THE ‘NEWCASTLE MASTER’
‘ Something was going on at Newcastle in architectural decoration during the thirty years from about 1605, something very different, it is beginning to seem, from anything happening elsewhere in England at the time’.
Anthony Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England
In the early seventeenth century Newcastle witnessed a dazzling display of very high quality woodcarving, often commissioned by the wealthy merchant class to beautify their houses. This usually took the form of fireplace overmantles. The work was identified as the work of a single man by the art historian Anthony Wells-Cole but his name and origins are unknown. Regional research into the Newcastle merchants, their guilds and their patronage of the arts might complement the important art historical work already achieved by Anthony Wells-Cole. Examination of local archives, family and guild papers might establish a craftsman’s biographical list for the city during the early seventeenth century period, from which the ‘Newcastle master’ might be identified.
This very specialized project would suit an intending PhD student, with knowledge of the use of archival records, and an understanding of the city and the locations in which its documented history is archived.
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