Screen star

The full details of Tijou’s life are shrouded in mystery. We know he was born around 1650 in Paris, likely the area of St Germain, just across the river from the Louvre. He was trained as a metalworker, and there is evidence of him working for King Louis XIV, creating ironwork for the French royal palaces. Tijou was a Huguenot, a French Protestant sect, and as France became increasingly hostile to Protestantism throughout the 17th century, he left his home and sought refuge in England in the 1680s.

Tijou was already an experienced metalworker when he arrived in London and he quickly built a reputation as a talented artist blacksmith, working on some of the grandest houses in the country. By 1689 he had attracted the attention of Queen Mary II and was commissioned to work on the new royal palace being constructed at Hampton Court. Initially undertaking small scale projects, he clearly made a good impression as he was then commissioned to make much of the new palace’s ornate ironwork, including what would become his most impressive creation, the ‘Tijou Screen, which was completed and installed at the end of the Privy Garden in 1702.

The screen consists of 12 panels, each over 3m high and nearly 4m wide, joined together by pilasters (decorative columns) and plain railings. The panels are based on a frame of wrought iron bars formed into sweeping waves and scrolls, then generously decorated with rosettes, acanthus leaves, grotesque masks and eagles. In the centre of each panel are motifs representing Tijou’s royal patrons including William and Mary’s monograms, the thistle, star and garter, rose, harp and fleur-de-lys.

The Tijou Screen is one of the most important pieces of architectural ironwork in the country, and one of the most complex conservation challenges for Historic Royal Palaces. The screen has seen multiple periods of repair since the middle of the 19th century. Due to its material composition, the complexity of the design, and the skill of the original makers, it is an incredibly difficult task. The screen was in such poor condition by 1860 that it was removed from the palace and spent some time on display in museums and galleries around the UK and Ireland being shown in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Wolverhampton, Sheffield and Nottingham. It only returned to its current position by the river in 1901, after palace residents demanded it be brought home.