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Lot Essay
THE BRAND CABINET
In 1743, the antiquarian Horace Walpole (d.1797) designed a cabinet for the display of 'medals' for his 'very intimate friend', Thomas Brand (d.1770) of The Hoo, Hertfordshire, and one for himself, a miniature 'Classical Temple of the Worthies', conceived to complement the classical interiors of his London house in Arlington Street, later displayed at his pioneering Gothic masterpiece, Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (W.52-1925) (Ed. W.S. Lewis, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, New Haven, 1937-84, vol. XX, p. 434). Both cabinets' Palladian architectural form was possibly inspired by the designs of William Kent (d.1748) for the Walpole family seat at Houghton, Norfolk, in particular door cases at the property that resemble the triangular pediment of these cabinets. Walpole had a lifelong friendship with Brand, the pair were educated at Eton and Cambridge, Walpole later affectionately describing Brand as 'our old schoolfellow' in correspondence with another Old Etonian and antiquary 'Cardinal' Cole, (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. I, p.198). Brand was very much part of Walpole's set, making the Grand Tour to Italy in 1738-39, as did Walpole from 1739-41. In 1754, the year of Brand's second visit to Italy, Walpole had no hesitation in recommending Brand to his friend, Horace Mann, the British Envoy in Florence, 'you will love him much, if he stays anytime with you' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XX, p.435). With a shared interest in classicism stimulated by their respective Grand Tour expeditions, these cabinets were undeniably a testament to the friendship of the two men.
The two cabinets, embellished with classical ivory bas-reliefs that differ in subject matter to reflect the personal taste of their respective owners, were intended to house classical antiquities; in July 1743, Walpole wrote to Mann, 'I have a new cabinet for my enamels and miniatures just come home, which I am sure you would like: it is of rosewood; the doors inlaid with carvings in ivory' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XVIII, p.277). Supplied within a couple of years of Walpole's return from the Grand Tour in September 1741, their date suggests that they were the first pieces of furniture commissioned for Brand's and Walpole's growing collections of antiquities, and are therefore highly significant (Clive Wainwright, The Romantic Interior, New Haven and London, 1989, p.74). Walpole used all the space available in his cabinet to hang enamels and miniatures including the back of the cabinet doors, and one can assume that Brand did likewise. While Walpole's collection comprised a miscellany of portraits including 'Venus, Cupid, and other figures in enamel', family members and friends, we know that in 1938, the Brand Cabinet contained five wax medallion portraits inscribed on the backs in Walpole's hand, one of them by Isaac Gosset representing Colonel John Selwyn of Matson, Gloucestershire, who died in 1757 and was the father of George Selwyn, Walpole's friend (A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford at Strawberry-Hill near Twickenham With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, etc., 1774, p.77; Ralph Edwards, 'Cabinets made for Horace Walpole and Thomas Brand', The Burlington Magazine, March 1939, p.131).
The Horace Walpole Cabinet was moved from Arlington Street to the 'Tribune', named after the Medici treasure room in the Uffizi in Florence, at Strawberry Hill after 14 April 1763 when the room's refurbishment was complete, the cabinet forming the focal point of this Wunderkammer. Almost certainly Walpole conceived his cabinet for his Arlington Street address because of its classical interiors, which contrast to the Gothic splendour at Strawberry Hill. Given that Brand made no significant modifications to The Hoo until 1760-64 when William Chambers remodeled the house, it is likely that he too intended his cabinet for his London property at no. 22 St. James's Square. It presumably moved to The Hoo from where it was sold by his descendant, Viscount Hampden in 1938 ('The Contents of The Hoo, Whitwell, Herts', Christie's London, 20 October 1938, lot 72, £262. 10s. [to Harper]).
WILLIAM HALLETT SENIOR
While the maker of the Brand and Walpole cabinets is not known, it seems likely that they were executed by the 'great and eminent cabinet-maker' of Great Newport Street, London, William Hallett Snr. (d.1781) (Ralph Edwards, op.cit., p.131). Hallett was renowned for his markedly architectural style reflected in the Palladian design of the cabinets. Furthermore, Walpole is known to have patronised Hallett at Strawberry Hill, and undoubtedly at Arlington Street. On 20 September, 1755, Walpole paid Hallett for '2 Sophas for eating room' and '8 black gothic chairs', the total bill amounting to £73 11s. 4d. In May 1763, Walpole, the antiquarian, determined to acquire 'two tables and eighteen chairs, all made by Hallett of two hundred years ago' from Lady Conyer's sale at Great Stoughton (Paget Toynbee, Strawberry Hill Accounts, A Record of Expenditure in Building Furnishing, Etc. Kept by Mr Horace Walpole From 1747 to 1795, Oxford, 1927, p.6 and p.82). Interestingly, the artist Edward Edwards (d.1806), who as a young man worked at Hallett's workshop drawing patterns of furniture, later made many drawings at Strawberry Hill, including one of Walpole's cabinet in situ in the 'Tribune' in 1781 (ibid., p.82).
