Lot Essay
1ST EARL SPENCER AND THE BUILDING OF SPENCER HOUSE
'I do not apprehend there is a house in England of its size better worth the view of the curious in architecture, and the fitting up and furnishing great houses, than Lord Spencer's in St.James's Place'-Arthur Young, 1768
In December 1755, John Spencer celebrated two momentous events, his coming-of-age and his marriage to Miss Georgiana Poyntz in a clandestine ceremony at the family seat of Althorp in Northamptonshire. John was descended from one of England's most illustrious families and his substantial inheritance as a sole heir to the Sunderland and Marlborough fortunes entitled him to more than £30,000 per year as well as various estates and homes including Althorp, Windsor Home Park and Holywell House, St.Albans. Despite his newly acquired properties, the Spencers lacked an appropriate residence in London so within months of their marriage, the Spencers set out to find a residence beffitting their new wealth and position.
By May 1756, John Spencer purchased a ninety-nine-year lease of a property at the southwest end of the fashionable St.James's Place upon which he would build his new home. Spencer and his wife were both enthusiastic connoisseurs of the fine and decorative arts and the construction of their new mansion was a project which dominated the first years of their marriage. Along with the site, Spencer retained the services of the architect John Vardy (d.1765) who had planned the elevation for the previous owner Lord Monfort. Vardy, who succeeded William Kent as architect to King George II and was patronized by prominent members of the aristocracy, was a natural choice to design the interiors and elevation of this new home. Vardy's devotion to classical prototypes as a disciple of Kent was suited to John Spencer's views as a recently elected member of the Society of the Dilettanti. Established in 1734, this society was dedicated to promoting classical art and culture in England and remained an important influence on the design of Spencer House. All of Vardy's designs were subject to the approval of General George Gray, the Secretary of the Society and celebrated amateur of architecture, who was retained by Spencer to oversee the building. Vardy completed the elevation and designed the interiors of the principal floor. He was succeeded by James 'Athenian' Stuart, a young member and prodigy of the Dilettanti, who was entrusted with the design of the first-floor apartments after 1758. The final house was spectacular, one of the most fashionable residences of its time, and the source of admiration until the present.
THE PALM ROOM
'...pillars of most exquisite workmanship, covered in leaves, the thick foliage of which bends round in a fine arch from one to the other in a taste that cannot be too admired' - Arthur Young, 1772
The magnificent Palm Room or Drawing Room served as the culmination of Vardy's apartments. The room overlooked the Royal park and was situated on the West front of the house whose Roman temple pediment displayed triumphal palms attended by statues of Arcadian deities. Here the festive goddess Flora is accompanied by Bacchus and Ceres, who recall the Roman sentiment that 'Venus [love] grows cold without Bacchus [wine] and Ceres [food]'. Likewise, love's triumph was celebrated in Vardy's elevation for the Spencers' Drawing Room, whose triumphal-arched niche could serve on occasion for a stately bed, in the 'French apartment' manner. Bacchic wine-krator vases ranged round the room's Roman-temple frieze guarded by griffins that the ancient poets associated with the sun god Apollo, leader of the Muses of Artistic inspiration on Mount Parnassus. Appropriately, these chimerical eagles also serve as supporters or guardians for the Spencer family's armorials. Ancient poetry is also recalled in the room-of-entertainment by busts of Homer and Hesiod. Their herm-posted pedestals flank the hermed-pedestals of the marble chimneypiece designed by Vardy. The room's Corinthian-columned screen was wrapped by golden palms, whose fronds arched above two wall niches displaying antique marble statues. The palm, while considered as a symbol of peace and victory, was also associated with Apollo's altars and the reward of victors at events held in his honour. Palm-trees forming arches with interwoven branches also served as a symbol of Love. So it is possible to trace the possible origins of this wall-elevation, celebrating Venus's Triumph, to designs by the Italian artist Guilio Pippi, called Guilio Romano (d.1546), whose work was adapted by Vardy in his proposals for the Spencer furnishings. It may have been Guilio Romano's image of palm-trees framing Venus's attendant Graces, that inspired Inigo Jones (d.1652) in a theatre design of 1625, and this in turn inspired the screen design for a French-fashioned state-apartment, combining both conjugal and Apollonian meaning, introduced at the Queen's House, Greenwich in the 1660's. The latter was the principal source for the Spencer room as it had recently featured among patterns after the antique or Roman manner, chosen by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (d.1753) for inclusion in John Vardy's Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mrs. William Kent in 1744.
