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Sold by Order of THE CROOME ESTATE TRUSTEES The following three lots were acquired by George William, 6th Earl of Coventry in Paris in the 1760's. Lord Coventry succeeded his father in 1751 and was reputed to have had an income of ten thousand pounds a year from rents. On inheriting Croome, the estate that had been in his family since 1597, he commissioned Lancelot (Capability) Brown, who had probably been remodelling the park since 1748, to build a splendid new house. Parts of the interior were complete by 1760 when Lord Coventry called in Robert Adam, who was responsible for the final appearance of most of the main rooms (Gallery, Library, Tapestry Room). His association with Lord Coventry and Croome continued for over thirty years and he also completely remodelled and redecorated Coventry House in Piccadilly between 1765 and 1768. Lord Coventry was a most discerning patron with highly refined and adventurous taste. The furnishings of Croome were supplied by almost every leading English cabinet-maker of the age. A particularly complete series of bills for the years 1757 to 1801 shows that pieces were supplied by Vile and Cobb, Mayhew and Ince, Chippendale, Linnell, Langlois, France and Bradburn, Gordon and Taitt, Marsh and Tatham, Seddon and Gillows. One particularly fascinating aspect of Lord Coventry's taste was his enthusiasm for contemporary French decorative arts, at a crucial movement when the emerging neo-classical style was in its earliest Transistional stages. He had visited Paris with his first wife, Maria (d.1760), the elder of the beautiful Gunning sisters, whom he married in 1752. He visited Paris again in August and September 1763 to arrange his most spectacular acquisition - the commissioning of the superb Tentures de Boucher tapestries from Jacques Nielson, entrepreneur of the basse lisse looms at the Gobelins factory under the Directeur de la Manufacture, Jean Germain Soufflot, who had conceived the original idea for the Boucher tapestries with Maurice Jacques. He is recorded in contemporary references as going to Paris 'to pass the time in buying glasses and tapestry' and he must have already been decided on a tapestry room because Adam's ceiling design is dated January 1763. The tapestries were in an entirely new style with a damas cramoisi background and oval medallions of mythological scenes after paintings by François Boucher surrounded by picture- frame borders garlanded with flowers - giving the illusion of silk damask covered walls with oval windows. The idea of creating a tapestry room, the walls entirely covered above dado height, was also entirely novel and Lord Coventry may well have been instrumental in its conception. He was the first client to order the series and his lead was followed by at least four English clients. The Croome Court Tapestry Room is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York and is fully discussed by Edith Standen in Decorative Art from the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, London, 1964, pp.2-57. Lord Coventry was in Paris again in August and September 1764 'on the old tapestry account' - and on several occasions later in the 1760's (1765, 1766 and 1768). He took the opportunity to buy extensively on these visits, particularly in 1763 and 1764, and a fascinating group of bills from Parisian marchands survive among the English cabinet-makers bills. Principal among these are the accounts from the marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier but there are others from bijoutiers, parfumiers, brodeurs, marchands de toutes sortes d'étoffes de soie, d'or et d'argent and from Bachelier for Sèvres. Poirier's well-known 1763 bill includes (as well as the two pairs of wall-lights, lots 30 and 31) two pieces of furniture - one in Louis XV style 'Un secretaire en armoire garnie de bronzes doré' of the BVRB model already associated with Poirier, the other in the new neo-classical taste 'Une Commode a la grec garnie de bronze doré' (F.J.B. Watson, Louis XVI Furniture, London, 1960, no. 38). The 1764 bill included an extremely expensive 'Pendule astronomie' on 'un pied a la grec orné de Bronzes doré d'or moulu'

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No Description (2)

Provenance

Bought by the 6th Earl of Coventry in Paris in the 1760's
Thence by direct descent in the Coventry family

Lot Essay

A number of other pots-pourri of this shape, based on Chinese porcelain, are known. A pair in bleu celeste is in the Forsyth Wickes Collection, Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Catalogue, p.30). A further three pairs are in an English private collection, one in green, one in bleu celeste (possibly from the Collection of Baron Achille Seillière, Château de Mello, sold Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 5-10 May, 1890, lot 375) and one in bleu nouveau. A pair in bleu celeste with ormolu feet and on a giallo antico base were in the collection of the duc d'Aumont, sold December 12-21, 1782, lot 229 and purchased by Président Haudry for 126 livres (Acanthus Books, Le Cabinet du Duc d'Aumont, New York, 1986, p.116)
There is a model at Sèvres factory of a pot à sucre or sucrier limaçon which along with other items à limaçon appear to have been popular in the early 1750's. T. Préaud and M. Brunet discuss this form of pot-pourri in Sèvres, Des origines à nos jours, 1978, pp.82-83, pl. xxxii, in which they suggest that this form probably dates from 1763-1768. They support this conclusion with evidence from the factory inventories which mention 4 limaçons in 1765 and 6 limaçons in 1766. The factory's accounts for sales to the dealer Poirier list eleven limaçons for the period 1763-68 at either 48 or 60 livres each, but unfortunately the colours are not specified. It is however possible that the term limaçons referred to other smaller items as the likely cost of this form of pot-pourri with ormolu mounts must have been far higher and that they appear in the accounts under pièces d' ornaments. The 6th Earl was buying Sèvres at this period from Poirier and Bachelier, who acted as a salesman for the Sèvres factory and on behalf of his mother's shop. His collection included the well-known Coventry Vases, a pair of vases 'Hollandois nouveau ovale' of the third size dated 1759 and decorated with reserves of scenes after Teniers on a rose ground highlighted in green, now in the Forsyth Wickes Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Catalogue, p.31). Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Catalogue, p.31).

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