拍品专文
This exceptional chimneypiece designed in the George II Palladian manner is festooned with fruit, emblematic of Peace and Plenty, central basket and addorsed 'herm' pilasters, whose serpentined-truss capitals incorporate heads of nymphs or nature-goddesses wearing scallop shell diadems.
A pattern for a closely related chimneypiece is included in Abraham Swan's One Hundred and Fifty Designs for Chimney Pieces (1758). Other chimneypieces of comparable quality and design were supplied to the most fashionable homes of the time. Two such examples include one in the Vandyck Room at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, probably supplied by Henry Flitcroft for the 1st Marquess of Rockingham (illustrated in L.A. Shuffrey, The English Fireplace and Its Accessories, 1912, pl. CV), and others supplied for Houghton Hall, Norfolk, the stately home of Sir Robert Walpole which from 1725 was completed under the auspices of William Kent (see L.A. Shuffrey, op.cit., pl. CIV, for one in the Stone Hall).
A pattern for a closely related chimneypiece is included in Abraham Swan's One Hundred and Fifty Designs for Chimney Pieces (1758). Other chimneypieces of comparable quality and design were supplied to the most fashionable homes of the time. Two such examples include one in the Vandyck Room at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire, probably supplied by Henry Flitcroft for the 1st Marquess of Rockingham (illustrated in L.A. Shuffrey, The English Fireplace and Its Accessories, 1912, pl. CV), and others supplied for Houghton Hall, Norfolk, the stately home of Sir Robert Walpole which from 1725 was completed under the auspices of William Kent (see L.A. Shuffrey, op.cit., pl. CIV, for one in the Stone Hall).