The Furniture History Society Newsletter 206 May 2017
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The Furniture History Society Newsletter 206 May 2017 In this issue: ‘From Castle Howard to Cambridge’ | Society News | Future Society Events | Occasional Visits | Overseas Events | Other Notices | Book Review | Report on the Society’s Events From Castle Howard to Cambridge n 2016 , the Fitzwilliam Museum in fruit and birds, and so on, on a black I Cambridge acquired a pair of spectacular marble ground. A small group of these Roman cabinets for its collection. These Roman pietre dure cabinets are known, and remarkable tours de force , which had been have recently been discussed in the at Castle Howard in Yorkshire since at publication, Roman Splendour, English least the mid-eighteenth century, were Arcadia: The English Taste for Pietre Dure and acquired to celebrate the bicentenary of the the Sixtus V Cabinet at Stourhead by Simon foundation of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Swynfen Jervis and Dudley Dodd (London, 1816 (see Cover Image). 2015 ). The Castle Howard cabinets are The cabinets, a near-identical pair, are of most closely related to a Roman cabinet architectural form, resembling the façades bought by William Beckford in 1812 , and of contemporary Baroque churches. They sold from Lansdown Tower, Bath, in 1841 ,1 are veneered with ebony, over a poplar and another cabinet once at carcase, and are inlaid with brightly Northumberland House, London, sold in coloured hardstones or pietre dure , with gilt- 2014 .2 Other Roman, rather than Florentine, metal mounts. They were almost certainly pietre dure cabinets in British country house made in Rome in about 1625 , and their high collections include examples at West quality and use of luxurious materials Wycombe Park, Buckinghamshire mean that they were probably made as a (purchased at the Hamilton Palace sale in special commission for an important 1882 ), Elton Hall, Cambridgeshire (another patron. Each cabinet is mounted on a later, ex-Beckford piece) 3 and the much more English, stand, veneered with mahogany, imposing Sixtus V cabinet at Stourhead, with carved and gilded ornaments. The Wiltshire. 4 This last cabinet, together with cabinets stand 125 cm high without stands, the massive Borghese cabinet, which and 222 cm high with them. They are 92 cm appeared in the London salerooms in 2016 wide and 43 .5 cm deep. and is now in the Getty Museum in The cabinets are striking examples of California, 5 and another large cabinet still very grand seventeenth-century Roman in Palazzo Colonna in Rome, 6 are of a parade furniture, and are ornamented with much more monumental scale and filigree elaborate geometrical intarsia of semi- workmanship than the pair under precious stones — which is a distinctly discussion. Roman form of the better-known, pictorial, Very little is known about the craftsmen Florentine pietre dure that depict flowers, who created these cabinets. Alvar 2 furniture history society newsletter, no. 206, may 2017 González-Palacios, who has extensively soberly finished in fine grained wood, mined the Roman archives for information with pewter stringing. Luxurious and on makers of furniture and the decorative showy pieces of furniture, these cabinets arts for this period, cites such names as were probably kept in the innermost, Innocenzo Toscani, an ebony carver, private apartments of their owners — the Giovanni Herman, ‘ebanista’, Antonio del ‘cabinet’ — where only the most important Drago, who dealt in hardstones, and guests were received. Remigio Chilholz, a cabinet-maker who Each cabinet is supported on six gilt- worked for the Borghese and other noble bronze feet in the form of crowned, families, often with pietre dure.7 Other crouching eagles, probably the crest of their craftsmen employed in this line of work original owner (Fig. 1). This supports a include Giovanni Sigrist, Giovanni Falgher narrow plinth inlaid with pinkish Sicilian and Niccolo Cavallino. A surprising jasper, and a frieze decorated with number were foreigners, such as Gaspare alternating, book-matched slices of Vanulese, a Fleming, Hans Keller, a carnelian, agate and lapis lazuli cut in Nuremburg-born silversmith and worker geometrical shapes. The middle part of the of precious stones, and Giovanni van façade of each cabinet is divided into three Santen, called Vasanzio, who had a sections by projecting pilasters formed of workshop on the via Giulia where he exceptionally finely modelled and cast gilt- ‘made ebony cabinets inset with many bronze male and female caryatids, in jewels’.8 There also seems to have been a contrapposto poses, bearing capitals thriving secondary market for precious sprouting rams’ heads. The central section cabinets; in 1613, Pope Paul V bought a has a broken pediment supporting gilt- cabinet ‘made from different stones, gems bronze putti and encloses an arched niche and other things’ from the Ceoli family for of architectural form, elaborately inlaid 3,500 scudi as a present for