Lot 51: ANTONIO ZUCCHI A.R.A. AND PIETRO MARIA BORGNIS 1726- 1795 AND CIRCA 1739-1810

A SERIES OF ALLEGORICAL SCENES FROM THE ANTIQUE: MERCURY AND PSYCHE; APOLLO AND THE CUMAEAN SIBYL; THE TRIUMPH OF GALATEA; THE MARRIAGE OF CUPID AND PSYCHE; MELPOMENE, MUSE OF TRAGEDY; ENTERPE, MUSE OF MUSIC; ERATO, MUSE OF LYRIC AND LOVE POETRY; CLIO, MUSE OF HISTORY; TERPSICHORE, MUSE OF DANCE AND SONG; CUPID AND PSYCHE; URANIA, MUSE OF ASTRONOMY; MUSE, BLOWING A HORN; CALLIOPE, MUSE OF POETRY; MUSE, OF LOVE WITH CHERUB; MUSE, IMPLORING CHERUB; MUSE WITH FAIRY; TRIUMPH OF VENUS; ALLEGORY OF THE WIND

various sizes

set of eighteen, oil on canvas laid down on board

H.M. Cundall, Bygone Richmond, 1925, p.34 (as Kauffmann);
C.L. Collenette, A History of Richmond Park, 1937, p.50 (as Kauffmann);
Edward Croft-Murray, 'Thatched House Lodge', Country Life - Royal Wedding Supplement, 2nd May 1963, p.975;
Edward Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting in England, 1537-1837, 1970, Vol. II, p.175

QUANTITY: 18

These works were originally in situ in the Thatched House Lodge, Richmond Park. Edward Croft-Murray (Country Life, op. cit.) suggests that the decoration of the Lodge with these panels occurred during the tenancy of the future General Sir William Medows (1738-1813).

They decorated the 'Thatched Room', and Croft-Murray describes how the pictures were exhibited; "The building consists of two octagonal rooms, the smaller of which forms a little entrance hall. The ceiling of this first room is decorated with a central octagonal compartment showing Apollo and one of the muses - either Calliope or Clio - her remaining eight sisters each occupying a medallion in the surrounding cove. A door, flanked by two large 'stone' vases in niches, painted en trompe l'oeil, leads to the second room. Here the walls are tinted in blue-grey, forming a charming ground for the antique grotesques in full colour, with which they are adorned. The main themes of the decoration are the Birth or Sea Triumph of Venus and the Story of Cupid and Psyche, which are disposed in compartments and roundels on the walls and ceiling: Venus on the south-east wall; Cupid and Psyche received in Olympus on the north-west; and Mercury conducting Pysche to Olympus overhead."

The paintings were long attributed to Angelica Kauffmann, a view which cannot be supported on the basis of style. Thatched House Lodge was built by William Kent circa 1727, but the decoration of the Thatched Room itself is in the pure neoclassical style of Robert Adam. Zucchi was Adam's principal decorator, as well as being Angelica Kauffmann's husband, and Pietro Maria Borgnis is also mentioned in a number of letters from Robert Adam to Paul Sandby. Borgnis is recorded as having executed a number of similar ornamental panels at Portman Square, Osterley Park, and Watton Wood Hall.