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Lot Essay
Echoing the lapidary masterpieces executed for the treasury of the Grand Dauphin, son of Louis XIV, which are now at the Prado, Madrid, this agate ewer and basin dates from the 17th century. Its mounts, by contrast, in the inventive 'à la Turc' taste promoted by the comte d'Artois, were executed by a Parisian ciseleur-doreur such as Pierre Gouthière or Pierre-Philippe Thomire in the later 1780's.
One of only a handful of masterpieces engraved for the catalogue of the legendary Hamilton Palace sale held by Christie's between 17 June-20 July 1882, this 'rosewater' ewer is first recorded on an undated shipping list in the Hamilton Archive (Hamilton MSS Misc. M12.30):-
No. 4 1 Aiguerre avec sa Jatte monté en Bronze et soustenus par des amours 300 formant en Rouble 1350'.
Although Beckford employed numerous agents in Paris, including Jean-Frédérick Perregaux and Captain Nicholas Williams, as well as Chardin and Auguste, the inconsistent spelling in French probably points to the hand of Chevalier Gregorio Franchi (d.1828), whom Beckford had met in Portugal in 1787 and who acted as both agent and adviser to Beckford and, subsequently, the Hamiltons. By 1821 Franchi wrote that he was '..very attached to M. de B. - and very devoted to the Duke and to the dear Duchess of Hamilton' and it was he who kept 'Accounts' of purchases both in Paris and on the Continent, as well as supervising their repair, transport etc..
Beckford and Hamilton were equals both in terms of financial capacity and collecting mania and confusingly occasionally embarked on buying trips together, their respective purchases even occasionally listed on the same shipping documents. This does inevitably make the separation of objects between the two amalgamated collections more complicated without further documentary proof. However, each displayed somewhat different tastes and sensibilities, and the kunstkammer appeal of this object, with its romantic and 'antiquarian' re-use of a 17th Century 'rosewater dish' with avant garde ormou mounts à la Turque undoubtedly appealed to Beckford's sensibilities, over Hamilton's. Indeed, the St. Michael's Gallery at Fonthill was a veritable treasure trove of mounted agates - echoing the tastes of the duc de Choiseul-Praslin's cabinet in Paris a decade earlier. Coincidentally, much of the latter's collection was sold off when Beckford was in Paris in 1793.
Other than the stylistic considerations, a further pointer to Beckford as the original owner of this remarkable object lies in the descriptions of the other items on the undated shipping list. This included a vase de la Duchesse de Kingston, le Benitier de Charlemagne, Deux trépieds d'alabatre antique, La Pipe Chinoise e Jade Oriental monté en bronze doré, 2 Piedestaux de Lapis-Lazuli oriental avec deux figures en Bronze par Kozlowski, 2 Coupes d'Agathe monté a dragons, Cassollette de Lapis Lazuli monté en bronze and a Grande Coffre Chinois d'Anne d'Autriche, along with a large group of lacquer objects. Although many of these remain untraced, the fascination with earlier 'antiquarian' ownership is characteristic of Beckford and he certainly owned lacquer pieces from the collection of the Duchess of Kingston which were sold in the 1823 Fonthill sale, as well as a mounted Chinese Jade pipe or hookah; could this have had earlier mounts which were modernised by James Aldridge on arrival in England? (D. Ostergard et al. William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, Bard, 2001, no.55, pp.338-339). Perhaps most revealing is the group of lacquer, the Grande Coffre Chinois d'Anne d'Autiche almost certainly identifiable with the Mazarin coffer bought directly for Beckford by the marchands-merciers D'Arnault at the duc de Bouillon's sale, 20-21 July 1800; shipped to Fonthill, the latter was included as lot 576 in the 1823 Fonthill sale and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (ibid., pp.222-224). The latter is more familiarly associated with Cardinal Mazarin, to whom Anne of Austria is reputed to have been secretly married. This hypothesis is further supported by the mention of numerous small objects in lacquer; without a doubt Beckford's largest purchase of lacquer was also through D'Arnault at the duc de Bouillon's sale; Beckford himself wrote 'You are in possession of my sentiments respecting the Bouillon Collection. No pains should be spared to attempt getting hold of it, I am in fact more anxious about the Japans than the pictures - and surely they might be induced to part with the whole of them in a lump and for a good price which no one else can or would give them - for these trifling toys cannot be precious in any eyes except such as are affected with the Japan-mania in a violent incurable degree'.
