Carved mahogany frame with tapestry panel.

A fire-screen of wood , carved mahogany containing a panel embroidered in colours (petit-point) with a pastoral scene, (figures in a landscape). The screen is of scrolled outline, carved with foliage and rococo ornament: at the top is a cresting composed of C scrolls and foliage. The frame is supported on four feet or cabriole form with scrolled toes, carved with acanthus.

On loan to Lydiard Park, Swindon, Wiltshire, England from 1982 to 2016.


Purchased by the V&A in 1933 for £100 from the executors of Cora, Countess of Strafford, per Messrs. Broughton, Middlemirt and Holt (Registered Papers: 33/1358).

Based on a design in Chippendale's 'Director' (1st. ed. Pl. CXXVII).

Illustrated in 'Thomas Chippendale by Oliver Brackett (1924) Pl. XL; also in D.E.F. Vol. III p.64 Pl. II 1954 with the quotation from Chippendale that 'those standing on four feet are commonly called "Horse-Fire-Screens" and the woodwork "should be gilt in burnished gold"'.

[Note from register]
'The screen's frame was originally gilt when it was acquired and remained so until the testing of the wood in 1962: Examination of fragments of gilded wood from a Chippendale Screen.

The same supplied had a worn a layer of gold leaf (somewhat puckered in places by blobs of what seems to be a discoloured varnish) on a bright yellow ground. The bright yellow ground appears, from examination under the microscope, to be directly upon the wood with no gesso beneath. Scraping of the sample of wood revealed no traces of previous gilding or gesso beneath the yellow ground.

A scraping of the yellow ground was taken and was found to dissolve by warming with dilute hydrochloric acid giving a yellow solution and white precipitate. The white precicipitate was identified as lead . The solution in acid was tested for chromate and gave positive tests both with diphenyl carbazide and benzidine. The pigment must therefore be yellow lead chromate (chrome yellow).

Chromium, as an element, was discovered only in 1797 by Vauquelin, and lead chromate first described by him, as a chemical compound, not a pigment, in 1809. It did not, however, come into commercial production before 1818. It is therefore very unlikely that the yellow layer examined could have been applied before this date, and hence the gilding must also be after this date. There is no trace of an earlier surface coating beneath the yellow layer, so from the examination of this sample it must be assumed that the wood was uncoated.

Joyce Plesters
Scientific Department
National Gallery
4th April, 1962'


[note from register]
'Mr. Molesworth,
I had this paint analysed because Mr Green had a hunch that the paint and gilding were later additions and that the wood was originally left plain. This is borne out by the chemical analysis, from which it is clear that the layers must be later than 1818.

Mr. Hayward,
Now that you have full and certified backing for the conclusion you deduced from the fact that the colour covered repairs
D.M. (D. Molesworth)'

W.2-1933