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Pictures
The room contains the most beautiful and renowned
painting at Buscot Rembrandts portrait (1655) of a man
who is now identified, but not with certainty, as Pieter Six, the
elder brother of the great Rembrandt collector, Burgomaster Jan Six
(25).
The portrait of a woman, framed as a pair to it, is not in fact a
companion picture and its association with Rembrandt must be regarded
as doubtful. Over the fireplace the portrait by Rubens, possibly of
Veronica Spinola Doria (28), is an early work of about 1608, done
in Genoa towards the end of the artists years in Italy.
Rembrandt Probable Portrait
of Pieter Six (No.25) |
Furniture
The set of six single chairs, two stools and settee, is of the Chippendale
period, and is decorated with a Gothick fret pattern in low relief. The
original gros-point needlework covers are both signed and dated by the
local upholder, S. Price of Gloucester Jany 12th 1771. The
two satinwood commodes with concave fronts, inlaid with paterae, are closely
related to Chippendales work in the neo-classical style of about
1775, and the commode on the wall opposite the door, in mahogany and satinwood,
is of the same period.
Between the windows is an unusual pair of side-tables of the Sheraton
period, completely veneered with tortoiseshell, stained green and red.
The oval mirrors above in giltwood frames with festoons of husks,
paterae and ribbons are further examples of the Adam style. In
front of the windows are a pair of George I mahogany side-chairs, and
a small mahogany settee, the back carved with trophies of the chase
bow and arrow, thyrsus and hunting horns which are probably Danish
of the late eighteenth century and inspired by English pattern books.
Facing each other across the room are a pair of fine inlaid cabinets,
probably made in Spain or the Spanish Netherlands. The highly elaborate
tops of the cabinets, decorated with red-stained tortoiseshell and engraved
bone, date from the mid-seventeenth century and are considerably older
than their bases.
The Sheraton cabinet beside the piano, veneered in hardwood with marquetry
decoration, contains, as described in a notice beneath the lid, a Newly
Invented Musical Game, dedicated to Princess Charlotte of Wales.
It was made by Muir, Wood and Company of Edinburgh, after an invention
by Ann Young. On the early nineteenth-century writing-table is a silver
case confirming Stephen Henry Sulivans (an ancestor of Lord Faringdons
paternal grandmother) commission as First Secretary at Lisbon, signed
by William IV. The set of rosewood and walnut occasional tables, the smallest
having a chequerboard top, is probably by Gillows of Lancaster, dating
from the Regency period. In front of the fireplace stands a pair of Sheraton
satinwood pole-screens with painted panels.
Ceramics and Objets d'Art
The bronzes on the chimney-piece include a pair of cupids, their late-eighteenth
century ormolu plinths swagged with laurel baguettes in the Greek style
fashionable during Louis XVIs reign, as well as a group of three
putti, all nineteenth-century French, and a pair of tritons, possibly
derived from those on the Fontana del Moro in the Piazza Navona in Rome.
One of the two display cabinets contains what remains (after a burglary)
of an ivory chess-set, while the other contains various objets de virtu.
On the tables between the windows are two early Qing vases and covers
of the mid-seventeenth century, and one yellow Worcester and one Paris
jardinière, while below them is a pair of famille verte vases of
the reign of Kangxi (16621722). The Chinese and Moghul jade on the
commodes is mainly eighteenth-century in date. The blue and white pottery
on the cabinets is Delftware of the first half of the eighteenth century,
imitating oriental porcelain.

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