will, made 16 January 1782 and proved 1 August 1783, referring to Robert Ansell as having borrowed his three wheel lathe.
*J. Garbanati, 4 Great Russell St, Bedford Square, London 1800-1802 or later, carver, gilder and printseller. Joseph Garbanati, 202 High Holborn 1805-1808, 89 High Holborn 1808-1809, 404 Strand 1809-1826, 37 Southampton St, Strand 1826-1852, 39 King’s Rd, Chelsea 1851. Carver and gilder, looking glass and picture framemaker.
Joseph Garbanati (c.1775-1852) was one of several Italian carvers who settled in London, Manchester and Edinburgh in the years around 1800. He is presumably the ‘J. Garbaneti’ (variously spelt), who published caricatures from Great Russell St in 1800 and 1801 (BM Satires no.9536; British Museum collection database). He had a son, Joseph Charles Garbanati, in 1801. Garbanati took Robert Emmett an apprentice for a premium of £15.15s in 1808. He advertised his removal from 89 High Holborn to 404 Strand, opposite the Adelphi, in 1809 (Morning Chronicle 17 August 1809). In 1825, ‘J. Garbonati’ attended a meeting of more than fifty master carvers and gilders who resolved to resist the demands of journeymen for an increase in wages (The Times 30 June 1825). Joseph Garbanati, 37 Southampton St, picture framemaker, took out insurance with the Sun Fire Office in 1826. He was also listed at 22 High Holborn in 1808 (DEFM), perhaps a typographical error, and as a cheesemonger at 37 Southampton St in 1827.
Like many of his contemporaries, Garbanati was a customer of the specialist composition ornament maker, George Jackson (qv), 1813-7, and perhaps subsequently, ordering parts such as ‘24 Princesses Coronets’ at 4s.6d each in 1814, as well as whole sets of ornament for picture frames, notably ‘1 set of Cutters foliages, Jordans shells & under do for corners & centre, and Cutters large flowers with husks out of Bowers foliage from corners, &c &c as before’ in 1817, the parts apparently named after the design’s originator (see Jackson account book, V&A Archive of Art and Design, AAD/2012/1/2/1, pp.102, 106, 246, 278, 306, 362, 465-6; punctuation inserted in quotation above).
Joseph Garbanati’s daughter, Amelia, married another immigrant Italian carver and gilder, Charles Andrew Nosotti (qv), at St James Westminster in 1827. His son, Paul Garbanati (qv), set up in business independently as a carver in or before 1839. Joseph Garbanati was listed in the 1851 census, age 76, as born in Italy, plate glass warehouse at 37 Southampton St, with another son, Joseph, age 12, the natural son of his old age. In his will, made 29 May 1848 and proved 5 August 1852, he described himself as carver and gilder, instructing his executors to auction much of his estate, including his stock-in-trade, the residue of the estate to be used for the maintenance, education and apprenticeship of his son, Joseph Garbanati, by his former servant, Mary Callighan.
Framing work: Not a great deal is known about Garbanati’s customers. He advertised on his early trade card from 202 High Holborn, and therefore c.1805-8, ‘Carver, Gilder & Picture Frame Manufacty, Looking Glass-Mirrors and Girandoles’, also offering to clean pictures and regild frames (Heal coll.), and on a subsequent card, 'A Choice Collection of French Carved Picture, Chimney & Pier Frames, also French Carved Console & Pier Tables, Cabriole Chairs, Sofas' (Landauer coll., Metropolitan Museum, New York, see DEFM). In 1807 he supplied looking glass frames for Sir John Geers Cottrell and in 1826 he supplied a 'Handsome French Frame' to the Duke of Norfolk (DEFM). He made a rococo revival frame for George Hayter’s study of Teodoro Majocchi for The Trial of Queen Caroline, c.1820 (Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth, information from Charles Noble, 2004); the label on this frame, from 404 Strand, opposite the Adelphi, describes him as ‘Carver, Gilder, Looking Glass & Mirror Manufacturer’, also offering to clean pictures and regild old frames and to polish and silver old glasses. In 1835, the banker, Thomas Wright of Upton Hall, near Newark, also a writer and amateur artist, commissioned Garbanati to frame three paintings by Etty that he had purchased from the artist, a landscape of Tobias and the angel, a single lady in an oval (‘Garbanati will call for the dimensions… in order to make a frame’) and, apparently a Psyche (York City Library, transcription kindly made available by William Dixon Smith).
Sources: DEFM; Non-conformist BMD (birth of son in 1801); London Metropolitan Archives, Sun Fire Office policy registers, 510. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Garbanati & Sargood 1839-1840, Paul Garbanati 1840-1877. At 19 St Martin’s Court, London 1839-1845, shop 130 New Bond St 1844-1845, 91 Newman St 1846-1848, 1852, 92 Newman St 1848-1851, depot 21 North Audley St 1850-1851, 385 Oxford St 1851-1855, 31 High St, St Giles 1856, 14 Marylebone St, Regent’s Quadrant 1857-1863, street renamed and numbered 1863/4, 36 Glasshouse St 1864-1870, not listed 1871, 7 Great Russell St 1872, 125 Wardour St 1873, not listed 1874, 72 Princes St, Leicester Square 1875-1877. Carver and gilder, picture frame and looking glass manufacturer and plate glass factor.
Paul Charles Garbanati (1813-77) advertised that he was ‘the son of the late Mr J. Garbanati, established 1795’ (The Times 13 March 1862), but a direct link with his father’s business remains to be established. Initially he was in business with Joseph Sargood (1808-74) at 19 St Martin’s Court, but the partnership was dissolved in 1840 (London Gazette 11 February 1840), leaving him to carry on the business. The partnership advertised gilt and fancy wood picture frames as Garbanati & Sargood, working carvers, gilders and picture framemakers, featuring a ‘Richly ornamented and swept frame, half length, 50 inches by 40 inches, six-inch moulding, £3 10s', and other sizes, and offering a printed list of the prices of gilt mouldings, maple, rosewood, and other fancy woods (The Times 28 November 1839). Sargood was subsequently recorded as a picture framemaker at 17 St Ann’s Court, Leicester Square in 1839, and as a carver and gilder, active in Walworth in the 1840s, and as a photographer in the 1850s and 1860s.
Paul Charles Garbanati married Mary Ann Williams in 1840 at St Martin-in-the-Fields and they had six children between 1846 and 1857. He had recurrent financial problems, being made bankrupt or found insolvent in 1846, 1848, 1855, 1861 and 1870 (London Gazette 24 July 1846, 17 August 1848, 17 April 1855, 9 August 1861, 14 October 1870). From his bankruptcy notices, it is apparent that he tried his hand at other trades, also being listed as a ‘photographist’ and a dealer in fancy fowls in 1855, and as a picture dealer in 1861. In the 1851 census Paul Garbanati, carver and gilder, age 37, born St Martin’s, Middlesex, was listed at 92 Newman St with wife and three daughters, in 1861 at 14 Marylebone St now with five daughters, and in 1871 at Croydon. He died at the age of 64 in 1877 in the Pancras district.
