• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Grinling Gibbons Photos

Bob and Eva's Most Excellent Grinling Gibbons Tour

  • Home
  • Photos
    • All Hallows by the Tower
    • Fairfax House
    • Hampton Court
    • Modena
    • National Gallery – Trafalgar Square
    • Royal Hospital Chelsea
    • Saint James Piccadilly
    • Saint Mary Abchurch
    • Saint Paul’s Cathedral
    • Saint Paul’s, Covent Garden
    • Trinity College Chapel, Oxford
    • Trinity College Wren Library, Cambridge
    • Victoria and Albert Museum
    • Windsor Castle
  • Carving like Gibbons
    • Patrick Damiaens
    • David Esterly
    • Alexander Grabovetskiy
    • Carving in layers
  • Events
    • Mary May’s great GG Tour
    • Grinling Gibbons Society Tercentenary
  • About
    • About Gibbons
    • About my photos
    • Books and Reference Material
    • Contact

Patrick Damiaens

detail photo of a Liège style crest
photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens

Patrick lives in Maaseik, Belgium and is the only full-time ornamental woodcarver in Flanders. His specialty is carving ornamentation for Liège-style furniture, the classic designs from the city of Liège, originating in the 17th century. His woodcarving education includes several years of study at the Don Bosco Institute in Liège, followed by yet more at the Sint-Jansberg College in Maaseik. He works today with several men who build furniture, staircases, cupboards, etc.; he then carves the ornamentation. The carvings on Liège-style furniture aren’t the high-relief style of Gibbons, but do demonstrate remarkable carving ability.

  • 2 photos of a Liège style chest of drawers and a hunting trophy
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • photo of a Liège style cabinet
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens

In addition to those beautiful cabinets, there’s a “trophy” carving, themed for hunting, hanging on the wall. We’ll get to trophy carvings a bit further down the page.

Heraldic carvings

My first awareness of Patrick came from discovering another line of his work, heraldic carvings. These have the depth and layered construction that derives from Gibbons. Would you like to have your own coat of arms? Patrick can carve it for you.

photo of Patrick Damiaens
photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • photo of a hearld
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • photo of a hearld
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens

More like Gibbons

More “Gibbonsy,” as David Esterly likes to say,  is Patrick’s “over door” carving that was commissioned by a dentist. Patrick formed the vertical drops in the trophy genre. “Trophy” carvings combine related objects, be they musical instruments, weapons of war, or in this case, dentistry tools. By the way, there’s a trophy carving of hunting objects on the wall above that Liège cabinet in the photo above.

photo of an overdoor for a dentist's office
photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • detail photo of dentist's overdoor - center wreath
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • detail photo of dentist tools
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens

Trophy carvings

These are usually collections of objects which commemorate and event or mood. In this case, I threw in an interesting knotted ribbon.

  • photo of a trophy carving
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • photo of a knotted ribbon
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • photo of a trophy carving
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • detail photo of a trophy carving
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • detail photo of a trophy carving
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens
  • detail photo of a trophy carving
    photo: with permission of Patrick Damiaens

Videos I found interesting:

The dentist’s overdoor, part 1.
The dentist’s overdoor, part 2

Other resources:

Patrick’s website: https://www.patrickdamiaens.info
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/patrick.damiaens.ornamental.woodcarver
Blog: https://www.patrickdamiaens.info/blog/
YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/jplully/videos
Press articles: https://www.patrickdamiaens.info/press/

Reader Interactions

Your comments are welcome: Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Text Copyright © 2023 · Bob Easton ~~ Most photos · Public Domain (CC0)

  • About my photos
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact