A QUANTITY OF GEORGE III PALE GREY-PAINTED AND CARVED DOORCASES AND CEILING MOULDINGS
A QUANTITY OF GEORGE III PALE GREY-PAINTED AND CARVED DOORCASES AND CEILING MOULDINGS
A QUANTITY OF GEORGE III PALE GREY-PAINTED AND CARVED DOORCASES AND CEILING MOULDINGS
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A QUANTITY OF GEORGE III PALE GREY-PAINTED AND CARVED DOORCASES AND CEILING MOULDINGS
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This lot will be removed to Christie’s Park Royal.… Read more
A QUANTITY OF GEORGE III PALE GREY-PAINTED AND CARVED DOORCASES AND CEILING MOULDINGS

DESIGNED BY ROBERT ADAM, PROBABLY CARVED BY JOHN LINNELL, CIRCA 1770-71

Details
A QUANTITY OF GEORGE III PALE GREY-PAINTED AND CARVED DOORCASES AND CEILING MOULDINGS
DESIGNED BY ROBERT ADAM, PROBABLY CARVED BY JOHN LINNELL, CIRCA 1770-71
Carved with foliage and beading, and cream-painted
185 ft. (56.3 m.) approximately in total
Provenance
Designed by Robert Adam (1728-92) for the ‘new drawing room’ at Bowood House, Wiltshire, in August 1768 for William Petty, Viscount Fitzmaurice, second Earl of Shelburne and later first Marquess of Lansdowne (1737-1805).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, Wrotham Park, 13 June 1995, lot 24.
Special notice
This lot will be removed to Christie’s Park Royal. Christie’s will inform you if the lot has been sent offsite. Our removal and storage of the lot is subject to the terms and conditions of storage which can be found at Christies.com/storage and our fees for storage are set out in the table below - these will apply whether the lot remains with Christie’s or is removed elsewhere. Please call Christie’s Client Service 24 hours in advance to book a collection time at Christie’s Park Royal. All collections from Christie’s Park Royal will be by pre-booked appointment only. Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 9060 Email: cscollectionsuk@christies.com. If the lot remains at Christie’s it will be available for collection on any working day 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. Lots are not available for collection at weekends.

Brought to you by

Charlotte Young
Charlotte Young

Lot Essay

These finely carved mouldings comprise the surviving doorcases and ceiling mouldings from the ‘new drawing room’ at Bowood House, Wiltshire, designed by Robert Adam (1728-92) in August 1768 for William Petty, Viscount Fitzmaurice, second Earl of Shelburne and later first Marquess of Lansdowne (1737-1805). The predominant ornamentation derives from a pattern by Michelangelo Pergolesi, part of a group of Italian artists, who were engaged by Adam to reproduce the ‘pure and classic ornament of the ancients’ in the form of stipple engravings, mezzotints and ornamental prints, which Adam then incorporated into his work (E. Maser, Classical Ornament of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1970, plate 11). Adam began working at Bowood in December 1761, creating the King’s Room, the Cube Room and the Great Room in 1763, with designs inspired by Robert Wood’s Ruins of Palmyra (1753). In this period, all the carving for the panels, doorcases, shutters and other architectural elements was executed by John Linnell (1729-96) (E. Harris, The Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors, New Haven and London, 2001, p. 109). On 25 August 1768, Lady Shelburne’s diary refers to Adam’s ‘plans of building and joyning the house and offices by an additional apartment’ (Ibid., p. 346, f/n 21; Ibid., p. 110; unfortunately, these plans have not survived). The carved mouldings offered here formed part of this apartment, which featured an aspe at one end and inter-connected to a supper room and library in the eastern part of the Diocletian Wing. Lord Shelburne was notoriously indecisive and difficult to please, and it was not until 15 June 1770 that the final plan was agreed upon (Ibid., p. 111). The completion of the apartment was entrusted to a local builder, James White, who had worked at Bowood under Adam following the dismissal of Henry Holland Senior in 1766. Although, Linnell’s carving of fixtures and fittings dates from 1763-1766, for which he charged £1,013 9s 5d, he continued to supply furniture, and presumably further carving to Lord Shelburne at Bowood and Shelburne House (https://bifmo.history.ac.uk/entry/linnell-john-1729-96. Accessed 30 July 2019).

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