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Lot Essay
The magnificent bronze-enriched sideboard is likely to have been designed around 1815 under the direction of the architect Thomas Cundy (d. 1825), and commissioned by Other Archer Windsor, 6th Earl of Plymouth (d. 1833), for Hewell Grange, Worcestershire, to which he had succeeded in 1799 (J.P. Neale, Views of Seats, vol. V. 1822 and vol. VI, 1823). It is conceived in the French antique manner promoted by the connoisseur Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. With its Grecian reeded columns indented at the angles, it relates to one of Hope's chimneypiece patterns (pl. XXV, no.3). Acanthus-flowered bas-reliefs embellish the frieze tablets, while the projecting jamb pedestals display truimphal bacchic trophies comprised of flower-wreathed and vine-twined thyrsi. Thyrsic pillars support a lozenge-trellised and libation-patteraed rail displaying Bacchanalian masks on vine-twined thyrsi. These masks of the wine-god and his ivy-wreathed satyr companions relate to theatrical masks illustrated by Hope to reflect the elegance and beauty of ancient Greek furniture. The superb bronze work can be attributed to Benjamin Vulliamy (d.1811) and his son Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (d.1854). The bronze 'alto relievo' ornament of the frieze corresponds to that supplied by the Vulliamys for a chimneypiece executed in 1810 under Cundy's direction for the 7th Earl of Bridgewater's Grosvenor Square residence. The masks feature on a set of grand candelabra, bearing the date 1807, which the Vulliamy's supplied for the Mayfair residence of Charles Kinnaird, 8th Lord Kinnaird (d. 1826), and on two chimneypieces designed in 1810-13 by the architect Lewis Wyatt for Hackwood, Hampshire. The two chimneypieces at Hackwood were for the main dining-room where they remain. Until 1935, they were accompanied by a sideboard supplied by Gillows in 1813 (Hampshire Record Office, Bolton Archive, 11M49) with corresponding mounts both to the chimneypieces and this sideboard (family photographs). In 1811 Wyatt designed chimneypieces with related masks for the library at Tatton Park, Cheshire.