Design for a Chimneypiece
William Kent
Yale Centre for British Art.
William Kent, (ca.1686–1748).
Stowe House, Buckinghamshre: Elevation and Section of
Chimney Piece in the Hall
Design for a Chimneypiece
ca. 1733
Graphite, pen and black ink, and brown wash on medium,
slightly textured, cream laid paper bar scale of 1/2 inch to 1 foot.
29.2 × 21 cm.
Inscribed in graphite, lower center: bar scale numbered
"1" to "8"; inscribed on verso in pen and black ink,
center: "For Lord Cobham | WK"; in graphite, lower left: "STOWE
HOUSE"; in graphite, upper center: [...], Watermark: (pasted down),
Signed
on verso in center, in pen and black ink: "WK"
They say:
It is not known whether this design for a chimneypiece at
Stowe was ever executed, though the bas-relief panel shown in this drawing—the
family of Darius before Alexander sculpted by Christophe Veyrier in around
1680—is today attached to a wall in Stowe’s north hall.
William Kent’s
chimneypiece was probably designed to surround the existing panel in that room.
The chimneypiece has the bold profile and high-relief decoration typical of the
mid-eighteenth century, with scrolled brackets supporting a heavily molded
pedimented mantel shelf.
The bas-relief is framed by a panel and attenuated
scroll moldings, and surmounted by a broken pediment supporting a sculpted
helmet. The drawing has the characteristic marginalia seen in Kent's
architectural drawings. It is unclear, however, whether these drawings were
made at the same time as the chimneypiece design, or whether they were added to
the sheet later as decoration.
Both chimneypiece design and marginalia are in
Kent's own hand, though the color of their washes vary, suggesting the drawings
may have been executed at different times.
-- Madeleine
Helmer,
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