PROBABLY DESIGNED BY THOMAS WHITTY, IN THE MANNER OF ROBERT ADAM, 1780-1790

The success of the Axminster workshop in the eighteenth century is demonstrated by its commissions with leading architectural designers of the day. Thomas Whitty frequently collaborated with Robert Adam, who quickly ascended in popularity because of his agility with and knowledge of classical antiquity, not to mention his flamboyant character. Their projects include carpets still in their original settings at Saltram House, Newby Hall and Harewood House. Despite their successful partnership, Whitty had no qualms about copying and using designs by Adam and other designers for his own customers.
There is no documentation that Adam was the original designer of this carpet but the pattern does resemble some of his neo-classical designs for ceilings and carpets. The name 'Lansdowne' has been ascribed to this particular design strictly as a convenience. A version of this carpet (see B. Jacobs, loc. cit., pl. 53) was placed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the reconstruction of the Dining Room of Lansdowne House, a London house designed by Adam in the early 1760s and demolished in 1929. Interestingly, the drawing room of Lansdowne House was acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art where this carpet was displayed for many years (see S. Day, loc. cit., Paris, 1996, p. 292, fig. 282 for an image of it in situ.).
There are six surviving Axminster examples of the so-called 'Lansdowne' design all woven between 1770 and 1790. Three of the examples display a tri-partite format, while the remainder (including this example) do not have end panels. It is debatable whether or not these were reduced in size at one point, which is common, or whether they were originally intended to be of a square format. Adam and other designers frequently reinvented carpet designs using elements from one carpet design in another so it plausible that the design existed originally as both a tri-partite format and a square shape.
There are two other examples with a dark blue ground, one in the Lansdowne Room in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, mentioned above, and the other formerly at Boscobel, Garrison-on-Hudson, New York and offered recently at Sotheby's, London, 5 April 2006, lot 147. The Victoria and Albert Museum has two pastel ground examples in the tri-partite fashion and a light blue square format example was sold at Phillips, London, 16 October 2001, lot 214 and formerly in the Manor House, Spexhall, Suffolk (for images of the above see Jacobs, op. cit., pls. 52, 53, 55 and Sherrill, op. cit., New York, 1996, p. 204, pl. 222).
The carpet offered here retains the incredible colour, neo-classical design and mastery of execution which has made Axminster carpets so highly sought after since their creation in the 18th century.
For a George IV Axminster carpet and a further discussion on the Axminster workshop, see the previous lot in this sale.