Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1981, Page 98

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ÁRBÓK FORNLEIFAFÉLAGSINS
Hörður Ágústsson seems to be right in his assumption concerning the origin of the ornament,
and his discovery could perhaps help to situate it in its right context in the history of lcelandic
wood-carving. The main difficulty hitherto has been the fact that the piece was thought to be the
work of some wood-carver living and working in the south of the country because it was supposed
that it had come from the county governor Ólafur Stefánsson's home in Sviðholt at Álftanes.
This was in spite of the fact that it seems most obiously related to two groups of works attributed
to the well-known wood-carver of Northern Iceland, Hallgrímur Jónsson (1717-1785).
However, the carvings on these two groups of wooden objects are so different from each other,
both as a whole and in detail, that one can hardly believe they are the work of the same carver. The
author of the present paper examines and compares a number of works from the two groups (1:
fig. 3-11, 2: fig. 12-20) without finding resemblances strong enough to suggest that they might
have come from the same hand. For several reasons it seems likely that group 2 must be the work
of Hallgrímur Jónsson, whereas the minuscule polychromatic ornaments and figures of group 1
must originate from a very skilled carver whose name now seems forgotten. His figure scenes are
of special interest as glimpses of the life of prosperous Icelanders at the time. ln spite of his fine
ribbon and plant ornamentation the carver of group 2 made very clumsy human figures, and this
is perhaps the strongest indication that he was really Hallgrímur Jónsson, who painted some
altar-pieces that we know, showing the same lack of knowledge of human anatomy (fig. 21).
Returning to the ornament from 1774 and comparing it in detail with objects from the two
groups the author states that it cannot be regarded as a link between them. Nor is it so closely
related to either of the groups that it could be a work of one ot the two carvers. The conclusion
seems to be that we have to do with three different wood-carvers working in Northern Iceland in
the second half of the 18lh century and adopting in different ways features from the European
baroque, Regency and rococo styles.
As to the identity of the carvers one might perhaps expect that the Icelanders' particularly long
memory for and great knowledge of personal history will lead to full elucidation one day.