Interior. Detail of door and surround in first floor dining room.

Description Interior. Detail of door and surround in first floor dining room.

Date 5/1995

Catalogue Number SC 772432

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 54066

Scope and Content Detail of dining room, Newbattle Abbey House, Midlothian This shows the panelled door in the dining room, with an oil painting of cattle in a landscape above it. The walls are panelled to the right of the door, and include a finely-carved decorative panel depicting a hanging game bird, fruit and flowers attributed to the sculptor Grinling Gibbons (1648-1720). The Corinthian column and other woodwork in the room were the work of the estate carpenter. Grinling Gibbons was discovered by the courtier, connoisseur and diarist John Evelyn in the winter of 1670 working in a 'poore solitary thatched cottage' on a carving after Tintoretto's 'Crucifixion'. He was introduced to court and within a few years was decorating fine houses, churches and royal palaces with his technically brilliant and beautiful naturalistic limewood carvings. Newbattle Abbey was founded by Cistercian monks in 1140, and its church dedicated to St Mary in 1233-4. It became a private residence in 1587 when the last abbot, Mark Kerr, converted to Protestantism and was able to retain his lands. His son became Lord Newbattle in 1596. The remains of the abbey are built into the surviving house, which was modified and rebuilt by the architects John Mylne (1650), William Burn (1836) and David Bryce (1858). The house was gifted to the nation in 1937 to be used as a further education college. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/772432

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap