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David Prout

(b London, Dec 2, 1827; d London, April 20, 1881).

English architect and designer. His flamboyant and original High Victorian architectural style was influenced by French 13th-century Gothic, but he drew also on sources of many other periods. He is best known for his work at Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch for his patron, the Marquess of Bute. His designs for the decorative arts, particularly furniture and metalwork, are equally inventive and elaborate. He was friendly with the leaders of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, employing a number of Pre-Raphaelite artists and craftsmen in his decorative work.

He was the eldest son of Alfred Burges, a marine engineer and partner of James Walker (1781–1862). Walker & Burges were government engineers for many military and civil projects. Alfred Burges was immensely successful and the family wealth later enabled William to be selective in his commissions.

William Burges attended King’s College School, London, from 1839; here he was a contemporary of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and studied under ...

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Peter Kurmann

[incorrectly Stehaimer]

(b Burghausen, c. 1355–60; d Landshut, Aug 10, 1432).

German architect. He was the most important architect of the German-speaking area in the late 14th century and the early 15th, and the founder of the tradition of Late Gothic hall churches in south Germany that lasted over a century and a half. Documentary sources are scarce: the earliest possible reference is in 1389, when ‘Master Hans’ is mentioned as master builder of the church of St Martin at Landshut, in a context indicating that he had already held this office for several years. On the assumption that he was then a mature man, he was probably trained in the builders’ lodge of the large town church of St Jakob, Burghausen, which was built from 1360. Some features of his main work, St Martin at Landshut, suggest that he must have been familiar with the stylistic repertory of the cathedral lodge in Prague under Peter Parler (see Parler family, §3...

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Chris Brooks

(b London, Sept 7, 1814; d London, Feb 23, 1900).

English architect and designer. He committed his feelings and creative energies to the High Anglicanism of the Oxford Movement from the early 1840s and to its expression through the revival of Gothic architecture and design, then vociferously advocated by the Ecclesiological Society, of which he became an active member. Butterfield’s extensive output was almost exclusively confined to the building and restoration of churches and associated buildings, such as vicarages and schools.

He was the eldest son of a London chemist, and his parents were Nonconformists. From 1831 to 1833 Butterfield was articled to a Pimlico builder, Thomas Arber, from whom he must have derived the detailed understanding of practical building that was to be basic to his architectural practice. Between 1833 and 1836 he was the pupil of E. L. Blackburne, a London architect with strong antiquarian interests, and in 1838–9 he became assistant to a Worcester architect, probably Harvey Eginton, whose practice included church building and restoration. During this period Butterfield must have begun to acquire the profound knowledge of medieval architecture that was to underlie all his work. In ...

Article

G. Gaeta Bertelà

(b Lyon, April 22, 1827; d Florence, Sept 21, 1888).

French collector. His father Jean-Baptiste Carrand (1792–1871) was a collector of medieval and Renaissance decorative objects (Byzantine and Gothic ivories, Renaissance maiolica, enamelwork, arms, bronzes and coins) and a connoisseur of manuscripts and documents, first in Lyon and then in Paris, where Louis worked in partnership with him. Their most prestigious purchases were some early medieval and Gothic ivory pieces and the famous flabellum (9th century, court of Charles the Bald) from the Benedictine abbey of Tournus in Burgundy. In 1867 they exhibited ivories, bronzes, arms, wood-carvings and secular gold items in the Exposition Universelle, Paris. After his father’s death Louis continued to enlarge the collection. In particular he added early medieval and Renaissance textiles. In 1880 he moved to Nice and in 1881 to Pisa, where he remained until 1886, continuing to buy artefacts not only from French and Italian sales but also from England, Germany, Greece and Turkey. In ...

Article

Nancy Mowll Mathews

(Stevenson)

(b Allegheny City [now in Pittsburgh], May 22, 1844; d Le Mesnil-Théribus, France, Jun 14, 1926).

American painter and printmaker, active in France. One of the great American expatriates of the later 19th century (along with Sargent and Whistler), Cassatt was an active member of the Impressionist group in Paris and carved out a lasting international reputation for her famous “modern” representations of the mother and child (see fig.). Because of her success, her life and art have been closely examined to gain a better understanding of how gender affects artists during their lifetimes and afterwards in historical perspective.

