A set of six granite columns
Category
Architecture / Features & Decoration
Date
1820 - 1840
Materials
Granite (stone)
Collection
Stowe, Buckinghamshire
NT 91801
Summary
A set of six granite columns. Used in the 1840's, by the second Duke of Buckingham to form a dais with a screen of columns within the Temple of Concord and Victory. The dais and screen have now been removed.
Full description
These six granite columns were purchase in 1829 by Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, first duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776–1839). In 1827 the 1st Duke was in serious financial difficulties. He closed Stowe, purchased a yacht and travelled the Mediterranean. His travel diaries show that on reaching Italy he purchased artworks, antiquities and artefacts which were sent back to Stowe. The 1st Duke returned to England in 1830. “These columns were brought from Rome by the late Duke of Buckingham, who purchased them of a sculptor, by whom they had been sold to Napoleon Buonaparte, a short-time prior to his abdication, in consequence of which event, they were left upon his hands; and he was very glad to find a purchaser in the Duke of Buckingham, who brought them to England in 1829.” (The Stowe Catalogue, 1848) In the 1840’s Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham & Chandos (1797-1861) had the aedicule (small shrine) and statue inside the Temple of Concord and Victory removed and, in their place, installed a dais and a screen made from these six granite columns. A sketch showing columns inside the west end of Temple of Concord and Victory is within the Stowe Estate Papers now held at the Huntington Library. Stowe School removed the dais and screen of columns in the 1920’s and used the Temple as an armoury. The National Trust restored the Temple in the 1990’s to the eighteenth-century design.