POSSIBLY BY JOHN LINNELL

These clothes press/commodes formed part of Castle Howard's refurbishment carried out from 1777 by Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (d. 1825) and his Countess, Margaret, daughter of Granville Leveson Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford. Their 'commodes' are antique-fluted and tablet-enriched in the Roman fashion established by Robert Adam, architect to George III; and this antique ornament would have been intended to harmonise with the Earl's 'Roman Triumph' tapestries in the State Apartment, whose scenes depicted the life of Queen Artemisia, builder of the Halicarnassus Mausoleum. The Earl's domed satinwood bed, embellished with trompe l'oeil flutes, is likely to have been designed in the year 1779 by the Berkeley Square cabinet-maker John Linnell (d. 1796), since it derives from a bed design by Robert Adam that he was then executing for Osterley Park, Middlesex (H. Hayward and P. Kirkham, William and John Linnell, London, 1980, vol. II, figs. 10 and 11). Linnell is also credited with the design of another of Castle Howard's richly-figured and inlaid clothes-presses, which is of a similar form, and is likely to have provided the prototype for this pair (Hayward & Kirkham, ibid., fig. 140). John Linnell, had studied at the St. Martin's Lane Academy before succeeding to his father William's workshops at 38 Berkeley Square in 1763. His firm is particularly celebrated for its work at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire over several decades, and his furniture was acquired for the court of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia. He was paid a total of £1,400 during the twelve year period from 1777-1789 that he was employed at Castle Howard.

We are grateful to Dr. Christopher Ridgeway for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.