Fountain Panel

Thomas Jeckyll (Made by Barnard, Bishop and Barnards, (Norwich, England, 1826–1908))

1871

Medium
Bronze
Classification
Metalwork
Dimensions
76.2 × 111.8 cm (30 × 44 in.)
Culture
Norwich
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
Credit line
Gift of The Antiquarian Society
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed

View at the Art Institute of Chicago

About this work

In the 1850s, the ironworks firm Barnard, Bishop and Barnards contracted Thomas Jeckyll in an effort to adhere to the decade’s burgeoning design reform. In an era increasingly dominated by cheaply produced, low-quality goods, designers began considering how to improve both the design of objects and the conditions of the workers who made them. Having gained prominence through several successful Japanism installations at international exhibitions, Jeckyll became a fashionable designer and the upper classes sought out his designs. One such patron, Henry Richard Fox Vassall, Lord Holland, commissioned Jeckyll to design decorative panels in bronze for the horse watering-fountains outside his London estate. The flattened perspective of the fish and plants and the stylized waves on the lower register show Jeckyll’s interest in Japanese aesthetics.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0