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Lot Essay
THE COMMISSION
These tripod torchères or candlestands in the George III 'antique' manner popularised by Robert and James Adam's The Works in Architecture (1773), were in the collection of the 3rd Earl of Kerry at his London property, Portman Square, and sold by Lord Kerry at auction on the 28th March 1778 ('A Catalogue of the Magnificent Furniture of the Right Honourable The Earl of Kerry, at his Lordship's Mansion, situated on the East Side of Portman Square', Mess. Christie and Ansell, 23rd March 1778 and nine following days, 6th Day's Sale, 28th March 1778, p. 28, 'No. XXVII Saloon fronting the Square', lots 9 and 10). Described as 'most elaborately finished in an exquisite taste' they were executed by the long-lived and renowned partnership of John Mayhew (d. 1811) and William Ince (d. 1804), cabinet-makers of Golden Square, Soho, who supplied furniture in the most fashionable taste for two properties for Lord Kerry, South-Hill, near Bagshot, Surrey (now Southill Park), and Portman Square (C. Cator, 'The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince, The Idlest Ostentation', Furniture History, vol. XXVI, 1990, p. 27). A recently discovered invoice issued by Mayhew and Ince to Lord Kerry covering the period March to April 1772 lists these torchères in the 'Great Room' of Portman Square as,
'Four Antiche Tripods of Apollo with Goatesheads,
& Serpents, and Rich Festoons of Laurel, very neat
and Curiously Carv'd and Gilt in the best double two
Colour'd Burnish'd Gold & the Alterations included
the whole being taken to peices & new Dispos'd - with
4 Copper pans to ditto perforated & Gilt in Water Gold'
They were invoiced at the cost of £300 (H. Roberts, op. cit., p. 103).
For Lord Kerry and his wife, looking to establish themselves in London society, the acquisition of a smart town house with sumptuous interiors was a prerequisite, and the decoration and furnishing at Portman Square was certainly lavish. Ince had acted as agent for Lord Kerry when the contents of South-Hill was sold by James Christie, 16-21 August 1769, and Mayhew and Ince were entrusted with the refurbishment of Portman Square, liaising with a variety of suppliers on Lord Kerry's behalf. These torchères graced the 'Great Room', one in each corner of the room.
However, the Kerry's tenure at Portman Square was short-lived and in 1778 the contents were offered for sale by auction, the occasion attracting considerable attention from the fashionable elite, including figures such as Sir John Griffin Griffin Bt., and the Countess of Derby. This was an excellent opportunity for Mayhew and Ince to promote their own business interests and many of the buyers at the sale were subsequently to become clients of the firm.
HUMPHREY STURT'S ACQUISITION OF THE TORCHÈRES
Both pairs of giltwood torchères, lots 9 and 10, were acquired at the sale of Humphrey Sturt (d.1786) of Crichel, Dorset, for £74.11s and £70.15s respectively. Sturt was already a client of Mayhew and Ince; Sturt's accounts at Hoare's Bank show payments of £30 on 20 April 1767 ('to Mr Mayhew'), £31 on 4 May 1768 ('to John Mayhew'), and £109 on 22 June 1776 ('to Mr. Ince'), and the partners continued to work for Sturt subsequently, a payment of £100 being made on 29 June 1778, a few months after the acquisition of the present torchères at Christie's sale (further payments are dated 2 March 1780, £19 10s, and 6 June 1785, £19 10s).
The manor house of Crichel was inherited in 1765 by Humphrey Sturt of Horton from his uncle, Sir William Napier, 4th Baronet. Sturt oversaw the enlargement and redecoration of the property between 1773 and 1780, placing advertisements in The Salisbury Journal on 10 and 24 June 1776 for craftsmen to work at Crichel (John Cornforth, 'The building of Crichel', Architectural History, vol. 27, 1984 , p. 269). Their number included the architect-designer, James Wyatt (d. 1813) who was employed from 1772 to 1780, his name appearing four times in the accounts for Crichel during this period, as a 'designer of decoration' to work on the principal rooms including the embellishment of the Drawing Room, whose magnificent Grecian-vaulted ceiling was ornamented with festive tablets celebrating the histories of Dionysus / Bacchus and other deities (op. cit.). This pair of torchères (sold anonymously, but with Crichel provenance, Christie's, London, 15 April 1982, lot 35, £6,264, including premium) together with their corresponding pair (sold Christie's, London, 18 November 1982, lot 33, £7,020, including premium) would have provided most appropriate furnishings in such classically inspired surroundings.
