ATTRIBUTED TO SIR HENRY CHEERE

The design of this golden Siena marble chimneypiece is conceived en suite with the parlour, whose Roman style recalls that introduced by Inigo Jones in King James I's Whitehall Palace Banqueting Room, and it is embellished with a boldly compartmented ceiling while the entablatures of the temple-pedimented doors are enriched with laurel garlands. Its flowered and truss-supported cornice and flowered acanthus frieze correspond to those of the room, with the latter recalls Apollo's temple at Palmyra illustrated in Robert Wood's Ruins of the temple of Palmyra, 1757. Likewise the Corinthian-columns, which project at the sides, are twined with laurels sacred to Apollo and recall the festive garlands of a chimneypiece illustrated in Robert Morris' Architecture Improved in a Collection of Modern, Useful and Elegant Designs, 1757 (pl. 49).

With its characteristic overlay of white statuary marble onto a Sicilian Jasper marble ground, this chimneypiece was almost certainly supplied by the sculptor Sir Henry Cheere (1703-81), whose yard was near St. Margaret's, Westminster. Although apprenticed as a sculptor to John Nost, Cheere is rightly celebrated for his chimneypieces, supplying such princely houses as Ditchley Park, Longford Castle, Kimbolton Castle and Kirtlington Park. A member of the committee of artists who met to discuss the scheme that resulted in the founding of the Royal Academy, Cheere was knighted by George III in 1760.