The English Eighteenth Century Chimneypiece: July 2019

The Chimneypiece with Caryatids

from Moor Park. Hertfordshire.

at the Lady Lever Art Gallery

Port Sunlight, Wirral.

With some random notes and images on the subject of Caryatid Chimneypieces.

The illustrations are in no particular order - these notes are intended as a brief survey.

The Frieze which is inlaid with Lapiz Lazuli was bought in Italy and was modelled on the ancient Borghese Relief which now in the Louvre.
Perhaps designed by Robert Adam

The Borghese Relief

Now in the Louvre

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For Dundas see -

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/aske-hall-yorkshire/aske-hall-case-study-dundas-and-the-nabob-interior/

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Marble

C. 1735/40.

Gift of The Hearst Foundation, 1956

Metropolitan Museum

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Metropolitan Museum, New York

Chippendale

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Drawing pasted in to bound copy of Isaac Taylor II's (probably), 'Designs for Chimney-Pieces with Mouldings & Bases at Large', London c. 1794 - 1800.

image courtesy V and A.

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Design for a Chimneypiece

From a book of designs with antiquarian book dealer Bernard Quaritch.

Chimneypiece originally made for Fonthill Splendens.

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The Chesterfield House Chimneypiece.

Attributed to John Michael Rysbrack (Flemish, Antwerp 1694–1770 London).

Date: 1745–50

190.5 × 299.7 cm)

Gift of The Hearst Foundation, 1956

Metropolitan Museum New York

https://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3257980.pdf.bannered.pdf

Design for Chesterfield House
Plate 88.

'The publication-date of 1756 is carried by the title page; but the work was published serially between 29 November 1755 and 3 September 1757. It formed part of a new series of publications being brought out by Osborne and Shipton (who had earlier published Ware's translation of Sirigatti's Pratica di prospettiva). Their Complete Body of Husbandry was already in publication and would be followed by their A Complete Body of Gardening.

Ware takes the scope of the project to embrace not only architectural design but also the practicalities of engineering - including, for example, a double plate to illustrate the drainage of a house (pl. '30.31').

As was usual in his time, he tends to combine Palladian exteriors (though, he says, neither Vitruvius nor Palladio should be taken as an infallible guide) with more decorative, rococo interiors.

The text is divided into ten books: 1. on terms and materials; 2. on location, functional parts of a building, the orders; 3. house construction; 4. doors; 5. windows; 6. interior ornament; 7. exterior ornament and garden buildings; 8. bridges; 9. the construction of elevations on true principles (with some criticism of modern practice); 10. mathematics and mensuration.

The plates include some of Ware's own designs - rococo interiors of Chesterfield House (demolished in 1937)(pl. 60-61, 81-83, 85, 88); Amisfield House (pl.39, 45), Clifton Hill (pl. 40), Oxford Town Hall (pl.48-9), Wrotham Park (pl. 52-53), Eythrop House (pl. 104-105, 107), and several chimneypieces.

The frontispiece shows Minerva directing an architect and builders. The title-page vignette shows the Pantheon, Rome, and the headpiece of the first page of the text shows an aqueduct.

A few plates are captioned as showing work of Inigo Jones; but these are not now thought to be by him.'

Image and text from:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O973189/a-complete-body-of-architecture-print-ware-isaac/

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Height: 152 cm, Height: 120 cm figures head to foot, Width: 231.5 cm

Given to the V and A by the General Electricity Company.

It was formerly at Scarcroft Lodge, Wetherby Road, Scarcroft, near Leeds, which became the office of the Yorkshire Electricity Board; it was probably originally in another house.

Historical significance: The shelf is supported at either side by a female figure; these are identical in design with two figures on a marble chimneypiece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, just that those are about 10,5 inches taller than A.140-1956. This suggests that the two chimneypieces come from the same workshop, and could even may have been made for the same house. The New York piece comes from Chesterfield House in Mayfair. Chesterfield House was sold in 1869, and a few pieces, as well as the New York chimneypiece were removed beforehand and transferred to Bretby, the country seat of the earls of Chesterfield in Derbyshire. It might be possible that the present piece was also among those objects.

The architect of Chesterfield House was Isaac Ware (d. 1766).

Chimneypiece, marble, from Scarcroft Lodge, possibly originally from Chesterfield House, South Audley Street, Mayfair, possibly from a design by Isaac Ware, Britain, ca. 1748-50

The shelf is supported at either side by a female figure; these are identical in design with two figures on a marble chimneypiece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, just that those are about 10,5 inches taller

Victoria and Albert Museum

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O310526/chimneypiece-from-scarcroft-lodge-possibly-chimneypiece-unknown/

From A Complete Body of Architecture, Isaac Ware.
1756

Victoria and Albert Museum.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O967519/a-complete-body-of-architecture-print-ware-isaac/
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Design for a Chimneypiece
George Evans

1762

Victoria and Albert Museum

Design for a Chimneypiece
Michael Rysbrack
Victoria and Albert Museum

A design for a Caryatick Chineypiece and 5 Further Designs

Michael Rysbrack

Victoria and Albert Museum

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O607586/design-rysbrack-john-michael/