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Lot Essay
In May 1992, a remarkable discovery emerged from the “tuck shop,” or commissary, of the Canford School in Dorset, England. Behind several layers of white paint, the noted Assyriologists John M. Russell and Julian Reade uncovered a significant Assyrian gypsum relief, concealed for decades, and thought by the school to be a plaster cast of another known example. Dating to the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.) and measuring six feet long, the relief depicted a royal arms bearer and a winged deity (Apkallu). While Russell and Reade were examining the relief, Martin Marriot, Canford's Headmaster, shared another intriguing artifact, a smaller relief fragment with three severed heads – the present lot – which had recently been found during work on the school's foundations (see J.M. Russell, op. cit., p. 13). The discovery of two Assyrian reliefs at Canford, including one hiding in plain sight for decades, afforded an opportunity for the public to reassess the history of Canford School and its former life as Canford Manor, home of the industrialist Sir John Guest (1785-1852) and his wife, Lady Charlotte (1812-1895), a notable publisher.
Lady Charlotte was the first cousin of Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), Britain’s foremost archaeologist, who excavated Ashurnasirpal’s Northwest Palace between 1845-1851 and Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace between 1847-1851. In exchange for helping Layard publish The Monuments of Nineveh (1849), the first descriptive account of his excavations, the archaeologist assisted the Guests in acquiring numerous Assyrian reliefs and sculptures from his sites. Layard’s excavations had been approved by the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Sultan and primarily financed by the British Museum.
Charles Barry, the architect behind the Houses of Parliament, was enlisted by the Guests to remodel their home, Canford Manor, which had been purchased by the couple in 1847 for the considerable sum of £335,000. An ingenious solution was devised by Barry, Layard and Lady Charlotte to display the Guests’ substantial holdings of Assyrian material: it was to be housed in a dedicated room, the so-called Nineveh Porch, a paradigm of Victorian architecture, which positioned the reliefs and lamassu (monumental human-headed winged lions that supported important doorways in Assyrian palaces) alongside contemporary stained glass windows, wooden doors outfitted with ornamental cast-iron grills, a painted ceiling and tilework, all adorned with Assyrian motifs heavily influenced by the fantastic reconstructions produced by Layard in The Monuments of Nineveh. Lady Charlotte was thrilled at the prospect of displaying Assyrian sculpture at Canford Manor, writing in her diary in 1851, “I feel as if such marvelous and precious relics of a bygone age could never come safely into my possession–If we do get them safe and if the room is ever finished it will be as interesting a little spot of ground that Porch as any in England” (quoted in Russell, op. cit., p. 80; for a discussion of the design of the Nineveh Porch, see op. cit., pp. 95-112).
By the 1850s, the Guests held the largest collection of Assyrian reliefs outside of the British Museum. After the deaths of Sir John and Lady Charlotte, Canford Manor and its contents eventually passed on to their grandson, Ivor Guest, 1st Viscount Wimborne (1873-1939). In order to pay a substantial inheritance tax on his father’s estate, Viscount Wimborne sold most of the Nineveh Porch sculptures to the dealer Dikran G. Kelekian in 1919. After Canford Manor was sold in 1923, the home became the Canford School, a private boarding and day school. The institution sold seven more reliefs at Sotheby’s, London, in November 1959, thought to be the last relics left behind by the Guest family. After the rediscovery of the two reliefs in 1992, Canford School consigned both to Christie’s, London. The larger fragment, purchased by the Miho Museum in Japan, sold for £7.7 million, the highest price paid at the time for any antiquity at auction. The present relief, therefore, is the last remaining Canford relief still in private hands.
Assyrian material from Canford Manor forms the cornerstone of many museum’s ancient Near Eastern Art collections. The objects purchased by Kelekian in 1919 were eventually sold to John D. Rockefeller, who gifted them to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1930. This gift included two large lamassu (inv. nos. 32.143.1 and 32.143.2) and a panel with Ashurnasirpal and an attendant (inv. no. 32.143.4). Reliefs from the 1959 Sotheby’s sale are now located in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the British Museum; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem.
The present relief derives from Sennacherib’s (r. 704-681 B.C.) Southwest Palace, which he named “The Palace Without Rival.” It contained more than seventy rooms, and many of the walls of the public areas were decorated in relief with narratives illustrating "achievements of the various kings in war, in the hunt and in public works," serving as a visual reminder of the king's power (see J.E. Curtis and J.E. Reade, eds., Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum, p. 41). This relief depicts three decapitated heads of prisoners, facing right, with scales in the background representing a mountainous hillside. Working from Layard’s original drawings, J. McKenize (op. cit.) attributes this fragment to Slab 13 from Room XXXVIII in the Southwest Palace (now recognized as Slab 15). The narrative scenes in that room recorded a military campaign in a hilly region with a broad river, showing enemy cities being captured and set ablaze (see pp. 64-65 in Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival at Nineveh). While this fragment does not join directly to any other relief from Canford, one example that had been sold to Rockefeller, now in New York, also derives from Slab 15 (see E. Porada, “Reliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 6, p. 154). This relief was once mounted in an oak frame with a handwritten letter adhered to the back. Although the letter indicated that the fragment joined to a relief sold to Kelekian in 1919, the preserved record does not indicate this to be the case.
