A PAIR OF GEORGE III BLUE JOHN PATINATED AND GILT BRONZE ATHENIENNES ATTRIBUTED TO THOMAS HOPE

A rare pair of early 19th century patinated and English lacquer gilt bronze atheniennes supporting highly figured solid Derbyshire blue john cups, the flared rims with thumb moulded edges, polished inside and out to reveal the rich translucent crystalline figuring. Each cup supported on parcel gilt bases comprising of three panther monopedia chimeras around a central cabochon of blue john mounted into a bronze circular stylobate and elevated by a gilt ring on stepped slightly canted neo Egyptian square bases separated and supported on four gilt paw feet. Attributed to Thomas Hope (1769-1831)

England, circa 1805-10

Height 12 inches Diameter 9 1/2 inches Dating from circa 1805-10, this magnificent pair of gilt and patinated bronze mounted blue john atheniennes incorporate designs by Thomas Hope (1769-1831) and feature bronze work attributed to Alexis Decaix (d. 1811).

Hope was an influential patron of the arts, a great collector, connoisseur and a highly original designer of furniture and decorative objects who, as here, favoured the use of contrasting rare blue john and other coloured stone with bold classical ormolu mounts. As a leading arbiter of taste in Regency England, Hope’s designs were widely disseminated through his influential publication Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, (1807), which illustrated and discussed many works of art that he had acquired and designed for his home in Duchess Street, London.

A number of items from that publication conform in style to the present works, for instance plate. 32, showing Hope’s “Tripod table, in mahogany and gold”, features three very similar caryatid chimeras (a goat and a dragon’s tail which Bellerophon, a Corinthian prince, was challenged to fight). Each chimera stands in the same position as here and has the same distinctive S-shaped upper body emerging from acanthus leaves on a single leg above a massive paw foot; furthermore, Hope’s three beasts share the same facial expressions, while their heads are likewise crowned by an outward splayed block that supports a circular top.

Plate 32 “Tripod table, in mahogany and gold” A pair of carved mahogany tables, designed by Hope of circa 1805, likewise featuring the same three outward facing chimeras, is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (David Watkin and Philip Hewat-Jaboor, Thomas Hope, Regency Designer, 2008, pp. 390-1, no. 75). Another similar table, housed in Hope’s Duchess Street residence, featured in his Household Furniture plate 15, where it was described as a “Tripod table, supported by chimeras”.

Plate 15 “Tripod table, supported by chimeras” Link to the Victoria and Albert Museum Record J. Le Keux, after G. Cattermole Thomas Hope’s Picture Gallery at Duchess Street From Charles Molloy Westmacott, British Galleries of Paintings and Sculpture, 1824

A further comparable tripod table features in the left-hand foreground of Hope’s Picture Gallery at Duchess Street (Household Furniture, plate II) which also shows at centre a table “for portfolios of drawings and books of prints” with four very similar monopodiae chimeras.

As here, the design for the aforementioned tripod supports is based on one of a number of Roman multi-coloured marble tripod tables that Hope himself owned such as one now in the Schroder Collection (ibid, pp. 326-7, no 45) which includes both antique and more recent seventeenth and eighteenth century elements and was typical of tables found in ancient Greek and Roman homes. Interestingly, a similar multi-coloured Roman table was later housed at Hope’s Surrey residence, The Deepdene, near Dorking, which he purchased in 1807, the year after he married the Irish beauty Louisa Beresford. The house and interiors were captured in a series of watercolours commissioned by John Britton, of which one by Penry Williams shows the multi- coloured marble table with its characteristic caryatid chimeras, in the circular conservatory leading to the library. (Watkin, op. cit, p. 460, plate 106.10).

Penry Williams ‘Circular Conservatory’ The Deepdene The use of such one-legged mythical beasts was not particular to Hope, nor was the concept of arranging three together as a support for a luxury object for, as noted, the original inspiration for Hope’s design was based on antique prototypes, of which chimeras or other animals often featured as supports for bronze tripods found at the ancient ruins at Pompeii and Herculaneum. As a man of eclectic tastes, Hope gained inspiration from varied sources to include the arts of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome as well as more recent designers and artists. Among them was Charles Heathcote Tatham, whose “Antique tripod of Alabaster” in the Vatican Museum, was illustrated in his Etchings ornamental architecture; drawn from the originals in Rome, and other parts of Italy, during the years 1794, 1795 and 1796.