THE PALM ROOM SUITE
The chairs, originally upholstered in green acanthus-foliated damask, and embellished with Grecian palm-flowers emerging from Roman acanthus, were designed by Vardy to harmonise with the room. While no drawing has come to light for the Palm Room suite, Vardy's designs for the dining-room furniture, many of which bear Gray's stamp of approval, show his proficiency as a furniture designer. The design for the dining-room sideboard with pier glass inscribed Two Tables & Two Glass's at each End of Great Dining Room, Parlour Floor and on the reverse For the Honble John Spencer Esqrs Great Dining Room in St Jame's place at Each End of the Room illustrates Vardy's references to classical prototypes (J.Friedman, Spencer House, London, pp.112-113, pl.77-78). It appears that only the sideboards were executed (or met the approval of Gen.Gray) while the mirror design reappears in another drawing for an unidentified reception room (ibid, p.108). A design for a pier glass, entwined with palm leaves, closely approximates the Spencer 'Palm' mirror and the possibility has been raised that this is a preliminary sketch for the Spencer mirror, this is more certainly the design for a pair of pier glasses at Hackwood Park, Hampshire (see A.Coleridge, 'John Vardy and the Hackwood Suite', The Connoisseur, January 1962, pp.12-17). These examples show Vardy readapting and reusing his designs for different projects.
The chairs are conceived as French 'Easy Chairs' popularized by Thomas Chippendale in his celebrated furniture pattern-books entitled The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (1754-1762), while their serpentined frames also reflect the French 'picturesque' fashion discussed in the artist William Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty, 1753.
Unfortunately, no documentation exists to identify the maker of the suite. While their design reflects Chippendale's French style, it seems likely that they were executed by the fashionable cabinet-maker John Gordon who was supplying furniture and carrying out repairs for Earl Spencer at Spencer House and Althorp in the 1770's. Variously listed from 1748 at Swallow Street and King Street (possibly adjoining addresses) off Golden Square, London, Gordon included among his patrons the Duke of Atholl, the Duke of Gordon and Sir John Griffin Griffin. His close relationship with Earl Spencer is revealed by his appointment as an executor in his will in 1778.
John Gordon is first cited in invoices in the Blair Castle accounts in 1748, and in 1756, he supplied '8 mahogany chairs carved frames in fish scales with a french foot and carved leaf on the toe' as well as '6 mahogany chairs with lion paw feet'. Stylistic and structural similarities between the Blair Castle suites and Spencer commissions have been noted by Peter Thornton and John Hardy in their Apollo article, 'The Spencer Furniture at Althorp', Section II, June 1968, p.448. Characteristic features such as the marked curvature of the seat frame and legs, and symmetrical design of the front and side rails in the French tradition compare to the design on seat furniture supplied to the Great Ball-Room at Spencer House (op.cit, figs.8,9). Further to this, the unusual catch fitted to the Great Ball-Room chairs and Painted Room suite from Spencer House are also present on the Palm suite. While very little is known about Gordon from 1756-1767, at the time of the Spencer House project, he appears to go into partnership with John Taitt by 1767 when the firm appears in the directories at King Street. The documented commissions by Gordon and Taitt were extensive and include carved giltwood seat furniture supplied to the Earl of Coventry at Croome Court (1768) and Sir Griffin Griffin for Audley End (1771). The superb quality of the carving on these commissions further supports an attribution to Gordon for the execution of these chairs (G.Beard and C.Gilbert, eds.,Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, London, 1986, pp.355-357).
It is worthy to note the possible role of Thomas Vardy in the execution of these chairs. Thomas, the brother of John Vardy, was a sculptor and carver who is known to have been employed at Spencer House by the payment records preserved at Hoare's Bank in Fleet Street (see J.Friedman, 'Spencer House', Apollo, August 1987, p.83). The chairs are constructed of limewood, an unusual choice for a chair-maker and a timber favored by carvers.
