Details of Sculptor

Surname

Cawcy

Alternative Surname

First Name

Diacinto

Initial of Surname

C

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

1673-75

Year of Death

Biographical Details

Cawcy (mistakenly called ‘Jacinthe De Coucy’ by Gunnis) was an Italian who was brought to Britain by Sir Thomas Cullum to decorate his seat, Hawstead Hall, Suffolk. In the local church is the patron’s extraordinary monument (1). In consists of a sarcophagus standing between two square fluted columns, supporting a heraldic achievement with huge billowing mantling almost overpowering the monument. Parts of the background are of painted plaster imitating marble, but inset into the sarcophagus and surrounding the inscription plate, are panels of scagliola with scrolled foliage and floral designs. A step surrounding the monument has further scagliola panels, including at the corner a delightful floral bouquet. All the scagliola work is close in design to a window cill slab in the queen’s closet at Ham House, where there is a fireplace surround of the same material. A receipt in the Tollemache archive records a payment to Baldassare Artima ‘Roma’ 1673. Gunnis states that the Hawstead monument bears ‘De Coucy’s signature. Today there is no sign of a signature on this monument. Gunnis records his authority as Gage, Hundred of Thingoe, p 459. There is similar scgaliola furniture at Drayton House, Northants, acquired by Henry, 2nd earl of Peterborough, who is known to have been on an embassy to Modena for James, Duke of York in 1673, and another table, formerly at Warwick Castle, is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The supposition is that several Italian craftsmen came to England c1670 and set up a manufactury for this material, and the Hawstead monument remains as one of the more bizarre examples of their work.
Bruce Bailey
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 125; Blatchly and Fisher 2004, 443-54