The Music Room fireplace
Robert Adam (Kirkcaldy 1728 - London 1792)
Category
Architecture / Features & Decoration
Date
circa 1760 - 1765
Materials
Marble, Blue John and steel
Measurements
1600 x 2260 x 240 mm
Place of origin
Great Britain
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 107920
Summary
Marble, Blue John and steel, the Music Room fireplace, designed by Robert Adam (1728-92), with bas-relief panel attributed to Michael Henry Spang (d. 1762), c. 1760-65. The chimneypiece of white marble inlaid with Derbyshire Blue John panels. A moulded breakfront shelf with acanthus and egg and dart cornice motif. The frieze with a centralised rectangular bas-relief panel depicting the epithalamium, after an engraving by Pietro Santi Bartoli in the Admiranda Romanarum (see NT 107920.1). The frieze flanked by rosette paterae; the panel flanked by bas-reliefs showing a bow and quiver surrounded by a wreath at left and, at right, a classical Greek lyre with olive branch. The jambs carved of white marble and rendered as fluted ionic columns, on blocks. Fitted with a steel basket grate with bowed rails, surmounted by urn finials. Steel fret and fender pierced and with rotated square motif. A marble hearth stone fitted flush to floor. The Music Room was designed by Robert Adam c. 1760-65 (see NT 109430 for original designs).
Provenance
Purchased by Nathaniel Curzon (1726-1804) c. 1760-65 as part of Robert Adam's remodelling of Kedleston; identifiable in 'Catalogue of the pictures, statues, &c. at Kedleston' (1769) as 'Chimney-piece, Statuary Marble. Tablet, an Epithalamium, from the Adm. Rom., in basso-relievo' (Music Room, p. 10); purchased with part of the contents of Kedleston with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund in 1987 when the house and park were given to the National Trust by Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000).
Credit line
Kedleston Hall, The Scarsdale Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1987)
Makers and roles
Robert Adam (Kirkcaldy 1728 - London 1792), architect Robert Adam (Kirkcaldy 1728 - London 1792), designer
References
Harris 1987: Leslie Harris and Gervase Jackson-Stops (ed.), Robert Adam and Kedleston: The Making of a Neo-Classical Masterpiece, London 1987 Ford 2000: Trevor D. Ford, Derbyshire Blue John, Derbyshire, 2000