Lot Essay
This white marble chimney piece, enriched with coloured marble after the French manner and incorporating a frieze ground and Ionic fluted columns of porphyry-red rosso antico marble, was commissioned for the Drawing-Room of his Mayfair mansion overlooking Hyde Park by the Francophile and man of letters, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (d. 1773), celebrated as one of Europe's greatest sophisticates of his generation, being possessed of prodigious intellect, taste and wealth. Appropriately the key-stone tablet, which is framed by flowers and scrolled Roman acanthus after the arabesque manner, displays the mask of Mercury, bringer of wealth and happiness. Here Jupiter's messenger, crowned with winged petasus emerging from Roman foliage is festooned with Jupiter's sacred oak, emblematic of hospitality. The chimney piece architecture, with columns inspired by Rome's Temple of Good Fortune or Fortuna Virilis, derived from the Roman style of Palladio and Inigo Jones as promoted by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (d. 1753) and evolved from a pattern invented for Houghton Hall, Norfolk by the architect William Kent (d. 1748) and illustrated in the chimney piece pattern-books issued by the architect Isaac Ware (d. 1766) entitled, Designs of Inigo Jones and others (being Lord Burlington and William Kent), 1731 and republished 1743. Chesterfield succeeded Burlington as England's 'Apollo of the Arts', and in 1748 adopted Burlington's protegé Ware to build a grand London house appropriate for entertainment in his role as King George II's Secretary of State. Ware, whose publications included Plans, Elevations and Sections of Houghton in Norfolk, 1735, as well as a translation of Palladio's Four Books of Architecture, 1738, discussed Chesterfield's elegant house in his Complete Body of Architecture, 1756. In reference to this chimney piece pattern, with a tablet dropped into the frieze, he noted 'This will give the tablet itself a more handsome shape than that of a plain square, and will suit it very happily to receive the ornament that is most proper for it. This may be of various kinds, but there is none so fit as a head, and this will fill the deeper space' (Chapter XXXIV, p. 601). The chimney-piece is likely to have been executed in the celebrated Piccadilly workshops of the sculptor Thomas Carter, Senior (d. 1756), who supplied related coloured chimney-pieces for Holkham Hall, Norfolk in the early 1750s.
When Chesterfield House was demolished in 1937, the chimney piece was reputedly acquired by the newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst for Ocean House, Santa Monica, the huge beach house he built for his mistress, the actress Marion Davies. Hearst spent around six hundred thousand dollars on thirty-seven marble chimney pieces for the house, which included entire rooms imported from grand European houses and castles. In its heyday, the house could accommodate two thousand guests, and was the scene of lavish entertaining (A. Edwards,'Marion Davies' Ocean House', Architectural Digest, April 1994, pp. 170-175 and 277-278).
The pair to this chimney piece, embellished with green verde antico marble, displayed the mask of Venus, goddess of Love, who together with Mercury was responsible for the education of Cupid (illustrated by Stanley J. Pratt on the back of The Connoisseur, October, 1963).
When Chesterfield House was demolished in 1937, the chimney piece was reputedly acquired by the newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst for Ocean House, Santa Monica, the huge beach house he built for his mistress, the actress Marion Davies. Hearst spent around six hundred thousand dollars on thirty-seven marble chimney pieces for the house, which included entire rooms imported from grand European houses and castles. In its heyday, the house could accommodate two thousand guests, and was the scene of lavish entertaining (A. Edwards,'Marion Davies' Ocean House', Architectural Digest, April 1994, pp. 170-175 and 277-278).
The pair to this chimney piece, embellished with green verde antico marble, displayed the mask of Venus, goddess of Love, who together with Mercury was responsible for the education of Cupid (illustrated by Stanley J. Pratt on the back of The Connoisseur, October, 1963).