A George II gilt-brass and cut-glass lantern 2nd quarter 18th century

the painted and gilded metal Ducal coronet with a lotus leaf collar supported on a short spreading stem above the hexagonal lantern with arched glazed panels cut with bead, ovolo and stylised foliate decoration within bevelled borders, surmounted by an engraved pierced brass cresting, with tapering glazed panels with bevelled edges and stylised foliate decoration below, joined by a cut glass panel in the base; some replaced panes

9th Duke of Norfolk, Norfolk House, St James’s, London
Christie’s, London, Catalogue of the remaining Contents of Norfolk House, 7-9 February 1938, lot 266 (unsold)
purchased by the present owner after the sale.

 

Literature:

W.H Godfrey, ‘Norfolk House, St. James’s Square: The town house of the Duke of Norfolk’, Country Life, 25th December 1937, p.654, fig.1.  The photograph shows the lantern in situ in the entrance hall at Norfolk House.

References:

Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, London, 1978, pp.133-137

Survey of London: The Parish of St. James Westminster, vol. XXIX, London, 1960, pp. 192-202

 

This lantern is recorded in three eighteenth century Norfolk House inventories, now preserved  in the archives at Arundel Castle, West Sussex. The text relating to the lantern is transcribed below. The first is undated but must have been taken between 1753 and February 24^th 1756,  when Matthew Brettingham’s new house built for the 9^th Duke of Norfolk was first opened to London society.

AC MSS (IN 5)

Inventory of  Furniture in  St James’s Square when rebuilt and new furnish’d.

c.1756

Porters Hall

A Large Glass Lanthorn in a brass frame – ballance (sic)  and Shade

It appears again in an inventory taken in April 1777,

AC MSS  (IN 8)

Inventory of household furniture linen and china at Norfolk House, taken by John Bracken, 2nd April 1777.

No 33 Large  Hall

a  large  Cutt Glass Lanthorn Octagon Shape Iron Chain with an  inside hang Branch.

Later in the same year some time after the death of the 9^th Duke on 20^th September at the age of 92, amongst items “bequeathed by the will of Edward, late Duke of Norfolk”, it appears again. It should be noted that in each of these inventories it is described as octagonal, although the present lantern is in fact hexagonal. It would seem that this is a mistake; a suggestion supported by the fact that the lantern is also recorded in 1842 and 1869 and the present lantern is undoubtedly that which failed to sell in 1938. It is highly unlikely that the first lantern was replaced between 1777 and 1842 when it is recorded with its coronet and described as hexagonal. As is noted later it also bears comparison with a lantern supplied to Frederick Prince of Wales in 1729 by Benjamin Goodison.

The authorship of this lantern and the one which hung on the stairs is uncertain. The records at Arundel record the furnishing of Norfolk House in some detail. John Cuenot’s bill exists in its entirety and there are further records for work supplied by other makers such as Joseph Metcalfe and the brazier Thomas Stevens, who supplied a lot of metalwork including some of the grates. There is no mention of these lanterns in any of this material. Cuenot’s bill records the Wall Lanterns, which were in the Staircase Hall, (Sold Lot 188, Sotheby’s London July 8^th 1988.) and four branches made to support lamps in the Hall. We know from the early inventory that the lantern was there by February 24^th 1756. It is certainly possible that Goodison supplied it. The existence of a similar lantern also having the unusual coronet surmount, now at Hampton Court Palace would support this suggestion. It is illustrated as Plate CXVII, in English Furniture Illustrated, Oliver and Bracket. Revised by H.Clifford Smith. Ernest Benn Ltd, London 1950. The Hampton Court lantern is recorded in the Royal Accounts (P.R.O. LC9/26) and was supplied by the celebrated cabinet maker Benjamin Goodison to the Prince of Wales in 1729 for Kensington Palace at a cost of £138. Interestingly the motif of a crown as a surmount to a chandelier can be seen on an engraving by William Kent published by John Vardy in Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones and Mr William Kent, 1744, pl. 23 (see Peter Ward Jackson, English Furniture Designs of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1984, pl. 13).

The Norfolk House lantern could have been supplied some twenty years later around 1750 when Goodison was established at “Golden Spread Eagle”, Long Acre. As a fashionable Royal cabinet maker he would have been an obvious choice. Furthermore the Norfolks were on very good terms with Frederick, Prince of Wales and indeed he was their tenant at the old Norfolk House in the late 1730s where the future George III was born in 1738. They would certainly have observed Goodison’s lantern at Kensington Palace. Goodison also supplied furniture for Holkham Hall, another Brettingham House. These connections cannot be conclusive in the absence of written documentation but it must remain a strong possibility that Goodison was indeed the maker.

In the 19^th century the lantern is recorded twice, once in 1842, when the coronet is mentioned,

FEW 181/28

Ground floor. Entrance Hall ……

A hexagon hall Lantern in an ormolu frame with engraved glass panels, Coronet & Chain …..’

In 1869 an account from the cabinet maker Charles Nosotti, documents its restoration,

MD814

Account for Decorations and upholstery at Norfolk House 1869.

“Taking to pieces a large Hall Lantern, relacquering the frame, supplying new cut plate glass to the same, refitting and also regilding the chain, repairing and relacquering the inside lamp.” £8.  0.s  0.d

Norfolk House was built between 1748 and 1752, as a palatial London residence for the 9th Duke of Norfolk, to the designs of William Kent’s former assistant, Matthew Brettingham.  The house was the largest and finest of the town houses that were designed by Brettingham and built within St James’s parish.  Much of the Palladian detail of the house was derived from Holkham Hall and the building came to be regarded as a prototype of the later Cumberland House in Pall Mall. 

The splendour of the interiors was celebrated at the time. Mary the wife of the 9^th Duke was a great Francophile and was received at the court of Louis XV. Through her influence the interiors were designed by Giovanni Battista Borra, who also worked at the Racconigi Palace in Turin. Something of the grandeur is recorded in a letter from William Harrington to his sisters, Isabella and Mary.

“The Dutchess having been so kind to send me a ticket, on opening the Grand Apartment, which as was expected prov’d the finest assembly ever known in this Kingdom, there were in all eleven Rooms open, three below, the rest above, every room was furnished with a different colour, which used to be reckoned absurd, but this I suppose is the be the standard, as the immense Grandeur of the Furniture is scarse to be conceiv’d.”

 The house stayed with the family until 1937 when the then duke sold it to developers who had it demolished in 1939, after the sale of the contents of the house.  The lantern appeared as lot 266 in the three day sale which took place on the premises. Part of the Music Room has been preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Another very similar lantern with identical cut glass panels, hangs in the entrance hall at Chevening House, Kent the seat of the Stanhopes (see Christopher Hussey `A Great Gift To The Nation, Chevening, Kent', Country Life, 18 January 1968, p. 103, pl. 5, The Entrance Hall).  Interestingly The Chevening example is illustrated (op. cit. fig.5) on a carved oak stand which was subsequently sold at Sotheby's, Chevening, 10 May 1993, lot 349.