French fashion at Petworth
Although the 3rd Earl of Egremont is now best remembered as a major patron of Turner and other British artists, in his youth he had fashionable Francophile tastes. Peter Hughes examines the furniture he acquired at Petworth House, Sussex.
Peter Hughes, Monday, 25th August 2008
A piece of furniture that was certainly at Petworth in the time of the 3rd Earl, but cannot be stated to have been acquired by him, is the carved and gilt pier table with a porphyry top displayed against the window wall of the Carved Room which was restored in 2006 (Fig. 7). The table is shown, in the same position, in C.R. Leslie’s painting The Carved Room at Petworth Looking North, dating from about 1828 (Figs.1 and 6).8 The table frame appears to date from around 1700 and is carved in the centre of each leg with the cross of Lorraine and at the corners of the frieze with variations on the same motive. The prominent cartouche in the centre of the apron below the frieze is, however, blank, but perhaps formerly enclosed a cypher or coat-of-arms.
If the table was made for a member of the House of Lorraine, the most obvious candidate would be Duke Leopold, who reigned nominally from 1690 to 1729, although only recovering his duchy from French occupation in 1698. The duke had the château of Lunéville built to designs by Germain Boffrand and the table at Petworth may possibly have been connected with that undertaking, although the porphyry top looks like a later replacement. On a pier table of around 1700 one would expect to find a top of brecciated marble, such as Sarrancolin or marbre d’Antin from quarries in the Pyrenees, with the marble cut more thinly and with a moulded edge and without the wide overlap over the frame at either end found at Petworth. The porphyry is fine in itself and it is unusual to find a top of solid porphyry on a pier table, as opposed to one in which sheets of porphyry have been veneered on to an artificial stone base. The top may date from the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th century, when neo-classicism had made porphyry fashionable and when archaeological excavations had made it available.
If the pier table is largely of the late Louis xiv period, a small gilt-bronze clock in the Little Dining Room, likewise of uncertain provenance, is very much of the transitional period between the Louis xv and Louis xvi styles (Fig. 5). Cast as a truncated column surmounted by a vase, the clock belongs to a model introduced in about 1770. The Petworth example may perhaps date from a few years later, as the clockmaker, Frédéric Du Val, was made a master of the guild only in 1777. The case is stamped osmond at the back of the column, showing that it was cast either by Robert Osmond (1711-89, maître fondeur in 1746) or by his nephew, Jean-Baptiste Osmond (maître fondeur in 1764). A clock set in a truncated column seems a quintessentially early neo-classical design, evoking the idea of ancient ruins; the model may have been inspired by the architect and designer Jean-Charles Delafosse (1734-91), whose drawing for such a clock case is in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.9
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