Daughter of a Pittsburgh broker, Mary Stevenson Cassatt received a cultured upbringing and spent five years abroad as a child (1851–1855). In 1860, at the age of 16, she began classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and in 1865 sailed again for Europe. During the next four years she studied in and around Paris with such notables as Jean-Léon Gérôme...

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Gordon Campbell

Article

Adriano Ghisetti Giavarina

(di Marco)

(b Venice, fl ?1458–76).

Italian sculptor and architect. He was active in Romagna and the Marches, working in a transitional style between Gothic and Renaissance, influenced by Venetian taste. His first known work is the signed, but undated low stone relief depicting the Lion of St Mark (c. 1458–60) set into the brickwork over the entrance to the Rocca Brancaleone at Ravenna. In 1462 he was at Amandola, in the Marches, and was then called to the nearby town of Fermo to execute a commission (probably the Late Gothic mixtilinear arch that frames the entrance to the Euffreducci Chapel in the church of S Francesco). In 1465 he completed the door, in Istrian stone and Red Verona marble, of Forlì Cathedral (removed 1841; reconstructed with slight modifications in 1915 for the façade of the Carmelite church), the decorative style of which derives from Renaissance Tuscany. In 1468 he created a portal for the church of S Agostino, Amandola, which combines Romanesque and Late Gothic elements....

Article

(b Leicester, 1831-06-21; d Birmingham, 1883-10-22).

English architect. He was a pupil of H. Goddard (1792–1868) in Leicester and moved to Birmingham in 1856 where he became the foremost late 19th-century Gothic Revival architect. He was closely associated with the ideas of Joseph Chamberlain (who was no relation) and the Liberal party. He was also an ardent disciple of Ruskin and became trustee of Ruskin’s Guild of St George. From 1865 to 1883 he was Secretary of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, for whom he designed an extension (1880; destr. 1966) to E. M. Barry’s original building. Chamberlain favoured a strong, geometric Gothic style, using industrially produced materials such as red brick, terracotta, encaustic tiles and cast iron in his buildings. His first works, a shop in Union Street (1857; destr.) and Eld House (c. 1858) in Edgbaston, were both for his uncle. The polychromatic Venetian style of the house was in sharp contrast to the classical stucco buildings of that area. From ...

Article

Luc Verpoest

(b Feluy, Jan 10, 1849; d Ghent, Jan 11, 1920).

Belgian architect and writer. He trained as a civil engineer under Adolphe Pauli at the Ecole Spéciale de Génie Civil of the State University of Ghent. As a student he came into contact with the Belgian Gothic Revival movement centred on Jean-Baptiste Bethune and the St Luke School in Ghent, founded by Bethune in 1862. From 1874 Cloquet worked with the publishers Desclée. His early architectural work was similar to that of Bethune, Joris Helleputte and the first generation of St Luke architects. His most important projects were built around the turn of the century: the University Institutes (1896–1905), Ghent, and the Central Post Office (1897–1908), Ghent, the latter with Etienne Mortier (1857–1934), a pupil of Helleputte. In them Cloquet adopted a more eclectic though still predominantly medieval style, also introducing Renaissance motifs. Between 1904 and 1911 he designed a redevelopment plan for the historic centre of Ghent, between the early 14th-century belfry and the 15th-century church of St Michael, known as the Kuip, which was realized before the Ghent World Fair of ...

Article

Christopher Welander

Spanish family of architects and sculptors of German descent. The Colonia family dominated the artistic life of Burgos for a century. (1) Juan de Colonia was responsible for importing Late Gothic architecture into the region; (2) Simón de Colonia naturalized and exploited it; and, as Renaissance art became fashionable (3) Francisco de Colonia preserved it. The influence of the family was considerable; for example the Portada del Nacimiento, Salamanca New Cathedral (1513–31), by Juan Gil de Hontañon is deeply indebted to their façade designs.

(fl 1449; d 1481).

He is documented in Burgos from 13 September 1449, but it is assumed that he was brought to Castile by Alonso de Cartagena, Bishop of Burgos, to design his sepulchral chapel, the Capilla de la Visitación (1440–42) in the cathedral. They may have met when Bishop Alonso attended the Council of Basle. Juan is referred to as ‘Master of the Works’ of the cathedral in ...

