LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  THE JOHN HOBBS COLLECTION OF ENGLISH & CONT...  / 

15

AN IRISH GEORGE II WHITE MARBLE CHIMNEYPIECE Ordered by Thomas, 4th Viscount Kenmare (17...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:275,000.00 - 325,000.00 USD
AN IRISH GEORGE II WHITE MARBLE CHIMNEYPIECE Ordered by Thomas, 4th Viscount Kenmare (17...
AN IRISH GEORGE II WHITE MARBLE CHIMNEYPIECE

Ordered by Thomas, 4th Viscount Kenmare (1726-1795) for the Ballroom, Kenmare House, Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, designed by William Jones (d. 1757), built by Shehan and carved by John Houghton (act. 1741-1775), circa 1740 The molded breakfront shelf carved with two running bands of leaves above egg-and-dart and dentil moldings, the frieze centered by a bearded and moustachioed male mask flanked by scrolling acanthus, each corbel with three rolled acanthus, the compound molded aperture with reed and bead, leaf and egg-and-dart and with leaf clasps, the overlaid decoration of roses, foliage, acanthus leaves and scrolls, each outfacing jamb headed by an acanthus-sheathed volute set with a rosette and hung with trailing flowers and foliage, surmounted by a female head, the whole raised on plain blocks 781/2 X 901/2 IN. (199 X 230 CM)

$275,000-325,000

Provenance Kenmare House, Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, until 1872, when it was removed and placed in storage until 1957.

KENMARE HOUSE Kenmare was the seat of Lord Kenmare and was built in 1726 by Valentine, 3rd Viscount Kenmare (1695-1736) following the recovery of his estates that had been forfeited due to his fidelity to James II (1685-1689). The 3rd Viscount was, unusually, his own architect and relied on permanently employed local tradesmen for the building. Materials for the house were local, with the marble for the hall brought from a quarry at Ross on the shore of the Lakes of Killarney. The house was enlarged later in the century with the addition of a ballroom. The painted ceiling depicted Handel being crowned by Orpheus who was the son of Apollo and Calliope; Orpheus is shown drawing his love and wife Eurydice back from Hades with the consent of Pluto. To compliment the ceiling, Lord Kenmare commissioned the present chimneypiece from John Houghton. "a most magnificent and superb chimneypiece of White Italian Marble is now finished for that most excellent young nobleman Lord Kenmare, to be erected at his seat in the county of Kerry, the whole from the design if Inigo Jones, sic: the stone cutting work was executed by the ingenious Mr. Shehan, the stone cutter in Marlborough Street and the carving by the great Mr. Houghton." (Faulkner's Dublin Journal, January 19-22 1754) The house was demolished in 1872 to make way for a Victorian mansion that was destroyed by fire in 1913. This chimneypiece was removed in 1872 prior to the rebuilding and was stored until it was sold in 1957.

JOHN HOUGHTON (ACT. 1741-1775) there are three further chimney-pieces attributed to houghton: one in Bessborough, County Kilkeny, built circa 1744 (Georgian Society, Vol. V (1913), p. 60); a similar one in the drawing room at Curraghmore, County Waterford (ibid, p. 12); and a third in the Salon at Carton, County Kildare where Houghton worked with his pupil John Kelly. For the full entry on Houghton of Dublin see Walter G. Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists. 2nd ed. Shannon, 1969.

WILLIAM JONES (D. 1757) Jones contributed designs for six tables and 14 mirrors, as well as doors and over-mantles to James Smith's Specimen of Ancient Carpentry published in 1736 which Jones republished in 1739 as The Gentleman's or Builder's Companion with 60 plates; plate 25 outlines almost exactly the design of the present mantelpiece. In his publication Jones would have been familiar with current designs, especially those of Isaac Ware, whose Designs of Inigo Jones and Others was published in 1731. These were the earliest published designs by an English author. William Jones is perhaps best known as the architect of the Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens, London, which opened in 1742.
Sign In to Bookmark Lot