his nephew, with jaspers, carnelian and lapis in a Cardinal Scipione Borghese. A new stand, cartouche pattern beneath a shell motif. enriched with pietre dure, was This section is hinged and opens by means commissioned for this cabinet from of a secret lock-plate, cleverly hidden Pompeo Targone, at the cost of an behind a sliding capital, to reveal three additional 2,000 scudi.9 drawer fronts. The two flanking ‘bays’ of The Castle Howard cabinets are unusual the cabinet front are composed of six in being a matching pair, and for their very drawers, three on each side, faced with distinctive repetition of brilliant blue and coloured stones, with ornamental lock- red stones. Although each cabinet contains plates in gilt metal. The outermost caryatids many drawers, their principal function support gilt-bronze vases. An ‘attic’ storey must have been as a splendid vehicle for contains two more drawers, again with the display of brightly coloured, polished, book-matched geometrical hardstone inlay, lapidary rarities and gilded bronzes. By surmounted by a narrow frieze inlaid with contrast, the sides of the cabinets are striped fossil wood. The cresting of each furniture history society newsletter, no. 206, may 2017 3 Fig. 1 Detail of the cabinet. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge cabinet is formed of a high, pedimented, Tessin, which mentions ‘[…] deux petits centrepiece inlaid with coloured stones, Cabinets de pierre de touche qui flanked by scroll volutes. These and the parroisent être fait d’èbene’, and the gilt- mouldings of the drawers and plinths of bronze eagles were interpreted as the the various bronzes are defined by pewter heraldic device of the Borghese family.12 stringing. The parapet of each of the However, Tessin’s description of the pair cabinets are surmounted by three gilt- of sombre ‘touchstone’ (black marble or bronze statuettes, of Fortitude flanked by pietra de paragone) and ebony cabinets in Prudence and Charity, with two figures of Villa Borghese does not in any way conjure reclining putti on the broken pediments.10 up the brilliantly coloured Castle Howard When they were sold by Sotheby’s in cabinets, and the Borghese eagles, which 2015, it was suggested that the Castle are invariably accompanied by Borghese Howard cabinets were originally made for dragons, are not crowned as are the twelve the Borghese family, the family of Pope gilt-bronze eagles which support the two Paul V.11 This identification was supported cabinets. by a 1717 description of the Villa Borghese Perhaps the most prominent noble by the Swedish traveller Nicodemus family who have crowned eagles as their 4 furniture history society newsletter, no. 206, may 2017 crest are the d’Este, hereditary Dukes of Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle, was Modena and Ferrara (Fig. 2).13 an omnivorous collector, with a Francesco I d’Este, Duke of Modena pronounced taste for cabinets and tables (1610–58), is a possible candidate as the made of coloured marbles, many of which owner or recipient of these cabinets, as he were acquired through the agency of the was an avid patron of the arts and had dealers, Francesco Ficorini and Belisario many Roman connections, having three Amadei.14 These Grand Tour trophies grand Roman wives in succession — made their way back to Castle Howard, Maria Caterina Farnese in 1631, her sister where, in 1745, Henrietta, Countess of Vittoria Farnese in 1648, and Lucretia Oxford, noticed ‘three very fine cabinets’.15 Barberini in 1654. This last marriage sealed Horace Walpole, who accounted the 4th a reconciliation agreed a few years before Earl ‘a great virtuoso’, visited in 1772, between the d’Este and the Barberini — noting, ‘all over the House are fine busts, Francesco I had earlier sided with Spain in urns, columns, Statues, & the finest its dispute with the Barberini pope, Urban collection in the World of antique tables of VIII. The truce was commemorated by the the most valuable marble, & some of old splendidly hirsute bust of Francesco I, Mosaic, and one of Florentine inlaying. carved by Urban VIII’s jealously guarded There are two cabinets of the same work & favourite sculptor, Gian-Lorenzo Bernini, materials’.16 These are almost certainly the of 1650–51, and doubtless other gifts and concessions were exchanged. This seems to be a possible context for these two great presentation trophy cabinets, which, even if they were made in c. 1625, could have been customized for presentation, possibly as grand marriage coffers, with the addition of d’Este crest eagle feet. After Duke Francesco’s death in 1658, ownership of the cabinets could have passed to one of the succession of d’Este cardinals who lived on at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, although the family fortunes declined dramatically after 1695, and the Villa was being gradually emptied of its treasures by the early eighteenth century — and was finally cleared and the remainder sent to Modena in 1751. Therefore, it is quite possible that the pair of Fig.