Cumulatively, these factors all point to the shipping document being for Beckford himself, rather than Hamilton, and suggest a date in or shortly after 1801 - or perhaps in 1802-3 following the Treaty of Amiens and before the renewal of hostilities between Bonaparte and England in 1803. The Treaty of Amiens had given Beckford further opportunities to claim back possessions seized during the Revolution and send them back to England; some of Beckford's collection had previously been impounded in 1794 at Calais but was ultimately returned in 1797. This probable early date of 1801-3 for the shipping documents would also almost certainly preclude Hamilton's involvement. Although born in 1767, Hamilton did not marry Susan Euphemia until 1810, and as his father had only succeeded his nephew to the Dukedom in 1799 and lived until 1819, it pre-dates Hamilton's financial inheritance and consequent voracious buying activities alongside Beckford under Franchi's guidance, mainly in the 1820's.
The landmark 1823 sale of Fonthill included, as lot 1271 from the St Michael's Gallery:-
A VARIEGATED and UNDULATED AGATE CUP, mounted with scrolls, gryphons' heads and claws, upon a SARDONYX PLYNTH, embellished with or-moulu.
Sold for £19 9s 0d, the punctuation would suggest that the Sardonyx plinth was actually a separate element; the description may, therefore, quite plausibly be that for this ewer and basin. Certainly elements of the description - particularly the undulated bowl, the idea of ormolu-mounted agate in itself, the mentions of gryphons heads, claws and scrolls is very compelling. Moreover, the lack of description of the boys might well be accounted for by the height at which the ewer and basin was displayed - the engraving in the 1882 Hamilton Palace catalogue equally obscuring them completely. Frustratingly, the abortive Christie's 1822 sale, second day's sale, lot 100, is no more informative, and the descriptions in Rutter and elsewhere of the St. Michael's Gallery make only passing references to agate objects - such as an Agate Cup and Saucer richly mounted in gold and silver.
Although the 1823 sale description is not conclusive, it is reasonably persuasive. However, the ewer and basin could equally well have been a gift directly from Beckford to his daughter. Certainly much of the agate collection from Fonthill was not sold but instead retained by the family, including A Jasper Cup and an Agate Cup Mounted moved from Bath to Portman Square, London in 1850 (Hamilton MSS Misc.M12/51), as well as A large Oval Agate mounted and silver gilt stand sent to Easton Park, Suffolk, another Hamilton house, in 1852. The Drawing Room at the latter also included A green jade handled cup and cover and stand in the 1852 Inventory.
The superlative Collections ultimately gathered at Hamilton Palace by 1882 - as a result of both the Beckford and Hamilton inheritances - led one commentator to describe it as One of the noblest residences in Europe.. and probably containing a greater collection of rare works of art than the abode of any man under the rank of sovereign..'.
Unlike Beckford, Franchi made a number of visits to Hamilton Palace, which the latter referred to on occasion as the Scottish Court or the Kingdom of the Cinquefoils' in reference to the family's 'lily' armorials.
THE MOUNTS
The design of these unusual 'arabesque' mounts, particularly the gryphon plinth, directly recalls a drawing for a trépied executed by Beckford's favoured sculptor and ornemaniste Jean-Guillaume Moitte in the late 1780's (Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, illustrated in 'Vasemania', Exhibition Catalogue, no.63, p.126). Well before the turn of the 19th Century, Moitte and the goldsmith Auguste were collaborating on a severely neo-classical style that was the precursor of the Empire style - and Beckford was amongst their most important patrons. Although no direct parallels have been published, the incredibly rich gilding and fine ciselure of the mounts certainly place them close to the work of Pierre-Gouthière and Pierre-Philippe Thomire in the later 1780's.
THE ORNAMENT
This stately ewer and basin of gold-flecked and tortoiseshell-figured agate is conceived in the Louis Quatorze Roman fashion, and evokes Ovid's Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods and the history of the triumphal water-birth of the nature-deity Venus. The ewer is presented in an antique-fluted and shell-scalloped basin, that recalls the deity's shell-chariot drawn by sacred dolphins. Here the scalloped ewer, of krater-vase form, is supported by a dolphin handle and is nestled by Roman acanthus foliage, which also wreathes its baluster pillar and domed pedestal. This ferocious Dauphin handle shares much in common with the drawing of 1702 by Nicolas Ambroise Cousinet of a silver Pot à Oille owned by Louis XIV (illustrated in 'Versailles à Stockholm', Exhibition Catalogue, September-October 1985, p.183-4). Cousinet became a master silversmith in Paris in 1696, and in 1703 moved to Versailles, having just completed the 1702 commisioned for Daniel Crönstrom, Swedish envoy to the French court, to make drawings of the French Royal silver to be sent to Stockholm.
This stately toilette service or pot et cuvette à laver was aggrandised as an objet d'art during the reign of Louis XVI. The ewer is raised on an altar-plinth, which recalls the fertility festival or Feast of Bacchus and is supported by youthful fauns or bacchic satyrs that issue from flowered rinceaux scrolls or arabesques of Roman acanthus; while four plinth-supported and addorsed Egyptian sphinx emerge in a similar fashion from flowered acanthus to serve as guardian caryatics supporting the basin. The circular and cross-shaped plinth displays a central bacchic thyrsus finial or grape-cluster rising from a sunflowered bas-relief.
This 'antiquarian' approach of remounting precious materials with ormolu mounts in the newest fashion was certainly a technique that found favour at Court. Indeed, it was Marie-Antoinette herself who commissioned related updated mounts by Pierre Gouthière for the pair of ewers with Louis XV mounts that she bought in the duc d'Aumont's sale in 1782 (sold by the Trustees of the Luton Hoo Foundation in these Rooms, 9 June 1994, lot 35. Could the Dauphin handle perhaps also allude to a Royal provenance for this ewer?
Certainly, the closest parallels to this rare example of the lapidaries' technique are all to be found in Royal Treasuries - particuarly in Prague and that of the Louis, Grand Dauphin of France. Now in the Prado, the latter is comprehensively discussed in L. Mira, El Tesoro de Delfín, Madrid, 2002, no.30, no.52, no.94. Intriguingly, the Prado's holdings constitute only a third of the original Treasury; the remaining two thirds stayed in Paris, much of it being sold off in sales during the 18th Century.
WILLIAM BECKFORD
William Beckford (1760 -1844), renowned connoisseur, traveller and gentleman architect, was celebrated in his youth as the author of the romantic novel 'Vathek'. Famed through his Jamaican properties as 'England's wealthiest son', the 'Kitty' Courtenay scandal, as well as the tragic early death of his wife caused Beckford's almost total withdrawal from both public and conventional social life. Instead his energies were devoted to the formation of art collections and libraries as well as to music, writing and travelling. Beckford perhaps best captured public attention through his replacement of Fonthill Splendens, the Wiltshire mansion of his father Alderman William Beckford (d.1770) with Fonthill Abbey. This monumental Abbey, demonstrating his 'Eye for the Magnificent', was built for him by the architect James Wyatt (d.1813), Surveyor of the Royal Architectural Board of Works.
Beckford, who had supported the Revolution and was in Paris at the fall of the Bastille in 1789, for many years rented the hôtel d'Orsay, returning from October 1790 to June 1791, November 1791 to May 1793 and again from May 1801 to May 1803. His beloved Fonthill was finally finished by 1807, and Beckford lived there until its spectacular sale was advertised in the early 1820s, when Mr. Christie published a catalogue of the 'Magnificent effects at Fonthill Abbey..to be sold ..on Tuesday, October 1, 1822 and the nine following days'. However, the estate and much of the contents, apart from the smaller objets d'art, were sold by private treaty to John Farquhar, James Christie's banker no less! And it was then Farquhar who instructed Phillips to sell the majority of the Abbey furnishings in the following year. Farquhar was still in possession of the Abbey during the spectacular collapse of its tower in 1825.
Beckford's formation of eclectic and luxurious collections of rare curios continued at his new homes in Lansdown Crescent, Bath and at Gloucester Place and, subsequently, at Baker Street, London. The works of art from these properties were also later to pass to his daughter Susan, Duchess of Hamilton.
At Bath, Beckford also created a garden belvedere pavilion, which provided him with a museum treasury in the manner of a European Kunstkammern or wunderkammern. In 1837 he wrote of its cabinets being 'filled with the rarest gems of art - few but excellent'. Some of these gems later featured in Edmund English's beautifully illustrated Views of Lansdown Tower, London, 1844.
During Beckford's stately visit to Portugal in 1787 he took into his service Gregorio Franchi (d.1828), a chorister in Lisbon's College of Music, who was later appointed a 'Chevalier' through Beckford's contacts with the Portuguese Royal family. Franchi shared Beckford's enthusiasm for works of art, and acted as his agent and faithful retainer. He once explained that 'One of [Beckford's] whims is never to discuss business with the person concerned and consequently I have to broach it'. It was he who kept the 'Accounts' of purchases and supervised their repair, transport etc., and so closely were the two of them involved in the assemblage of 'Good Taste', that Beckford was driven to complain in 1813: 'I see from the buying mania which dominates you that we are well on the way to ruin'.
Beckford's particular admiration for hardstones and lapidary work is evident from his account of an Italian cabinet at neighbouring Stourhead, Wiltshire, which he described as divine - 'the bronzes are of extreme delicacy and elegance, and those lovely agates, alabasters and cornelians, mingled with the glittering mother-of-pearl, produced a rich effect, agreeable and grateful for the eye'.
Agate, lapis lazuli, mosaics, rock crystal, jade and cornelian were all amongst the purchases made in Paris on Beckford's behalf in 1814, and it was again Franchi who was instrumental in the commissioning of the pietra dura cabinets designed by Beckford in 1825 (P. Hewat-Jaboor and B. McLeod, 'Pietre dure Cabinets for William Beckford; Gregorio Franchi's Role', Furniture History Society Journal, 2002, pp.135-143).
One of only a handful of masterpieces engraved for the catalogue of the legendary Hamilton Palace sale held by Christie's between 17 June-20 July 1882, this 'rosewater' ewer is first recorded on an undated shipping list in the Hamilton Archive (Hamilton MSS Misc. M12.30):-
No. 4 1 Aiguerre avec sa Jatte monté en Bronze et soustenus par des amours 300 formant en Rouble 1350'.
Although Beckford employed numerous agents in Paris, including Jean-Frédérick Perregaux and Captain Nicholas Williams, as well as Chardin and Auguste, the inconsistent spelling in French probably points to the hand of Chevalier Gregorio Franchi (d.1828), whom Beckford had met in Portugal in 1787 and who acted as both agent and adviser to Beckford and, subsequently, the Hamiltons. By 1821 Franchi wrote that he was '..very attached to M. de B. - and very devoted to the Duke and to the dear Duchess of Hamilton' and it was he who kept 'Accounts' of purchases both in Paris and on the Continent, as well as supervising their repair, transport etc..
Beckford and Hamilton were equals both in terms of financial capacity and collecting mania and confusingly occasionally embarked on buying trips together, their respective purchases even occasionally listed on the same shipping documents. This does inevitably make the separation of objects between the two amalgamated collections more complicated without further documentary proof. However, each displayed somewhat different tastes and sensibilities, and the kunstkammer appeal of this object, with its romantic and 'antiquarian' re-use of a 17th Century 'rosewater dish' with avant garde ormou mounts à la Turque undoubtedly appealed to Beckford's sensibilities, over Hamilton's. Indeed, the St. Michael's Gallery at Fonthill was a veritable treasure trove of mounted agates - echoing the tastes of the duc de Choiseul-Praslin's cabinet in Paris a decade earlier. Coincidentally, much of the latter's collection was sold off when Beckford was in Paris in 1793.
Other than the stylistic considerations, a further pointer to Beckford as the original owner of this remarkable object lies in the descriptions of the other items on the undated shipping list. This included a vase de la Duchesse de Kingston, le Benitier de Charlemagne, Deux trépieds d'alabatre antique, La Pipe Chinoise e Jade Oriental monté en bronze doré, 2 Piedestaux de Lapis-Lazuli oriental avec deux figures en Bronze par Kozlowski, 2 Coupes d'Agathe monté a dragons, Cassollette de Lapis Lazuli monté en bronze and a Grande Coffre Chinois d'Anne d'Autriche, along with a large group of lacquer objects. Although many of these remain untraced, the fascination with earlier 'antiquarian' ownership is characteristic of Beckford and he certainly owned lacquer pieces from the collection of the Duchess of Kingston which were sold in the 1823 Fonthill sale, as well as a mounted Chinese Jade pipe or hookah; could this have had earlier mounts which were modernised by James Aldridge on arrival in England? (D. Ostergard et al. William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent, Bard, 2001, no.55, pp.338-339). Perhaps most revealing is the group of lacquer, the Grande Coffre Chinois d'Anne d'Autiche almost certainly identifiable with the Mazarin coffer bought directly for Beckford by the marchands-merciers D'Arnault at the duc de Bouillon's sale, 20-21 July 1800; shipped to Fonthill, the latter was included as lot 576 in the 1823 Fonthill sale and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (ibid., pp.222-224). The latter is more familiarly associated with Cardinal Mazarin, to whom Anne of Austria is reputed to have been secretly married. This hypothesis is further supported by the mention of numerous small objects in lacquer; without a doubt Beckford's largest purchase of lacquer was also through D'Arnault at the duc de Bouillon's sale; Beckford himself wrote 'You are in possession of my sentiments respecting the Bouillon Collection. No pains should be spared to attempt getting hold of it, I am in fact more anxious about the Japans than the pictures - and surely they might be induced to part with the whole of them in a lump and for a good price which no one else can or would give them - for these trifling toys cannot be precious in any eyes except such as are affected with the Japan-mania in a violent incurable degree'.
Cumulatively, these factors all point to the shipping document being for Beckford himself, rather than Hamilton, and suggest a date in or shortly after 1801 - or perhaps in 1802-3 following the Treaty of Amiens and before the renewal of hostilities between Bonaparte and England in 1803. The Treaty of Amiens had given Beckford further opportunities to claim back possessions seized during the Revolution and send them back to England; some of Beckford's collection had previously been impounded in 1794 at Calais but was ultimately returned in 1797. This probable early date of 1801-3 for the shipping documents would also almost certainly preclude Hamilton's involvement. Although born in 1767, Hamilton did not marry Susan Euphemia until 1810, and as his father had only succeeded his nephew to the Dukedom in 1799 and lived until 1819, it pre-dates Hamilton's financial inheritance and consequent voracious buying activities alongside Beckford under Franchi's guidance, mainly in the 1820's.
The landmark 1823 sale of Fonthill included, as lot 1271 from the St Michael's Gallery:-
A VARIEGATED and UNDULATED AGATE CUP, mounted with scrolls, gryphons' heads and claws, upon a SARDONYX PLYNTH, embellished with or-moulu.
Sold for £19 9s 0d, the punctuation would suggest that the Sardonyx plinth was actually a separate element; the description may, therefore, quite plausibly be that for this ewer and basin. Certainly elements of the description - particularly the undulated bowl, the idea of ormolu-mounted agate in itself, the mentions of gryphons heads, claws and scrolls is very compelling. Moreover, the lack of description of the boys might well be accounted for by the height at which the ewer and basin was displayed - the engraving in the 1882 Hamilton Palace catalogue equally obscuring them completely. Frustratingly, the abortive Christie's 1822 sale, second day's sale, lot 100, is no more informative, and the descriptions in Rutter and elsewhere of the St. Michael's Gallery make only passing references to agate objects - such as an Agate Cup and Saucer richly mounted in gold and silver.
Although the 1823 sale description is not conclusive, it is reasonably persuasive. However, the ewer and basin could equally well have been a gift directly from Beckford to his daughter. Certainly much of the agate collection from Fonthill was not sold but instead retained by the family, including A Jasper Cup and an Agate Cup Mounted moved from Bath to Portman Square, London in 1850 (Hamilton MSS Misc.M12/51), as well as A large Oval Agate mounted and silver gilt stand sent to Easton Park, Suffolk, another Hamilton house, in 1852. The Drawing Room at the latter also included A green jade handled cup and cover and stand in the 1852 Inventory.
The superlative Collections ultimately gathered at Hamilton Palace by 1882 - as a result of both the Beckford and Hamilton inheritances - led one commentator to describe it as One of the noblest residences in Europe.. and probably containing a greater collection of rare works of art than the abode of any man under the rank of sovereign..'.
Unlike Beckford, Franchi made a number of visits to Hamilton Palace, which the latter referred to on occasion as the Scottish Court or the Kingdom of the Cinquefoils' in reference to the family's 'lily' armorials.
THE MOUNTS
The design of these unusual 'arabesque' mounts, particularly the gryphon plinth, directly recalls a drawing for a trépied executed by Beckford's favoured sculptor and ornemaniste Jean-Guillaume Moitte in the late 1780's (Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, illustrated in 'Vasemania', Exhibition Catalogue, no.63, p.126). Well before the turn of the 19th Century, Moitte and the goldsmith Auguste were collaborating on a severely neo-classical style that was the precursor of the Empire style - and Beckford was amongst their most important patrons. Although no direct parallels have been published, the incredibly rich gilding and fine ciselure of the mounts certainly place them close to the work of Pierre-Gouthière and Pierre-Philippe Thomire in the later 1780's.
THE ORNAMENT
This stately ewer and basin of gold-flecked and tortoiseshell-figured agate is conceived in the Louis Quatorze Roman fashion, and evokes Ovid's Metamorphoses or Loves of the Gods and the history of the triumphal water-birth of the nature-deity Venus. The ewer is presented in an antique-fluted and shell-scalloped basin, that recalls the deity's shell-chariot drawn by sacred dolphins. Here the scalloped ewer, of krater-vase form, is supported by a dolphin handle and is nestled by Roman acanthus foliage, which also wreathes its baluster pillar and domed pedestal. This ferocious Dauphin handle shares much in common with the drawing of 1702 by Nicolas Ambroise Cousinet of a silver Pot à Oille owned by Louis XIV (illustrated in 'Versailles à Stockholm', Exhibition Catalogue, September-October 1985, p.183-4). Cousinet became a master silversmith in Paris in 1696, and in 1703 moved to Versailles, having just completed the 1702 commisioned for Daniel Crönstrom, Swedish envoy to the French court, to make drawings of the French Royal silver to be sent to Stockholm.
This stately toilette service or pot et cuvette à laver was aggrandised as an objet d'art during the reign of Louis XVI. The ewer is raised on an altar-plinth, which recalls the fertility festival or Feast of Bacchus and is supported by youthful fauns or bacchic satyrs that issue from flowered rinceaux scrolls or arabesques of Roman acanthus; while four plinth-supported and addorsed Egyptian sphinx emerge in a similar fashion from flowered acanthus to serve as guardian caryatics supporting the basin. The circular and cross-shaped plinth displays a central bacchic thyrsus finial or grape-cluster rising from a sunflowered bas-relief.
This 'antiquarian' approach of remounting precious materials with ormolu mounts in the newest fashion was certainly a technique that found favour at Court. Indeed, it was Marie-Antoinette herself who commissioned related updated mounts by Pierre Gouthière for the pair of ewers with Louis XV mounts that she bought in the duc d'Aumont's sale in 1782 (sold by the Trustees of the Luton Hoo Foundation in these Rooms, 9 June 1994, lot 35. Could the Dauphin handle perhaps also allude to a Royal provenance for this ewer?