Charles Heathcote Tatham, Etching “Antique tripod of Alabaster” Vatican Another inspiration for the present animal supports may have been a design illustrated in Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus’s Recueil d’Antiquités Égyptiennes, Étrusques, Grecques et Romaines (1752), plate XCV, no. II, featuring a very similar caryatid chimera (Watkin, op. cit, p. 390, plate 75-1).

Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus’s Recueil d’Antiquités Égyptiennes, Étrusques, Grecques et Romaines (1752), plate XCV, no. II, In this context, reference should also be made to the Italian eighteenth century printmaker, archaeologist, architect, and designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In 1769 Piranesi published his Diverse Maniere d’adornare i cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi desunte dall’architettura Egizia, Etrusca, e Greca, showcasing imaginative designs for chimneypieces, clocks, vases, and even coaches. Among them was a design (plate 63) for a pier table supported by monopodiae winged chimeras, that was made for the Roman state apartments of a nephew of Pope Clement XIII and is known today by an example in the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Pier Table, Minneapolis Institute of Art. Thomas Hope, Henry Bone enamel after Sir William Beechey At the time of his death in 1831, Thomas Hope was well-known as a patron of the arts, a widely travelled aesthete, author and interior designer, as well as an interested practitioner of natural philosophy. Hope was, in turn, a member of the Society of Antiquaries (1794); the Royal Institution (1799); the Society of Dilettanti (1800); the Royal Society (1804); The Royal Society of Arts (1804); and one of the founding members of the British Institution (1805).

Originally from Amsterdam, Hope was born into a highly affluent family of merchant bankers. Following an extensive eight-year Grand Tour that took in numerous countries including Greece, Egypt, Italy and Turkey, Hope’s wealth allowed him to commission new works, purchase antiquities and to patronise many leading artists such as the sculptors John Flaxman, and Bertel Thorvaldsen. He eventually settled in London in 1795; four year later he purchased his palatial house in Duchess Street, designed by Robert Adam, where he set about remodelling the interiors to “appropriate a little repository for the reception of a small collection of antiquities, Grecian and others” as well as furniture, vases and other ornamental objects that he had himself designed and commissioned.

The Duchess Street House purchased by Hope in 1795 - Only the facade is extant. It was during his Grand Tour that Hope developed a taste for rare antique marbles and semi-precious stones, which were so much part of Italian decoration and architecture. This in turn inspired Hope to design a number of works of art that featured gilt and patinated bronze mounted objects made of blue john. This very rare form of richly coloured fluorspar, known for its beautiful radiating crystalline structure, is only found at a site near Castleton in Derbyshire, England.

While similar stones have been treasured since Roman times, blue john was only discovered in the early 1700s; however, its potential was not truly recognised until the second half of the century, largely owing to the entrepreneurial metal-worker Matthew Boulton and the renowned Neo-classical architect Robert Adam who respectively used it to great effect in creating decorative objects and architectural features. The richly coloured blue john on this pair of atheniennes originated from the Witch’s Miller’s vein in Treak Cliff Cavern near Castleton. Each blue John mine has characteristic figuring which can be pin- pointed to a specific mine. One can but only wonder at their creation since Blue John is not typically extracted in large crystal formations yet the diameter of each bowl measures 9.5 in / 24 cm, which makes them exceptional. Furthermore, since this rare mineral is so brittle, each shaped dish had to be painstakingly ground down on a water or steam powered lathe and finished with ray skin shagreen. As noted the finely cast bronzes are attributed to the bronzier Alexis Decaix, comparing in style to those adorning a pair of ormolu mounted Blue John vases designed by Hope, that once stood at Duchess Street and later at his Surrey residence The Deepdene. Parallels can also be made with a patinated copper vase with gilt bronze mounts, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, as well as the gilt bronze mounts on a sang de boeuf Chinese porcelain vase, both of which were after a design by Hope (respectively illus. in Watkin, op. cit, p. 382, no. 70; p. 90 and p. 95, plate 6-7). The three latter examples are all attributed to Decaix and as here, are of robust monumental form that characterise London, as opposed to Parisian, made bronzes of this period.

