A pair of Blue John obelisks
Richard Brown (1736 - 1816)
Category
Objets de vertu
Date
1765
Materials
Blue John, Ashford black marble
Measurements
650 x 220 x 125 mm
Place of origin
Derby
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 109102
Caption
Obelisks made from a very rare blue banded semi-precious mineral only found in a cavern outside the town of Castleton in Derbyshire.
Summary
Blue John and Ashford black marble, a pair of Blue John obelisks, attributed to Richard Brown & Sons, Derby, 1765. Two fine horizontal bands have been chiseled into the top of the obelisks; they are mounted onto plinths made of Ashford black marble and Blue John.
Full description
Blue John is a rare semi-precious fluorite which crystalises in bands of purple, blue and yellow. Its distinctive colouring and light-reflecting qualities made it a highly-prized commodity in the late 18th and 19th centuries, especially as its only known source in the United Kingdom is Derbyshire. Mined from two caverns near Castleton and the now abandoned Old Tor Mine on Winnats Pass, one of the earliest recorded decorative uses of Blue John was at Kedleston Hall, where Robert Adam chose to inlay a panel of it in the State Bedchamber fireplace (c. 1768; NT 107960). Derby marble masons Richard Brown & Sons made the fireplace to Adam's designs, obtaining their Blue John from a Mr Bradbury of Castleton (Ford 2000, p. 56). Brown is attributed to this pair of obelisks and may have also been responsible for other Blue John ornaments at Kedleston such as a pair of columns (NT 109103), a pair of vases (NT 109107), an urn (NT 109104, originally in a pair), an obelisk (NT 109105) and a campana urn (NT 109106). Another rare Derbyshire stone, Ashford Black Marble, is set between the Blue John elements of the obelisk. It can only be mined from two quarries in the county and polishes to an extremely desirable deep and glossy black. Alice Rylance-Watson March 2019
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
Richard Brown (1736 - 1816), supplier
References
Ford 2000: Trevor D. Ford, Derbyshire Blue John, Derbyshire, 2000, pp. 56-7.