About the Book…
The highly acclaimed memoir of a renowned artisan with a new introduction by Jenny Uglow, The Lost Carving reveals the inspirational secrets of wood and craft. On a chance visit to St James’s church, Piccadilly, David Esterly was awestruck by the delicate beauty and ambition of master carver Grinling Gibbons’s limewood decorations. The encounter changed the course of Esterly’s life as he devoted himself to these lost techniques.
By 1986, when a fire at Hampton Court Palace destroyed much of Gibbons’s masterpiece, Esterly was the only candidate to restore his idol’s work to glory, though the experience forced him to question his abilities and delve deeply into the subtle skills of making.
About the Author…
David Esterly (1944-2019) was the author of Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving and has devoted his life to wood carving in the style of Grinling Gibbong. He studied at Cambridge University and was a professional wood carver since the 19070’s. After a fire in 1986 at Hampton Court, Esterly spent a year creating a replica of a seven-foot-long Gibbons carving that had been destroyed. He curated the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition on Gibbons in 1998. He has been and has been profiled in the Economist, Financial Times, New Yorker and The New York Times.