Evoking lyric poetry, they are conceived as tripod-altars dedicated to the sun and poetry deity, Apollo, whose sacred Pythian serpents guard their Grecian-scrolled and 'Etruscan' pearl-strung pilasters. Laurels festoon bacchic ram heads that are ribbon-tied to their altar-drums, and these are wreathed by imbricated libation-patera in the Louis XVI 'Grecian' manner. Their form derived from antiquity can be traced to French engravings of the early to mid-18th century, as revealed in a print of circa 1707 engraved by Nicolas Chevallier depicting the end wall of a 'Gallerie du Sr Giradon Sculpteur ordinaire du Roi', which features a pair of similar 'athenienne' or incense burners with entwined snakes (Ed. Susan Weber Soros, James 'Athenian' Stuart 1713-1788, the Rediscovery of Antiquity, New Haven and London, 2006, p.472, fig. 11-9), and another 'athenienne' illustrated in a 1765 engraving entitled 'La Vertueuse Athenienne', after a Joseph Vien painting of 1763 (Anthony Coleridge, 'English Furniture supplied for Croome Court, Robert Adam and the 6th Earl of Coventry', Apollo, February 2000, p.10, fig.5). The latter incorporated a bacchic pine 'thyrsus' wreathed by a serpent; while its ram-monopodiae pilasters were festooned with imbricated patera and raised on a plinth. These same elements, apart from serpents, feature on two 'atheniennes' with ormolu-wreathed marble tops that are in the Anson collection at Shugborough, Staffordshire and have been attributed to the architect James 'Athenian' Stuart (d.1788) (Weber Soros, op. cit., fig. 10-73). A celebrated pair of torchères by an unattributed maker but comparable to the present example were intended for the Drawing Room and are at Osterley, Middlesex (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1982, p. 48-49, fig. F/3). Furthermore, in 1767, Robert Adam invoiced the 6th Earl of Coventry for a related 'Tripod altered from a French design for a water stand', and subsequently illustrated the pattern in his Works. Here the tall tripod-supported vase-candelabrum reflected Adam's 'Etruscan' furnishings appropriate for his Roman 'Columbarium' or vase-chamber style (A. Coleridge, op. cit., p.10, fig.4). Although not as lavish as the present examples, Mayhew and Ince were also supplying the 6th Earl with stands carved with rams' heads such as 'A very neat carved Stand for basin and ewer' made of padoukwood (op. cit., fig.3).
These tripod torchères or candlestands in the George III 'antique' manner popularised by Robert and James Adam's The Works in Architecture (1773), were in the collection of the 3rd Earl of Kerry at his London property, Portman Square, and sold by Lord Kerry at auction on the 28th March 1778 ('A Catalogue of the Magnificent Furniture of the Right Honourable The Earl of Kerry, at his Lordship's Mansion, situated on the East Side of Portman Square', Mess. Christie and Ansell, 23rd March 1778 and nine following days, 6th Day's Sale, 28th March 1778, p. 28, 'No. XXVII Saloon fronting the Square', lots 9 and 10). Described as 'most elaborately finished in an exquisite taste' they were executed by the long-lived and renowned partnership of John Mayhew (d. 1811) and William Ince (d. 1804), cabinet-makers of Golden Square, Soho, who supplied furniture in the most fashionable taste for two properties for Lord Kerry, South-Hill, near Bagshot, Surrey (now Southill Park), and Portman Square (C. Cator, 'The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince, The Idlest Ostentation', Furniture History, vol. XXVI, 1990, p. 27). A recently discovered invoice issued by Mayhew and Ince to Lord Kerry covering the period March to April 1772 lists these torchères in the 'Great Room' of Portman Square as,
'Four Antiche Tripods of Apollo with Goatesheads,
& Serpents, and Rich Festoons of Laurel, very neat
and Curiously Carv'd and Gilt in the best double two
Colour'd Burnish'd Gold & the Alterations included
the whole being taken to peices & new Dispos'd - with
4 Copper pans to ditto perforated & Gilt in Water Gold'
They were invoiced at the cost of £300 (H. Roberts, op. cit., p. 103).
For Lord Kerry and his wife, looking to establish themselves in London society, the acquisition of a smart town house with sumptuous interiors was a prerequisite, and the decoration and furnishing at Portman Square was certainly lavish. Ince had acted as agent for Lord Kerry when the contents of South-Hill was sold by James Christie, 16-21 August 1769, and Mayhew and Ince were entrusted with the refurbishment of Portman Square, liaising with a variety of suppliers on Lord Kerry's behalf. These torchères graced the 'Great Room', one in each corner of the room.
