Queen of Bohemia
After Mosaic Summer School this August, I am teaching a five-day course: ‘Marble and Smalti with the Hammer and Hardy.’ The course runs in March too, if anyone thinks they might be interested. Both are at West Dean College, an impressive flint-faced country house in the Sussex downs.
Twenty-three years ago I was one of perhaps only three people in the UK to own a hammer and hardy. I’ve put it to good use. At Mosaic Workshop we made a floor for London’s National Portrait Museum, cutting each cube with the hammer and hardy. The brief was to replicate the mosaic original, and if I say so myself, it wasn’t bad.
I used to be good at doing the jobs no one else wanted; working through the night, or getting up at four in the morning and driving hundreds of miles before embarking on a day of gruelling toil, only to drive all the way back again afterwards. It was this attitude that helped me land work at the National Portrait Gallery. These were the days before mosaic had become fashionable – now, thankfully, the climate has changed. Back then, if you knew the ropes, you were in with a good chance. If you were prepared to work for almost no pay in the cold, dark, midnight hours and drive a long way to get there, the job was yours.
If the pay wasn’t up to much, it was thrilling being alone in the Gallery. I explained to the staff how I would do the work; chiselling out the old marble, matching the cubes for colour and tone, and deep-bedding the new ones. I gave references and a ‘Method Statement’, which tells the client how you are going to do the job. It reassured them I knew what I was up to. Then, tottering up the stairs with all my gear, I was let loose amongst the masterpieces.
I chipped away — chiselling noises resounding through the galleries and bouncing about the marble halls. If you’ve never done it, I can assure you that unless cubes have delaminated from the screed (started to separate from the sub-base) this is a truly foul job. A member of staff loomed up out of the gloom. I should be issued with a screen immediately.
‘What would happen’ she enquired, sensibly enough ‘if a piece of marble hit the Holbein?’
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. Artist unknown.
I can’t believe they didn’t cover the surrounding art themselves!
I think it is normally the province of the contractor. I am sure a more experienced person than I was would have known it. My fault, I am sure.
Pearls. Always pearls.
Nothing like an echo in the cold night to let you know how alone you can be. Exciting kind of aloneness though to work in an exalted place like that. Not the same as an aircraft carrier in dry dock, except for the echo.