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Malcolm Thurlby

(b Limerick, 1840; d Toronto, Dec 13, 1904).

Canadian architect of Irish birth. He trained in the architectural office, in Dublin, of J. J. McCarthy, who was known as the Irish Pugin from his mastery of the Gothic Revival style. Connolly served as McCarthy’s chief assistant, made a European study tour and by 1871 was in practice in Dublin. In 1873 he moved to Toronto and formed a partnership with Silas James, which was dissolved in 1877. Connolly designed or remodelled more than 30 churches for Roman Catholic patrons in Ontario as well as the cathedral at Sault-Sainte-Marie, MI. He worked primarily according to the ecclesiological doctrines contained in A. W. N. Pugin’s True Principles (1841). His finest work, the church of Our Lady (1876) at Guelph, combines the plan of Cologne Cathedral with its ambulatory and radiating chapel, with details inspired by McCarthy’s Monaghan Cathedral, St Macartan’s (begun 1861). Variants on the Guelph design occur at St Peter’s (...

Article

Maria Cristina Chiusa

Italian family of painters. (1) Lorenzo Costa (i) was one of the leading artists of the school of Ferrara. His work is a link between the Late Gothic style of Cosimo Tura and that of the High Renaissance. His son (2) Ippolito Costa spent ten years as an artist at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. (3) Lorenzo Costa (ii) was probably the son of Ippolito and, except for a period in Rome, spent most of his career in Mantua, particularly working on decorations in the Palazzo Ducale.

(b Ferrara, c. 1460; d Mantua, March 5, 1535).

He was the son of a painter, Giovanni Battista (?)Costa, and he received his early training in the studio of Ercole de’ Roberti in Ferrara. Probably in the early 1480s he moved to Bologna, where he became the favoured artist of Giovanni II Bentivoglio (see Bentivoglio family §(2)). Major commissions for Bolognese churches suggest that at one time he was the most sought-after artist in Bologna....

Article

Douglass Shand-Tucci

(b Hampton Falls, NH, Dec 16, 1863; d Boston, Sept 22, 1942).

American architect and writer. Cram was the leading Gothic Revival architect in North America in the first half of the 20th century, at the head of an informal school known as the Boston Gothicists, who transformed American church design.

In 1881 Cram was apprenticed to the firm of Rotch & Tilden in Boston. His letters on artistic subjects to the Boston Transcript led to his appointment as the journal’s art critic by the mid-1880s. In 1886 he began his first European tour. In 1888 he founded the firm of Cram & Wentworth with Charles Wentworth (1861–97). With the arrival of Bertram Goodhue, the firm became Cram, Wentworth & Goodhue in 1892, and in 1899 Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, with Frank Ferguson (1861–1926) having joined the office as business and engineering partner following the death of Wentworth.

Cram was strongly influenced both by the philosophies of John Ruskin...

Article

Crocket  

John Thomas

[Fr. croc, crochet: ‘hook’]

Decorative device used in Gothic art and architecture, attached to a capital or a gable, an arch, piece of tracery or coping. The term was used in medieval England in the forms crockytt and crockett. English writers of the Gothic Revival period, however, suggested a connection with the crook, noting that some of the earliest English examples take the form of the pastoral crosier, but this is probably a misinterpretation.

Crocket capitals developed during the period of transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture from the mid-12th century, with small curled, twisted fronds of vegetation projecting from the body of the capital, in a form suggesting the much older use of curved floral decoration in the Corinthian order (see Orders, architectural, §I, 1, (iii)). After c. 1250 the crocket emerged as a curve of foliage that twisted or hooked back, turning the opposite way to the arch or gable out of which it rose, reminding Gwilt of ‘the buds and boughs of trees in the spring season’. In the course of its development, the crocket lost its hook-shape and began to curve upwards rather than downwards, becoming richer and more florid. Thus after ...

