A Blue John column
Category
Objets de vertu
Date
circa 1760 - circa 1770
Materials
Blue John, Ashford black marble, white marble
Measurements
420 x 80 x 80 mm
Place of origin
Derbyshire
Order this imageCollection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 109103.2
Summary
Blue John (Derbyshire Spar), Ashford Black Marble, and white marble, one of a pair of Blue John columns on square plinths surmounted by vase finials, British, c.1760-1800. The columns are in the Tuscan order.
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). Adam probably ordered the production of other Blue John ornaments for Kedleston through local masons, possibly Richard Brown & Sons, as Brown is attributed to a pair of Blue John obelisks in the Family Corridor (NT 109102). See also a pair of Blue John vases (NT 109107), an urn (NT 109104, originally in a pair), and a campana vase (NT 109106). Another rare Derbyshire stone, Ashford Black Marble, is set between the Blue John and white marble elements of the columns. 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
Provenance
Gifted to the National Trust in 1986 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)
References
Ford 2000: Trevor D. Ford, Derbyshire Blue John, Derbyshire, 2000, pp. 56-7.