LATE 18TH CENTURY IN THE MANNER OF G.B. PIRANESI, POSSIBLY EXECUTED IN THE VALADIER WORKSHOPS

The 18th century Grand Tourists enthusiasm for marble antiquities and table-tops also led to the manufacture of chimney-pieces incorporating antique fragments. This fashion was promoted in particular by G.B.Piranesi and encouraged by the Rome-trained architects such as Robert Adam (d.1792). Related mythological tablets in 'rosso antico ' featured on the chimneypiece acquired by the 9th Earl of Exeter directly from Piranesi for Burghley House, Lincolnshire in the 1770's (illustrated in 'Four Centuries of Decorative Arts from Burghley House', Exhibition Catalogue, 1998, p.53, fig.23), as well as on the chimneypiece at Islington House, Dorset (illustrated in Country Life, 12 June 1997, p.162, figs.9-11).

The tablet, whose encrusted bas-relief is of gem-cut rouge coloured marble, enwreathed by Apollo's golden laurels, evokes Ovid's 'Loves of the Gods' and the history of Jupiter.