Article

J.-P. Esther

[Liévin]

(b Ghent, ?1640; d Ghent, ?1720)

Flemish priest, draughtsman and etcher, active also in Italy and France. While living in Wetteren (nr Ghent), he was involved in the completion of the Gothic St Michielskerk in Ghent. The construction of the western tower had been interrupted in 1566 because of religious unrest, and in 1652 steps were taken to complete it. After a Renaissance design was proposed in 1653, Cruyl submitted a drawing in Brabantine Late Gothic style (Ghent, Bib. Rijksuniv.) in 1662. His tower was to have been 134 m high, higher than the north tower of Antwerp Cathedral (1521). However, the project was never realized because of lack of funds. Although unoriginal and of an outdated style, the design had elegance and grandeur.

In 1664 Cruyl left for Rome, where he lived until c. 1670. During this time he drew many views of the city (e.g. 18 sheets, Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.) and etched ten plates representing the ...

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Cusp  

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Francesco Quinterio

(b ?1438; d Florence, 1503).

Italian mason and architect. He is first recorded in Pisa (1462–3) with other Lombard stonecutters employed to carve the marble tracery for the Gothic windows of the Camposanto (cemetery), adjacent to the cathedral. From 1472 he is recorded as a master mason, responsible for the completion of the church of Santo Spirito, Florence (begun 1436), in accordance with the design by Brunelleschi; Salvi was also responsible for the supply of materials and the repair of tools. In 1475 he was appointed principal mason for the outstanding decorative work of the church, including the upper cornice of the nave, the dome and the façade. He constructed a working model of the dome of Santo Spirito, based on the original model by Brunelleschi, for the office of works. This was the first dome in Florence to have a hemispherical external profile. In May 1482 Salvi was commissioned to decorate the interior of the façade of Santo Spirito, and in ...

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Vincenzo Fontana

(b Gemona, Udine, Aug 31, 1857; d San Remo, Imperia, May 3, 1932).

Italian architect. The son of a building contractor, at 14 he was working as a mason in Graz, Austria, and attending the local Baukunde where Leopold Theyer taught neo-Gothic and neo-Renaissance architectural design. He returned to Gemona in 1874 and after voluntary military service with the military engineers in Turin, where he learned the techniques of structural work in wood, he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, studying under Giacomo Franco and graduating in 1880.

After a brief period (1881) during which he taught at the Accademia di Carrara, D’Aronco’s career can be divided into three phases: in the first decade he was associated with Giuseppe Sommaruga and Ernesto Basile as one of the leading architects of the Stile Liberty (It.: Art Nouveau); the second, c. ten years either side of 1900, was when much of his work was in Turkey; and the third, after 1908...

Article

(b Fabriano, c. 1385; d Rome, before Oct 14, 1427).

Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the most important Italian representative of the elaborate Late Gothic style of painting that dominated European painting around 1400. He was a consummate master of naturalistic rendering, narrative invention and detail, and ornamental refinement. He introduced a new relationship between painting and nature through the depiction of three-dimensional space and the representation of natural lighting. This relationship, established at the same time but in much more radical form by Masaccio, was central to the art of the Renaissance.

Fabriano, the artist’s birthplace, in the Marches, is roughly halfway between Perugia and Ancona. Although his grandfather, father, and uncle served there as officials of various civic and religious organizations, Gentile’s early life and apprenticeship are not documented. The first record of him is a payment of 27 July 1408 for a panel (untraced) that Gentile was to paint for Francesco Amadi in Venice. Before his departure for Venice the artist painted a ...

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William Dendy

Canadian architectural partnership formed in 1895 by Frank Darling (1850–1923) and John (Andrew) Pearson (1867–1940). Frank Darling’s career was founded in the Gothic Revival and conditioned by the ecclesiological inclinations of his father, the first cleric to introduce Anglican high church ritualism and fittings into Toronto. He studied for three years in London in 1870–73, in the offices of G. E. Street and Arthur Blomfield (1829–99), and in 1874 established his practice in Toronto. His most important early works were High Anglican parish churches in Toronto that drew on English Gothic Revival and then American Romanesque Revival sources, especially for the unfinished church of St Mary Magdalene in central Toronto (1886–92). The contacts made through church work led to institutional and commercial commissions, such as Trinity College, Toronto (1877–1905, destr.), and in 1880 Darling won a competition for the Legislative Buildings, Toronto (not executed), for the Province of Ontario. After ...