Nicholas Stone

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Nicholas Stone (1586–August 24, 1647) was an English sculptor and architect.

Stone was the son of a quarryman of Woodbury, near Exeter, and as a boy was apprenticed to Isaac James, a London mason. About 1603 he went to Holland and worked under the sculptor Hendrik de Keyser (1567-1621) and his son Pieter, and married his masters daughter. Stone is said to have made the portico to the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. Returning to London about 1613 with Bernard Janssens, a fellow pupil, he settled in Southwark and obtained a large practice. In 1619 he was appointed master-mason to James I, and in 1626 to Charles I.

Stone, whose work is associated with Inigo Jones's introduction of Renaissance architecture into England, ranks as the great sculptor of his time and the rejuvenator of the art in England. He is best known by his church monuments, the finest of which is probably his effigy of Elizabeth, Lady Carey in the parish church at Stowe Nine Churches in Northamptonshire. Other notable examples of his sepulchral sculptures include those to Sir Francis Vere, the Earl of Middlesex, and Francis Holles in Westminster Abbey; Sir Dudley Digges at Chilham church, Kent; Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, in Dover Castle (removed to Greenwich); Sir Thomas Sutton, at the Charterhouse (with Janssens); Sir Robert Drury at Hawstead church, Suffolk; Sir William Stonhouse at Radley church, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire); Sir Thomas Bodley at Merton College, Oxford; Sir William Pope, in Wroxton church, near Banbury; Sir Nicholas Bacon, in Redgrave church, Suffolk (with Janssens); Dr John Donne (winding-sheet), at St Pauls Cathedral; Julius Caesar, in St Helens, Bishopsgate; and (possibly) Sir Francis Bacon in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans.

He had three sons: John (1620-1667), a sculptor; Henry (1616-1653) commonly known as Old Stone a painter, whose copies of Van Dyck were famous, and whose portraits of Charles I. and others are in the National Portrait Gallery; and Nicholas (1618-1647), a sculptor, who worked under Bernini at Rome and left a sketch-book, which, with a note-book of his fathers (giving a list of his works between 1614 and 1641), is in the Soane Museum.