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Panel fragment
Unknown - Enlarge image
Panel fragment
- Place of origin:
England, Great Britain (made)
- Date:
ca. 1790 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pinewood, with stamped and applied pewter
- Credit Line:
Given by Col. Harold Malet
- Museum number:
516B-1908
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 118e, case WW
Object Type
This fragment is decorated with anthemia (stylised honeysuckle) and other ornaments. Its use is not clear, but the narrow, vertical nature of the design suggests that it probably served as the shaft of a pilaster (a flattened column against a wall) or the side of a chimney-piece. Although the materials would have been cheap, the elaborate decoration indicates that the room for which the piece was made would have been important.
Subjects Depicted
The panel is made up of a repeat pattern of anthemia, sprouting from scrolls, which terminate in acanthus flowers and drops of husks. These motifs were derived from ancient Roman carving and stuccowork (fake marble). Robert Adam and other architects working in the Neo-classical style used this form of decoration for interiors, furniture and gilt-bronze door fittings.
Time
From about 1770 fashion turned against the extravagant, asymmetrical Rococo motifs that had dominated interiors in the middle of the 18th century. Robert Adam, armed with a large repertoire of ornament that he had studied first-hand in Rome, helped create a new vogue for classical motifs, particularly in interiors. These did not merely copy engravings by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), the great Italian architect who had so influenced English architects of the earlier periods.