Garbanati advertised the 'Cheapest and best manufactured picture frames in the world', of every description of ornamented, gilt and fancy wood picture frame, offering a list of the prices of plate glass, gilt and fancy wood picture frames, room mouldings etc (The Art-Union March 1841 p.42). In response to an advertisement by C.F. Bielefeld (qv), featuring three designs for The Saint's Day, an Art Union of London print, Garbanati offered a list of prices and descriptions of 18 different frames for this engraving and others, in burnished gold, oil gold, imitation of old carved oak, and fancy woods such as rosewood, maple, satinwood or Russian maple, etc (The Art-Union February 1843 p.29). Later, he advertised as the ‘Cheapest House in the Kingdom for Chimney Glasses, Window Cornices, Console Tables, Picture Frames, and every article connected with carving and gilding’ (The Art-Union Advertiser January 1848 p.xxiii).
In a leaflet dated May 1864, enclosed in a letter to the artist John Linnell, Garbanati claimed that his business had been established in 1837 and advertised his services as a ‘Practical Carver and Gilder, Plate glass factor, and Picture frame manufacturer’, also offering to clean, repair or regild looking glass and picture frames, to reline and restore paintings and to restrain, clean and restore old engravings and drawing (Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 12698-2000).
*George Geldorp, Antwerp by 1610, London by c.1623, parish of St Peter the Poor (Broad St ward) 1625, 1635, Blackfriars 1636, 1639, 1644, Drury Lane 1650, Archer St, Westminster 1653. Portrait painter, picture framemaker, picture dealer, later picture mender and cleaner to the King from 1662.
George Geldorp (active 1610, d.1665) was born in Antwerp or Cologne, perhaps in about 1590. He was admitted as a master of the Guild of St Luke in in Antwerp in 1610. He married Anna, daughter of Willem de Vos, the painter, in 1613 and she subsequently undertook the gilding of some of his picture frames. He came to London in about 1623 where he was active not only as a portrait painter but also as a dealer, copyist and collector over a period of forty years. It would appear that Geldorp encouraged Robert Voerst to produce engravings after his work in the late 1620s as a form of self promotion. His name is also found spelt Geldrop, Geldrope, Gildrop, Gildroppe and Giltrope.
Geldorp had excellent connections. Van Dyck is said to have stayed with him on a visit to London (Vertue vol.2, p.97) and Jan Lievens lodged with him when visiting London in 1632. Everhard Jabach used Geldorp as an agent in 1637 and 1638 in commissioning Rubens to paint an altarpiece, The Crucifixion of St Peter, for the church of St Peter in Cologne (R.S. Magurn, The letters of Peter Paul Rubens, 1955, letters 240, 243) and Cardinal Mazarin employed Geldorp as his London agent for picture purchases during the Commonwealth. Peter Lely is said to have worked for Geldorp when he first came to London and the painter, Isaac Sailmaker, was his apprentice (Vertue vol.1, p.74).
Geldorp met with considerable success. George Vertue recorded that in 1650 he was living in a large house with a garden in Drury Lane at a rent of £30 a year, and that he was 'mighty great with people of Quality in his Time & much in their favour, he used to entertain Ladies and Gentlemen with wine & hams, & other curious eatables, & carryd on intreagues between them' (Vertue vol.5, p.44, from a record made at the time by a state commission, and vol.1, p.116, from information from Michael Rosse). Richard Symonds recorded that there were numerous copies of portraits by Van Dyck in his house in June 1653 (Margaret Whinney and Oliver Millar, English Art 1625-1714, 1957, p.76).
Geldorp’s wife may have been dead by the time of the 1635 Return of Strangers in London since Geldorp (‘Giltrope’) is listed with four children but no wife. She had estates in Flanders, referred to in their son’s will, made 10 September 1654 and proved 4 February 1656; this son, John Baptist Geldorp, Gentleman of the City of Westminster, left most of his estate to his own wife Elizabeth, and to his father. Geldorp himself died on 14 November 1665 (Kollman 2005 p.198).
Framing work: As a picture framemaker, Geldorp worked for various patrons from the 1620s to the 1640s. He was working for the Earl of Salisbury in 1626, supplying pictures and frames for Hatfield, for the Earl of Middlesex in about 1636, framing and copying the work of Van Dyck, for Sir Arthur Ingram 1636-42, the Earl of Northumberland 1638-44, the Earl of Huntingdon in 1639 and the Earl of Lothian in 1649, a notable roll-call of leading patrons, discussed in more detail below. His bills are in French, of an anglicised nature: 'les carved fraems d'orre', and his prices suggest work of considerable elaboration: 'ung autre bordure tout dore pour la bergeere de Mr. van dyck' cost Lord Middlesex £6.10s. How much of the framing work Geldorp actually undertook himself is not known, but in 1626 his wife was responsible for gilding seven frames for Lord Salisbury: 'pour la dorure de 7 bordures que ma femme a dorée pour l'or et ouvrage' (for the gilding of seven frames that my wife has gilded, for gold and workmanship).
In 1626 Geldorp painted a pair of full-length portraits of Lord Salisbury and his wife (Auerbach 1971 nos 82, 84), listed in his bill to Salisbury for 10 or more portraits and various frames totalling £105, referred to above as being gilded by his wife (Auerbach 1971 pp.84-5). He was also paid for supplying several dozen glasses and some embroideries.
In about 1636 Geldorp drew up a bill to the Earl of Middlesex for seven pictures and seven frames, totalling £114.10s (National Portrait Gallery, Archive MSS coll.). By far the most expensive items were the royal portraits, that of Charles I and Henrietta Maria in royal robes with its rich gilt frame costing £45 while The Three Eldest Children of Charles I with its frame cost £17, both perhaps copies after Van Dyck. Also supplied was a flower piece for the Countess’s closet at £4, a frame for a Van Dyck, called ‘la bergeere’, and various family portraits including a copy after Van Dyck of the Countess’s portrait at £12 and a separate frame at £6, two smaller framed copies at £4 each, a portrait of a dead infant at £10 and a rich picture frame for an original by Van Dyck at £6.10s.
Probably in 1638 Geldorp painted Sir Arthur Ingram’s portrait at full-length (still at Temple Newsam House, Leeds), receiving payment of more than £40 for this and other work (David Connell, The Collection of Painting made by the Ingram Family at Temple Newsam from the 17th to the 19th century, Leeds University PhD, 1992, pp.79-80, reference kindly supplied by James Lomax). The frame on this portrait, apparently the original, is a particularly large example of a standard auricular type (see Simon 1996 p.153).
