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The latter was, however, used to working from originals by Antonio Zucchi,
Angelica Kauffmann, G B Cipriani and Biagio Rebecca, and it is probably
this last, who was Wyatts favourite decorative painter, or Barneys
mentor, Angelica, who supplied the compositions here.
Pictures
The pictures are, for the most part, Italian, though the copy of Raphaels
La Belle Jardinière (66) is likely to be by a Northern artist,
such as Joos van Cleeve. On the half-landing the St Jerome (41) is a good
example of the work of Palma Giovane. But the outstanding picture is the
Murillo, The Triumph of the Eucharist (70), originally from a set of four
canvases commissioned for the Church of Santa María la Blanca in
Seville and removed during the Peninsular War (180814); two of the
other pictures in the series now hang in the Prado, in Madrid, and the
third is in the Louvre.
The small collection of Old Master drawings displayed at the far end of
the staircase wall includes some sensitive studies of hands attributed
to Lely (314317), and a Pilgrim (312) and a Kneeling Youth (304),
perhaps by the Bolognese brothers Agostino or Annibale Carracci and their
cousin Lodovico respectively. Other drawings are attributed to Maratta
(306, 307) and Il Guercino (303, 311). The group in the single frame includes
three studies (318) by Rembrandt: The Angel seated on the Tomb; The Good
Samaritan tending the Wounded Man (the more elaborate of the two drawings
of this composition); and The Good Samaritan coming upon the Wounded Man.
The large profile Head of a Woman (320) is a fragment of a cartoon for
the ceiling of the Barberini Palace in Rome by Pietro da Cortona.
The Staircase, showing the eighteenth-century
mechanical paintings used to decorate the ceilings
Furniture and Sculpture
The furniture here includes an Empire side-table (a larger version of
the pair in the Entrance Hall); four early nineteenth-century hall chairs
with fan-shaped backs in the Biedemeier taste (probably Viennese and similar
to furniture by Johann Nepomuk Geyr of c.182530); a walnut long-case
clock decorated with floral marquetry, of early eighteenth-century date,
by Nicolaes Nieuwenhoff of Amsterdam; and a mahogany card-table of about
1760. Standing on the early nineteenth-century bookcases nearby are several
bronzes; they include Onslow Fords Linus (see the Lady Lever Gallery
in Port Sunlight), the Borghese Warrior (after the antique marble at the
Louvre) and a seated Mercury (after the original in the Museo Nazionale
in Naples). The bronze horse is almost certainly the work of the Giambologna-Susini
workshop in Florence.
The intriguing Gothic-panelled doors in cuban mahogany (on either side
of the window overlooking the swimming-pool at the end of the passage)
were brought by the 2nd Lord Faringdon from 18 Arlington Street, London,
then the familys London residence, which was demolished to make
way for the Arlington House apartment block. The doors may originally
have been among those made for Pomfret Castle, the Countess of Pomfrets
remarkable Perpendicular-Gothic-revival house, built under the direction
of Sanderson Miller in 17579, now also demolished.
On the half-landing, the two giltwood satyrs torchères, on tripod
bases, date from the second quarter of the nineteenth century, no doubt
inspired by seventeenth-century prototypes. The Spanish seventeenth-century
walnut folding table at the top of the stairs supports a bronze of three
male figures, entitled Au But, by A Boucher, exhibited at the Salon des
Beaux-Arts in Paris in 18867.
Ceramics
On the Empire side-table are five plates of Chamberlain Worcester. Beneath
the table is a large late nineteenth-century Dresden covered vase with
Chinoiserie decoration in the Augustus Rex style. A Qianlong bottle, with
mottled glaze, stands under the mahogany card-table.
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