Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts Expands its Exhibition Space and Diverse Permanent Collection
In 2007, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, MA, acquired a rare English silver-gilt candelabrum centerpiece of about 1806-1807, made by sculptor and goldsmith Philip Comman for the renowned firm of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell (1797-1843). The firm achieved royal patronage from King George III and supplied vast amounts of silver and ormolu objects to the royal court and English nobility. The design for this centerpiece is attributed to the early 19th century architect and designer, Charles Heathcote Tatham, an influential supporter of the more severe, neoclassical style of the Regency period. His designs typically included monumental works of art in silver, silver-gilt, and ormolu. [1] This centerpiece is one of four known examples of Philip Comman’s work based on the designs of Charles Heathcote Tatham. Few examples of Comman’s work are known to survive in silver.
This impressive centerpiece epitomized the rage for Egyptian taste that was so popular in France and England following Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign of 1797-99. Objects in this style became a patriotic celebration of French antipathy in England following Napoleon’s defeats in Egypt in 1798 and Trafalgar in 1805. In England, inspiration from Egypt and Roman Antiquity influenced Regency designers, architects and craftsmen to produce a more archaeological and masculine aesthetic style. This represented a departure from the purely decorative classical taste of the late eighteenth century, playing an important role in all aspects of English art, architecture, and decorative arts.[2]
The MFA centerpiece features a tri-form pedestal base supporting three winged Greco-Egyptian sphinxes modeled in the round. The central platform, applied on the three incurved faces with panels chased with classical scenes (see detail), gives rise to a truncated column of palm leaves topped by a central detachable dish decorated with classical anthemia and egg-and-dart molding decoration. Three tri-part foliate scroll branches spring from the palm trunk, the lower part terminating in a Bacchic mask and the other two supporting two-light candle branches. The round, shallow bowl is engraved with the arms of Charles Kinnaird, 8th Baron Kinnaird of Inchture (1780-1826) and his wife, Olivia Laetitia Catherine Fitzgerald (d. 1858), the youngest daughter of second Duke of Leinster, whom he married in 1806.[3]
Spectacular centerpieces such as this one served as magnificent focal points of table decoration. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the art of the table saw a major transformation from the traditional service à la française, the eighteenth century custom in which all courses of a meal were laid out at the same time, to a preference for the service à la russe, where the food was prepared in the kitchen and served one course at a time. This new method ensured that diners enjoyed the food warm, but also prompted changes in the decoration of the table, where elaborate silver and gilt-bronze centerpieces acted as magnificent focal points on the table throughout the meal. Pieces such as this now occupied a central position on the dining table previously reserved for tureens and serving platters. It is likely that the MFA centerpiece was part of a larger dessert service, with similar Egyptian motifs that may have included matching wine coolers, candelabra, and smaller bowls with tripod stands for display of fruit or dessert sweets to decorate the table.
A recent exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts entitled “Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection”[4] highlighted a selection of the MFA’s Regency collection and a future English Regency gallery at the MFA will include many fine works of art of the period.
by Rebecca Tilles, Contributing Writer
Rebecca Tilles is a curatorial research associate in decorative arts and sculpture in the Art of Europe Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and has assisted with the exhibitions “Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style, 1800-1815” (2007) and “Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection” (2009). She holds a BA in French and French Cultural Studies from Wellesley College and an MA in European Decorative Arts from The Bard Graduate Center in New York.
To learn more about ‘ormolu’ go to: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ormolu
Read about the Regency Period at: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/regency_period
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[1] David Udy, “The Influence of Charles Heathcote Tatham,” Proceedings of the Silver Society, Volume II (Autumn 1975), p. 104-105.
[2] For additional information on the influence of the Egyptian style in Europe, see Patrick Connor ed., The Inspiration of Egypt: Its influence on British Artists, Travellers and Designers, 1700-1900 (Brighton Borough Council, Brighton, 1983); and Jean-Marcel Humbert, Egyptomania: Egypt in Western Art, 1730-1930 (Re?union des Muse?es Nationaux, Paris, 1994).
[3] Provenance information as noted in the sale catalogue Sotheby’s London, “Important English and Irish Silver,” (October 17, 1968), lot 90.
[4] See the exhibition catalogue Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection (MFA Publications, Boston, 2008).
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fred Luchessa
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