THE DESIGN
The Palladian form of these cabinets with Baroque carving and classical ivory plaques demonstrates the eclecticism of the antiquarian interests of Walpole, Brand and their contemporaries. The Walpole cabinet has the addition of plinths on the pediment to support the 'Worthies' but there is no evidence Brand's cabinet ever possessed these (Ralph Edwards, op.cit, p.128). Walpole described the timber as rosewood, and in 1939 it was pronounced kingwood but has now been identified as padouk, the same wood used for the Brand Cabinet (Ed. Christopher Wilk, Western Furniture 1350 to the Present Day in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1996, p. 96). Furthermore, the veneers and crossbanding on the two cabinets closely correspond. The detail of the carving of the Brand Cabinet is larger in scale, particularly in the leaf moulding at the base and in the floral swags but the carving of the supporting eagles' heads and the swags on both cabinets is similar recalling the craftsmanship of Grinling Gibbons, possibly by Jacob Frans Verscovers. Walpole was certainly patronising Verscovers, in correspondence to Mann writing, 'There is a Fleming here, who carves esquisitely in ivory, one Verskovis; he has done much for me and where I have recommended him' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XIX, 26 June 1747). Additionally, in Anecdotes of Painting, Walpole refers to a 'cabinet heads of eagles by Verskovis' (H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, 1862, Works III, p. 481).
The subject matter of the classical ivories on the present cabinet of an amatory nature also contrasts with the rather more sedate ivories of the companion cabinet. As part of Brand's Grand Tour to Italy, he visited Rome where he had arrived by 11 March 1738, and it is possibly in this city-state that he purchased his set of ivories, later to adorn his cabinet (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997, p.117). Brand was certainly collecting in this period, it was while in Venice in 1738 that he is believed to have acquired a series of four works by Canaletto, two of which, 'The Piazzetta di San Marco, Venice' and 'The Grand Canal, Venice' (see Christie's London, 2 December 2008, lots 45 and 46). Alternatively, the ivories may have been purchased on his behalf by Walpole, who was certainly obtaining unidentified 'commissions' for Brand in 1765, 'Don't think I have forgot your commissions: I mentioned them to old Mariette [Pierre-Jean Mariette, collector) this evening, who says he has got one of them, but never could meet with the other' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XL, p.384).
THOMAS BRAND
Thomas Brand was born circa 1717 into an educated and wealthy family of landowners and city merchants, inheriting The Hoo, a 17th century mansion in Hertfordshire (as a minor) from his mother Margaret, widow of Thomas Brand Senior. Following Brand's return from his first Grand Tour to Italy and, like Walpole, with sympathies firmly in the Whig camp, he became MP representing Shoreham in 1741 followed by Tavistock in 1747, Gatton in 1754 and Okehampton in 1768. In 1754, Walpole described Brand's connections as being 'entirely with the Duke of Bedford' implying that he was a Pittite (a supporter of William Pitt the Younger, Britain's youngest prime minister) (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XX, p.435). In 1749, Brand married Lady Caroline (or Carolina) Pierrepoint, daughter of Evelyn Pierrepoint, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, and half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, but following her premature death Brand, to 'dissipate his grief' started travelling extensively (ibid.). In June 1754, he returned to Italy spending time in Rome where he was buying paintings on his own account and for William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, a fellow member of the Dilettanti, including Wilson's Eco ful in Arcadiae (private collection). From Rome he moved on to Florence where he met up with Mann who wrote to Walpole on 12 April 1755 that Brand was spending 'his whole time in the Gallery [the Uffizi] and seeing other curiosities' (Ingamells, op.cit., p.117).
The amatory and slightly risqué nature of the ivory plaques on the present cabinet correspond to what is known of Brand's personality largely derived from Walpole's letters. That he was a natural bon viveur, despite being afflicted during a certain period by grief at the death of his wife, is evident. Walpole described him as 'naturally all cheerfulness and laughter' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XX, pp. 434-435), and in correspondence wrote 'You love laughing; there is a King dead [George II]; can you help coming to town?' (ibid., vol. XL, p. 186). Both Brand and Walpole were quintessential patrons of the arts; Brand was a Director of the Opera and an early member of the Society of Dilettanti from 1741, in the 1740s, he was painted by fellow dilettante, George Knapton (d.1778), masquerading in Van Dyck costume holding out a Correggio-like drawing of a Madonna with his left hand, harking back to Van Dyck's 'Inigo Jones' (Bruce Redford, Dilettanti, the Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-century England, Los Angeles, 2008, p.40).
THE IVORY MEDALLIONS
Although the disposition of the ivories on the Brand Cabinet is identical to that on its counterpart designed by Walpole, the overall tone is more light-hearted as has been noted above. Despite taking classical sources as a starting point, in fact only three of the ivories are common to both: the Walking Lion, probably derived from a bronze by the sculptor Giambologna, the Farnese Hercules, and a profile of the Gorgon Medusa. In general, Brand seems to have instructed the artist (or artists) responsible for the ivories to use sources relating to the theme of love, and more specifically love between gods and mortals. The two main rectangular reliefs depict Jupiter and Io (after the painting by Correggio now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) and Leda and the Swan, another of Jupiter's dalliances with a human partner. In addition, the cabinet includes a plaque of Cupid carving his Bow (after the painting by Parmagianino, also Kunsthistorisches Museum), as well as three depictions of Venus, the goddess of love. These latter consist of the Callipygian Venus, the Venus de' Medici and the Venus with a Dolphin, thought in the 18th century to be after a model by Michelangelo but now recognised to be a composition by Giambologna. The theme is continuted with the pairing on the left door of the cabinet of Hercules opposite Omphale, who so dominated her lover that she is usually depicted, as here, in possession of both his club and lion skin. The remaining reliefs all seem to be portraits after ancient sources apart from the plaque in the lower left corner of the right door. This appears to be a contemporary or near contemporary portrait, and may depict an individual with a particular significance for Brand himself.
Just who might be responsible for creating these ivories remains a difficult question, and judging by the varying facture of the plaques it seems likely that there was more than one artist. Certainly there was a booming trade in Italy for small ivory reliefs after classical subjects. These were produced as souvenirs of the Grand Tour by artists such as Giovanni Battista Pozzi (circa 1670-1752), whose relief of Diana and Callisto is documented in the collection of the Duke of Portland in 1725/26 (see C. Theuerkauff, Elfenbein - Sammlung Reiner Winlker, Munich, 1984, no. 61, pp. 114-117). However, many of the same subjects continued to be produced in ivory, wood, and even glass paste by men such as William Tassie (d.1860) well into the 19th century (see N. Barker ed., The Devonshire Inheritance - Five Centuries of Collecting at Chatsworth, Alexandria, 2003, no. 197). The ivories could easily have been purchased for Brand through one of the contacts he had made while on the Grand Tour himself, or it may be that Brand's friend Walpole purchased them for Brand when Walpole acquired the ivories for his own cabinet.
The apparent difference in the treatment of several of the plaques, perhaps most notable in the two figures of Leda, suggests that more than one artist was responsible for these ivories. On the Walpole Cabinet, it is documented that the Flemish artist Jacob Frans Verscovers (or Verskovis) carved the standing figures which adorn the pediment, as well as the festoons and eagle heads below. It therefore seems likely that Verskovers was responsible for these elements of the Brand Cabinet, and may have been asked to carve a number of the ivory plaques to supplement plaques which had been purchased in Italy.
KEY TO THE SUBJECTS OF THE IVORY PLAQUES
1. Walking Lion, after Giambologna
2. Classical Head
3. Venus Callipyge, the original in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples
4. Classical Head
5. Farnese Hercules, the original in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples
6. Jupiter and Io, after Correggio, the original in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
7. Omphale with Hercules' club and lion pelt
8. Classical Head
9. Faun with Pipes, the original in the Louvre, Paris
10. Classical Head
11. Classical Head
12. Cupid with his bow, after Parmigianino, the original in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
13. Classical Head
14. Venus de Medici, the original in the Uffizi, Florence
15. Leda and the Swan, after the antique
16. Venus, formerly thought to be after Michelangelo, after Giambologna, the original in a Private Collection
17. Contemporary Portrait
18. Belvedere Antinous, the original in the Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican
19. Medusa
20. Leda and the Swan
In 1743, the antiquarian Horace Walpole (d.1797) designed a cabinet for the display of 'medals' for his 'very intimate friend', Thomas Brand (d.1770) of The Hoo, Hertfordshire, and one for himself, a miniature 'Classical Temple of the Worthies', conceived to complement the classical interiors of his London house in Arlington Street, later displayed at his pioneering Gothic masterpiece, Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (W.52-1925) (Ed. W.S. Lewis, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, New Haven, 1937-84, vol. XX, p. 434). Both cabinets' Palladian architectural form was possibly inspired by the designs of William Kent (d.1748) for the Walpole family seat at Houghton, Norfolk, in particular door cases at the property that resemble the triangular pediment of these cabinets. Walpole had a lifelong friendship with Brand, the pair were educated at Eton and Cambridge, Walpole later affectionately describing Brand as 'our old schoolfellow' in correspondence with another Old Etonian and antiquary 'Cardinal' Cole, (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. I, p.198). Brand was very much part of Walpole's set, making the Grand Tour to Italy in 1738-39, as did Walpole from 1739-41. In 1754, the year of Brand's second visit to Italy, Walpole had no hesitation in recommending Brand to his friend, Horace Mann, the British Envoy in Florence, 'you will love him much, if he stays anytime with you' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XX, p.435). With a shared interest in classicism stimulated by their respective Grand Tour expeditions, these cabinets were undeniably a testament to the friendship of the two men.
The two cabinets, embellished with classical ivory bas-reliefs that differ in subject matter to reflect the personal taste of their respective owners, were intended to house classical antiquities; in July 1743, Walpole wrote to Mann, 'I have a new cabinet for my enamels and miniatures just come home, which I am sure you would like: it is of rosewood; the doors inlaid with carvings in ivory' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XVIII, p.277). Supplied within a couple of years of Walpole's return from the Grand Tour in September 1741, their date suggests that they were the first pieces of furniture commissioned for Brand's and Walpole's growing collections of antiquities, and are therefore highly significant (Clive Wainwright, The Romantic Interior, New Haven and London, 1989, p.74). Walpole used all the space available in his cabinet to hang enamels and miniatures including the back of the cabinet doors, and one can assume that Brand did likewise. While Walpole's collection comprised a miscellany of portraits including 'Venus, Cupid, and other figures in enamel', family members and friends, we know that in 1938, the Brand Cabinet contained five wax medallion portraits inscribed on the backs in Walpole's hand, one of them by Isaac Gosset representing Colonel John Selwyn of Matson, Gloucestershire, who died in 1757 and was the father of George Selwyn, Walpole's friend (A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford at Strawberry-Hill near Twickenham With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, etc., 1774, p.77; Ralph Edwards, 'Cabinets made for Horace Walpole and Thomas Brand', The Burlington Magazine, March 1939, p.131).
The Horace Walpole Cabinet was moved from Arlington Street to the 'Tribune', named after the Medici treasure room in the Uffizi in Florence, at Strawberry Hill after 14 April 1763 when the room's refurbishment was complete, the cabinet forming the focal point of this Wunderkammer. Almost certainly Walpole conceived his cabinet for his Arlington Street address because of its classical interiors, which contrast to the Gothic splendour at Strawberry Hill. Given that Brand made no significant modifications to The Hoo until 1760-64 when William Chambers remodeled the house, it is likely that he too intended his cabinet for his London property at no. 22 St. James's Square. It presumably moved to The Hoo from where it was sold by his descendant, Viscount Hampden in 1938 ('The Contents of The Hoo, Whitwell, Herts', Christie's London, 20 October 1938, lot 72, £262. 10s. [to Harper]).
WILLIAM HALLETT SENIOR
While the maker of the Brand and Walpole cabinets is not known, it seems likely that they were executed by the 'great and eminent cabinet-maker' of Great Newport Street, London, William Hallett Snr. (d.1781) (Ralph Edwards, op.cit., p.131). Hallett was renowned for his markedly architectural style reflected in the Palladian design of the cabinets. Furthermore, Walpole is known to have patronised Hallett at Strawberry Hill, and undoubtedly at Arlington Street. On 20 September, 1755, Walpole paid Hallett for '2 Sophas for eating room' and '8 black gothic chairs', the total bill amounting to £73 11s. 4d. In May 1763, Walpole, the antiquarian, determined to acquire 'two tables and eighteen chairs, all made by Hallett of two hundred years ago' from Lady Conyer's sale at Great Stoughton (Paget Toynbee, Strawberry Hill Accounts, A Record of Expenditure in Building Furnishing, Etc. Kept by Mr Horace Walpole From 1747 to 1795, Oxford, 1927, p.6 and p.82). Interestingly, the artist Edward Edwards (d.1806), who as a young man worked at Hallett's workshop drawing patterns of furniture, later made many drawings at Strawberry Hill, including one of Walpole's cabinet in situ in the 'Tribune' in 1781 (ibid., p.82).
THE DESIGN
The Palladian form of these cabinets with Baroque carving and classical ivory plaques demonstrates the eclecticism of the antiquarian interests of Walpole, Brand and their contemporaries. The Walpole cabinet has the addition of plinths on the pediment to support the 'Worthies' but there is no evidence Brand's cabinet ever possessed these (Ralph Edwards, op.cit, p.128). Walpole described the timber as rosewood, and in 1939 it was pronounced kingwood but has now been identified as padouk, the same wood used for the Brand Cabinet (Ed. Christopher Wilk, Western Furniture 1350 to the Present Day in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1996, p. 96). Furthermore, the veneers and crossbanding on the two cabinets closely correspond. The detail of the carving of the Brand Cabinet is larger in scale, particularly in the leaf moulding at the base and in the floral swags but the carving of the supporting eagles' heads and the swags on both cabinets is similar recalling the craftsmanship of Grinling Gibbons, possibly by Jacob Frans Verscovers. Walpole was certainly patronising Verscovers, in correspondence to Mann writing, 'There is a Fleming here, who carves esquisitely in ivory, one Verskovis; he has done much for me and where I have recommended him' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XIX, 26 June 1747). Additionally, in Anecdotes of Painting, Walpole refers to a 'cabinet heads of eagles by Verskovis' (H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, 1862, Works III, p. 481).
The subject matter of the classical ivories on the present cabinet of an amatory nature also contrasts with the rather more sedate ivories of the companion cabinet. As part of Brand's Grand Tour to Italy, he visited Rome where he had arrived by 11 March 1738, and it is possibly in this city-state that he purchased his set of ivories, later to adorn his cabinet (J. Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London, 1997, p.117). Brand was certainly collecting in this period, it was while in Venice in 1738 that he is believed to have acquired a series of four works by Canaletto, two of which, 'The Piazzetta di San Marco, Venice' and 'The Grand Canal, Venice' (see Christie's London, 2 December 2008, lots 45 and 46). Alternatively, the ivories may have been purchased on his behalf by Walpole, who was certainly obtaining unidentified 'commissions' for Brand in 1765, 'Don't think I have forgot your commissions: I mentioned them to old Mariette [Pierre-Jean Mariette, collector) this evening, who says he has got one of them, but never could meet with the other' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XL, p.384).
THOMAS BRAND
Thomas Brand was born circa 1717 into an educated and wealthy family of landowners and city merchants, inheriting The Hoo, a 17th century mansion in Hertfordshire (as a minor) from his mother Margaret, widow of Thomas Brand Senior. Following Brand's return from his first Grand Tour to Italy and, like Walpole, with sympathies firmly in the Whig camp, he became MP representing Shoreham in 1741 followed by Tavistock in 1747, Gatton in 1754 and Okehampton in 1768. In 1754, Walpole described Brand's connections as being 'entirely with the Duke of Bedford' implying that he was a Pittite (a supporter of William Pitt the Younger, Britain's youngest prime minister) (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XX, p.435). In 1749, Brand married Lady Caroline (or Carolina) Pierrepoint, daughter of Evelyn Pierrepoint, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, and half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, but following her premature death Brand, to 'dissipate his grief' started travelling extensively (ibid.). In June 1754, he returned to Italy spending time in Rome where he was buying paintings on his own account and for William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, a fellow member of the Dilettanti, including Wilson's Eco ful in Arcadiae (private collection). From Rome he moved on to Florence where he met up with Mann who wrote to Walpole on 12 April 1755 that Brand was spending 'his whole time in the Gallery [the Uffizi] and seeing other curiosities' (Ingamells, op.cit., p.117).
The amatory and slightly risqué nature of the ivory plaques on the present cabinet correspond to what is known of Brand's personality largely derived from Walpole's letters. That he was a natural bon viveur, despite being afflicted during a certain period by grief at the death of his wife, is evident. Walpole described him as 'naturally all cheerfulness and laughter' (W.S. Lewis, op.cit., vol. XX, pp. 434-435), and in correspondence wrote 'You love laughing; there is a King dead [George II]; can you help coming to town?' (ibid., vol. XL, p. 186). Both Brand and Walpole were quintessential patrons of the arts; Brand was a Director of the Opera and an early member of the Society of Dilettanti from 1741, in the 1740s, he was painted by fellow dilettante, George Knapton (d.1778), masquerading in Van Dyck costume holding out a Correggio-like drawing of a Madonna with his left hand, harking back to Van Dyck's 'Inigo Jones' (Bruce Redford, Dilettanti, the Antic and the Antique in Eighteenth-century England, Los Angeles, 2008, p.40).
THE IVORY MEDALLIONS
Although the disposition of the ivories on the Brand Cabinet is identical to that on its counterpart designed by Walpole, the overall tone is more light-hearted as has been noted above. Despite taking classical sources as a starting point, in fact only three of the ivories are common to both: the Walking Lion, probably derived from a bronze by the sculptor Giambologna, the Farnese Hercules, and a profile of the Gorgon Medusa. In general, Brand seems to have instructed the artist (or artists) responsible for the ivories to use sources relating to the theme of love, and more specifically love between gods and mortals. The two main rectangular reliefs depict Jupiter and Io (after the painting by Correggio now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) and Leda and the Swan, another of Jupiter's dalliances with a human partner. In addition, the cabinet includes a plaque of Cupid carving his Bow (after the painting by Parmagianino, also Kunsthistorisches Museum), as well as three depictions of Venus, the goddess of love. These latter consist of the Callipygian Venus, the Venus de' Medici and the Venus with a Dolphin, thought in the 18th century to be after a model by Michelangelo but now recognised to be a composition by Giambologna. The theme is continuted with the pairing on the left door of the cabinet of Hercules opposite Omphale, who so dominated her lover that she is usually depicted, as here, in possession of both his club and lion skin. The remaining reliefs all seem to be portraits after ancient sources apart from the plaque in the lower left corner of the right door. This appears to be a contemporary or near contemporary portrait, and may depict an individual with a particular significance for Brand himself.
Just who might be responsible for creating these ivories remains a difficult question, and judging by the varying facture of the plaques it seems likely that there was more than one artist. Certainly there was a booming trade in Italy for small ivory reliefs after classical subjects. These were produced as souvenirs of the Grand Tour by artists such as Giovanni Battista Pozzi (circa 1670-1752), whose relief of Diana and Callisto is documented in the collection of the Duke of Portland in 1725/26 (see C. Theuerkauff, Elfenbein - Sammlung Reiner Winlker, Munich, 1984, no. 61, pp. 114-117). However, many of the same subjects continued to be produced in ivory, wood, and even glass paste by men such as William Tassie (d.1860) well into the 19th century (see N. Barker ed., The Devonshire Inheritance - Five Centuries of Collecting at Chatsworth, Alexandria, 2003, no. 197). The ivories could easily have been purchased for Brand through one of the contacts he had made while on the Grand Tour himself, or it may be that Brand's friend Walpole purchased them for Brand when Walpole acquired the ivories for his own cabinet.
The apparent difference in the treatment of several of the plaques, perhaps most notable in the two figures of Leda, suggests that more than one artist was responsible for these ivories. On the Walpole Cabinet, it is documented that the Flemish artist Jacob Frans Verscovers (or Verskovis) carved the standing figures which adorn the pediment, as well as the festoons and eagle heads below. It therefore seems likely that Verskovers was responsible for these elements of the Brand Cabinet, and may have been asked to carve a number of the ivory plaques to supplement plaques which had been purchased in Italy.
KEY TO THE SUBJECTS OF THE IVORY PLAQUES
1. Walking Lion, after Giambologna
2. Classical Head
3. Venus Callipyge, the original in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples
4. Classical Head
5. Farnese Hercules, the original in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples
6. Jupiter and Io, after Correggio, the original in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
7. Omphale with Hercules' club and lion pelt
8. Classical Head
9. Faun with Pipes, the original in the Louvre, Paris
10. Classical Head
11. Classical Head
12. Cupid with his bow, after Parmigianino, the original in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
13. Classical Head
14. Venus de Medici, the original in the Uffizi, Florence
15. Leda and the Swan, after the antique
16. Venus, formerly thought to be after Michelangelo, after Giambologna, the original in a Private Collection
17. Contemporary Portrait
18. Belvedere Antinous, the original in the Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican
19. Medusa
20. Leda and the Swan