CHERUB

S

Stefan Diklich

Member
Who made James Cameron's cherub and all the oak carvings for the movie. Plus are the companies who made them willing to make more for other people who want them?
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Stefan, Cameron employed a small army of craftsmen (mostly Mexican) to make the interior decor for his Titanic sets. There are plenty of people willing to take on commissions for this sort of work (using photographs as reference), but I suspect this would blow a big hole in your allowance. From time to time you will see items from Cameron's sets auctioned on Ebay, but again these are not cheap. You can also buy mass-produced reproductions like the clock, but these are often scaled down in size.
 
About the cherub on the Olympic, is it true that it is in a hotel or a guesthouse somewhere in England?
 
Jeremy, when the Olympic was scrapped in 1935 some of the fittings from the First Class public rooms were bought and installed in the White Swan hotel in Alnwick, Northumberland. Part of the staircase is there, but no cherubs, I'm afraid. Check out the pics here:

http://www.stephenpage.com/rmsolympic/
 
Hi!

It's funny how everyone mentions Alnwick. If I remember rightly the cherubs were not even in the auction catalogue, despite the presence of over 4,000 lots.

Olympic's reception room chandelier from the grand staircase on D-deck might not have been a cherub, but it was certainly in the same place. It ended up with Thomas Ward's in Sheffield, although what happened to it ultimately is unknown to me.

I don't recall having references to the cherubs post-1935 in my archive, although people such as Stuart Kelly, Brian Hawley and Daniel Klistorner who are members of this board may know more. Stuart's research in particular is concentrated on the auction and subsequent dispersal of fittings, whereas mine is spread over the entire ship's career.

Best regards,

Mark.
 
Mark,

You're right that the cherubs were not mentioned in the auction catalogue. I think that when Olympic was retired, a few people were given the chance to grab and run (or they did so anyway) before Olympic was catalogued for auction.

Who knows how many and which pieces were taken and all 7 (yes 7) cherubs were certainly the hit target. There was a photographer on board afterwards who took some pictures of the interiors as well as the grand staircase with the cherubs already missing.

Now all I have to do is find the place which still has those photos. For those with the special 1976 Commutators, there are 4 photos of Olympic's smoking room which I assume were taken by this photographer. There must be many more where that came from!

Daniel.
 
Sorry guys, correction to the above. There were only 5 cherubs. There were 7 grand staircase landings but not all had cherubs. D deck had the 21-light candelabra and E deck had nothing.
 
I guess there would not be one ( a cherub) either on F-deck. Daniel did these two decks just have that carved oak object that are on the end of balastrades on A-deck etc? I wonder if this single staircase leading down to F-deck was in the same style as the rest of staircase on the previous decks?

All the best,

Nigel
 
Nigel,

I wondered that too about the F deck landing, but as yet have not figured out what it looked like.

Daniel.
 
Hi!

It's sad that they just vanished. I suppose you're right as to the timing, as they are not in photos from the time. The famous photo of the top of the staircase and the clock has the cherub's location out of view, sadly.

I believe there are indeed a number of photos held by a variety of institutions from 1935, although sadly I've found few answers in my research. Either the Royal Mail's a bit tired at the moment, or record keeping isn't what it could be (perhaps both).

Best regards,

Mark.
 
Mark Chirnside said:
Hi!

It's funny how everyone mentions Alnwick. If I remember rightly the cherubs were not even in the auction catalogue, despite the presence of over 4,000 lots.

Olympic's reception room chandelier from the grand staircase on D-deck might not have been a cherub, but it was certainly in the same place. It ended up with Thomas Ward's in Sheffield, although what happened to it ultimately is unknown to me.

I don't recall having references to the cherubs post-1935 in my archive, although people such as Stuart Kelly, Brian Hawley and Daniel Klistorner who are members of this board may know more. Stuart's research in particular is concentrated on the auction and subsequent dispersal of fittings, whereas mine is spread over the entire ship's career.

Best regards,

Mark.
Click to expand...
Hey there regarding the candelabra...I've found this update but I'd love to know what happened to it after 1980

"When Thomas Ward Ltd was taken over by Rio Tinto in the early 1980s, all the fittings from the Albion works disappeared during this transition period, including the Twenty-one light candelabra from the Olympic."

Thomas W Ward Ltd, coal, metal & machinery merchants, Albion Works, Savile Street, Sheffield. (something of note his grandniece comments on this blog as well)
 
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