拍品專文
This type of inlay of colored marble and scagliola on a white marble ground is attributed to Pietro Bossi, an Italian craftsman who is listed in the Dublin Directories as 'Inlayer in marble and Stucco Worker' at 22 Fleet Street in 1785-86 and at 38 Fleet Street in 1787-98. This chimneypiece belongs to a distinctive group which, according to a recent study, comprises thirty-eight examples plus table tops. Executed in the neoclassical manner many of these incorporate terracotta colored profile busts based on Roman intaglios. These portraits are undoubtedly inspired by Baron d'Hancarville's publication of Sir William Hamilton's vase collection which was published from 1767-1776 but was not in general circulation until the 1780's and would have been highly fashionable in Dublin at that time. An entire room at Clongowes College, Co.Kildare was decorated with engraved plates from this publication. Other chimneypieces with intaglio and vase decoration survive at Castle Townsend, Co.Cork, Leinster House, Dublin and the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin (Georgian Society Records, Dublin, 1909-1913). Another closely related example is illustrated in H.Cescinsky, English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, vol.III, p.65, fig.60, and one sold Sotheby's New York, 15 April 1991, lot 291.