James Parker

Designed in the Most Elegant Manner, and Wrought in the Best Marbles: The Caryatid Chimney Piece from Chesterfield House

In a letter to his confidant Solomon Dayrolles, dated August 16, I748 from London, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield wrote: I am returned to a very empty town, which I can bear very well; for if I have not all the company that I could like, I am at least secure from any company that I do not like; which is not the case of any one place in England but London. Besides I have time to read and think; the first I like; the latter I am not, as too many are, afraid of. The rest of the day is employed in riding, and fitting up my house; which, I assure you, takes a good deal of time, now that we are come to the minute parts of finishing and furnishing. The minute parts must have been more considerable than Lord

Other Decorative Objects

Louis de Bourbon, duc de Penthievre, was extremely rich, so rich that even the king of France had cause for envy and alarm. The rents from the Ducs estates came to about five million livres a year, which the Revolution succeeded in reducing to three million. These estates were vast, for inheritance had brought him among others the lands and chateaux of Dreux, Brie, Aumale, Amboise, Sceaux, Rambouillet, Anet, Bizy, Gisors, Dombes, and Chanteloup. Property on such a scale had its drawbacks, and a memoir of 1783 describes the Duc in the midst of his custodial duties. As for M. the duc de Penthievre, they claim that he is almost deranged by the arrangements he has to make; he has a considerable number of chateaux, all well furnished, well maintained and well guarded, always ready to receive him, and that he visits in succession; which subjects him to enormous expense, compounded by his excessive charities, which do not diminish at all, and come to four hundred thousand livres a year. His money provoked other worries for the Duc at court. The same memoirs recount in 1775: Everyone knows that the extreme wealth of the Duc de Penthievre, considerably augmented by his inheritance from the Comte dEu, has started to beget envy at court, not with regard to this prince, but in the event that all his possessions should pass to the house of Orleans, as must happen through the marriage of the only daughter of the Duc de Penthievre with the Due de Chartres, himself the only heir of his branch. For the purposes of opposing such an enormous fortune His Majesty has been advised to urge the Duc de Penthievre to remarry, and they say that he is being strongly urged to this decision. The Duc did not succumb to these importunities, and his worldly goods did pass to the House of Orleans, as will be seen. The Dues father was Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse, third son of Louis XIV and Mme de Montespan. Legitimized three years after his birth, and later raised to the rank of prince of the blood royal, the Comte neverthe-

The Porcelain Furniture

Among the foremost French eighteenth century art dealers were Simon-Philippe Poirier and his successor Dominique Daguerre, who managed a shop in the Rue Saint-Honore called A la Couronne dor. This shop was stocked with the finest objects that French artisans of the period could produce, among them ormolu, porcelains, and furniture. The notion of combining the three elements in porcelain furniture seems to have come from these high-ranking shopkeepers. Poirier first envisaged the use of porcelain plaques for furniture in the mid-I75os. His discovery did not materially change the