In 1639 the Earl of Huntingdon paid ‘George Gildrop, the picture drawer in Blackfriars’ £4 for a picture of Lady Stanhope, a gilded frame at 10s and a case at 4s (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of the late Reginald Rawdon Hastings, 1928, vol 1, p.389).
For the Earl of Northumberland, Geldorp carried out work, 1638-43, usually being referred to as Mr Gildrop or Mr Gildroppe in the accounts. In the year to 25 January 1639, his name is associated with that of Van Dyck (‘Pictures and frames bought of Sr Anthony Vandyke and Mr Gildrop’, £21). Geldorp was paid £48 for pictures in the year to 16 January 1639, £10 for pictures and £10.9s for picture frames in the year to 24 January 1640, £8 for ‘a little picture of Pullingburg [Poelenburgh]’ and 22s for a gilt frame for a picture in the year to 24 January 1641 and £4.10s ‘for finishing 2 pictures and for frames to them’ in the year to 17 January 1643 (Wood 1994 pp.309-10, see also Millar 1955 p.256; all years are New Style).
Information on his work for the William Kerr, Earl of Lothian comes from a letter to him from Robert Inglis, 29 May 1649, referring to an order to M. Geldrope for pictures (National Archives of Scotland, GD40/2/2/82, Lothian papers), and what may be Geldorp’s reply, a long letter in French dated June 1649 (Robert Wenley, ‘William, Third Earl of Lothian: Covenanter and Collector’, Journal of the History of Collections, vol.5, 1993, pp.31-2). Subsequently, in 1654 Lady Elizabeth Carr wrote that she had got from Mr Geldrop some of Lord Lothian’s pictures, which she describes, adding that she daily expected the rest (National Archives of Scotland, GD40/2/2/87).
At the Restoration George Geldorp helped track down those of the King's pictures that remained in the country. He was rewarded with the appointment on 27 November 1662 as picture mender and cleaner to the King, or more specifically ‘Painter for the mending and making clean of his Majesties Pictures’ (Bucholz 2006). He was similarly listed in the royal household in 1663 as ‘Painter for making cleane of pictures’ (Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol.19, 1944, p.24). He was followed in post by Symon Stone in 1666 (see British picture restorers on the National Portrait Gallery website).
Sources: L.H. Cust, ‘Geldorp, George’, rev. P.G. Matthews, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; Antony Griffiths, The Print in Stuart Britain, 1998, p.82; Irene Scouloudi, ‘Returns of Strangers in Metropolis 1593, 1627, 1635, 1639’, Huguenot Society Quarto Series, vol.57, 1985, p.289; Jeremy Wood, 'Van Dyck and the Earl of Northumberland: Taste and Collecting in Stuart England', in Van Dyck 350, ed. Susan J. Barnes and A.K. Wheelock, Jr., Studies in the History of Art, vol.46, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994, pp.309-10; Kollmann 2000 pp.198-9. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Charles Gerrard, 27 Church St, Soho, London 1805-1808, probably until 1811 or later. Carver and gilder.
Charles Gerrard (or Gerard) supplied frames to the 3rd Earl of Egremont in 1807-8, at a cost of £130 for various paintings: three by J.M.W. Turner (including the sea-piece, probably Margate, formerly above the chimneypiece in the Turner Room), a large Claude landscape, John Hoppner’s conversation piece of Lord Egremont’s children and portraits by Thomas Phillips. He undertook further work for Lord Egremont, 1808-10, including a ‘Rich frame for Mr Turners Gallery’, and in 1811 supplied additional picture frames (West Sussex Archives, PHA/11,194).
Gerrard is possibly the Charles Gerrard who was apprenticed to the Norwich carver and gilder, Jeremiah Freeman (qv), in 1791 (Stabler 2006 p.140). ‘Charles Gerard’ married Lucy Silver at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 2 June 1808. No connection has been found to Ebenezer Gerard (c.1783-1826), a portrait painter who exhibited in London, 1813, Norwich, 1814-7, and Liverpool, 1822.
Sources: Gervase Jackson-Stops, 'Great Carvings for a Connoisseur: Picture Frames at Petworth', Country Life, vol.168, 1980, p.1032; Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts, ‘Notes on Turner’s picture frames’, Museum Management & Curatorship, vol.17, no.3, 1998, p.325 (for the 1808-10 bills).
*Gething & Gainsboro 1889-1891, Gething & Taylor 1891-1896. At 29 Lower Temple St, Birmingham 1891, 102 Charing Cross Road, London 1892-1893, 61 Queens Road, Bayswater W 1894-1896. Picture framemakers and dealers in artists' materials.
The changes in this short-lived business can be traced in its accounts with the artists' suppliers, Roberson, 1889-98, from Gething & Gainsboro, to Gething & Taylor and then to H.W. Taylor & Co (Woodcock 1997). The partnership between William Norman Gething (b.1857) and Walter Ernest Hewitt (1865-1919), trading as Gething & Gainsboro at 29 Lower Temple St, Birmingham, as manufacturers and retailers of artists' materials, art works, paintings, copperplate etchings and artistic frame manufacturers, was dissolved in January 1891 (London Gazette 20 February 1891), with the business being carried on in London as Gething & Taylor by William Norman Gething and Harry Walter Taylor (qv). Their partnership was dissolved in April 1896, when the business was continued by Harry Walter Taylor (London Gazette 5 May 1896), trading on his own account at 61 Queens Road, Bayswater.
Gething & Taylor advertised 'entire oak frames for oils, water-colours, and all prints', and 'the usual gold frames, but of right workmanship and motif in design', claiming that 'The House of Gething & Taylor should be visited by those who know how desirable it is to show tasteful intelligence in choosing such frames to inset their pictures as will rightly lend themselves to the decorative scheme of their rooms' (The Year’s Art 1893).
William N. Gething can be traced in censuses, in 1891 at Kings Norton as an art dealer, in 1901 in Wimbledon as an artist, and in 1911 in Belper, again as an artist.
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Vilmo Gibello, see Robert Sielle
Contributed by Lynn Roberts
**Gillow, later Gillow & Co (changing partnerships), Lancaster from c.1730, and London from 1769. Cabinet makers etc.
Gillows traded from Lancaster but kept a London office. The business was founded by Robert Gillow (1704-72) and was continued by his sons, Richard (1734-1811) in Lancaster and Robert (c.1745-95) in London. For subsequent generations, see the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, where the business is treated at more length.
The best source of information on Gillows’ framing activities is the recent survey of the business’s work by Susan Stuart (see Sources below), assembled from the letters, sketchbooks and ledgers held in Gillows’ extensive archives (Westminster Archives). Use of descriptions of and invoices for frames, allied to identification of the actual framed works and fleshed out by extracts of letters to and from clients, have produced an extremely informative account of the provincial picture frame industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. ‘By the late 1760s’, Stuart notes, ‘Gillows’ picture frames were amongst the most important things they made’, and an inventory made at one point revealed that looking-glass and picture frames comprised almost a third of their stock. The styles of frames they offered are charted in the Estimate Sketch Books during the 18th century, but these tail off during the 19th century, possibly due to competition or ordering-in. In the early 1760s ebonized and parcel-gilt frames seem to have been most popular; these might be minimally ornamented or enriched at a customer’s request: for instance, with the gilded ornaments which ‘…cost us in London 7s. 6d.’ and which were acquired for an Ulverston client’s black frame.
