CIRCA 1755

These asymmetric, serpentined girandoles are designed in the French 'pittoresque' fashion popularised in the three editions of Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754-62. At the same time Thomas Johnson, carver and gilder of Queen St, Seven Dials, published Twelve Gerandoles, 1755, representing some of the earliest designs for girandoles in the Rococo style. These were adapted and added to in subsequent publications culminating in 1761 in One Hundred and Fifty New Designs, which included frames, chimney-pieces, lanterns and 'slab frames' (side tables) of highly inventive and romantic form, and reflecting Johnson's abilities as an expert carver. Johnson may have been involved in a pair of girandoles supplied to Paul Methuen for Corsham Court, Wiltshire and in four pier glasses and three console tables supplied to the Duke of Atholl for Dunkeld House and Blair Castle, Perthshire, both between 1761 and 1763 (G. Beard and C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 491-2).

The closest parallels to the Althorp girandoles are designs in the third edition of Chippendale's Director, 1763, pl. CLXIX and CLXXVII, featuring exotic birds and balustrades and issuing extravagantly scrolled candle branches.

The Spencer family were one of the wealthiest English aristocratic families in England in the 18th century, with close ties to the Royal family. Althorp, their Tudor country seat, was redesigned in 1788 by the celebrated architect Henry Holland who designed Carlton House for the Prince of Wales. The first Earl Spencer’s nearby London residence Spencer House, built between 1756-1766, is widely recognised as the first truly Neo-Classical fully-integrated interior and was considered remarkable ‘not only for its architecture and furniture but also for the works of art it contained’ (J. Friedman, Spencer House, Chronicle of a Great London Mansion, London, 1993).