PROBABLY BY SIR RICHARD WESTMACOTT, TO A DESIGN BY JAMES WYATT, LATE 18TH EARLY 19TH CENTURY

This chimneypiece pattern, with triumphal-arched and laurel-festooned hearth unveiled beneath richly festooned Grecian altar drapery, appears to have been invented in the early 1790s by the architect James Wyatt (d.1813) for the Grecian Library of Armar Lowry-Corry, Baron Belmore, later lst Earl Belmore (D.1802) at Castle Coole, Ireland. This statuary marble chimneypiece, intended to harmonise with the window-walls' rich drapery was invoiced in 1795 for £126 by the London statuary Richard Westmacott (d.1808), who received a Royal appointment as Mason at Kensington Palace in the following year (see C. Hussey, Castlecoole II, Country Life, 26 December 1936, p.684 fig 4).