Thuner is the
Frisian god of thunder and oldest son of
Weda
Weda is a district in North Maluku, Indonesia, located on the east coast of Halmahera, the largest of the Maluku Islands. The district includes 24 small offshore islands. Its administrative centre is the village of Were, which is also the capital ...
(in the Scandinavian mythology his name is Thor)
Limestone figure
Thuner is an imposing limestone figure carved by
John Michael Rysbrack (1693-1770). Thuner, the god of thunder, is one of the seven Saxon gods, each representing a
day of the week
In many languages, the names given to the seven days of the week are derived from the names of the classical planets in Hellenistic astronomy, which were in turn named after contemporary deities, a system introduced by the Sumerians and la ...
. It was carved circa 1730 for Sir
Richard Temple,
Viscount Cobham (1675-1749) for his garden in
Stowe, Buckinghamshire
Stowe is a civil parish and former village about northwest of Buckingham in the unitary authority area of Buckinghamshire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Boycott, Dadford and Lamport.
Stowe House is a Grade I listed country hou ...
. On the base of the sculpture, Thuner's name is carved in runes beneath a thunderbolt. Originally the statues were set around an altar in an open grove, known as the Saxon Temple at Stowe; later they were placed in Stowe's Gothic Temple of Liberty. They formed part of an important group of buildings and statuary erected by Lord Cobham during the 1730s, which embodied a political programme championing Whig beliefs in historic British liberty.
Rysbrack was one of the most important sculptors working Britain at this time. A native of the Netherlands, he came over to England in about 1720, and soon established himself as a sculptor of monuments, portraits and busts. The Saxon gods, however, are unique in his work; neither are similar figures known by any other sculptors.
Bibliography
*{{cite book, editor=Jackson, Anna, title= V&A: A Hundred Highlights, publisher=V&A Publications, year=2001
Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum