Agostino Brunias, sometimes anglicised in Augustin Brunais (active 1758-1779) was probably born in Rome where he was a student at the Academia de San Luca. He work with Robert Adam in England in the 1760s and travelled to the West Indies in 1770. He is best known for his drawings that constitute an important record of life in the Lesser Antilles in the second half of the 18th century.
This painting is part of a set of five paintings commissioned to Agostino Brunias by Robert Adam to decorate the Breakfast Room at Kedleston Hall. Adam executed the design and Brunias was entrusted with the execution of the painting. It shows two women, probably vestals or ancient priestesses, in classical dress in a landscape, one standing, one seated, each side of an hour-glass shaped altar with a sacrificial fire. This painting imitates classical mural decoration which came into fashion at the end of the 18th century.
Physical description
[Decorative painting] A tempera painting of two women in classical dress in a landscape, one standing, one seated, each side of an hour-glass shaped altar with a sacrificial fire.
[Frame] Neo-classical oil gilded pinewood frame carved with acanthus and tongue, beading, entwined running acanthus pattern and bead and dentil moulding
Place of Origin
Kedleston Hall, England (made)
London, England
Date
1759-1760 (made)
1761
Artist/maker
Brunias, Agostino, born 1730 - died 1796 (artist)
Alken, Sefferin, born 1717 - died 1782 (maker)
Robert Adam, born 1728 - died 1792 (designer)
Materials and Techniques
[Decorative painting] Tempera painting on canvas
[Frame] Carved and gilt pinewood
Dimensions
Height: 117.6 cm with frame, Width: 129.4 cm
Object history note
Purchased, 1975.
[Decorative painting] Historical significance: This work is one of the five paintings hang on the wall of the Breakfast Room (not to be confused with the 'Painted Breakfasting Room' planned for the west end of the south front in 1768 but never executed) in the family wing of Kedleston Hall, country house of Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale (1726-1804).
The room was designed by Robert Adam (1728-1792) in 1759, who described it as being "quite in a new taste" and entrusted Agostino Brunias, an artist he discovered in Rome, with the completion of the mural decorations while the gilt frame were executed by the most famous ornamental carver of the time, Sefferin Alken (1717-1782) and supplied in 1761. Adam's preparatory sketches are currently in Sir John Soane's Museum, London.
The present painting shows two women in classical dress in a landscape, one standing, one seated, each side of an hour-glass shaped altar with a sacrificial fire. They are probably two vestals, virgin priestesses of the Ancient Roman religion, highly regarded and respected for there devotion and purity.
This painting derived from the antique ornaments of the thermal baths of Diocletian, the largest public baths in Rome, built in the 4th century AD. Adam's thematic was probably inspired by the 'Athenian' Stuart's Painted Room at Spencer House, and illustrated the care for domestic virtues women. In fact, the painted Breakfast Room began life as 'Lady's caroline Dressing Room'.
Brunias tried to reproduce the fresco technique on canvas by painting 'a la detrempe' but this poor medium mostly made of water unfortunately deteriorated quickly over the years. The room was eventually dismantled in 1807 and Brunias' paintings in their original frame survived in the house until 1960s when they were removed and stored by the late Lord Scarsdale before being eventually sold to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1975.
Historical context note
[Decorative painting] Neo-classicism succeeded to Rococo in the second half of the 18th century. It was stimulated by the archaeological rediscovery of the Roman and Greek antique civilisations and domestic life, especially at Herculaneum from 1738 and Pompeii from 1748. This revived interest for the Antique lifestyle was witnessed in the fine arts by the choice of subject matters inspired by the Antique heroes such as Jacques-Louis David's Andromache Mourning Hector and the Oath of the Horatii (both in Louvre, Paris), which exalted republican heroism.
In the applied and decorative arts, this taste gave birth to furnished interiors that combined Greek and Roman decorative and architectural sources in such examples as James Stuart's Painted Room in Spencer House, London (1759) and sought-after designs by Robert Adam which were circulating thanks to the publication of Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam (London, 1773-9). Neo-classicism eventually became in France the official mode during the Napoleonic age.
Descriptive line
Decorative painting, in the manner of Roman fresco, for the Breakfast Room at Kedleston Hall, painted by Agostino Brunias, in a gilt frame carved by Sefferin Alken, after designs by Robert Adam, 1759-1760.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
L. Harris, Robert Adam and Kedleston : the making of a neo-classical masterpiece, London, 1987, pp. 52-54.
Materials
Canvas; Gold leaf; Tempera; Pinewood
Techniques
Painting
Subjects depicted
Landscape; Women; Urn
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
