CIRCA 1810, POSSIBLY BY FRANCIS HARDENBERG

The fashion for lighting rooms with figuative lamps in plaster, bronzed in the Roman manner, was introduced to the antique or classical interior of the late eighteenth century by architects such as James Wyatt (d.1813). This pattern of 'vestal virgin' or lamp-holding priestess was identified with the Egyptian style, exemplified by the interiors of the Duchess Street mansion/museum created in around 1800 by the connoisseur Thomas Hope (d.1831). The plaster figures may have been executed by the sculptor/modeller Francis Hardenberg (d.1832), who established his Mount Street firm of Messrs. Hardenberg and Co. Petrification Manufacturers, in 1801. 'A Vestal with Lamp and Pedestal' charged at 8 guineas featured among Grecian lamps that he supplied in that same year to Henry Cecil, 1st Marquess of Exeter (d.1804) for Burghley House, Lincolnshire, and has been identified with one of the set of ten recorded in the Chapel in the 1815 guidebook (see Temple Newsam Country House Studies, no.4, Country House Lighting, 1989, no.118). A pair of these bronzed vestals was supplied in 1805 for Heaton Hall, Manchester, while another pair survives at Stratfield Saye, Hampshire. A virtually identical pair was sold together with Egyptian style pedestals at Christie's London, 18 April 1996, lot 79.