Although small sketches and sections illustrate the available choices, ‘Gillow picture frames are difficult to research because they were obviously not stamped or marked and rarely illustrated.’ An important tract of information therefore depends on Gillows’ relationship with George Romney, who was locally-born and returned several times during the 1760s to paint the Lancastrian gentry. Between October 1760 and August 1761, ‘Mr Romney the painter purchased about twenty-four stretcher frames and an easel from Gillow’; his work on subsequent trips is housed in Gillow frames, and these correspond to the three main Romney frame patterns which have been noted as in use during the 1760s: a swept Rococo style, a hollow frame with cabochon top edge, and knulled frame. Stuart’s researches have identified ‘one of the most important Gillow frames made at this period, 1767’; this is the Rococo frame for Romney’s half-length portrait of Rev. Dr Daniel Wilson of Lancaster, pierced, with lambrequin corners and centres, its contour breaking into a cascade of ‘S’ scrolls and its sight edge defined with a chain ornament. Gillows’ ledgers record the anonymous carver’s and gilder’s time and cost (5½ weeks at £4.1s.6d), plus finishing (by ‘Chambers’: 2½ days at 4s) and materials; the ‘total estimate book cost for making and materials was £5.7s.8d’.
Another commission of the same year, recorded in a sketch, is an old-fashioned Kentian frame with pendant drops described as ‘…a neat carv’d frame with side pieces‘. This was made for Charles Strickland of Sizergh Castle for £1.15s.0d, being - apart from the drops – much less ornate than the Rococo frames; the frieze would probably have been sanded, or ‘frosted’ in the Gillow terminology. This ability to produce older designs for their more conservative clients did not prevent Gillows from trying the most up-to-date processes: by 1768 ‘the firm was obtaining papier-mâché for frame mouldings at 2s. for four yards’. In 1779 and 1780 they ordered lengths of gilded brass mouldings from ‘Messrs W[h]itworth Yates & Co.’ of Birmingham, informing them that it must be ‘…ready rabitted to miter together‘; and by 1790 Stuart finds reference to ‘composition moulding‘ in an estimate for a frame. This was the cheapest material of all at 1d to 3d per foot, although the labour in applying it was still costly: 9s.4d in 1801 for John Helme’s work ‘sticking composition when laid on in all 3 ½ days‘.
Gillows also used up-to-date styles: gadrooned hollow frames, for example, on portraits of the Rawlinson family of Lancaster by Romney, with which Stuart associates the mystifying term, ‘Gotherend’ or ‘Gothereade’, found in the ledgers. ‘Nulled ovals’ are also mentioned, in 1784 on an oval frame made for Mr Barrow, the painter, as are ‘cross flutes’. Carlo Maratta frames occur, too; a letter of 1769 from the Gillow brothers to William Shaw of Preston notes that they had showed him a ‘carved gilt & burnished Carlamarat… [at] 6s.6d. per foot‘, whilst their most expensive version of the frame was carved in 1773 for Romney’s portrait of William Lindow. This cost 8½ guineas, and was described as ‘…a very large & elegant picture frame Carlomarat’. The carver may also have been employed by Gillows on the fitting-up of Lindow’s house in 1772; this work had been done by a Mr Norris, and Stuart speculates that the 26 feet of ‘Carlamerat’ which Norris produced in 1773 may have been used for Lindow’s frames. She also notes that the frame now on the portrait may not be the original.
Frames for artists were also produced: for instance, a carved giltwood design for the painter Thomas Burrows, to whom the Gillows wrote that they had not been able to ‘tell what the picture frame would cost us as we never made up one of the same sort before‘. However, when pushed for time or unable to supply the right frame, the firm would sub-contract work or order from London. A letter of 1770 to the Gillows’ cousin Thomas in London asks for fashionable gilt frames of a particular size and price, and requests that offcuts be sent, so that the client can choose a pattern. Thomas is encouraged to apply to ‘Mr Rumney the painter’ for help in picking a framemaker. However, by 1780 Gillows themselves are supplying lengths of frame mouldings to local upholsterers and cabinetmakers.
Sources: By courtesy of Lynn Roberts, the above entry substantially repeats her review of Susan E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London, 1730-1840: Cabinetmakers and International Merchants: A Furniture and Business History, vol.2, Woodbridge, 2008, pp.34-45 (‘Part 2: Picture Frames’), see Annotated Bibliography of Frame Publications on the National Portrait Gallery website. See also Simon 1996 pp.143, 144.
*Thomas H. Gladwell 1835-1879, Gladwell Brothers 1880-1891. At 39 Newington Causeway 1835, 21 Gracechurch St, London EC 1836-1892, 87 Gracechurch St 1851-1865, 20 Gracechurch St 1880-1892, subsequent history not traced here. Manufactory 3 Mint St, Borough 1838-1839, 173 Bishopsgate St without 1840, 156 Borough High St SE 1881-1905. Carvers and gilders, picture and looking glass frame manufacturers, stationers, subsequently printsellers and art dealers.
Thomas Henry Gladwell (1811-79), son of Thomas and Ann Gladwell, was christened at St Sepulchre in 1812; he died in the Lambeth district in 1879. He was listed as a printer in 1835 and as a printer, bookseller and stationer in 1836 but as a picture framemaker by 1838. In the 1841 census, Thomas Gladwell, carver and gilder, was at 19 Gracechurch St. On his billhead from 21 Gracechurch St in 1840, Thomas Henry Gladwell advertised among other services gilt cornices and room mouldings, engraving and printing neatly executed, ‘Ornamental Kit-Cat & Three-Quarter Frames always ready’, modern prints framed in maple and gold, a liberal discount to artists and mouldings to any patterns for gilders (Simon coll.). His trade card from 21 Gracechurch St offered a somewhat similar range of services (Johnson coll. Trade Cards 24 (46)). In the 1851 census Gladwell was listed as a carver and gilder, employing five men, in 1861 as a stationer, with two sons as assistants, Arthur, age 24, and Thomas, age 19, and in 1871 as a stationer and publisher, employing five assistants. He died in February 1879, leaving a personal estate of under £16,000.
Following Gladwell’s death in 1879, the business passed to his two sons, becoming Gladwell Brothers. From 1881, they advertised as ‘Practical carvers and gilders, picture frame manufacturers …Looking glass frames. Picture frames… Re-gilt to equal new’ (The Year’s Art 1881-88). The partnership between Henry William Gladwell (1834-93) and his brother, Alfred Thomas Gladwell (1841-1906), carvers and gilders, printsellers and publishers, trading as Gladwell Bros at 20-21 Gracechurch St and 156 Borough High St, was dissolved in December 1891 (London Gazette 12 January 1892).