An ardent Francophile who applauded the talents of Parisian craftsmen, Hope found difficulties in finding similar talents in England, which he voiced in the introduction to his Household Furniture, noting: “Throughout this vast metropolis, teeming as it does with artificers and tradesmen of every description, I have, after the most laborious search, only been able to find two men, to whose industry and talent I could in some measure confide the execution of the more complicate [sic] and more enriched portion of my designs; namely, Decaix and Bogaert: the first a bronzist, and a native of France; the other a carver, and born in the Low Countries.”

Originally from France, Decaix was probably the same fondeur who was received as a Paris maître in 1778 and then came to England in about 1789, at the start of the French Revolution. Soon after he was recorded as working for the Prince of Wales, later King George IV. In 1792 he married Barbara Coppinger in , London where he died nineteen years later.

Decaix is first recorded as having established his business at 15 Rupert Street in St. James’s, Piccadilly in the spring of 1794. In addition to Hope, Decaix worked for the celebrated architect Henry Holland, for whom he supplied bronzes for Carlton House and probably for the Grange in Hampshire, the rented home of the Prince of Wales. He also worked for the notable gold and silversmithing firm of Garrard, for whom he produced fashionable ormolu objects, including the supply in October 1800 of “a pair of Egyptian slaves for a light on a bronze pedestal with hieroglyphic characters.” Evidently successful, Decaix opened a showroom in Old Bond Street in 1809; following his death two years later the showroom and contents were sold but his business was continued by his widow until 1819.

CONCLUSION

Thomas Hope’s bombastic Neo-classical ‘soundtrack’ echoed and reverberated throughout the 19th century. Taking inspiration from diverse sources and compiling objects with a discerning eye for detail, his designs are both fresh yet grounded in historic context. The present pair of antheniennes show his style at its best, juxtaposing light / dark, form / detail, polished / matt, rarity and complexity in a harmonious creation that cherry-picks key details from his designs and collections of antique and contemporary art.

While Hope’s Household Furniture showing the interior at Duchess Street and the series of watercolours of The Deepdene offer us to have an insight into the wonders of his taste, most of the furniture and objects that once adorned those properties are now untraced. Much of his collection was dispersed in a series of auctions, held by Christie’s in 1917. This gave rise to a renewed interest in Hope and the Regency period which was further ignited following the seminal Thomas Hope exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2008. Schroder Collection, Tripod Table, Roman Late 17th / 18th Century p. 327 Thomas Hope Regency Designer, David Watkin Philip Hewat-Jabour, 2008

Exquisite marbles including breccia cenerina, alabastro fiortito and alabastro verdignolo listano. Just as with blue john in England, these rare antique Italian stones commanded high prices not only for their rarity but also the skill required to work them was more akin with a gem cutting. Blue john in this regard satisfies both rarity and difficulty to form.

Pair of Tazze (One of), Paul Storr, Silver Gilt, 1808 / 9, Private Collection p. 442 Thomas Hope Regency Designer, David Watkin Philip Hewat-Jabour, 2008

This near identical pair of tazze when viewed as works of art have direct references to the current pair. ‘Made subsequently to the furnishing of Duchess Street and the publicatiuon of Household Furniture in 1807. This pair of circular stands nethertheless continues the “archaeological” taste promoted by Hope.’ Antoine Dubost, Damocles with the Sword Suspended over His Head, Oil on Canvas, 1804, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai p. 157 Thomas Hope Regency Designer, David Watkin Philip Hewat-Jabour, 2008

This painting may not be an obvious source of inspiration for the creation of the present pair of atheniennes, though we note that the Neo-Roman gilt bronze athenienne perfume burner on the right hand side supports a bowl of the same profile shown in the current pair of atheniennes with a matching medial ridge. Furthermore, while apparently in stone, the bowl’s surface shows a mottling that is reminiscent of blue john.

Hope had considered this painting for over a year before buying it from Dubost in 1807. If this cup profile is the inspiration of the atheniennes it would date them circa 1807, 1808 after the publication of Household Furniture. Pierre-Philippe Thomire 1751-1843, Athenienne with cut and engraved glass cup. A similar object showing the fluidity of design ideas and language. The National Archaeological Museum, Madrid Thomas Hope, Centre Table European furniture in the Art Institute of Chicago

Similar treatment of the paw feet with a curled leaf at the centre. The running leaf ornament of the base is echoed in the underside of the present pair of athenienne.