British picture framemakers, 1630-1950 - G
Contributions are welcome, to Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk
Cross-references to other makers are indicated by adding '(qv)' after the relevant name.
Resources and bibliography
Thomas Gabb (active 1746, died 1783), London. Gilder.
Thomas Gabb (d.1783) of St Martin-in-the-Fields took Robert Ansell (qv) as an apprentice in 1746 (Boyd). 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, Great Russell St, Bedford Square, London 1800, 4 Great Russell St 1802, 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', who published a caricature from Great Russell St, Bedford Square, in 1800 (BM Satires no.9536). He had a son, Joseph Charles Garbanati, in 1801. 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.
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.
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.
Sources: DEFM; Non-conformist BMD (birth of son in 1801); Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vol.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 1849-1851, 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 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.
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 registration 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). 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 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).
**George Geldorp, Antwerp by 1610, London by c.1623, parish of St Peter the Poor (Broad St ward) 1625, 1635, Blackfriars 1636, 1639, Drury Lane 1650, Archer St, Westminster 1653. Portrait painter, picture framemaker, picture dealer, 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, Geldrop, 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, Cambridge, Mass., 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 records 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, Oxford, 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).
Picture framing work: As a picture framemaker, Geldorp worked for various patrons from 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, for 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. 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, the frames 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).
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, British Museum, 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 various frames to the 3rd Earl of Egremont in 1807-8, at a cost of £130 for three paintings 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 further picture frames (West Sussex Archives, PHA/11,194).
‘Charles Gerard' married Lucy Silver at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 2 June 1808.
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 and Walter Ernest Hewitt, 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).
Gething may be the William N. Gething, artist, age 44, recorded at Wimbledon in the 1901 census.
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Vilmo Gibello, see Robert Sielle
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 registration district in 1879. He was listed as a printer in 1835 and as a printer, bookseller and stationer in 1836 but as a picture frame maker by 1838. In the 1841 census, Thomas Gladwell, carver and gilder, was at 19 Gracechurch St. On his billhead 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. 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.
Following Gladwell's death in 1879, the business became 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 (London Gazette 22 September 1893). 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). 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, see Grundy & Fox
*Benjamin Goodison (active 1719, died 1767), 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 refers to James Moore as his master in 1719 and 1720. He is probably the Benjamin Goodison, 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 his death in 1751, as has been discussed by Kimerly Rorschach. 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 the ‘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. ‘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 presumably the ‘Mathew Gooderick' buried at St Martin's in December 1645.
Work as a painter of interiors: Goodricke was an interior painter of considerable ability and apparently held in high regard by Inigo Jones and his contemporaries. His earliest known work 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, Stroud, 1995, p.152).
Picture framing work: In his role as a painter and gilder of picture frames, Matthew Goodricke worked extensively for Charles I, framing contemporary works and 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 surely 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 for a picture of St Margaret, perhaps by Titian (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 for £6, which Zacharie Taylor was to carve, also for £6 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Knole papers, U269 A462/5, from notes made by Gervase Jackson-Stops). 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; H.M. 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.
George Goodwin (or Charles Goodwin), 20 Denmark Place, Soho, London active 1870s, 1880s. Picture framemaker. A candidate for the next edition of this Directory, to include additional 19th and 20th-century framemakers. Contact Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.
**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), who married 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 1747-1749 or later, Paddington St by 1779. Carver and gilder, picture framemaker.
Like Isaac Gosset (qv) and Jacob Gosset (qv), Gideon, or Gedeon, 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. 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 (1707-1785) 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. Gideon was recorded in Berwick St in the 1749 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 a beneficiary under his brother, Isaac's will in 1799.
Gideon Gosset took as apprentices Joseph Henry Pujolas for a premium of £10 in 1725, Richard Peter Bernin for £21 in 1737 and Peter Morrell for £30 in 1746.
Most documented payments relate specifically to Isaac Gosset, but it remains possible, indeed likely, that some payments to ‘Gosset' were to Gideon 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, again without explanation, 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). Gideon Gosset is credited 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 leading artists: Allan Ramsay, William Hoare, Thomas Gainsborough and probably William Hogarth. He may also have worked for William Hogarth and 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.
