more strapwork, mostly photos

recent strapwork carvings Jan/Feb 2025

I’ve been writing this blog longer than I think...to me, it’s still my “new” blog, but there’s a lot of posts here. And I don’t have that many subjects, so I tend to repeat myself. I began writing a post about strapwork design and its English origins - but I checked & I wrote some of it in October 2023. https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/p/more-strapwork-carvings

I’ll repeat that the research about this strapwork pattern is not mine - I’ve just read it over & over again and carved these patterns for 25 years. Still the starting point - the full-blown study done by Anthony Wells-Cole; “An Oak Bed at Montacute: a Study in Mannerist Decoration”. It was published in the 1981 issue of Furniture History. [you can access it here - might need to sign up or something https://www.jstor.org/stable/23404733 ]

The link between Devon and the joinery from Ipswich Massachusetts was already known by the time Wells-Cole published his article. But the depth of the work in Devon was blown open by his research. Now it’s simple to gather good illustrations of the figures in his article. The bed in question for instance -

bed at Montacute

Can’t see the details on the headboard in that view - but a broader view shows the room too has strapwork patterns in it.

wider view, showing carved wainscot

In my earlier post I had rounded up some of the details of the monuments/tombs - one of the details below - from a monument to Nicholas Eveleigh in Bovey Tracey Church in Devon - https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tomb_of_Nicholas_Eveleigh,_St_Peter,_St_Paul_and_St_Thomas_of_Canterbury%27s_church,_Bovey_Tracey

strapwork column

This is a case where a pretty close printed source exists - this design by Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-c. 1607)

Vredeman de Vries