Gill (Eric).- Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, Ditchling.- Maxwell (George) and John B. Maxwell. Collection of 38 original drawings and designs for sculpture, cabinets and ecclesiastical furniture, [c. 1930s-1960s] (40)

Gill (Eric).- Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, Ditchling.- Maxwell (George, Member of the Guild 1921-1957, established the Guild carpenter's shop, 1890-1957) and John B. Maxwell. Collection of 38 original drawings and designs for sculpture, cabinets and ecclesiastical furniture, including several variant designs for a crucifixion, two worked up studies of 'St Michael' and 'St Elizabeth', a proposed confessional for the Church of St. Edmund's Godalming, with accompanying correspondence between George Maxwell and a representative of the church, others of missal stands, refectory tables, candlesticks, processional crosses, memorial crosses and monuments, cabinets, and other more general designs for working in wood, pencil, three worked up with watercolour, 18 initialled or signed by the artists, numerous inscriptions and measurements, various wove and laid papers, one sheet with printed header verso that reads 'George & John B. Maxwell/ Folders Lane, Burgess Hill, Sussex/ Ecclesiastical and General Hand-Wrought Woodwork...', various sizes between 90 x 110 mm (3 1/2 x 4 1/4 in) and 790 x 570 mm (31 x 22 1/2 in), handling creases and old folds, slightly rough edges, minor browning and surface dirt, some pin holes to corners, a few rough edges, all unframed, [circa 1930s-1960s]; together with an original preparatory drawing by Joseph Cribb (1892-1967) for 'Proposed notice boards for St. Margarets Church Ditchling', pencil, watercolour, signed and dated 'Feb. 1947', 238 x 180 mm (9 1/4 x 7 1/8 in), scattered surface dirt and spotting, pin holes to corners, unframed, 1947; also with a slightly compromised impression of Eric Gill's single sheet 'The Way of the Cross', 13 of the 14 wood-engravings only, with letterpress printed in red and black ink, sheet 440 x 560 mm (17 1/2 x 22 in), the last station carefully trimmed from the sheet, handling creases, surface dirt, damp-stains, nicks and tears, some letterpress with corrections affixed as collage, unframed, [Physick 985], [circa 1910-1920] (40)

⁂ Eric Gill moved to Ditchling Common, Sussex, in 1913, and his renown soon began to attract other artists and craftsmen who shared his ideal of a reclusive life of piety and labour. In 1918, members of the community formed the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, a Roman Catholic community based on the idea of the medieval guild. Members of the Guild led their ideal life of work and prayer in rustic surroundings, and in 1921 George Maxwell joined, upon which he established the carpenter's shop where the present archive of drawings originated.