The subsequent division of the business into two rival companies, Alfred Thomas Gladwell and Gladwell & Co, is not traced here beyond the 1890s. Henry William Gladwell died in 1893, leaving effects worth £1415. The following year, Alfred Thomas Gladwell, the surviving brother, advertised that he, ‘though the younger brother, is by many years the senior in the business, will continue the same at 164, Fenchurch Street, with the same staff and manufactory as heretofore’ (The Year’s Art 1894), noting in 1895 that four of his old employees had been 'constantly in the employ of the firm for an aggregate of over one hundred and twenty years’ (The Year’s Art 1895) and issuing a disclaimer the following year about rivals trading under the Gladwell name, that he was ‘in no way associated with… other premises that have recently been opened, in the same name, in Fenchurch Street, and elsewhere’ (The Year’s Art 1896). Alfred Thomas Gladwell died in 1906, leaving effects worth £2205. A successor business, Gladwell & Co, still operates as fine art dealers from 68 Queen Victoria St today, claiming to have been established in 1752.
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Glover & Ives, see Charles Ives
Charles Goadsby, Manchester, see Grundy & Fox
*Benjamin Goodison, The Golden Spread Eagle, Long Acre, London by 1727. Cabinet maker.
A carver and furniture maker rather than a picture framemaker, Benjamin Goodison (c.1700-1767) nevertheless produced some significant picture frames. He is treated at length by Geoffrey Beard in the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, to whom this account is indebted.
Benjamin Goodison referred to James Moore as his master in 1719 and 1720. He is probably the Benjamin Goodison of St Andrew Holborn, who married Sarah Cooper at St Bride's, Fleet St, in 1723, and had several children christened at St Martin-in-the-Fields, including a son, also Benjamin, in 1735. By 1725 he had his own business, taking Thomas Barber as an apprentice, and by 1726-7 he had succeeded James Moore in the service of the Royal Family. Goodison took his nephew, Benjamin Parran, as apprentice in 1741, and subsequently as partner. Goodison’s will was proved on 9 December 1767; he left a considerable house in Mitcham, and was able to bequeath his lawyer son £8000, or half his estate. His business was continued by Benjamin Parran in partnership with his son.
Goodison worked for Frederick Prince of Wales from 1735 until shortly before the Prince’s death in 1751, as has been surveyed by Kimerly Rorschach (see Sources below). In 1747/8 he framed Van Dyck’s Madam Cantecroix for the Prince, charging £10 for a whole-length frame, ‘Guilt in Oyl Gold with a sanded ground ornamented with Shells’. In 1748 he produced two very large burnished frames for two landscapes by Rubens, ‘ornamented with Festoons & flowers all round... with Mosaick work in ye Ground & a Canopy of Flowers at ye top’ for £63 each. His accounts for work for the Royal Household continue until 1760.
Other picture frames made by Goodison include that for Pietro da Cortona’s Coriolanus at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, for which the Earl of Leicester was billed £74 on 4 January 1757: 'A large picture frame carved & gilt in burnish’t gold with a scrowle pediment, festoons & other ornaments & iron plates & screwes to fix it togeather' (copy in V&A Furniture Dept Archive). He supplied a companion frame for Giuseppe Chiari’s Scipio in 1758 for £72.15s. He also made picture frames for the Earl and Countess of Cardigan at Deene Park, 1743-4, and produced work for Blenheim Palace, Althorp, Chatsworth, Longford Castle, the Mansion House and Bedford House.
Sources: DEF, vol.3, p.32; DEFM; Tessa Murdoch, ‘Goodison, Benjamin (c.1700–1767)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004 (www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/39347, accessed 23 Nov 2007); Kimerly Rorschach, ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-51) as Collector and Patron’, Walpole Society, vol.55, 1993, pp.34-5. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Matthew Goodricke, Old St, Cripplegate, London until 1622, Long Acre possibly by 1620, probably by 1632, 1640-1642. Painter and gilder.
Matthew Goodricke (?1588-1645) was one of the leading decorative painters of his time and assisted the Serjeant Painter, John de Critz (qv), in his work for King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria in the 1620s and 1630s. His life has been studied by Mary Edmond, to whom this account is indebted. His name is also found spelt as Goodrich, Goodrick, Gooderick, Goodericke and Guidrick.
He would appear to be ‘Mathew Goodricke’, son of Samuel, who was christened in 1588 at St Dionis Backchurch in the City of London. Like his father, Matthew Goodricke was a Freeman of the Painter-Stainers’ Company. He was a beneficiary under the terms of his father’s nuncupative will, made verbally shortly before his death in 1626 (London Metropolitan Archives, MS 09222/002, information from Edward Town; note that the will also names another ‘Mathew Goodrick’, a godson, meaning that caution is needed in assigning the following references).
‘Mathew Goodericke painter stayner’ had a son, Samuel, buried at St Giles Cripplegate in 1622. He may be the ‘Matthew Goodricke’, with wife Elizabeth, who had a son, also Matthew, christened in 1616 at All Hallows London Wall, and three daughters christened at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Elizabeth in 1620 (who presumably died young), a further Elizabeth in 1623 and Ann in 1632 (IGI, variously spelt as Gooderick or Goodrick). He is presumably the ‘Mathewe Goodricke the elder’ of the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, whose wife, Elizabeth was left a bequest of £3 by the sculptor, Nicholas Stone, their neighbour in Long Acre (Walpole Society, vol.7, p.144, will dated 30 January 1640). By 1642/3, Matthew Goodricke was described as ‘poore’ in the parish poor book. He is probably the ‘Mathew Gooderick’ buried at St Martin’s in December 1645.
Interior painting work: Goodricke was an interior painter of considerable ability and apparently held in high regard by Inigo Jones and his contemporaries. In 1609/10 he can be found, like his father, working at St Katherine Colman, supplying cloth and his labour for a month (London Metropolitan Archives, MS 1124/1, information from Edward Town). His earliest known work as a painter was in Edinburgh, where in 1617, ‘Matthew Goodrich’ was paid £200 for painting and gilding the chapel of Holyrood House, part of a scheme carried out with Nicholas Stone, probably under the direction of Inigo Jones (Walpole Society, vol.7, 1919, p.44). As early as 1622 he was working for Charles Prince of Wales, later King Charles I (Croft-Murray 1962 p.203). From 1626/7 until about 1638, his name appears in the accounts of the Office of Works. He decorated the new chapel at St James's Palace in 1626-7 and other interiors, 1629-30 (Colvin 1982 p.249). His interior work at Somerset House from 1628 is described below.
Goodricke also helped decorate the interior of Inigo Jones's new church, St Paul Covent Garden in 1631-2. He painted and gilded the great staircase at Ham House in 1637-8, and later worked at Wilton House, where Zacharie Taylor (qv) was the carver (Vertue vol.2, p.59). He also worked at Holland House (Malcolm Airs, The Tudor & Jacobean Country House, 1995, p.152).
Framing work: Matthew Goodricke was described as his highness’s painter when receiving payment from Charles Prince of Wales for painting and gilding the organs at St James’s and diverse picture frames for £13.13s in 1621-2 (National Archives, SC 6/Jas.I/1685). For painting and gilding various frames for pictures and for other things in and about his highness’s cabinet and gallery at St James’s, he received a £26.12s.10d in 1624 and £6 for frames in 1625, as approved by Abraham van der Doort; ‘cabinet’ very probably refers to a cabinet room rather than to a piece of furniture (National Archives, SC 6/Jas.I/1687, SC 6/Chas.I/1630).
Subsequently, when Charles became king, Goodricke as a painter and gilder of picture frames worked extensively for him, framing contemporary works as well as paintings from the Duke of Mantua’s collection. Many of these frames were carved by Zacharie Taylor.
At Somerset House from 1628, Goodricke worked for Queen Henrietta Maria, decorating interiors and picture frames. He was responsible for the elaborate decoration of the Queen’s new Cabinet Room, painted and gilded in 1629-30 for £233, including framing mouldings for 218 panels of grotesques (Colvin 1982 pp.39, 262). Between 1631 and 1639, at least 66 frames were made, apparently for Somerset House, by Goodricke, Taylor and others, often working in partnership, including 20 for the Cabinet Room, 1631-3, as well as frames for the adjoining Cross Gallery, 1634-6, probably for full-length royal portraits (Colvin 1982 p.268). In more detail, for the Cabinet Room in 1631/2 Goodricke gilded frames and painted mouldings for them with leaves, flutes, beads, roses and other enrichments (Edmond 1980 p.175). With Edward Pearce (qv) and George Carew, in 1635/6 he painted 17 frames in stone colour and two for the Long Gallery in a dark lute colour with gilt edges and, grandest of all, a frame probably for Van Dyck’s Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, which was painted in a dark lute colour with a broad gilt edge at a cost of 1s a foot for 48 feet, making £2.8s (Edmond 1980 p.174).
At Greenwich, Goodricke painted and varnished frames for the Queen’s House with Benjamin Davyson in 1633/4. This work included painting frames in a dark lute colour and gilding the mouldings in oil, at 1s a foot for 106 feet, for The Finding of Moses and Potiphar’s Wife (almost certainly by Orazio Gentileschi) and The Muses for £5.6s.6d, and painting a frame of a lesser moulding, length 23 feet, for Tarquin and Lucretia for 11s.6d including varnishing and gilding the edges (National Archives, E 351/3267; see also George H. Chettle, The Queen’s House, Greenwich, London Survey Committee, 14th monograph, 1937, p.104; Colvin 1982 p.119).
At Whitehall Palace in 1632-3 he painted in dark lute colour and gilded two picture frames 31 feet in compass at 1s a foot, and the following year with John de Critz he painted and gilded three frames, one 27 feet in compass for a picture of St Margaret, perhaps by Titian (National Archives, E 351/3267, quoted by Edmond 1980 p.176). At St James’s Palace in 1635-6, with John Brocas he painted and garnished eight large frames for pictures in the Gallery, gilding a small fillet round each frame (Edmond 1980 p.175).
Goodricke worked for the widowed Duchess of Buckingham, billing her in February 1633 for decorative work at York House and for finishing the frames of five pictures, including painting, varnishing and gilding the frame for Van Dyck’s portrait of the Duchess, perhaps with her children, evidently a large picture since it was ’35 footte round’. He agreed with Nicholas Stone in August 1639 to colour and gild a picture frame for the Countess of Middlesex’s picture by Van Dyck for £6, which Zacharie Taylor was to carve, also for £6 (Kent History and Library Centre, Knole papers, U269 A462/5, from notes made by the late Gervase Jackson-Stops and by Edward Town). At Ham House in April 1638, he charged £320 for painting work, including £4 for ‘guilding with fine gould two picture frames over ye [Dining Chamber] Doores, the Carving worke being wholly guilt over’; these frames had been carved by the joiner, Thomas Carter for £2.10s, who had also supplied picture frames for the drawing room for £4 (photocopy bills in the V&A Furniture Dept Archive).
Sources: Mary Edmond, ‘New light on the lives of miniaturists and large-scale portrait-painters working in London in the 16th and 17th centuries’, Walpole Society, vol.47, 1980, pp.175-6; Howard Colvin (ed.), The History of the King’s Works, vol.4, 1485-1660 (Part II), 1982, pp.39, 119, 268; Philip McEvansoneya, 'Van Dyck and the Duchess of Buckingham's collection', Apollo, vol.140, December 1994, p.30. The above text has been prepared with help from Lynn Roberts. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
**Charles Goodwin, 62 Boxley Road, Maidstone by 1881-1901 or later. Carpenter, wood carver and picture framemaker.
Charles Goodwin (1840-1907?) was the third son of a Maidstone builder, Samuel Goodwin, and his wife, Rosetta. He was the brother of the artist, Albert Goodwin (1845-1932), who was a pupil of William Holman Hunt (Hammond Smith, Albert Goodwin RWS (1845-1932), p.63). He can be traced in Maidstone census records as a carpenter and joiner in 1861, a carpenter in 1871 and a wood carver in 1881, 1891 and 1901, living at his father’s address in 1861 and 1871 and at 62 Boxley Road thereafter with his wife, Anne, and their children. He may be the Charles Goodwin whose death at the age of 65 was recorded in Maidstone in 1907.
Framing work: Charles Goodwin made frames for his brother, Albert Goodwin, and through him for other artists. He can be identified with the Goodwin whom Arthur Hughes used for carving frames in 1873. Hughes told Ford Madox Brown in August 1873, ‘A brother of Goodwin's, a carpenter who is clever at carving and wants to get frames to do,... has made several for his brother and one or two for me, all of oak and with no plaster at all.... My Lady of Shallot had the only entirely carved frame in the Academy, I feel proud to say; ... it was a noble work.... My frames, after they were gilded, only cost me the same as if I had had them done in the old way.’ (South African National Gallery, manuscript quoted by Leonard Roberts at www.arthurhughes.org/addenda.htm, accessed August 2012). Hunt in turn mentioned Hughes’ carver to Frederick George Stephens in 1876 and 1877 (information from Lynn Roberts).
The frame for Holman Hunt’s The Triumph of the Innocents (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) has been identified as by ‘Mr Goodwin’, presumably George Goodwin, dating to c.1877-8, and that for the later version of this picture (Tate) as possibly by Goodwin, c.1885 (Bronkhurst 2006 pp.324-5, where the frames are reproduced). However, the frames are more likely to be by Charles Goodwin than the Soho framemaker, George Goodwin (c.1837-1907?), born in Cheltenham and trading in London, 1865-86.
