Object Type
This cabinet with its pedimented top and lower drawer was designed to house Horace Walpole's collection of miniatures and enamels. It was conceived as a miniature 'Classical Temple of Worthies' supporting ivory figures of three of Walpole's artistic heroes, the architects Andrea Palladio (1518-1580) and Inigo Jones (1573-1652) and the sculptor François Duquesnoy (about 1594-1643).
Materials & Making
The cabinet was commissioned by Horace Walpole on his return from the Grand Tour to incorporate a series of ivory plaques representing classical authors or derived from antique gems. The pediment top is unusual for a small-scale cabinet and was inspired by contemporary Palladian architecture. J.F. Verskovis, a Flemish sculptor, supplied the ivory statuettes and also carved the ivory eagle heads and the adjacent festoons of fruit and flowers in padouk wood.
Places
The cabinet was originally displayed in Horace Walpole's house in Arlington Street, London. In the early 1760s it was moved to his country residence, Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, where it formed the centrepiece of the Tribune, a room in which some of the most precious small objects in his collection were displayed.
Physical description
The Walpole Cabinet, padouk with ivory, 152.4 x 91.5 x 21.6 cm. It is decorated with the Walpole's arms and surmounted by ivory figures of the Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy, flanked by the architect Inigo Jones and the painter Rubens by the sculptor James Francis Verskovis (Jacob Frans Vescovers) (fl. 1743) after John Michael Rysbrack (1694-1770). The eagles and the arms of Horace Walpole in the pediment are by Verskovis. The doors are decorated with various relefs, including one illustrating Judith and the head of Holofernes, and other busts and figures.
Place of Origin
London, England (made)
Rome, Italy (ivory reliefs, carved)
Date
1743 (made)
Artist/maker
Walpole, Horace, born 1717 - died 1797 (designer)
William Kent (probably, designer)
William Hallett, born 1702 - died 1781 (probably, maker)
Verskovis, James Francis (ivories, carver)
Pozzo, Giovanni Battista, born 1670 - died 1752 (ivories, carver)
Materials and Techniques
Padouk veneered onto a pine carcase and set with carved ivory plaques, figures and mounts
Marks and inscriptions
The arms of Horace Walpole in the pediment
Dimensions
Height: 152.4 cm, Width: 91.5 cm, Depth: 21.6 cm
Object history note
Designed by Horace Walpole (born in London, 1717 died there in 1797) in collaboration with William Kent (born in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, 1685, died in London, 1748)
Cabinet made in London by William Hallet (1707-1781); ivories by J.F. Verskovis (active 1743) and Andrea Pozzo (born in Trento, Italy, 1642, died in Vienna, 1709) the ivory figures carved in London; ivory reliefs carved in Rome
Object sampling carried out by Jo Darrah, V&A Science; drawer/slide reference 4/17.
Descriptive line
Walpole Cabinet, padouk with ivory, designed by Horace Walpole, perhaps in collaboration with William Kent, England, 1743
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Baker, Malcolm and Richardson, Brenda, eds. A Grand Design : The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: V&A Publications, 1997. 431 p., ill. ISBN 1851773088.
This richly decorated cabinet was made to house the portrait miniatures collected by the connoisseur Horace Walpole and, through both its original contents and the images of artists represented on its exterior, was from the start conceived as a statement about the history of art in England. Its own later history, including its acquisition and use by the Museum, reveals not only how English art has been revalued in the twentieth century but also the symbolic role accorded to Walpole in this process. As well as gathering together some of the most informative sources about eighteenth-century and earlier English art, Walpole was an important patron and collector, his most notable achievement being his Gothic Revival house at Strawberry Hill and the works displayed there.
The cabinet was described by Walpole in 1743 as a "new
cabinet for my enamels and miniatures," designed by himself, possibly with the assistance of the architect William Kent. It is decorated with the owner's arms and surmounted by ivory figures of three earlier artists whom Walpole held in especially high esteem: the Flemish sculptor François Duquesnoy (1594-1644), flanked by two architects-Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) and Inigo Jones (1573-1652)-whose designs formed the basis for the neo-Palladian style in mid-eighteenth-century England. The ivory figures were carved by the otherwise unknown Verskovis after models by Michael Rysbrack (cat. 137). Most of the ivory reliefs of classical subjects were by Andrea Pozzo, who worked in eighteenth-century Rome mainly for British patrons on the grand tour, and these were probably acquired by Walpole himself in Italy in 1740. The Judith relief was erroneously, if significantly, thought by Walpole to be by the seventeenth-century English sculptor Grinling Gibbons, who carved the cravat also in his collection (cat. 135).
The cabinet was first placed in Walpole's London house in Arlington Street around 1743 but was moved to Strawberry Hill in the early 1760s (fig. 114). As E. Edwards's drawing of 1781 shows, it there formed the centrepiece of a room in which some of the most precious small objects in the collection were displayed; these included miniatures by Hans Holbein and Isaac Oliver. Through both its contents and its external imagery, the cabinet was used in this context as a statement about English art and aesthetic ideals. The English miniatures inside were presented as the equal of the works of ancient art reproduced in ivory on the outside.
The piece, sold with Walpole's collection in 1842, was purchased by the V&A in 1925 at a period when new interest was being shown in Walpole and his collection. This parallels the enthusiasm for eighteenth-century English culture at this date in Britain and the United States, one notable outcome being the beginning of the forty-eight-volume Yale edition of Walpole's correspondence. Employed by Walpole to frame his collection of earlier English works, the cabinet has been used in evolving Museum settings to exemplify eighteenth-century English taste.
Lit. King and Longhurst, 1926; Wainwright, 1989, pp. 74-5, 101
MALCOLM BAKER
Snodin, Michael, ed., with the assistance of Cynthia Roman. Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. New Have and London: The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, Yale Center for British Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, in association with Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12574-0. Catalogue of the exhibition held at the The Yale Center for British Art, 2009 and the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2010, cat. 171, figs. 123, 127, p. 317.
This catalogue re-identifies one of the figures as Rubens rather than Palladio, as traditionally identified. A watercolour by John Carter, showing the 'Disposition of the Miniatures in the Rosewood Cabinet in the Tribune', n.d, now in the Lewis Walpole Library, is illustrated on p. 99
Exhibition History
Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill (Victoria and Albert Museum 01/06/2003-04/07/2010)
Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill (Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven 15/10/2009-03/01/2010)
A Grand Design - The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum 12/10/1999-16/01/2000)
Labels and date
British Galleries:
Walpole commissioned this cabinet to store part of his fine collection of portrait miniatures. It was originally made for his house in Arlington Street, London but later became the main piece of furniture in the Tribune at Strawberry Hill. The figures on top are three of Walpole's artistic heroes. They show the architects Andrea Palladio (1518-1580) and Inigo Jones (1573-1652) and the sculptor François Duquesnoy (about 1594-1643). Walpole collected the ivory plaques for this cabinet while on his Grand Tour in Italy. [27/03/2003]
Subjects depicted
Men; Figures; Birds; Women; Portraits; Putti; Festoons; Reliefs; Nudes; Lions; Columns (architectural elements); Pediment; Judith; Palladio, Andrea; Duquesnoy, Francois; Jones, Inigo
Categories
Furniture; Woodwork; Portraits; Architecture
Collection code
FWK
