Details of Sculptor

Surname

Maine

Alternative Surname

Mayne

First Name

Jonathan

Initial of Surname

M

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1680-1709

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Maine was one of the most prominent woodcarvers of his day, much employed by Wren in rebuilding work on the London churches after the Great Fire. He came from Oxford and worked in the Midlands at Burghley, Sudbury and Chatsworth during the 1680s and 1690s, perhaps largely on limewood overmantels. His work is not easy to distinguish from that of Thomas Young or Samuel Watson, who worked alongside him in these great houses. Esterly suggests he may have had a hand in the rich overdoors for the First George Room at Burghley, carved with imbrocation and oak foliage and credited to Grinling Gibbons.
He became a liveryman of the Joiners’ Company in 1694, and from 1696 to 1709 carried out extensive carving at St Paul’s Cathedral for which he was paid £1,252 6s 11d (4, 6-8, 10-16). His carving there is rich and sophisticated: the drops in the consistory are ornamented with an inkpot, quills, skull, hourglass and portrait medallion. Elsewhere in the same chapel he carved naturalistic details including peapods, blackberries, lilies of the valley and half-open horse-chestnut fruit.
Maine’s work on seven of the City churches was carried out under the supervision of the surveyor, John Oliver. He also worked at Eton and at Christ’s Hospital, where in 1697 he was paid £7 12s for work about ‘the Neech in the New Writing Schoole for Sr John Moores figure’ (carved by Gibbons). In Oxford he provided carving at Trinity College and at Corpus Christi (3, 9), where some of his correspondence with the president of the college survives. There were difficulties, for the president suspected Maine of overcharging. Maine wrote on 19 February 1702 that he had worked under Oliver who ‘hath passed several of my bills for ye perokel churches and hath not bated me one.’ Maine concluded that ‘having a great occasion for moneys I would desire you would not be long before I have your order for the rest of my money.’ The President was later to tell his banker that ‘Mayn ye carver ... has already received above £20 more than his due according to our valuation. That I would be contented to lose, and a little more, if need be, but not much, rather than have any more to do with such a sawcy rascal as you see him to be; his reckoning at Trinity College was near twice as much as he received; so very a knave he is; and yet he will be a knave still in denying us too’ (Hiscock 1948, 1398-9).
By 1701 Maine was working with his son, Jonathan Maine II, whose name appears in the accounts of the Earl of Bristol (18). Maine junior also designed a chimneypiece for Corpus Christi, which his father offered to the President with the words ‘if you do your altar piece like this drawing enclosed you will have as pretty a one as any in Oxford, and the whole joiners and carvers work may be done for £150 or £160 fixed in its place’ (Hiscock, op cit). Given the earlier antagonism it is not surprising that the college rejected Maine’s design, following instead a pattern by William Townesend.
Maine’s work is frequently confused with that of his more famous contemporary, Grinling Gibbons, who also provided carved work at St Paul’s, Trinity College, Oxford and in the city churches.
Literary References: Hervey 1894, 146; Green 1964 (1), 28, 99-101, 1329, 84, 112, 112; Gunnis 1968, 250; Beard 1985, 686-94; Beard 1989 (1), 30, 36, 43; Esterly 1998, 22, 28, 92, 96-7, 150
Archival References: Christ’s H, TAB, MS 12819/12, 78; GPC