The Gosset and Dallain families
Three generations of these related Huguenot families from the Channel Islands, and before that from Normandy, are treated here and under Dallain: Matthew Gosset (1683-1744), secondly his nephews, Jacob Gosset (1703-88), Gideon (1707-85) and Isaac (1713-99), sons of Jean Gosset and Susanne D’Allain, and thirdly Abraham Dallain (c.1727-1803), husband of Jane Gosset, and his brother, Isaac Dallain (c.1730-1791 or later). Isaac Dallain went into partnership with Richard Harding in 1782 as 'successors to Mr. Gosset'.
Sources: For the Gosset family, see Mary H. Gosset, 'A Family of Modellers in Wax', Publications of the Huguenot Society, vol.3, 1892, pp.540-68, and Tessa Murdoch, ‘Courtiers and Classic: The Gosset Family’, Country Life, vol.177, 1985, pp.1282-3.
*Gideon Gosset, parish of St James Westminster, London by 1727, Berwick St probably by 1733, certainly by 1747 until 1749 or later, Paddington St by 1779. Carver and gilder, picture framemaker.
Like Isaac Gosset (qv) and Jacob Gosset (qv), Gideon, or Gedeon Gosset (1707-85), was the son of Jean Gosset and Susanne D’Allain, Huguenots from the Channel Islands. It would appear that Gideon, or possibly Jacob, and Isaac were brought up by their uncle, Matthew Gosset (qv), the carver and wax modeller, who was living in London by 1709 (Murdoch 1985 p.1282) and who was resident in Berwick St by 1716. Gideon and Isaac were bequeathed Matthew Gosset’s house on the east side of Berwick St in his will, made 1740 and proved 1744. Little is known of Gideon in particular but he appears to have been closely associated with his brother, Isaac, working in the same street, and possibly sharing the same premises. From the late 1750s he was living in Marylebone (Publications of the Huguenot Society, vol.11, 1914, pp.90-2, 110, 119).
Gideon Gosset married Anne Buisset in 1726; they had as many as twelve children between 1727 and 1745, the first two christened at St James Westminster, and the remainder from 1733 at the Berwick St Huguenot church. He took as apprentices Joseph Pujolas for a premium of £10 in 1725, John Lee for £10 in 1726, Richard Bernin for £21 in 1737 and Peter Morrell for £30 in 1746. Gideon was recorded in Berwick St in the 1749 Westminster poll book. In his will, made 2 March 1784 and proved 15 August 1785, Gideon Gosset made various bequests including to his daughter Mary Carter and his nephew Matthew Gosset. His daughter was also a beneficiary under his brother, Isaac's will in 1799.
Most documented payments relate specifically to Isaac Gosset, but it remains possible, indeed likely, that some early payments to ‘Gosset’ were to Gideon or Jacob Gosset. He may possibly be ‘Gousset, Carver’ who was paid £19.4s.6d in 1732 by Earl Fitzwalter including for frames for Fitzwalter’s own portrait by Enoch Seeman and his wife’s, both at full length (A.C. Edwards, The Account Books of Benjamin Mildmay, Earl Fitzwalter, 1977, p.189). It has been suggested by Lippincott, without explanation, that Gideon is the ‘Gosset the frame maker’ used extensively by Arthur Pond, 1735-49, for the supply of gilt frames and glasses for pastels; these ‘architrave gold frames’ can be found on several of Pond’s work (Simon 1996 p.62) and on some pastels by William Hoare and Francis Cotes, mainly dating to the 1740s. It has also been suggested that he is the Gosset whom Hogarth mentioned in a letter of 1748 when advising on the framing of his huge painting for the Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, Paul before Felix (DEFM), but this is now known to be the work of Isaac Gosset (see below). Gideon Gosset is credited as supplying frames for Petworth in 1744 and as receiving £19 for picture frames and glasses supplied to the Grimston family in 1747 (DEFM).
Sources: Louise Lippincott, ‘Arthur Pond’s Journal of Receipts and Expenses, 1734-1750’, Walpole Society, vol.54, 1991, p.323. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Isaac Gosset, Berwick St, London, probably by 1740, certainly by 1747-1774, 14 Edward St, Portman Square 1774-1797 or later. Picture framemaker and modeller of wax portraits.
Isaac Gosset (1713-99) is known for his work for or in association with leading artists: William Hogarth, Allan Ramsay, William Hoare and Thomas Gainsborough. He may also have worked for Arthur Pond (see Gideon Gosset above).
Like Gideon Gosset (qv) and Jacob Gosset (qv), Isaac was the son of Jean Gosset and Susanne D’Allain, Huguenots from the Channel Islands. He married Francoise Buisset in 1737, and they had five children christened at the Berwick St Huguenot church between 1740 and 1749, including a son Isaac, born 1745. Isaac and Gideon, nephews of Matthew Gosset (qv) were bequeathed his house on the east side of Berwick St in his will, made 1740 and proved 1744.
In 1751 George Vertue praised Isaac Gosset's skills as a modeller of portrait profiles in wax and referred to frame carving as his original business, adding that 'he still undertakes carving for persons that are willing to pay him well for his labours - which can be managed under his care' (Vertue vol.3, p.160). Vertue added that Isaac and his brother, whom he does not name, were brought up by their uncle, Matthew Gosset. Isaac Gosset's work as a modeller of wax profile portraits of distinguished public figures appears to range from the 1740s to the 1770s. He exhibited at the Society of Artists, 1760-78.
Isaac Gosset may have worked in partnership with his brother, Gideon. He took as apprentices Isaac Fabry for a premium of £21 in 1754, James Bradley for £25 in 1756 and Thomas Robinson for £21 in 1759 (Boyd), while James Guillet (qv) advertised in 1772 that he had been apprentice and foreman to Messrs Gosset in Berwick St. Isaac Dallain (qv) in partnership with Richard Harding in 1782 advertised as 'successors to Mr. Gosset'. In his will, made 11 August 1797 and proved 7 December 1799, Isaac Gosset, of Edward St, Portman Square, made various bequests including to his niece, Mary Carter, daughter of Gideon Gosset.
Framing work: Isaac Gosset was appointed Joiner of the Privy or Great Chamber on 10 January 1774 (Bucholz 2006). This official position in the royal household was abolished in 1782, but Gosset continued in his role as the King's framemaker until his retirement at the age of seventy-two in 1785. In this capacity he supplied frames at £32 each for Allan Ramsay’s full-length state portraits of King George III and Queen Charlotte, as many as two dozen pairs, 1772-84 (Millar 1969 p.94; Simon 1994 p.453).