However, the Kerry's tenure at Portman Square was short-lived and in 1778 the contents were offered for sale by auction, the occasion attracting considerable attention from the fashionable elite, including figures such as Sir John Griffin Griffin Bt., and the Countess of Derby. This was an excellent opportunity for Mayhew and Ince to promote their own business interests and many of the buyers at the sale were subsequently to become clients of the firm.
HUMPHREY STURT'S ACQUISITION OF THE TORCHÈRES
Both pairs of giltwood torchères, lots 9 and 10, were acquired at the sale of Humphrey Sturt (d.1786) of Crichel, Dorset, for £74.11s and £70.15s respectively. Sturt was already a client of Mayhew and Ince; Sturt's accounts at Hoare's Bank show payments of £30 on 20 April 1767 ('to Mr Mayhew'), £31 on 4 May 1768 ('to John Mayhew'), and £109 on 22 June 1776 ('to Mr. Ince'), and the partners continued to work for Sturt subsequently, a payment of £100 being made on 29 June 1778, a few months after the acquisition of the present torchères at Christie's sale (further payments are dated 2 March 1780, £19 10s, and 6 June 1785, £19 10s).
The manor house of Crichel was inherited in 1765 by Humphrey Sturt of Horton from his uncle, Sir William Napier, 4th Baronet. Sturt oversaw the enlargement and redecoration of the property between 1773 and 1780, placing advertisements in The Salisbury Journal on 10 and 24 June 1776 for craftsmen to work at Crichel (John Cornforth, 'The building of Crichel', Architectural History, vol. 27, 1984 , p. 269). Their number included the architect-designer, James Wyatt (d. 1813) who was employed from 1772 to 1780, his name appearing four times in the accounts for Crichel during this period, as a 'designer of decoration' to work on the principal rooms including the embellishment of the Drawing Room, whose magnificent Grecian-vaulted ceiling was ornamented with festive tablets celebrating the histories of Dionysus / Bacchus and other deities (op. cit.). This pair of torchères (sold anonymously, but with Crichel provenance, Christie's, London, 15 April 1982, lot 35, £6,264, including premium) together with their corresponding pair (sold Christie's, London, 18 November 1982, lot 33, £7,020, including premium) would have provided most appropriate furnishings in such classically inspired surroundings.
Evoking lyric poetry, they are conceived as tripod-altars dedicated to the sun and poetry deity, Apollo, whose sacred Pythian serpents guard their Grecian-scrolled and 'Etruscan' pearl-strung pilasters. Laurels festoon bacchic ram heads that are ribbon-tied to their altar-drums, and these are wreathed by imbricated libation-patera in the Louis XVI 'Grecian' manner. Their form derived from antiquity can be traced to French engravings of the early to mid-18th century, as revealed in a print of circa 1707 engraved by Nicolas Chevallier depicting the end wall of a 'Gallerie du Sr Giradon Sculpteur ordinaire du Roi', which features a pair of similar 'athenienne' or incense burners with entwined snakes (Ed. Susan Weber Soros, James 'Athenian' Stuart 1713-1788, the Rediscovery of Antiquity, New Haven and London, 2006, p.472, fig. 11-9), and another 'athenienne' illustrated in a 1765 engraving entitled 'La Vertueuse Athenienne', after a Joseph Vien painting of 1763 (Anthony Coleridge, 'English Furniture supplied for Croome Court, Robert Adam and the 6th Earl of Coventry', Apollo, February 2000, p.10, fig.5). The latter incorporated a bacchic pine 'thyrsus' wreathed by a serpent; while its ram-monopodiae pilasters were festooned with imbricated patera and raised on a plinth. These same elements, apart from serpents, feature on two 'atheniennes' with ormolu-wreathed marble tops that are in the Anson collection at Shugborough, Staffordshire and have been attributed to the architect James 'Athenian' Stuart (d.1788) (Weber Soros, op. cit., fig. 10-73). A celebrated pair of torchères by an unattributed maker but comparable to the present example were intended for the Drawing Room and are at Osterley, Middlesex (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1982, p. 48-49, fig. F/3). Furthermore, in 1767, Robert Adam invoiced the 6th Earl of Coventry for a related 'Tripod altered from a French design for a water stand', and subsequently illustrated the pattern in his Works. Here the tall tripod-supported vase-candelabrum reflected Adam's 'Etruscan' furnishings appropriate for his Roman 'Columbarium' or vase-chamber style (A. Coleridge, op. cit., p.10, fig.4). Although not as lavish as the present examples, Mayhew and Ince were also supplying the 6th Earl with stands carved with rams' heads such as 'A very neat carved Stand for basin and ewer' made of padoukwood (op. cit., fig.3).