CIRCA 1730-40, ADAPTED AND EXTENDED

The walls triumphal-arched panels, like the paired pilasters, are enriched with flowered scrolls of Roman acanthus at both the top and base in the picturesque manner introduced by architects such as Germain Boffrand (d.1754) and featured in Jean Mariettes L'architecture Francaise of circa 1738. Lyric poetry and the pastoral life are evoked by beribboned trophies suspended from the principal panels serpentined and wave-scrolled pediments; while festive flower-baskets are displayed in their base cartouches. The trophies accompany the shell badge of Venus the nature deity that is incorporated in the door tablets and overdoor-panels. One panel trophy celebrates Diana as goddess of the chase and comprises a hunting horn, quiver of arrows, etc. and is inspired by attributs de chasse such as those engraved in J.C. Delafosses' Livre de Trophées de chasse et de pêche, and reissued by P.F. Tardieu between 1776 and 1785 ( G. de Bellaigue, '18th Century French Furniture', Apollo, January 1963 pp.16-23 and fig. 5). Another trophy incorporates the pipes of Pan, the ruler of the Arcadian paradise of poets; a third incorporates the corn sheaf of Ceres as goddess of Agriculture; while the fourth unites attributes of the art of architecture with the winged caduceus of Mercury, who personified eloquence and reason.