Column
1600-1620 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Object Type
Although its original use is uncertain, this column may have formed part of a staircase newel post or the external decoration of a house.
Place
This column came from Paignton in Devon. Exeter, the county's leading city, was a centre of woodcarving and joinery, and amongst the most famous workshops were those of the Garrett and Hermon families. Decoration in the style of Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-?1606) and other North European engravers, copied from imported prints and books, was often found in houses belonging to urban merchants and the landed gentry.
Subjects Depicted
The column represents the story of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Adam holds a spade for his toil, whilst Eve holds an apple and the hair of a serpent with the facial features of a woman; it was the serpent who tempted her to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Design & Designers
The column is a mixture of vernacular carving and classicial ornament. Caryatids, upright figures surmounted with the capital of a column, recurred in European engravings, such as those of Hans Vredeman de Vries. The column itself is sufficiently correct to suggest some knowledge of prints after the treatise of the 16th-century Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio. However the figures are carved in a vernacular and totally unclassical style.
Although its original use is uncertain, this column may have formed part of a staircase newel post or the external decoration of a house.
Place
This column came from Paignton in Devon. Exeter, the county's leading city, was a centre of woodcarving and joinery, and amongst the most famous workshops were those of the Garrett and Hermon families. Decoration in the style of Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-?1606) and other North European engravers, copied from imported prints and books, was often found in houses belonging to urban merchants and the landed gentry.
Subjects Depicted
The column represents the story of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Adam holds a spade for his toil, whilst Eve holds an apple and the hair of a serpent with the facial features of a woman; it was the serpent who tempted her to eat from the tree of knowledge.
Design & Designers
The column is a mixture of vernacular carving and classicial ornament. Caryatids, upright figures surmounted with the capital of a column, recurred in European engravings, such as those of Hans Vredeman de Vries. The column itself is sufficiently correct to suggest some knowledge of prints after the treatise of the 16th-century Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio. However the figures are carved in a vernacular and totally unclassical style.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Oak, carved, with gesso and traces of pigmentation |
| Brief description | Adam and Eve column, 1600-1620, Devon |
| Physical description | Column. Below a Corinthian capital, on the obverse a figure of Adam, the hair and beard treated linearly, the crooked right arm holding before him a fruit, the pendent left arm holding a spare upright, the lower limbs skirted. On the reverse, Eve, the crooked left arm clasping a distaff before her and in the hand holding an apple, the lower limbs occluded by branches of an apple-tree intertwined with a scaly woman-headed serpent, of which the tail is held in the right hand. |
| Dimensions |
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| Gallery label | British Galleries:
The design of this column depicts the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Such scenes continued to be used in house decoration long after the Reformation forbade imagery in churches. The figures show all the vigour of traditional wood-carving, but also Renaissance forms such as the capital to the column, that the carver must have seen in published prints.(27/03/2003) |
| Credit line | Given by Mr Alfred Copleston |
| Object history | Given by A. Copleston, Esq. Probably made in Devon for the exterior of a house. Post carved with two figures of Adam & Eve, gift of A Copleston, Paignton, Devon Notes from R.P. 59/1985 16 June 1959, W A Thorpe memo to Molesworth suggests accepting the figures as gifts. Based on the photographs he describes them as "engaging exterior wood figures from the front of a building…with a Celtic linear feeling (Adam hair). In quality of carving they look rather the counterpart of the (Devon man?). John Abbot's plaster work sketch book for interiors and actual plaster of Devon farmhouses etc." 26 July 1959, letter Copleston to Thorpe arranges transport. He explains he has removed the modern base that is visible in the photos. The whole figure was treated with clear cuprinol but is otherwise in the condition he received it. August 1959 A new plinth for the peg at the base of the post is made at the Museum and Thorpe requests the views of the conservation department on the "dirty condition of the surface". |
| Summary | Object Type Although its original use is uncertain, this column may have formed part of a staircase newel post or the external decoration of a house. Place This column came from Paignton in Devon. Exeter, the county's leading city, was a centre of woodcarving and joinery, and amongst the most famous workshops were those of the Garrett and Hermon families. Decoration in the style of Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-?1606) and other North European engravers, copied from imported prints and books, was often found in houses belonging to urban merchants and the landed gentry. Subjects Depicted The column represents the story of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Adam holds a spade for his toil, whilst Eve holds an apple and the hair of a serpent with the facial features of a woman; it was the serpent who tempted her to eat from the tree of knowledge. Design & Designers The column is a mixture of vernacular carving and classicial ornament. Caryatids, upright figures surmounted with the capital of a column, recurred in European engravings, such as those of Hans Vredeman de Vries. The column itself is sufficiently correct to suggest some knowledge of prints after the treatise of the 16th-century Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio. However the figures are carved in a vernacular and totally unclassical style. |
| Bibliographic reference | Sam Smiles, Susan Flavin, West Country to world's end : the South West in the Tudor age, 2013, p.27
Notes familarity with de Vries and Sebastiano Serlio. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | W.25-1959 |
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| Record created | March 27, 2003 |
| Record URL |
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