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 date 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 Gosset. 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'.
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 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). 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.
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).
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).
The Gosset name crops up in Gainsborough's correspondence in 1762 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).
Sources: Gunnis 1968 pp.175-6; E.J. Pyke, A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, Oxford, 1973; 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, at Warwick St, Golden Square, London 1749. Carver and gilder.
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. Gosset took Francis John Le Fousey of Jersey, probably a misreading for Le Tousey as apprentice in 1726 for a premium of £15 (DEFM, Boyd), John Clement Vincent in 1737 for £21 (Boyd) and Robert Samuel 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 in 1735 and 1736, including for work by Jacopo Amigoni (Simon 1994 p.453, n.63; using Gunnis's papers, Roscoe 2009 p.540 problematically links these frames to 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.
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 often 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, vol.16, p.37) but subsequently he lived in Poland St, as is apparent from his wife's will.
In the Holkham Hall accounts, 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), and to Henry Martha 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.
*Philip Goyer, 21 Cumberland St, London 1778 or later, 41 Newman St by 1785-1794 or later, 91 Newman St by 1799. Carver and gilder.
Philip Goyer took out insurance with the Sun Fire Office in 1778 from 21 Cumberland St and in 1785 and 1786 from 41 Newman St. He is presumably the Philip Gowyer who was listed at 41 Newman St from 1790. 'Goyer' supplied frames for Samuel Whitbread for Southill, Bedfordshire in 1796 and 1797, including a very rich trophy frame for £50 for George Romney's Blind Milton Dictating to his Daughters (repr. Country Life 28 April 1994 p.67; Oliver Millar in Southill: A Regency House, 1951, p.46, n.4; Mitchell & Roberts 1996 pp.342-3). Benjamin Goyer, carver and gilder, perhaps his son, was working at 41/42 Newman St, 1805-11. An organ builder, Bevington & Goyer, advertised from this address in 1808 (The Times 29 April 1808). A frame labelled by Goyer, Carver and Gilder of 42 Newman St, Oxford St can be found on the Anthonis Mor portrait of Mary Beaton in the Suffolk Collection (Suffolk Collection. Catalogue of Paintings, 1974, no.51).
Sources: Guildhall Library, Records of Sun Fire Office, vol.266 no.402074, see DEFM, 331/508465, 338/521516. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Frederick Henry Grau (active 1888, died 1895), 570 Fulham Road, London 1889-1892. Picture framemaker.
A short-lived framemaker, Frederick Henry Grau (c.1859-1895) was married in 1888 in the Fulham registration district and died in 1895, age 36, in the Chelsea registration district. He was followed at his Fulham Road premises by another carver and gilder, Edwin B. Brown, in 1896.
Grau made frames for James McNeill Whistler, 1888-92, as the artist's correspondence reveals. He is first mentioned in letters which have been dated to September 1888. Later, in November 1890, Whistler requested Walford Graham Robertson to 'send for Grau and tell him to make you at once one of my beautiful new frames for the Valparaiso' (Centre for Whistler Studies, Online edition of Whistler's correspondence). This letter refers to Crepuscule in Flesh Colour and Green: Valparaiso, 1866 (Tate; see reference to an earlier frame for this work under Foord & Dickinson). In June 1892, Whistler told his New York dealer, E.G. Kennedy, 'my framemaker is Mr Grau, 570, Fulham Road... He is the only one who has the fine pattern of my frame' (Joyce Hill Stoner, 'Whistler's views on the restoration and display of his paintings,' Studies in Conservation, vol.42, 1997, p.111). In this letter (Online edition), Whistler wrote, 'You ought to have new frames made at once for The Westminster Bridge [The Last of Old Westminster, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] and the Thames picture [Battersea Reach, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC]... Tell him [Grau] that the gold must be the pale yellow soft gold like the gilding of my Mother's frame [Portrait of the Painter's Mother, Musée du Louvre]'.
By 1895 Whistler had lost touch with Grau, writing to the art dealer, David Thompson, ' I wish now you would kindly find out for me, at once, Mr. Grau's address and send it to me here - You know Grau - used to be in the Fulham Road - You probably have his old address on your books at the time he was working for the Exhibition in Bond Street - It was said that he had given up frame making - but then again this was denied - and he has all my patterns'. But by this time Grau was dead.
