November 2008

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Among the greatest treasures at Petworth House in Sussex are the British neo-classical sculpture and the paintings by J.M.W.Turner collected or commissioned by the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837). This article looks at a much less well known aspect of his collecting, French furniture. It forms a sequel to an article that appeared in this year’s National Trust Annual, published by apollo in April, which discussed the Boulle marquetry furniture acquired for Petworth House by the 2nd Lord Leconfield (1830-1901) from the celebrated Hamilton Palace sale of 1882. The high point of these purchases was the commode by André-Charles Boulle, of the same model as the pair that he delivered in 1708 for the bedroom of Louis xiv at the Grand Trianon. The article also considered two slightly earlier Boulle marquetry writing-desks in the Somerset Room, both probably acquired by the 2nd Earl of Egremont (1712-63).

Although a greater patron in general than either Lord Leconfield or the 2nd Earl, the 3rd Earl of Egremont is now remembered largely for his interest in British art.1 Yet his two Grand Tours in the 1770s both included visits to Paris, and he associated, when young, with the Prince of Wales, then in his most francophile phase, and with his own neighbour in Sussex, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh of Uppark, another friend of the Prince. The 3rd Earl also commissioned a portrait of Napoleon as First Consul from Thomas Phillips, a picture that hangs in the Beauty Room at Petworth and which was painted from the artist’s ad vivum sketch made in Paris in 1802 during the Peace of Amiens between Great Britain and France.

Alison McCann has discovered that Lord Egremont was himself in Paris from 1 to 28 July 1802, taking advantage, like many other English visitors, of the short-lived peace.2 It was probably on that visit that he bought a pair of five-light candelabra supported by bronze female caryatids with upraised arms and with their legs flanked by seated gryphons holding up the ends of their tunics so as to reveal their feet (Fig. 3). The candelabra were almost certainly purchased from the marchand M.-E. Lignereux, the successor to Dominique Daguerre, whose shop, greatly favoured by English visitors, was at no. 44 rue Vivienne, a street running north- south immediately to the east of the Bibliothèque Nationale. A pair of candelabra in the Royal Collection with figures of the same model are included in a bill from Lignereux to the Prince of Wales, dated 28 April 1803:3

Une paire de girandole avec figure de femme Egyptienne en bronze Couleur antique portant un groupe des Cinq lumieres en bronze doré aumat pied en marbre jaune de sienne …………………….. £70 Sterl.

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