Institution:

Royal Institute of British Architects

Institutional Internal Reference Code:

MOD/GIBBS/2

Title:

Design model for St Mary-le-Strand, London, by Janes Gibbs, c. 1715.

Date of creation:

c. 1715

Extent and basic medium:

1 model

Name of creator(s):

Maker Unknown

Administrative / contextual / biographical history:

St Mary-le-Strand was James Gibbs’s first work and built uner the 1711 Act for the Fifty New Churches. Work began in 1714 and the church was consecrated 10 years later. The RIBA has two models for the church, one very clearly for working out Gibbs’s ideas for the church and in a fragmentary state (MOD/GIBB/1) and this model, which appears to be the presentation model of the final design for the church.

Provenance / archival ownership history:

Presumably a gift to John Cecil, 6th Earl of Exeter, a churchwarden and the richest man in the parish; thence by descent to David George Brownlow Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented to the the RIBA by the 6th Marquess of Exeter, 1980.

Conditions governing access:

Open access

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright RIBA Collections.

Materials, physical characteristics and technical requirements:

Pine and boxwood.

Finding aids available:

RIBA Library catalogue:
http://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=OqG8CpktBX/MAIN_CAT/X/60/53/X

Bibliographic note:

Terry Friedman, James Gibbs (New Haven, 1984), pp.45-6, figs. 15 and 18; Henry A. Millon, ed., The Triumph of the Baroque; architecture in Europe 1600-1750,1999, no.252, pp.500-1; Michael snodin and nigel Llewellyn, eds., Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence, (2009), pp.218 (reprd) and 332.

Cataloguing rules or conventions followed:

AACR2

Exhibition / display history:

Turin, Palazzo Stupinigi, Montreal, Museum of Fine Art, Marseille, Musee des Beaux Arts, The Triumph of the Baroque; architecture in Europe 1600-1750,1999-2000, pp.182-3; on loan to London, Victoria & Albert Museum, British Galleries, since 2000.

Subjects (Getty Art & Arch Thesaurus):

Models & model-making; architectural/Churches; Great Britain; England; London; Westminster; St Mary-le-Strand

Locations:

Aldwych, London, UK.

Names:

James Gibbs (1682-1754)