A painting of 1891, Arrangement in Black: Reading (Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Natalie Spassky, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol.2, New York, 1985, p.396), is inscribed in black paint on the back of the frame, F.H. GRAU/ LONDON, and two other paintings are similarly inscribed, Brun et or: De race and The Boy in a Cloak (both Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow; information from Pamela Robertson, 20 February 2007). Several watercolours have Grau's frame label including Grey and Silver: North Sea and Grey and pearl: Bank Holiday Banners (both Fitzwilliam Museum), Blue and Silver (Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, Long Island) and Mother and Child: The Pearl (Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC).
Robert Gravel, see Jabez Benson
*Joseph Green senr 1801-1840, Joseph Green junr 1840-1870, Joseph Green & Co 1870-1871. At 15 Charles St, Middlesex Hospital, London 1802-1825, 14 Charles St 1825-1871. Carvers and gilders, fine art packers.
This leading business claimed to have been established in 1801. It continued in operation under the founder, Joseph Green (d.1840), and his son, also Joseph Green (1808-1873?), framing the work of many artists, until about 1871 when the business was acquired by W.A. Smith (qv).
Joseph Green senr 1801-40: Joseph Green set up in business in Charles St, now Mortimer St, in the shadow of Middlesex Hospital. Little is known of his early years but he is probably the man who married Mary Byfield, possibly a relation of James Byfield (qv), in 1803 at St Mary Marylebone, and remarried in 1807 Mary Chuter at the same church, having children by her, Joseph in 1808 and Mary Hannah in 1810.
In 1825, Eugène Delacroix stayed at Green's address, 14 Charles St, during his visit to London (Stephen Duffy, ‘French artists and the Meyrick armoury', Burlington Magazine, vol.151, May 2009, p.291). The same year Green 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). In his will, made 12 November 1838 and proved 30 May 1840, Joseph Green made bequests to his then wife Ann, his son Joseph and his daughter Mary Hannah.
Joseph Green invoiced the 3rd Duke of Dorset for a large rich ornamental picture frame in 1822, perhaps for a portrait by George Sanders (Kent Record Office, U269, A252/33, information from National Trust files). He supplied a picture frame to the 3rd Earl of Egremont in 1830 (West Sussex Record Office, PHA/10628).
Green worked for a number of artists. Sir William Beechey was employing a ‘Mr Green' in 1826, according to a report of a court case (The Times 5 December 1827). Green or his son undertook work for William Etty and Daniel Maclise in the 1830s and 1840s: for Etty in print framing and for the York exhibition (letter from Green junr, 3 October 1837, York City Library, Etty collection, no.147), and for Maclise framing A Scene from Undine, 1843 (Royal Collection, see Millar 1992 no.486) and later acting as forwarding agent to Thomas Miller for another work by Maclise in 1856 (Royal Academy Library, 236/35/3/a-c).
Descriptions such as 'Greens French foliage' appear in the ledgers of John Smith (qv) from 1812 suggesting that Green was among the sources used by Smith for composition ornaments for his picture frames, whether as a subcontracting supplier or a source of moulds (see also Simon 1996 p.140).
Joseph Green junr 1840-70: The younger Joseph Green appears in the census, in 1851 at 14 Charles St as a carver and gilder, age 43, born Marylebone, employing 11 men, in 1861 at the same address as a gilder employing ten men and an apprentice, and in 1871 apparently housed at the Camberwell lunatic asylum unless this reference is to another individual of the same age, name and parish of birth. In any case, in 1870 the business was trading as Joseph Green & Co, passing to William Augustine Smith (qv) by 1871. Joseph Green is perhaps the individual whose death at the age of 66 was recorded in the Camberwell registration district in December 1873.