Certainly, the closest parallels to this rare example of the lapidaries' technique are all to be found in Royal Treasuries - particuarly in Prague and that of the Louis, Grand Dauphin of France. Now in the Prado, the latter is comprehensively discussed in L. Mira, El Tesoro de Delfín, Madrid, 2002, no.30, no.52, no.94. Intriguingly, the Prado's holdings constitute only a third of the original Treasury; the remaining two thirds stayed in Paris, much of it being sold off in sales during the 18th Century.
WILLIAM BECKFORD
William Beckford (1760 -1844), renowned connoisseur, traveller and gentleman architect, was celebrated in his youth as the author of the romantic novel 'Vathek'. Famed through his Jamaican properties as 'England's wealthiest son', the 'Kitty' Courtenay scandal, as well as the tragic early death of his wife caused Beckford's almost total withdrawal from both public and conventional social life. Instead his energies were devoted to the formation of art collections and libraries as well as to music, writing and travelling. Beckford perhaps best captured public attention through his replacement of Fonthill Splendens, the Wiltshire mansion of his father Alderman William Beckford (d.1770) with Fonthill Abbey. This monumental Abbey, demonstrating his 'Eye for the Magnificent', was built for him by the architect James Wyatt (d.1813), Surveyor of the Royal Architectural Board of Works.
Beckford, who had supported the Revolution and was in Paris at the fall of the Bastille in 1789, for many years rented the hôtel d'Orsay, returning from October 1790 to June 1791, November 1791 to May 1793 and again from May 1801 to May 1803. His beloved Fonthill was finally finished by 1807, and Beckford lived there until its spectacular sale was advertised in the early 1820s, when Mr. Christie published a catalogue of the 'Magnificent effects at Fonthill Abbey..to be sold ..on Tuesday, October 1, 1822 and the nine following days'. However, the estate and much of the contents, apart from the smaller objets d'art, were sold by private treaty to John Farquhar, James Christie's banker no less! And it was then Farquhar who instructed Phillips to sell the majority of the Abbey furnishings in the following year. Farquhar was still in possession of the Abbey during the spectacular collapse of its tower in 1825.
Beckford's formation of eclectic and luxurious collections of rare curios continued at his new homes in Lansdown Crescent, Bath and at Gloucester Place and, subsequently, at Baker Street, London. The works of art from these properties were also later to pass to his daughter Susan, Duchess of Hamilton.
At Bath, Beckford also created a garden belvedere pavilion, which provided him with a museum treasury in the manner of a European Kunstkammern or wunderkammern. In 1837 he wrote of its cabinets being 'filled with the rarest gems of art - few but excellent'. Some of these gems later featured in Edmund English's beautifully illustrated Views of Lansdown Tower, London, 1844.
During Beckford's stately visit to Portugal in 1787 he took into his service Gregorio Franchi (d.1828), a chorister in Lisbon's College of Music, who was later appointed a 'Chevalier' through Beckford's contacts with the Portuguese Royal family. Franchi shared Beckford's enthusiasm for works of art, and acted as his agent and faithful retainer. He once explained that 'One of [Beckford's] whims is never to discuss business with the person concerned and consequently I have to broach it'. It was he who kept the 'Accounts' of purchases and supervised their repair, transport etc., and so closely were the two of them involved in the assemblage of 'Good Taste', that Beckford was driven to complain in 1813: 'I see from the buying mania which dominates you that we are well on the way to ruin'.
Beckford's particular admiration for hardstones and lapidary work is evident from his account of an Italian cabinet at neighbouring Stourhead, Wiltshire, which he described as divine - 'the bronzes are of extreme delicacy and elegance, and those lovely agates, alabasters and cornelians, mingled with the glittering mother-of-pearl, produced a rich effect, agreeable and grateful for the eye'.
Agate, lapis lazuli, mosaics, rock crystal, jade and cornelian were all amongst the purchases made in Paris on Beckford's behalf in 1814, and it was again Franchi who was instrumental in the commissioning of the pietra dura cabinets designed by Beckford in 1825 (P. Hewat-Jaboor and B. McLeod, 'Pietre dure Cabinets for William Beckford; Gregorio Franchi's Role', Furniture History Society Journal, 2002, pp.135-143).