Here, to the left of the main entrance to Saint Thomas' Hospital, is an unusual, though certainly not unique, work in marble by this exceptional artist. Gibbons is more particularly famed for his wood-carving decorations of several late 17th- early 18th-century buildings, particularly by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). The subject is Sir Robert Clayton and the piece was brought from the Hospital's site in Southwark when it moved here in 1868-71. Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), born in Rotterdam, had been working in England for some time as a carver when the writer John Evelyn (1620-1706) saw him at work and introduced him to Charles II (1630-85). As a result he was appointed to the board of works which was responsible for several of the buildings that he decorated.

O/S Co-ords:3073.7954
Source(s):

Chambers Biographical Dictionary