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

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).