Fine Craftsmanship
JUNE 2012
Benjamin Cheverton (1794–1876) in the Thomson Collection: Artist in Ivory
200 pages, paperback, 280 x 240 mm, 200 colour illustrations
PRICE: £30.00
ISBN: 978 1 907372 31 5
By J.C. Cheverton Shrewsbury and Anthony Burton
From this detailed examination of his life, English sculptor Benjamin Cheverton emerges as an exceptionally talented and interesting man, operating effectively in the fields of both science and art in the early Victorian period. His principal 'profession' was as a maker of reduced-size sculpture, mostly in ivory. Whilst he was not a creative sculptor, nor even a journeyman carver, his sculptures – products of technical ingenuity, made by a machine which he, as an inventor, perfected – are of very high quality. It is for these elaborately neat busts that he is chiefly remembered. As quite a large number of his letters and papers have been preserved by Cheverton's family, it has been possible to give some impression of the texture of his life, and to place him, both geographically and intellectually, in early Victorian London. The family papers also enable us to accompany him on his foreign travel, a six-month-long not-so-Grand Tour in France, Spain and Italy, in 1821.
This revealing biography accompanies a catalogue of an outstanding assemblage of over 200 of his busts made by the collector Kenneth Thomson (the 2nd Lord Thomson of Fleet), which are on display in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada.
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Stained glass was unknown in antiquity. Invented around AD 1000, it soon achieved a dominant position in the arts of the Middle Ages, not only in churches but also in secular contexts. Its innovation can be compared with that of television – and like television it involves passing light through a transparent layer, using the light of sun instead of light generated by electricity, so that in a real sense the stained glass image is in constant motion, as the light passing through it changes. More
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Made from scraps and slivers of wood, ivory, bone, stag-antler and metal, netsuke developed from a simple utilitarian toggle worn at the belt into a fine art. Some of it made geniuses. This book brings together prime examples of these delightful treasures – a rare and perfectly formed horse by Masanao of Kyoto; an extraordinary Ashinaga and Tenaga by Totenko; a fine study of a running boar with a snake upon its back, a masterpiece by Naito Toyomasa. More
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Since the early Bronze Age the sword has been a sign of wealth, status and the power of divine right. Yet, before the sixteenth century the sword was almost never carried on the person in everyday life. It was a rare, noble weapon, carried into battle by the aristocratic warrior class but set aside in time of peace. However, the increasing prominence of the Renaissance middle classes brought a fundamental change to the sword's place in society. Now large numbers of non-noble but often wealthy and upwardly mobile people could also afford rich things like fine clothes, jewelry and weapons. More
