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Lot Essay
THE DESIGN
This elegant chimneypiece, with poetic tablets and medallions that are painted in trompe l'oeil imitation of marble or scagliola, is conceived in the 1780s Pompeian Etruscan fashion popularised by architects such as Robert Adam (d.1792). Its mosaiced compartments, with palm-flowered ribbon-guilloches on a black ground, are inspired by the engraved ornament of Grecian painted vases.
This beautifully flowered chimneypiece was probably amongst the 'new-fashioned chimney-pieces' advertised in 1788 by the Great Marlborough Street cabinet-maker George Brookshaw (d.1823), 'Peintre ébéniste' and famed author of A New Treatise on Flower Painting, 1797, and Pomona Britannica of 1804-12 (Lucy Wood, 'George Brookshaw, The case of the vanishing cabinet-maker: Part 1', Apollo, May 1991, pp. 301-306, and 'George Brookshaw, 'Peintre Ebeniste par Extraordinaire, Part 2', Apollo, June 1991, pp. 383-396.
THE CLASSICAL SCENES
The frieze tablet, beneath the chimneypiece's veil-draped and palm-wreathed cornice, celebrates lyric poetry with a scene from the mythical history of Orpheus, imagined son of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, and companion on Mount Parnassus of the poetry deity Apollo. Here torch-bearing Cupid guides Orpheus and his love Eurydice from the underworld, while in a flanking medallion the underworld is portrayed with Apollo's sacred swans attending the shrine of Immortality to receive a list of names from Lethe, the personification of Oblivion. The latter subject was inspired by the poet Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, 1532. A companion medallion portrays Una, the personification of Truth, in the act of charming a lion with her gentleness, derived from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen of 1590. More flower-garlanded medallions on the pilasters recall festive figures painted at Herculaneum or sculpted on antique sarcophagi, and represent the lyre-bearing Erato, muse of Lyric Poetry, and Terpsichore, the muse of Dance.
The Orpheus tablet derives from a painting by the artist Angelica Kauffmann that was engraved and published in 1782 by Birchall and Durand. A copy of a print after this painting is included with this lot. This tablet also appears on Brookshaw's closely related chimneypiece acquired by James Beal Bonnell (d.1811) following his purchase of Pelling Place, Windsor, in 1788. This chimneypiece was sold anonymously, Sotheby's, London, 7 July 2000, lot 81 (£256,500). This tablet, together with the medallions, appear again on a related chimneypiece almost certainly supplied to Colonel Mark Wood for Piercefield Park, Monmouthshire, in 1793-94. The Piercefield chimneypiece is illustrated in Wood, op. cit., pt. 2, p. 384, pl. II, and is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At Piercefield it was accompanied by a feast of Brookshaw: a pair of very similarly decorated bookcases and three other chimneypieces (Wood, op. cit., pt. I, p. 385, pl. II). The bookcases were most recently sold at Christie's, New York, 29 January 1994, lot 351 ($360,000). The bookcases also included images from engravings published in the late 1780's in Harrison and Co.'s Pictureque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales.
RELATED CHIMNEYPIECES
Similar naturalistic garlands, combined with Etruscan Grecian vase ornament, feature on a chimneypiece acquired for Hams Hall, Worcestershire (L. Wood, 'Brookshaw's Chimneypiece from Hams Hall, Warwickshire', Furniture History Society Newsletter, May 1994), and another related chimneypiece was supplied to Badminton House Gloucestershire, in 1787 (Wood, 1991, op. cit., pt. II, pl. 1).
Brookshaw's advertisement published in May 1788 announced that such chimneypieces as being 'in hand' at the 'Elegant Furniture and Upholstery Warehouse' that he established in Great Marlborough Street in the late 1770s. He boasted that they were all made 'in a style peculiar to himself, in copper..., and painted... in a manner which gives them peculiar elegance...' On another occasion he advertised one of his chimneypieces as being a 'NEW FASHIONED ELEGANT CHIMNEY PIECE with Coppler Pannels [sic], elegantly painted'.