The Palm Room suite was originally comprised of at least eight armchairs, a sofa, two large stools and two smaller stools, in addition to the pier glass. The suite was removed from the Palm Room during the 2nd Earl's transformation of the room into a Library under the auspices of the architect Henry Holland from 1788-1796. The 2nd Earl, a renowned bibliophile, redecorated the room incorporating three new bookcases and furniture appropriate for the room's new purpose (J.Friedman, ibid, p.221). From here, the history of the suite becomes unclear and it is not known whether the suite actually leaves Spencer House at this time or whether it was relocated to other rooms in the house. The two long stools which remain in the Spencer family collection are the only pieces which appear in a series of photographs of the Spencer House interiors by Bedford Lemere in 1895. It is reasonable to assume that pieces from the suite had already left the house by this time. The house had been let to a succession of tenants from 1889 and by 1892, the 5th Earl was forced to sell the 2nd Earl's renowned libary which raised £200,000. It is possible that some of the furnishings were also sold at this time. The long stools were removed to Althorp in 1926 along with the remaining contents when the house was leased to the Ladies' Army and Navy Club by the 7th Earl due to the prohibitive costs of upkeep (J.Friedman, p.275). There are no records to show when the four chairs entered the collection at Elvaston Castle.
THE DECORATION
These chairs show evidence of an old green/blue-painted surface beneath the more recently gilded layer. Ongoing research on the Palm room by Cindi Strauss, assistant curator, the department of decorative arts and Rienzi at the Museum of Fine Arts, House and Jeffrey Munger, associate curator, department of European decorative arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has focused on determining the original decoration of this suite of furniture. Preliminary observations of the pair of armchairs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (which were purchased as part of the same lot as the present chairs in the 1963 Elvaston Castle sale) and a pair of stools from the suite at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston have raised questions regarding whether a white paint and gilt scheme is the original decoration. In particular, they are carefully weighing the origin of period green/blue paint under more recent surfaces on all of these frames. [This green/blue painted surface was also present on the pair of chairs sold at Sotheby's in 1990]. A thorough microscopic analysis of samples of the decoration from these four objects is in progress. The results will be forthcoming in an article by Ms. Strauss on the Palm room suite.
SPENCER HOUSE TODAY
Since 1981, Spencer House has been comprehensively restored under the direction of Lord Rothschild. Replicas of the palm seat furniture (comprising four armchairs, two window seats and a sofa) carved after the original models are now present in the Palm room and appear in a recent photograph which is reproduced on the previous page.
'I do not apprehend there is a house in England of its size better worth the view of the curious in architecture, and the fitting up and furnishing great houses, than Lord Spencer's in St.James's Place'-Arthur Young, 1768
In December 1755, John Spencer celebrated two momentous events, his coming-of-age and his marriage to Miss Georgiana Poyntz in a clandestine ceremony at the family seat of Althorp in Northamptonshire. John was descended from one of England's most illustrious families and his substantial inheritance as a sole heir to the Sunderland and Marlborough fortunes entitled him to more than £30,000 per year as well as various estates and homes including Althorp, Windsor Home Park and Holywell House, St.Albans. Despite his newly acquired properties, the Spencers lacked an appropriate residence in London so within months of their marriage, the Spencers set out to find a residence beffitting their new wealth and position.
By May 1756, John Spencer purchased a ninety-nine-year lease of a property at the southwest end of the fashionable St.James's Place upon which he would build his new home. Spencer and his wife were both enthusiastic connoisseurs of the fine and decorative arts and the construction of their new mansion was a project which dominated the first years of their marriage. Along with the site, Spencer retained the services of the architect John Vardy (d.1765) who had planned the elevation for the previous owner Lord Monfort. Vardy, who succeeded William Kent as architect to King George II and was patronized by prominent members of the aristocracy, was a natural choice to design the interiors and elevation of this new home. Vardy's devotion to classical prototypes as a disciple of Kent was suited to John Spencer's views as a recently elected member of the Society of the Dilettanti. Established in 1734, this society was dedicated to promoting classical art and culture in England and remained an important influence on the design of Spencer House. All of Vardy's designs were subject to the approval of General George Gray, the Secretary of the Society and celebrated amateur of architecture, who was retained by Spencer to oversee the building. Vardy completed the elevation and designed the interiors of the principal floor. He was succeeded by James 'Athenian' Stuart, a young member and prodigy of the Dilettanti, who was entrusted with the design of the first-floor apartments after 1758. The final house was spectacular, one of the most fashionable residences of its time, and the source of admiration until the present.
