Lot Essay
These intricately carved brackets with their griffin-and-urn frieze follow with scrupulous accuracy the architrave of the Temple of Antonius and Faustina in Rome as shown above and illustrated in Desgodetz's Les Édifices Antiques de Rome, 1682, pl.111. They feature Apollo's griffin, which provided the Spencer family's armorial crest and was introduced by John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer in the embellishment of his London mansion in St. James's. Spencer House provided a 'museum' focus for the Society of Dilletanti's promotion of the Arts of Antiquity. Here Rome's griffin-friezed Temple of Antoninus provided inspiration for the elaborate Palm Room at Spencer House, designed by architect John Vardy, and appears as the frieze surrounding the room, shown below. Spencer also commissioned a mahogany table with the griffin-frieze, which was admired by a visitor in 1772 as 'very finely carved' (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum; see P. Thornton and J. Hardy, The Spencer Furniture at Althorp-III, Apollo, October, 1968, pp.267-277, fig.2). The brackets' foliated and laurel-festooned trusses also relate to the arm-trusses of the Spencer 'griffin' suite of chairs designed by James Stuart about 1760 for the Painted Room at Spencer House, London and attributed to the London carver Thomas Vardy (d.1788) (C. Wilk, West Furniture in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1996, pp.114 and 115). Whether Stuart or Vardy designed these griffin-friezed brackets for Spencer House is unknown, however Earl Spencer would appear the most likely patron. Their characteristic style is typical of both designers and their quality is worthy of the hand of St. James's carver Sefferin Alken (d.1783), whose new premises in Golden Square were established in 1760.