This elegant chimneypiece, with poetic tablets and medallions that are painted in trompe l'oeil imitation of marble or scagliola, is conceived in the 1780s Pompeian Etruscan fashion popularised by architects such as Robert Adam (d.1792). Its mosaiced compartments, with palm-flowered ribbon-guilloches on a black ground, are inspired by the engraved ornament of Grecian painted vases.
This beautifully flowered chimneypiece was probably amongst the 'new-fashioned chimney-pieces' advertised in 1788 by the Great Marlborough Street cabinet-maker George Brookshaw (d.1823), 'Peintre ébéniste' and famed author of A New Treatise on Flower Painting, 1797, and Pomona Britannica of 1804-12 (Lucy Wood, 'George Brookshaw, The case of the vanishing cabinet-maker: Part 1', Apollo, May 1991, pp. 301-306, and 'George Brookshaw, 'Peintre Ebeniste par Extraordinaire, Part 2', Apollo, June 1991, pp. 383-396.
THE CLASSICAL SCENES
The frieze tablet, beneath the chimneypiece's veil-draped and palm-wreathed cornice, celebrates lyric poetry with a scene from the mythical history of Orpheus, imagined son of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, and companion on Mount Parnassus of the poetry deity Apollo. Here torch-bearing Cupid guides Orpheus and his love Eurydice from the underworld, while in a flanking medallion the underworld is portrayed with Apollo's sacred swans attending the shrine of Immortality to receive a list of names from Lethe, the personification of Oblivion. The latter subject was inspired by the poet Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, 1532. A companion medallion portrays Una, the personification of Truth, in the act of charming a lion with her gentleness, derived from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen of 1590. More flower-garlanded medallions on the pilasters recall festive figures painted at Herculaneum or sculpted on antique sarcophagi, and represent the lyre-bearing Erato, muse of Lyric Poetry, and Terpsichore, the muse of Dance.
The Orpheus tablet derives from a painting by the artist Angelica Kauffmann that was engraved and published in 1782 by Birchall and Durand. A copy of a print after this painting is included with this lot. This tablet also appears on Brookshaw's closely related chimneypiece acquired by James Beal Bonnell (d.1811) following his purchase of Pelling Place, Windsor, in 1788. This chimneypiece was sold anonymously, Sotheby's, London, 7 July 2000, lot 81 (£256,500). This tablet, together with the medallions, appear again on a related chimneypiece almost certainly supplied to Colonel Mark Wood for Piercefield Park, Monmouthshire, in 1793-94. The Piercefield chimneypiece is illustrated in Wood, op. cit., pt. 2, p. 384, pl. II, and is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. At Piercefield it was accompanied by a feast of Brookshaw: a pair of very similarly decorated bookcases and three other chimneypieces (Wood, op. cit., pt. I, p. 385, pl. II). The bookcases were most recently sold at Christie's, New York, 29 January 1994, lot 351 ($360,000). The bookcases also included images from engravings published in the late 1780's in Harrison and Co.'s Pictureque Views of the Principal Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in England and Wales.
RELATED CHIMNEYPIECES
Similar naturalistic garlands, combined with Etruscan Grecian vase ornament, feature on a chimneypiece acquired for Hams Hall, Worcestershire (L. Wood, 'Brookshaw's Chimneypiece from Hams Hall, Warwickshire', Furniture History Society Newsletter, May 1994), and another related chimneypiece was supplied to Badminton House Gloucestershire, in 1787 (Wood, 1991, op. cit., pt. II, pl. 1).
Brookshaw's advertisement published in May 1788 announced that such chimneypieces as being 'in hand' at the 'Elegant Furniture and Upholstery Warehouse' that he established in Great Marlborough Street in the late 1770s. He boasted that they were all made 'in a style peculiar to himself, in copper..., and painted... in a manner which gives them peculiar elegance...' On another occasion he advertised one of his chimneypieces as being a 'NEW FASHIONED ELEGANT CHIMNEY PIECE with Coppler Pannels [sic], elegantly painted'.