THE PALM ROOM
'...pillars of most exquisite workmanship, covered in leaves, the thick foliage of which bends round in a fine arch from one to the other in a taste that cannot be too admired' - Arthur Young, 1772
The magnificent Palm Room or Drawing Room served as the culmination of Vardy's apartments. The room overlooked the Royal park and was situated on the West front of the house whose Roman temple pediment displayed triumphal palms attended by statues of Arcadian deities. Here the festive goddess Flora is accompanied by Bacchus and Ceres, who recall the Roman sentiment that 'Venus [love] grows cold without Bacchus [wine] and Ceres [food]'. Likewise, love's triumph was celebrated in Vardy's elevation for the Spencers' Drawing Room, whose triumphal-arched niche could serve on occasion for a stately bed, in the 'French apartment' manner. Bacchic wine-krator vases ranged round the room's Roman-temple frieze guarded by griffins that the ancient poets associated with the sun god Apollo, leader of the Muses of Artistic inspiration on Mount Parnassus. Appropriately, these chimerical eagles also serve as supporters or guardians for the Spencer family's armorials. Ancient poetry is also recalled in the room-of-entertainment by busts of Homer and Hesiod. Their herm-posted pedestals flank the hermed-pedestals of the marble chimneypiece designed by Vardy. The room's Corinthian-columned screen was wrapped by golden palms, whose fronds arched above two wall niches displaying antique marble statues. The palm, while considered as a symbol of peace and victory, was also associated with Apollo's altars and the reward of victors at events held in his honour. Palm-trees forming arches with interwoven branches also served as a symbol of Love. So it is possible to trace the possible origins of this wall-elevation, celebrating Venus's Triumph, to designs by the Italian artist Guilio Pippi, called Guilio Romano (d.1546), whose work was adapted by Vardy in his proposals for the Spencer furnishings. It may have been Guilio Romano's image of palm-trees framing Venus's attendant Graces, that inspired Inigo Jones (d.1652) in a theatre design of 1625, and this in turn inspired the screen design for a French-fashioned state-apartment, combining both conjugal and Apollonian meaning, introduced at the Queen's House, Greenwich in the 1660's. The latter was the principal source for the Spencer room as it had recently featured among patterns after the antique or Roman manner, chosen by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (d.1753) for inclusion in John Vardy's Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mrs. William Kent in 1744.
THE PALM ROOM SUITE
The chairs, originally upholstered in green acanthus-foliated damask, and embellished with Grecian palm-flowers emerging from Roman acanthus, were designed by Vardy to harmonise with the room. While no drawing has come to light for the Palm Room suite, Vardy's designs for the dining-room furniture, many of which bear Gray's stamp of approval, show his proficiency as a furniture designer. The design for the dining-room sideboard with pier glass inscribed Two Tables & Two Glass's at each End of Great Dining Room, Parlour Floor and on the reverse For the Honble John Spencer Esqrs Great Dining Room in St Jame's place at Each End of the Room illustrates Vardy's references to classical prototypes (J.Friedman, Spencer House, London, pp.112-113, pl.77-78). It appears that only the sideboards were executed (or met the approval of Gen.Gray) while the mirror design reappears in another drawing for an unidentified reception room (ibid, p.108). A design for a pier glass, entwined with palm leaves, closely approximates the Spencer 'Palm' mirror and the possibility has been raised that this is a preliminary sketch for the Spencer mirror, this is more certainly the design for a pair of pier glasses at Hackwood Park, Hampshire (see A.Coleridge, 'John Vardy and the Hackwood Suite', The Connoisseur, January 1962, pp.12-17). These examples show Vardy readapting and reusing his designs for different projects.
The chairs are conceived as French 'Easy Chairs' popularized by Thomas Chippendale in his celebrated furniture pattern-books entitled The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (1754-1762), while their serpentined frames also reflect the French 'picturesque' fashion discussed in the artist William Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty, 1753.
Unfortunately, no documentation exists to identify the maker of the suite. While their design reflects Chippendale's French style, it seems likely that they were executed by the fashionable cabinet-maker John Gordon who was supplying furniture and carrying out repairs for Earl Spencer at Spencer House and Althorp in the 1770's. Variously listed from 1748 at Swallow Street and King Street (possibly adjoining addresses) off Golden Square, London, Gordon included among his patrons the Duke of Atholl, the Duke of Gordon and Sir John Griffin Griffin. His close relationship with Earl Spencer is revealed by his appointment as an executor in his will in 1778.