Like his father, Green acted as forwarding agent for various provincial exhibiting societies and organisations. As early as 1836 the organisers of the 'York Exhibition of Paintings and Statuary' had selected Joseph Green junr as their agent (York Public Library, William Etty letters, nos 102-3). He acted for the Royal Manchester Institution for many years, his name being given in advertisements for their exhibition (e.g. The Art-Union January 1845 p.28, Liverpool Mercury 5 May 1866); there is a reference in George Price Boyce's diary to ‘Green's man' returning a drawing from the Manchester Institute in 1869 (Virginia Surtees (ed.), The Diaries of George Price Boyce, R.W.S., 1980, p.49). He also acted for the Royal Scottish Academy, as is evident from correspondence concerning their exhibitions in 1844 and 1846 (York Public Library, William Etty letters, no.274, dated 5 January 1844; Royal Scottish Academy, correspondence files, dated 4 February and 12 May 1846). In 1852 and subsequent trade directories, the business was listed as a carving & gilding manufactory and establishment for packing works of art. Green's back workshops were consumed by fire in 1866 (The Times 24 May 1866).
The younger Green established strong links with the Pre-Raphaelites in the 1850s, working for William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, as well as for other artists.
Holman Hunt used Green as his framemaker, possibly from 1852, but certainly from 1854 for the frame of The Awakening Conscience, 1853-4 (Tate), one of his earlier symbolic settings. It retains a label on the back, ‘Joseph Green, 14 Charles Street, Plate Glass Dealer, Carver Gilder, Looking Glass and Fancy Wood Frame Maker', and Hunt's letter to Thomas Combe survives, in which he sets out the inscription he wanted at the bottom of the frame, and even the colours in which Green was to paint it. He wrote in a similar vein in 1855 to Combe, 'I sent you a letter enclosing some sketches and particulars for Mr Green... for the frame of the Scapegoat' (The Scapegoat, 1854-5, 1856, Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988 p.72). Green produced the frames for both versions of The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, framed 1859; Sudley House, Liverpool, framed 1865). These frames are reproduced in the section, ‘Frames', in Bronkhurst 2006, see vol.2, pp.302-3, 314-5, also pp.304-5, 331-3). Hunt appears to have employed Foord & Dickinson (qv) in the early 1860s, but used Green again in 1869, and gave work to W.A. Smith (qv) when he took over the firm.
Rossetti used Green in the 1850s and 1860s, referring to the framemaker as early as 1853 but by 1868 writing of the 'wiseacre who now rules the destinies of "Green's"... His ways are of the shifty and mysterious order' (Fredeman, letters 53.6, 68.119, etc). Green provided a frame for Rossetti's early pencil Self-portrait, 1847 (National Portrait Gallery), with label, 'J. GREEN, Carver and Gilder, 14 Charles Street, Middx Hosptl. Established 1801'. He is documented as framing Sibylla Palmifera in 1868 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, see Bennett 1988 p.171) and from Rossetti's letters it appears that he also framed Ecce Ancilla (Tate) in 1853 (Fredeman, letter 53.7), as well as The Beloved (Tate), Tibullus (private coll.), St George and Princess Sabra, 1862 (Tate, see Fredeman, letter 62.80), and Portrait of Mrs Leathart, 1863 (private coll., see Fredeman, letter 63.16).
Madox Brown wrote in 1863 that he had encouraged Green ‘to employ all or any of my patterns' when reframing King Lear (Tate, see The Pre-Raphaelites, exh.cat., Tate Gallery, 1984, no.16). Later in 1872 he recommended that his portrait, Henry and Millicent Fawcett (National Portrait Gallery), be framed in a Venetian pattern, a variation on a Watts frame, by Messrs Green & Co (Simon 1996, p.174, fig.110). Green may also have worked simultaneously on the three frames for Burne-Jones's triptych, The Adoration of the kings and shepherds (c.1860-61, frame 1862/3, Tate), the design of which is very close to that of Ford Madox Brown's King Lear.
Some of G.F. Watts's work was framed by Green. The business's label as ‘J. GREEN. Carver and Gilder' can be found on the frame now on Watts's Portrait of Garibaldi, 1864 (Watts Gallery, Compton), and a later label, as ‘JOSEPH GREEN & CO., CARVING AND GILDING MANUFACTORY' on the enriched Watts frame of Lady Constance Lothian and her sisters, 1862 (Earl of Ancram).
Green framed Simeon Solomon's Dawn, 1871 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, repr. Stephen Wildman, Visions of Love and Life: Pre-Raphaelite Art from the Birmingham Collection, exh.cat., 1995, p.274).
Sources: This entry contains much information kindly supplied by Lynn Roberts. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Samuel Green, see Henry Critchfield
Green & Stone 1927-1932, Green & Stone Ltd from 1932. At 258a King's Road SW3 1928-1939, 259 King's Road from 1940. Artists' materials suppliers and picture framemakers.
See British artists' suppliers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
William Grisbrook, 11 York Road, Lambeth, London 1864, 154 York Road 1865-1875, 6 Panton St, Haymarket 1876-1907, also trading from various addresses in Lewisham 1884-1901, 69 Endell St, New Oxford St 1908-1925. Print restorer, drawings restorer and mounter, picture restorer and framemaker, printseller and art dealer.
See British picture restorers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
*Grundy & Fox 1827-1831, John Clowes Grundy 1831-1834, Grundy & Goadsby by 1836-1838, John Clowes Grundy 1838-1867, Grundy & Smith 1868-1903 or later. At 25 St Ann's Square, Manchester 1827-1829, 15 Exchange St 1829, 4 Exchange St by 1831-1903 or later. Carvers, gilders, barometer and looking glass makers, artists' colourmen, later printsellers, publishers and picture dealers.
John Clowes Grundy (1806-1867) was a leading Manchester printseller in the mid-19th century. He was christened at St Peter, Bolton Le Moors, Lancashire in 1806. Describing himself as late an assistant of Messrs Zanetti & Agnew (qv), he announced that he had set up in business in partnership with Charles Fox, artists' colourman of Market St, as Grundy & Fox, carvers and gilders, colourmen to artists, printsellers and opticians (Manchester Guardian 28 April 1827). As Grundy & Fox, the business advertised their fancy repository of drawing materials, including Ackermann's and Newman's superfine watercolours, Turnbull's London drawing boards, Whatman's superior drawing paper, Brookman & Langdon's drawing pencils, Brown's bladder colours, among other products (Manchester Guardian 28 April 1827). The business also offered to clean, line and restore pictures, and featuring ‘An extensive Collection of Modern Engravings, Prints for Scrap Books &c, Works of Art as soon as Published' (Pigot & Son's General Directory of Manchester, Salford &c for 1829).
Grundy's partnership with Charles Fox, trading as Grundy & Fox, sometimes described as Fox & Grundy, carvers and gilders, stationers, fancy stationers, printsellers and artists' colourmen, at 25 St Anne's Square, Manchester in 1828, was dissolved in May 1831 (DEFM; London Gazette 31 May 1831). Charles Fox went on to trade independently as an artists' colourman.
Grundy's subsequent partnership with Charles Goadsby, trading as Grundy & Goadsby, was dissolved in March 1838 (London Gazette 6 March 1838). The business had an account with the artists' suppliers, Roberson, 1828-1903, successively as Grundy & Fox, 1828-31, J.C. Grundy and, from c.1868, Grundy & Smith (Woodcock 1997). Other members of the Grundy family were active in art dealing (Chapel 2008 p.66).
In 1853 Grundy was listed as ‘print-seller and publisher, carver and gilder, artists' colourman, fancy stationer, picture and plate glass dealer, and repository of arts', and in 1863 as ‘ancient and modern print seller to Her Majesty, picture frame manufacturer, artists' colourman, dealer in pictures, water-colour drawings and articles of vertu'. Grundy died in London in June 1867 at the age of 60. Through Christie's, his executors held a sale of his modern paintings and drawings and engravings (The Times 1 November 1867), including his private collection removed from Cliff House, Higher Broughton.
Grundy's frame trade label, as found on William Scott's Robert Moffat, 1842 (National Portrait Gallery), described the business as 'J.C. Grundy. Carver, Gilder & Printseller To The Queen. Repository of Arts, 4, Exchange Street, Manchester'. Grundy & Smith's label is found on Andrew MacCallum's The River of Life, 1850 (Manchester Art Gallery, information from Lynn Roberts). For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
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