Saturday 21 September 2024

Wilton House in the 18th Century - Some Drawings.



Post under Construction.

Portrait Sculpture at Wilton House Part 9.


Some Illustrations of Wilton House in the 18th Century.

Information here ref. George Vertue from Yale University Library.

https://digital.library.yale.edu/catalog/33100018



Drawings showing the floor plan and views of the walls on which were hung paintings and against which statues and other artwork were placed.

The second drawing is titled "Plan of rooms that contains [sic] the statues & the pictures" in ink above, and the fourth drawing is titled "View of one end of the great room design'd by Inigo Jones" in ink below. 

The first drawing depicts a large painting by Van Dyck on the wall at a different end the great room, described in the printed text as "a landskip [sic] with dogs, and in the clouds are three angels ...".

 

Bound by Horace Walpole in his copy of: Gambarini, C. Description of the Earl of Pembroke's pictures. Westminster : A. Campbell, 1731.

Bound in old mottled calf. With slipcase.

Provenance

Bought by Horace Walpole at the Vertue sale (March 1757); Strawberry Hill sale (1842) to H.G. Bohn for William Beckford. With Walpole's bookplate (BP1). Maggs; October 1931.


The Drawings of the Double Cube Room by George Vertue (1684 - 1756).

Drawn between 1731 and 1756?

The busts represented in these drawings are almost certainly antiquities.






The seat furniture shown here with protective coverings - the magnificent furniture by William Kent did not arrive until after 1822 and was made originally for Wanstead House. 

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The Double Cube Room in 1904 showing the antique busts on Pedestals.

The terracotta busts of the 6th Earl by Scheemakers and Francis Bacon by Roubiliac are now on pedestals against the wall.