About this piece
back to topA charming antique carved Cotswold limestone fountain mask from Sir Roy Strong’s Laskett Garden, Herefordshire.
Reminiscent of a mythological figure of legend, this stone mask is carved in the style of an ancient man. He has a deeply furrowed brow and locks of curled hair to match his beard, below a prominent nose and defined cheekbones. His mouth is shaped as if blowing air and has a hole within which could be piped to create a garden water feature.
Dating from the mid-19th century, this statuary limestone mask will make an interesting feature of any garden, whether used simply as decoration in a walled garden or as a mythical water fountain.
Sir Roy Strong CH, FRSL, FSA (B. 23 August 1935)
Born in Middlesex, England in 1935, Art Historian Sir Roy Strong was able to attend grammar school which led to him earning a first class honours degree in history. This was followed by a PHD from the prestigious Warburg institute, before he became a research fellow at the London Institute of Historical Research.
Strong went on to become the director of the National Portrait Gallery at age 32 before becoming the youngest ever Director at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum at age 38 in 1974. In 1973, Sir Roy Strong and his wife Julia Trevelyan Oman, Lady Strong CBE (11 July 1930 – 10 October 2003) exited London on the tail end of the cultural revolution of the sixties and eloped to a rural property in Much Birch, Herefordshire.
Over the next thirty years the couple built up the four-acre Laskett Garden, the largest created since the second world war. The garden became a tribute to their individual and joint achievements, with sections dedicated to Queen Elizabeth after Strong’s early interests in the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare after Roy was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare award, Covent Garden after Julia’s commissions and the Beaton Bridge after the publication of Cecil Beaton’s Royal Portraits by Roy Strong.
