A GEORGE II MAHOGANY AND NEEDLEWORK CHEVAL FIRE-SCREEN with rectangular rising panel inset with a petit point needlework scene depicting The Rape of Persephone in a charriot, framed by flowering foliage and strapwork backed by pale green watered silk, in narrow gadrooned border, the waved cresting pierced and carved with scrolling foliage, the panelled frame carved with Vitruvian scrolls headed by shells, on arched scrolled legs carved with shells ending in beaded scrolled feet, minor repairs to joints and one leg repaired

細節

來源

Probably made for George Lee, 2nd Earl of Litchfield (d.1741), Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire
His daughter and co-heiress Lady Charlotte Lee (d.1794), who married in 1744 the 11th Viscount Dillon (d.1787)
By direct descent in the Dillon family at Ditchley to
The 17th Viscount Dillon
Sold by the Executors of Harold Arthur, 17th Viscount Dillon, CH, Sotheby's London, 26 May 1933, lot 142
Moss Harris, in his private collection
Sidney Harris, in his private collection
Bought from M. Harris & Sons, 13 November 1962, for #1275

出版

C. Latham, In English Homes, London, 1909, vol. III, p.326 (illustrated in the White Drawing Room)
P. Macquoid & R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1927, vol. III, p.69, fig. 8
'The Antique Dealer as Collector, Some Choice Furniture from the Private Collection of Mr Moss Harris', The Connoisseur, August 1936, pp.135-6
P. Macquoid & R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. edn., London, 1954, vol. III, p.59, fig. 10

拍品專文

Ditchley was built to the designs of James Gibbs (d.1754) by Francis Smith of Warwick (d.1738) for George Lee, 2nd Earl of Litchfield (d.1741) although both Kent and Flitcroft were later employed, the former circa 1725 and the latter 1736-41. Although the screen does not seem to be in the full-blooded rococo chinoiserie style of the Tapestry Room executed for the 3rd Earl circa 1750, it is clear that the furnishing of the 2nd Earl's interiors continued in the period 1740-50 after his death. It is perhaps significant that the Green Damask Drawing Room was decorated in 1743 with a Vitruvian-scroll frieze and tapestry-covered seat furniture. The pair of side-tables close to a design by Matthias Lock that are now at Temple Newsam House were supplied in 1740-1 for the Hall, a room that had been decorated fourteen years earlier (C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam and Lotherton Hall, London, 1978, vol. II, no. 446, pp.353-356)
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Ovid's poetry concerning the 'Loves of the Gods', recorded in his Metamorphoses, provided a popular source for embroidery and this subject was particularly appropriate for a fire-screen as it depicts the event that gave rise to the Eleusinian Mysteries and Spring rituals. The nymph Cyane, while picking flowers in Sicily, witnesses Proserpine, the beautiful daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, being abducted by Pluto to become Queen of the Lower World. The serpentine-crested screen, designed to correspond, is carved with the nature goddess' scallop-shell amongst the watery scroll of Vitruvius.