Lot Essay
In 1740 William Wrightson M.P (d.1760) employed the Rotherham architect/builder George Platt (1700-1743) to erect his elegant Roman villa at Cusworth, Yorkshire, which featured in Colin Campbells, Vitruvius Britannicus, IV, 1767. Platt's building related to his contemporary work at Burrow Hall, Lancashire, which was executed to the designs of Westby Gill (d.1746), successor to William Kent as Master Carpenter to King George II's Board of Works. Indeed the Cusworth chimneypiece reflects the Roman style in the manner of Inigo Jones as advocated by Kent and his patron Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington. The chimneypiece may have been executed by Platt's son-in-law William Rickard, who in conjuntion with John Morton and John Bower were responsible for most of the joiner's work. The chimneypiece, with an Ionic frieze of palm-wrapped torus with projecting tablet, and Grecian ribbon-fret enrichments, derives from the 'antique' fashion as featured in Isaac Ware's, Designs of Inigo Jones and Others, 1731 (pls. 53 and 42), and B. Langleys 1739 engravings for his The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs, 1745 (pls. LXI, LXV and XCVIII). Platt's similar chimneypiece in the Cusworth dining-room is illustrated in Gordon Smith, Cusworth Hall, Doncaster, 1990, (fig.79). The present chimneypiece was later moved from another room in the house to replace the marble chimneypiece that had been executed for the Chapel under the direction of the architect James Paine (illustrated in Gordon Smith, ibid.,, fig. 21).