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17th April 2010
news
The Gibbons of Louth revived
IN his day the work of the Lincolnshire woodcarver Thomas Wilkinson Wallis (1822-1903), who set up business in Louth in 1843, was favourably compared with that of the most famous English woodcarver of all, Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721).
Working initially in pipe clay and wire,
Wallis would make a detailed model of his subjects (typically dead game birds and foliage) before applying his extraordinary talent to a single block of limewood. He won gold medals at the Great Exhibition of 1851. There have been two recent
opportunities to inspect at close quarters Wallis’s remarkable ability to mould and shape wood. The Ailsa Woodcock, commissioned in 1854 by the Marquis of Ailsa, for Cassilis Castle, Ayrshire, is a new acquisition for the Louth Museum. The Lincolnshire museum owns the largest cache of Wallis carvings on public display. In his autobiography, published in
1899, Wallis notes that he was paid £40 for this 2ft 7in (78cm) carving. Some 15 years ago, when the staff at the Louth Museum began researching the present locations of all the carvings mentioned in the autobiography, they were delighted to learn that the woodcock was still at Cassilis Castle. It was of particular interest as the museum owned the clay maquette for this model. However, unbeknown to the museum, on the death of the wife of the 7th Marquis of Cassilis, it was sold along with the house contents in July 2009 by Edinburgh saleroom Shapes. It made £1150 (estimate £300-500). The Louth Museum Society learnt of the sale in ATG and embarked upon a
Above left: the Ailsa Woodcock by Thomas Wilkinson Wallis commissioned in 1854 by the Marquis of Ailsa, is now on permanent display at the Louth Museum (Tel. 01507 601211). The pipe clay model for this work, left,is already in the museum’s collection.
Above right: signed and dated 1856, this limewood group of three birds by Thomas Wilkinson Wallis sold for £15,000 at Tennants of Leyburn on March 27.
hunt to acquire the carving. When they tracked down the purchaser, an Edinburgh dealer, the piece had already been sold on to London’s Anthony Outred Antiques. The Pimlico Road dealer offered it to the museum for a special price of £5500. The Art Fund agreed to support half of the purchase but – so impressed were they by the quality of the object – they ended up funding the full cost in celebration of the museum’s centenary in 2010.
It joins on permanent display other
Wallis carvings (including Heron with Bulrush and Ivy bought for £11,644 in 2008) and a self-portrait painted by Wallis towards the end of his career. When failing eyesight put an end to carving in
his 50s, he taught himself surveying and became Borough Surveyor of Louth. The sum paid by Louth Museum for the woodcock was put in perspective when another Thomas Wilkinson Wallis limewood carving appeared for sale at Tennants of Leyburn on March 27. Standing 23in (59cm) high, this still life depicted a group of three birds – a warbler, a chaffinch and a snipe – suspended by ‘twine’ from a stump of blackthorn. To the rockwork base, signed and dated 1856, are the two snail shells that are something of a Wallis trademark. Estimated at £2000-3000, it sold at £15,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium).
Roland Arkell
Glasgow gives a future to textile conservation
A NEW textile conservation centre – the first of its kind in the UK – is to be established at the University of Glasgow. The Textile Conservation Centre Foundation (TCCF) and the University of Glasgow have agreed to found the new teaching and research facility following the closure of the Textile Conservation Centre in Winchester. The new centre will focus on multi- disciplinary object-based teaching and research that encompasses conservation and the physical sciences as well as art history, dress and textile history. The centre will inherit existing library intellectual property and analytical equipment from the TCCF, so that staff and future students will be able to draw
on the key physical and intellectual assets built up over more than 30 years. Students will also have the opportunity to work with some of the best textile collections in the world held by Glasgow Museums, the National Museums of Scotland and the University’s own Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery. Meanwhile, new academic posts will
be created and the centre will work closely with the foundation to establish a global research network in textile conservation, textile and dress history and technical art history.
The first student intake is planned for September 2010 offering a two-year Masters in Textile Conservation and a one- year Masters in Dress and Textile History
as well as opportunities for doctoral research. These new courses will join the existing Masters programme in Technical Art History, Making and Meaning, as part of the centre.
The foundation is also offering a limited number of bursaries in the first years of the textile conservation programme and a fundraising campaign is already underway to raise further funds for the new development including additional studentships and new research projects.
Potential students who would like to
A.Boyd@arthist.arts.gla.ac.uk.
LAPADA conference set for Waddesdon Manor on April 21
THE second LAPADA conference, sponsored by ATG, is set for April 21 at Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. Waddesdon, the Renaissance- style château designed by French architect Destailleur in 1874 for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to display his vast and exceptional art collection, should provide an ideal bacdrop for this year’s guest speakers, Dr Claire McAndrew and Sarah Farrugia. Dr McAndrew (Economic Consulting Services and author of this year’s TEFAF report) will present an overview of art market trends, growth areas for collectors and data for emerging markets. Sarah Farrugia is a retail marketing consultant who readers may remember from the
Art of Dealingconference in
2005. She will be looking at how dealers have responded and changed the way they present their businesses over the last five years, focusing on how they can better engage with customers in the current retail climate, especially in the luxury brand sector.
The lectures will be followed
by a reception during which members will be able to speak with some of LAPADA’s service providers who will also be attending.
After lunch there will be guided tours of the house and gardens. Optional extras include overnight stay, wine tasting in the Rothschild cellars and a pub supper at the local establishment owned by the estate.
Co sponsors include Cadogan
drhodes@lapada.org. The first LAPADA conference was held at Blenheim Palace last year.
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