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Arnold Quellin's Statues at Glamis Castle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

M. R. Apted
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Summary

On 23rd December 1685 Arnold Quellin, Carver, signed an agreement with Patrick, Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, to provide statues of the four Stuart kings and a bust of the Earl himself, to be completed by 1st June the following year for a fee of £160. Although Quellin died in September 1686, the contract was evidently completed since all four statues and the bust are recorded at Glamis Castle in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Two of the statues, the James I and Charles I, as well as the bust are still at the castle today. Of the missing statues, one, the James II, is known from an engraving to resemble closely the James attributed to Grinling Gibbons which now stands in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, itself one of a series of statues of monarchs depicted as Roman conquerors. The other, the Charles II, may possibly have been similar to the Quellin Charles now at the Guildhall.

The document and statues provide new evidence of a sculptor popular in his day, whose reputation has been largely obscured by the fame of his master, Grinling Gibbons.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 53 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1984

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References

1 Defoe, D.. A Tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain divided into Circuits or Journies, III (1827), pp. 166–7.Google Scholar In subsequent editions the description of Glamis was altered and reduced.

2 Glamis Charter room, Box 61, Bundle 6. Noted in Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: National Register of Archives (Scotland), Ref. NRA (Scot) 0885. Earl of Strathmore Muniments p. 44. See Appendix A for transcription.

3 Longleat Thynne Papers, XXII, folio 247r. There are four statues on the roof at Longleat which, it has been suggested, could have been the work of Quellin: ‘Longleat II’, Country Life, 15 April 1949, p. 866Google Scholar.

4 Gunnis, R., Dictionary of British Sculpture 1530-1830 (London, 1951; revd. 1964).Google Scholar

5 Whinney, M. and Millar, O., Oxford History of English Art, VIII, 1625-1714 (1957), pp. 270–1;Google Scholar also Murray, E. Croft, Decorative Painting in England, I, 1537-1837 (1962), p. 225.Google Scholar Quellin was working for Gibbons at Windsor in 1679: Colvin, H. M., History of the Kings Works, v, 1660-1782, p. 320Google Scholar.

6 P.R.O. Ref. PROB II/384.

7 Ibid., Ref. PROB 7/79/006638.

8 This plate is now at Glamis. A second engraving, purporting to be of Glamis Castle, in fact depicts Dalkeith, where the original drawing, correctly captioned, is still to be seen. Cf. R.C.A.M.H.B. (Scotland) Inventory for Midlothian and W. Lothian, fig. 92. This was not known to McGibbon and Ross when they wrote their account of Glamis Castle: Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, II (1887), p. 114Google Scholar.

9 John Elphinstone, Engineer. ‘The Front of the Castle of Glammiss to the South’. British Library, K XLIX 23a. This was presumably the John Elphinstone who was the second son of Charles, 9th Lord Elphinstone, 1706-53 (cf. Scots Peerage, III, p. 545).

10 Quoted in McGibbon, and Ross, , op. cit. (n.8)Google Scholar.

11 Grose, Francis, Antiquities of Scotland, II (1791), pp. 245–6 and plates.Google Scholar

12 McGibbon, and Ross, , op. cit. (n. 8).Google Scholar

13 See Appendix B.

14 Whinney, M., Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830 (London, 1964), pp. 51–9.Google Scholar

15 Defoe, , op cit. (n. 1),Google Scholar Dublin edn. 1746, p. 172.

16 Esdaile, E. and Toynbee, M., ‘More light on “English” Quellin’, Trans. London& Middlesex Arch. Soc. xix (1958), pp. 34–43.Google Scholar

17 Whinney, , op. cit. (n. 14).Google Scholar

18 Walpole Society, xxvi (Vertue Notebooks v) (1937–1938), p. 59.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., pp. 58-9.

20 Gunnis, , op. cit. (n. 4).Google Scholar

21 Walpole Society, xxiv (1935–1936) (Vertue Notebooks IV), p. 35.Google Scholar For Tower Street see Survey of London, v, Parish of St. Giles in the Fields, 2 (1914), pp. 112–13 and note p. 113.Google Scholar

22 Walpole Society, xxiv (1935–1936) (Vertue Notebooks IV), p. 35.Google Scholar

23 Walpole Society, xxii (1933–1934) (Vertue Notebooks III), pp. 85–6.Google Scholar

24 Royal Exchange—Edward IV, Edward V, Henry VII, Charles II and Sir John Cutler. Royal Physicians—Charles II and Sir John Cutler. See Esdaile, and Toynbee, , op. cit. (n. 16).Google Scholar

25 Walpole Society, xxiv (1935–1936) (Vertue Notebooks IV), p. 35.Google Scholar

26 Walpole Society, xxvi (1937–1938) (Vertue Notebooks v), p. 58.Google Scholar

27 Walpole Society, xviii (1929–1930) (Vertue Notebooks 1), p. 61.Google Scholar See also ibid. xxiv (1935-6) (Vertue Notebooks) IV, p. 50.

28 For a full discussion of this problem see Whinney, op. cit. (n. 14).Google Scholar For a summary of the evidence about the Whitehall James see Colvin, , op. cit. (n. 5), p. 293.Google Scholar See also Bedford, W. R. K., ‘The Stuart statues from the workshops of Grinling Gibbons’, Home Counties Mag. v (1903), pp. 150–Google Scholar, and Murray, E. Croft and Hulton, P., Catalogue of British Drawings, I, British Museum (1960), pp. 333–6, pl. 136Google Scholar.