Isaac Gosset had close associations with several artists. In the case of Allan Ramsay, there are payments from the artist to Gosset himself in 1770 and 1779, and other payments linking the artist or his clients with the framemaker in 1759 and 1767, and with ‘Mr Gosset’ in 1750 (Simon 1994 pp.446-7). For example, the Findlater London accounts, 1758-9, include reference to payment, presumably by Lady Findlater, to ‘Allan Ramsay for my lord's picture and mine and for frames from Isaac Gossett’ (National Archives of Scotland, GD248/939/5, Seafield papers).
Isaac Gosset can now be identified as the ‘Gosset’ mentioned by William Hogarth in 1748 when advising on the framing of his huge painting for the Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, Paul before Felix, in view of a payment on 26 April 1751 in the Treasurer’s Accounts: ‘Paid Isaac Gossett for the Picture frame in the Hall by Order of Council the 24th Instant £25’ (Lincoln’s Inn Library, Archives ref. C2a31, information kindly supplied by the archivist, Josephine Hutchings, August 2012, see Hogarth’s Framemaker « the frame blog).
The Gosset name crops up in Gainsborough's correspondence in 1762, 1766 and 1768, and there are payments specifically to Isaac Gosset in Gainsborough's bank account in 1762 and 1763 (see Gainsborough and picture framing on the National Portrait Gallery website). Later, in 1788 one of the Gossets was a mourner at Thomas Gainsborough's funeral (see Sloman 2002 p.66).
Isaac Gosset was described by William Hoare as 'my framemaker' in 1763, when he received payment from Lady Egremont on the artist’s behalf, and there are other references in the artist’s correspondence to Gosset (Simon 1996 p.88). There are payments to 'Gosset' from Henry Hoare of Stourhead in 1753, apparently for the artist's profile pictures, and for gold leaf in 1769 (Wilts Record office, 383/6, Stourhead account book; Henry Hoare private account, information from Evelyn Newby, 1992). There are also references to 'Gosset' in William Hoare’s letters to the Hon. Charles Yorke in 1762 and 1764 (British Library, Add.MS 35636 p.252, 35637 p.50) and to Richard Hurd in 1765 (John Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, 1977, p.292).
Isaac Gosset supplied ‘a scetch of a frame and a Carlomaratt pattern’ to Robert Dingle in 1755 (Simon 1996 p.138, also p.144). ‘Gosset’ supplied Maratta frames to Edward Knight of Kidderminster in 1772 (Simon 1996 p.146). Isaac Gosset received a visit from Sir William Chambers, who was considering picture and mirror frames for the Duke of Marlborough in 1774 (Simon 1996 p.127). Other attributions are give in the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers.
Sources: Gunnis 1968 pp.175-6; E.J. Pyke, A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, 1973; Roscoe 2009 pp.535-40 (with listing of works in wax); Evelyn Newby, William Hoare of Bath, R.A 1707-1792, exh.cat., Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, 1990, no.20a. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
*Jacob Gosset, The Golden Table, Oxenden St, London 1727, Warwick St, Golden Square 1734, 1749. Carver and gilder, cabinetmaker.
Like Gideon Gosset (qv) and Isaac Gosset (qv), Jacob Gosset (1703-88) was the son of Jean Gosset and Susanne D’Allain, Huguenots from the Channel Islands. Jacob Gosset married firstly Mary Fallet in 1727, having a daughter christened at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1729, and secondly Constance Farr in 1737, having daughters christened at St James Westminster in 1738 and 1745.
Jacob Gosset took out insurance as a carver, gilder and cabinetmaker from the Golden Table in Oxenden St in 1727 and from Warwick St in 1734 (London Metropolitan Archives, Sun Fire Office policy registers, 25/44049, 41/65212). He took Francis Le Fousey of Jersey (probably a misunderstanding by the clerk compiling the register for ‘Le Tousey’) as apprentice in 1726 for a premium of £15, John Vincent in 1737 for £21 (Boyd) and Robert Tull (qv) in 1745 for £42. Jacob Gosset or one of his brothers used Tull as a subcontractor in the 1750s (Simon 1996 p.143). Jacob Gosset was buried in Hampstead churchyard.
Jacob Gosset supplied elaborate frames for full-length portraits of Frederick Prince of Wales by Jacopo Amigoni in 1735, costing up to £35 (John Woodward, ‘Amigoni as Portrait Painter in England’, Burlington Magazine, vol.99, 1957, p.22, n.6; Roscoe 2009 p.540, incorrectly as by James Gosset). Jacob Gosset charged the Earl of Northampton £202.12s.4d for frames, lining and stretching pictures in 1760 (Beard 1981 p.261), but otherwise little is known of his output. Other attributions are give in the Dictionary of English Furniture Makers.
Sources: DEFM; Kimerly Rorschach, 'Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-51) as Collector and Patron', Walpole Society, vol.55, 1983, p.36. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Matthew Gosset, parish of St Anne Soho, London by 1709, Berwick St by 1716, parish of St James Westminster 1740, Poland St. Carver and wax modeller.
The carver and wax modeller, Matthew Gosset (1683-1744), married Jeanne Ester le Touzay in 1700 (ODNB). He was living in London by 1709, when their daughter, Angelique Elizabeth, was christened (Minet 1921 p.10) and he is presumably the Mathieu Gosset naturalised the same year (Publications of the Huguenot Society, vol.27, 1923, p.85). He was the uncle of Jacob, Gideon and Isaac Gosset (qv). Described as a carver, Matthew Gosset took as apprentice in 1714 ‘Reney’ Stone, surely René Stone (qv), not Rodney Stone as sometimes claimed (National Archives, IR 1/3). In 1716 when resident in Berwick St he took out insurance with the Hand-in-Hand Insurance Company (DEFM) but subsequently he lived in Poland St, as is apparent from his wife’s will.
In the Holkham Hall accounts, Matthew Gosset is recorded as framing some drawings in about 1720, perhaps those mounted by René Pelletier (qv) (Murdoch 1997-8 p.370). Clearly, he knew Pelletier well for he was appointed to supervise the education of Pelletier’s children at his death in 1726 (Murdoch 1997-8 p.370).
In his will, as Matthew Gossett of St James Westminster, made 12 January 1740 and proved 29 March 1744, he left his house on the east side of Berwick St to his nephews, Gideon and Isaac. His widow, Jane Esther Gosset, died in 1748, leaving an interesting will, describing her deceased husband as late of Poland St. The will was witnessed by James L. Guillet (qv) and Abraham Dallain (qv). She refers to her sister Elizabeth Pujolas, who was presumably related to Henry Pujolas from Uzes, who married in 1691 (Minet 1921 p.25), to Joseph Pujolas, who was apprenticed to Gideon Gosset (qv) in 1725, and to another Henry Pujolas, who was apprenticed to Jean Antoine Cuenot (qv) in 1747. She also refers to her Le Touzay relatives.
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Found a mistake? Have some extra information? Please contact Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk
