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Lot Essay
This library bookcase in the Palladian style of the 1730s was designed by William Kent (d. 1748), protégé of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and the pre-eminent architect-designer of the period, as part of the library scheme of the newly rebuilt Devonshire House, Piccadilly. William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire (d. 1755) paid Kent £1000 for architectural plans for a new house and designs for appropriate furniture; the final cost of the building came to £20,000. On the piano nobile of Devonshire House, in the upper library, Kent combined Romanesque high coved ceilings embellished in stucco with projecting free-standing bookcases carved with decorative motifs enhanced with gilding and painted the same colour as the walls.
When William Spencer Cavendish (d. 1858), son of the infamous Duchess Georgiana, succeeded as 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1811, he embarked on an extensive scheme of rearrangement and redecoration of the interiors of Devonshire House. Shortly after his succession Lady Bessborough remarked to her niece, Harriet Granville, that the young Duke was doing too much too hastily in the way of altering his numerous houses and did not seem to realize that he had all the time in the world ahead of him (James Lees-Milne, The Bachelor Duke, A Life of William Spencer Cavendish 6th Duke of Devonshire 1790-1858, London, 1990, p. 23). It was possibly at this date that the glazing was added to the bookcase.
Devonshire House remained the residence of the Dukes of Devonshire until 1914, it was sold in 1919 to a property company who demolished it and erected an apartment block which remains on the site. This bookcase was removed to the Eaton Square residence of the Dowager Duchess, Evelyn, wife of the 9th Duke. An inventory for No. 85 Eaton Square, dated April 1939, records in the ground floor library, 'The erection of painted Bookcases in 2 heights with carved part gilt mouldings' (No. 85 Eaton Square Inventory, April 1939, pp. 90-91). The present bookcase was at some later point removed to Chatsworth from where it was sold in October 2010.
A matching breakfront bookcase also removed from the library at Devonshire House (Sotheby's, 'Chatsworth: The Attic Sale', 5 October 2010, part lot 105) sold Christie's, London, 3 November 2011 lot 57.
We would like to thank Eleanor Brooke from The Devonshire Collection Archive for her assistance in the compilation of this note.
When William Spencer Cavendish (d. 1858), son of the infamous Duchess Georgiana, succeeded as 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1811, he embarked on an extensive scheme of rearrangement and redecoration of the interiors of Devonshire House. Shortly after his succession Lady Bessborough remarked to her niece, Harriet Granville, that the young Duke was doing too much too hastily in the way of altering his numerous houses and did not seem to realize that he had all the time in the world ahead of him (James Lees-Milne, The Bachelor Duke, A Life of William Spencer Cavendish 6th Duke of Devonshire 1790-1858, London, 1990, p. 23). It was possibly at this date that the glazing was added to the bookcase.
Devonshire House remained the residence of the Dukes of Devonshire until 1914, it was sold in 1919 to a property company who demolished it and erected an apartment block which remains on the site. This bookcase was removed to the Eaton Square residence of the Dowager Duchess, Evelyn, wife of the 9th Duke. An inventory for No. 85 Eaton Square, dated April 1939, records in the ground floor library, 'The erection of painted Bookcases in 2 heights with carved part gilt mouldings' (No. 85 Eaton Square Inventory, April 1939, pp. 90-91). The present bookcase was at some later point removed to Chatsworth from where it was sold in October 2010.
A matching breakfront bookcase also removed from the library at Devonshire House (Sotheby's, 'Chatsworth: The Attic Sale', 5 October 2010, part lot 105) sold Christie's, London, 3 November 2011 lot 57.
We would like to thank Eleanor Brooke from The Devonshire Collection Archive for her assistance in the compilation of this note.