The grand hall and staircase, Lancaster House (f ormerly York House/Stafford House),
designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1775-1855)
been favoured with a view of the Goodwood race cup, designed
and executed under the care of Messrs.
The Hadrian’s Villa ‘Doves of Pliny’ mosaic corresponds to one
described by Pliny the Elder (A.D.
23/24-79) which was the wor k
of Sosus of Pergamon (active 2nd century B.C.).
Sosus, the onl y
mosaicist from the Classical world whose name is recorded, wa s
famous as the inventor of a type of mosaic known as asaroton,
in which the floor is inlaid with trompe l’oeil representations
of fruit, fish and fragments of food as if carelessly scattered.
When freshly discovered in 1737, ‘The Doves of Pliny,’ now in th e
Capitoline Museum in Rome, was thought to be a rare survival
of a work celebrated in ancient times; modern scholars take
a different view, however, suggesting that the piece is more
likely to be a later Roman copy.
Reproduced in various media,
particularly in micromosaic, ‘The Doves of Pliny’ would have
been familiar to those whose classical education included a
sojourn in Italy as part of the Grand Tour.
Storr and Mortimer.
It is a close copy of the Adrian [sic] vase, and in every respect
worthy of the original, both in taste and delicacy.
The bowl is
of solid silver, with four doves resting on the edges and sipping
from the bowl.
the general design is elegant and graceful,
and the execution as perfect as everything which comes
from the classic workshop of Messrs.
Storr and Mortimer.’
(The Morning Post, London, Saturday, 28 July 1838, p.
6d;
Christopher Hartop, Art in Industry: The Silver of Paul Storr,
Cambridge, 2015, p.
123, fig.
140)
The same year as Storr & Mortimer made these centrepieces
for the Duke of Sutherland, they were commissioned by Edwar d
Vernon, 4th Baron Suffield to produce a single, similar vase on
a shorter stem for use as the Goodwood Cup of 1838.
The original owner of these centrepieces was George
Sutherland Leverson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, known
to his family as ‘Govero,’ who succeed to the title upon the
death of his father on 19 July 1833.
‘We have
Although an M.P.
for various
constituencies between 1808 and 1820, he took little interest
in politics, possibly because he was afflicted with deafness.
Instead he pursued patronage on a grand scale.
A trustee of
the National Gallery and the British Museum, he employed Sir
Charles Barry, who was also busy working on the new Houses of
Parliament, for more than twenty years, remodelling Dunrobin
Castle in Scotland, Trentham Hall in Staffordshire and Clivedon
in Buckinghamshire, as well as his London mansion, Stafford
House, St.
James’s. The latter, formerly York House, was
commissioned in 1825 by Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of
York (1763-1827)
In 1829 the lease was purchased by the 2nd
Duke of Sutherland (then Marquess of Stafford) and it remained
in his family until 1913.
It is now known as Lancaster House.
During the 2nd Duke of Sutherland’s time, Stafford House
became the scene of many fashionable gatherings.
His wife,
Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana (1806-1868), a daughter
of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and, during Whig
administrations, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria, was
a renowned hostess.
‘With its marble gallery and staircase and
frescoed walls, the house is certainly as fine as any in London,
if it be not absolutely the finest.
It was the subject of a very
graceful compliment from the Queen, who on arriving at a grand
ball given at Stafford House shortly after her accession said to
the noble host, ‘’I have come from my house to your palace.’’’
(The Guardian, London, Saturday, 11 August 1888, p.
7f) Mosaic
showing doves drinking from a bowl, from Hadrian’s villa,
2nd century AD, probably a copy of Sosus’s work
118