The Carved Room remains one of the most remarkable features of Petworth House. Yet it is quite different to the original room commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of Somerset in the early 1690s and devised by Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), Britain’s greatest woodcarver. Gibbons was born and trained in Holland and took his place amongst a formidable team of artists and craftsmen who worked at Petworth having previously been employed by William III and Mary II.
A Dutch woodcarver himself, the photographer Peter Thuring has long been fascinated by Gibbons’ carvings at Petworth.
Using a scaffold, lighting and a 5x4" plate camera Thuring has taken photographs of the carvings similar to how they were intended to be seen when Grinling first completed the commission.