Lady Charlotte was the first cousin of Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), Britain’s foremost archaeologist, who excavated Ashurnasirpal’s Northwest Palace between 1845-1851 and Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace between 1847-1851. In exchange for helping Layard publish The Monuments of Nineveh (1849), the first descriptive account of his excavations, the archaeologist assisted the Guests in acquiring numerous Assyrian reliefs and sculptures from his sites. Layard’s excavations had been approved by the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Sultan and primarily financed by the British Museum.
Charles Barry, the architect behind the Houses of Parliament, was enlisted by the Guests to remodel their home, Canford Manor, which had been purchased by the couple in 1847 for the considerable sum of £335,000. An ingenious solution was devised by Barry, Layard and Lady Charlotte to display the Guests’ substantial holdings of Assyrian material: it was to be housed in a dedicated room, the so-called Nineveh Porch, a paradigm of Victorian architecture, which positioned the reliefs and lamassu (monumental human-headed winged lions that supported important doorways in Assyrian palaces) alongside contemporary stained glass windows, wooden doors outfitted with ornamental cast-iron grills, a painted ceiling and tilework, all adorned with Assyrian motifs heavily influenced by the fantastic reconstructions produced by Layard in The Monuments of Nineveh. Lady Charlotte was thrilled at the prospect of displaying Assyrian sculpture at Canford Manor, writing in her diary in 1851, “I feel as if such marvelous and precious relics of a bygone age could never come safely into my possession–If we do get them safe and if the room is ever finished it will be as interesting a little spot of ground that Porch as any in England” (quoted in Russell, op. cit., p. 80; for a discussion of the design of the Nineveh Porch, see op. cit., pp. 95-112).
By the 1850s, the Guests held the largest collection of Assyrian reliefs outside of the British Museum. After the deaths of Sir John and Lady Charlotte, Canford Manor and its contents eventually passed on to their grandson, Ivor Guest, 1st Viscount Wimborne (1873-1939). In order to pay a substantial inheritance tax on his father’s estate, Viscount Wimborne sold most of the Nineveh Porch sculptures to the dealer Dikran G. Kelekian in 1919. After Canford Manor was sold in 1923, the home became the Canford School, a private boarding and day school. The institution sold seven more reliefs at Sotheby’s, London, in November 1959, thought to be the last relics left behind by the Guest family. After the rediscovery of the two reliefs in 1992, Canford School consigned both to Christie’s, London. The larger fragment, purchased by the Miho Museum in Japan, sold for £7.7 million, the highest price paid at the time for any antiquity at auction. The present relief, therefore, is the last remaining Canford relief still in private hands.
Assyrian material from Canford Manor forms the cornerstone of many museum’s ancient Near Eastern Art collections. The objects purchased by Kelekian in 1919 were eventually sold to John D. Rockefeller, who gifted them to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1930. This gift included two large lamassu (inv. nos. 32.143.1 and 32.143.2) and a panel with Ashurnasirpal and an attendant (inv. no. 32.143.4). Reliefs from the 1959 Sotheby’s sale are now located in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the British Museum; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem.
The present relief derives from Sennacherib’s (r. 704-681 B.C.) Southwest Palace, which he named “The Palace Without Rival.” It contained more than seventy rooms, and many of the walls of the public areas were decorated in relief with narratives illustrating "achievements of the various kings in war, in the hunt and in public works," serving as a visual reminder of the king's power (see J.E. Curtis and J.E. Reade, eds., Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum, p. 41). This relief depicts three decapitated heads of prisoners, facing right, with scales in the background representing a mountainous hillside. Working from Layard’s original drawings, J. McKenize (op. cit.) attributes this fragment to Slab 13 from Room XXXVIII in the Southwest Palace (now recognized as Slab 15). The narrative scenes in that room recorded a military campaign in a hilly region with a broad river, showing enemy cities being captured and set ablaze (see pp. 64-65 in Russell, Sennacherib’s Palace Without Rival at Nineveh). While this fragment does not join directly to any other relief from Canford, one example that had been sold to Rockefeller, now in New York, also derives from Slab 15 (see E. Porada, “Reliefs from the Palace of Sennacherib,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 6, p. 154). This relief was once mounted in an oak frame with a handwritten letter adhered to the back. Although the letter indicated that the fragment joined to a relief sold to Kelekian in 1919, the preserved record does not indicate this to be the case.