2.2 Stone’s Career in England
Stone’s career prospered. We know about it mainly thanks to the survival of two documents, both preserved in the Sir John Soane Museum in London. The first is a Note Book covering the years 1614-1641. This appears to have been compiled towards the end of Stone’s life and is a kind of autobiography, listing what he considered to be his most important works, and a scattering of other, more personal information. The second document is an Account Book which was kept in his workshop. This covers a shorter period, 1631-1642 but it provides more detail, in particular about the prices he charged and the subcontracts into which he entered. The two documents were published by The Walpole Society in London, just over a hundred years ago, in 1918-1819.1 We know that they do not provide a complete account of what Stone did, even when taken together,2 but there is a wealth of information in them, far greater than we have for any other British sculptor or master mason of his time.
The Notebook opens with these words, ‘In June 1614 I bargained with Sir Walter Butler for to make a tomb for the Earl of Ormonde and to set it up in Ireland for the which I had well payed me … ‘ £230.3 This monument, commemorating Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde in St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny was the most prestigious commission available to any London sculptor at the time, and here it is, being awarded to a young man who had only just arrived in the capital and had very recently established his own workshop. How did he get it? The influence of Hendrick de Keyser must have played a part. An Anglo-Netherlandish network of artists existed at this time and, at this early stage of his career Stone was already a part of it. We catch a glimpse of Stone’s early married life in London from a document in the Amsterdam city archives concerning a portrait which was sent in 1616 by the Dutch painter Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) to Stone in London. It represented a Dutch sculptor and master mason, Willem Cuijr or William Cure I (1514/15-1579) who had settled in England a hundred years previously and it was to be given to William Cure II (died 1632) Cure’s grandson.4 The younger Cure was Master Mason in the Office of the King’s Works, the royal building department. He also styled himself the King’s Master Sculptor, though there is no evidence that he was ever appointed to a post carrying that title.5 Fortunately for Stone, the younger Cure was an unsatisfactory royal official. His superior officer, the famous architect Inigo Jones, complained of his negligence and Stone was able effectively to supplant him.6 When in 1619 a new Banqueting House was begun at Whitehall Palace for royal entertainments and diplomatic receptions, it was Stone and not Cure who was put in charge of the building works, executing Jones’s designs [7].7 Stone did other work for the king, too, all delegated by Jones with whom he formed a close professional relationship.8 This meant that when Cure died in 1632, Stone was perfectly placed to succeed him, which he duly did, and he held the office for the rest of his life.
7
Hendrick Danckerts
Palace of Whitehall from Saint James’s Park, c. 1674-1676
London (England), Government Art Collection, no. 12211
The Whitehall Banqueting House is shown on the far left.
This sequence of events meant that by the early 1630’s Stone held, in London, the equivalent offices to those previously held by Hendrick de Keyser in Amsterdam. The two families stayed in touch. In April 1624 Stone acted as a witness at the baptism of Hendrick’s grandson Gerrit, the child of his daughter Machtelt (Margreet) de Keyser and her husband Lenart Geens, in Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk.9
Notes
1 Published in Spiers 1918-1919.
2 For instance, the monument to Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley (1636) in St Dunstan’s church, Cranford, London, which is a fully authenticated work of Stone’s, is not mentioned in either his Notebook or his Account Book (White 1999, p. 123).
3 The payment was made in two instalments, the first, of £100.00, when the tomb was commissioned and the second, of £130.00, when it was set up in the cathedral (Spiers 1918-1919, p. 38).
4 Amsterdam, Stadsarchief, inventory number NA 40-178 (notary J. Gijsberti). I am grateful to Mr Ruud Koopmans for this reference.
5 White 1999, p. 44.
6 White 1999, p. 44. The complaint was made by Jones and Thomas Baldwin, the Comptroller (Treasurer) of the King’s Works.
7 Colvin 1963-1982, vol. 4, p. 328-334, particularly p. 332.
8 On Jones’s official career as Surveyor of the King’s Works: Colvin 1963-1982, vol.3, p.129-159.
9 Stadsarchief, Amsterdam, inventory number DTB 6-80; reference kindly supplied by Mr Ruud Koopmans.