John Gordon is first cited in invoices in the Blair Castle accounts in 1748, and in 1756, he supplied '8 mahogany chairs carved frames in fish scales with a french foot and carved leaf on the toe' as well as '6 mahogany chairs with lion paw feet'. Stylistic and structural similarities between the Blair Castle suites and Spencer commissions have been noted by Peter Thornton and John Hardy in their Apollo article, 'The Spencer Furniture at Althorp', Section II, June 1968, p.448. Characteristic features such as the marked curvature of the seat frame and legs, and symmetrical design of the front and side rails in the French tradition compare to the design on seat furniture supplied to the Great Ball-Room at Spencer House (op.cit, figs.8,9). Further to this, the unusual catch fitted to the Great Ball-Room chairs and Painted Room suite from Spencer House are also present on the Palm suite. While very little is known about Gordon from 1756-1767, at the time of the Spencer House project, he appears to go into partnership with John Taitt by 1767 when the firm appears in the directories at King Street. The documented commissions by Gordon and Taitt were extensive and include carved giltwood seat furniture supplied to the Earl of Coventry at Croome Court (1768) and Sir Griffin Griffin for Audley End (1771). The superb quality of the carving on these commissions further supports an attribution to Gordon for the execution of these chairs (G.Beard and C.Gilbert, eds.,Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, London, 1986, pp.355-357).
It is worthy to note the possible role of Thomas Vardy in the execution of these chairs. Thomas, the brother of John Vardy, was a sculptor and carver who is known to have been employed at Spencer House by the payment records preserved at Hoare's Bank in Fleet Street (see J.Friedman, 'Spencer House', Apollo, August 1987, p.83). The chairs are constructed of limewood, an unusual choice for a chair-maker and a timber favored by carvers.
The Palm Room suite was originally comprised of at least eight armchairs, a sofa, two large stools and two smaller stools, in addition to the pier glass. The suite was removed from the Palm Room during the 2nd Earl's transformation of the room into a Library under the auspices of the architect Henry Holland from 1788-1796. The 2nd Earl, a renowned bibliophile, redecorated the room incorporating three new bookcases and furniture appropriate for the room's new purpose (J.Friedman, ibid, p.221). From here, the history of the suite becomes unclear and it is not known whether the suite actually leaves Spencer House at this time or whether it was relocated to other rooms in the house. The two long stools which remain in the Spencer family collection are the only pieces which appear in a series of photographs of the Spencer House interiors by Bedford Lemere in 1895. It is reasonable to assume that pieces from the suite had already left the house by this time. The house had been let to a succession of tenants from 1889 and by 1892, the 5th Earl was forced to sell the 2nd Earl's renowned libary which raised £200,000. It is possible that some of the furnishings were also sold at this time. The long stools were removed to Althorp in 1926 along with the remaining contents when the house was leased to the Ladies' Army and Navy Club by the 7th Earl due to the prohibitive costs of upkeep (J.Friedman, p.275). There are no records to show when the four chairs entered the collection at Elvaston Castle.
THE DECORATION
These chairs show evidence of an old green/blue-painted surface beneath the more recently gilded layer. Ongoing research on the Palm room by Cindi Strauss, assistant curator, the department of decorative arts and Rienzi at the Museum of Fine Arts, House and Jeffrey Munger, associate curator, department of European decorative arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has focused on determining the original decoration of this suite of furniture. Preliminary observations of the pair of armchairs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (which were purchased as part of the same lot as the present chairs in the 1963 Elvaston Castle sale) and a pair of stools from the suite at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston have raised questions regarding whether a white paint and gilt scheme is the original decoration. In particular, they are carefully weighing the origin of period green/blue paint under more recent surfaces on all of these frames. [This green/blue painted surface was also present on the pair of chairs sold at Sotheby's in 1990]. A thorough microscopic analysis of samples of the decoration from these four objects is in progress. The results will be forthcoming in an article by Ms. Strauss on the Palm room suite.
SPENCER HOUSE TODAY
Since 1981, Spencer House has been comprehensively restored under the direction of Lord Rothschild. Replicas of the palm seat furniture (comprising four armchairs, two window seats and a sofa) carved after the original models are now present in the Palm room and appear in a recent photograph which is reproduced on the previous page.