As a consequence, the bulk of his buildings were in London and the Home Counties, and sadly they have suffered heavily from demolition, redevelopment, wartime bombing and subsequent alteration over the course of the last 250 years. During the 1750s, Taylor embraced the prevailing fashion for the Rococo, and produced some of the finest chimneypieces in that style. Only a handful are known to have survived the depredations of the intervening years, and this is the supreme example of them all - executed in fine-grained limestone, and displaying perfectly Taylor’s mastery of sculpture and design. Sir Robert Taylor, 1714 - 1788 Taylor’s Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn, showing wartime damage. Introduction The researching of this chimneypiece entailed delving into the archives of the Taylorian Institute in Oxford, endowed by Taylor himself, hunting for clues in the vast repository of the British Library, following a trail that ultimately led to the firm identification of its designer. It has been possible to determine beyond doubt that the chimneypiece was indeed designed by Sir Robert Taylor, and there is a powerful case to be made that it was originally located in the dining room of 36, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, prior to its demolition in 1859. This exceptional chimneypiece is of great historical importance for a combination of reasons. Firstly, being by Sir Robert Taylor it is both architecturally significant, and, being Rococo, extremely rare. Taylor was described by Colvin in his Biographical Dictionary of English Architects as the most successful architect of his time”. As The King’s Architect, as well as “ Surveyor and Architect to the Bank of England; H.M Customs; The Admiralty; Greenwich Hospital; Lincoln’s Inn and many others, he was described by Sir William Chambers’ biographer as having with Paine divided the architectural profession between them until Robert Adam “nearly entered the list”. The apotheosis of three dimensional Rococo design - the Lord Mayor’s State Coach - was by Taylor, along with the Old Bank of England, the pediment of Mansion House and an extensive corpus of work including country
As a consequence, the bulk of his buildings were in London and the Home Counties, and sadly they have suffered heavily from demolition, redevelopment, wartime bombing and subsequent alteration over the course of the last 250 years. During the 1750s, Taylor embraced the prevailing fashion for the Rococo, and produced some of the finest chimneypieces in that style. Only a handful are known to have survived the depredations of the intervening years, and this is the supreme example of them all - executed in fine-grained limestone, and displaying perfectly Taylor’s mastery of sculpture and design. Sir Robert Taylor, 1714 - 1788 Taylor’s Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn, showing wartime damage. Introduction The researching of this chimneypiece entailed delving into the archives of the Taylorian Institute in Oxford, endowed by Taylor himself, hunting for clues in the vast repository of the British Library, following a trail that ultimately led to the firm identification of its designer. It has been possible to determine beyond doubt that the chimneypiece was indeed designed by Sir Robert Taylor, and there is a powerful case to be made that it was originally located in the dining room of 36, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, prior to its demolition in 1859. This exceptional chimneypiece is of great historical importance for a combination of reasons. Firstly, being by Sir Robert Taylor it is both architecturally significant, and, being Rococo, extremely rare. Taylor was described by Colvin in his Biographical Dictionary of English Architects as “ the most successful architect of his time”. As The King’s Architect, as well as Surveyor and Architect to the Bank of England; H.M Customs; The Admiralty; Greenwich Hospital; Lincoln’s Inn and many others, he was described by Sir William Chambers’ biographer as having with Paine “nearly divided the architectural profession between them until Robert Adam entered the list”. The apotheosis of three dimensional Rococo design - the Lord Mayor’s State Coach - was by Taylor, along with the Old Bank of England, the pediment of Mansion House and an extensive corpus of work including country
Sir_Robert_Taylor_Chimneypiece.docx