The Great Country Estates of Britain Series: Holkham Hall Revisited 5 of 5

This is the last post in the Holkham Hall Revisited pictorial series, and I think we have saved the best for last. These rooms are simply stunning. We start with the drawing room.

The Drawing Room

This gorgeous state room forms part of the enfilade of the piano nobile. It contains various works of art including eleven paintings and several busts of classical figures in history, such as Pythagorus, Zino, Faustina (Marcus Aurelius'wife) and Carneades (above the doors in the over mantels).

One can see the following in the photo above: On the centre of the east wall (left) there is a portrait of Thomas  Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, in the robes of the order of Bath, painted by Jonathan Richardson. On the centre of the west wall (right) there is a portrait of the Sir Edward Coke (founder of the family's fortunes) painted by Marcus Geerhaerts the younger. Above the four doors are landscapes by van Bloeman...

The focal point of the room is Pietro da Pietri's Madonna in gloria...

The busts on the chimney-piece are copies of Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla.

On the lower left of the fireplace is Gaspard Poussin's The Storm, Whilst on the right side of the fireplace is Claude Lorraine's Apollo flaying Marsyas...

In enfilade style we move to the South Dining Room, which again contains 11 paintings and busts in each over-mantel. 

The centrepiece is Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Coke of Norfolk.

Beautiful chairs upholstered en suite to match the walls.

Below: Naked Venus in the style of Titian (left upper wall). Hondecoeter's bird painting (right upper wall). Below each of these is a stormy landscape by Gaspard Poussin.

I am not sure of the painting above, which is different from the one listed in sources. Maybe someone out there knows?

Below: A panorama of the room. The painting on the centre of the wall on the right is Reni's Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (Ca 1730).

The details around the room were simply beautiful. Below: A brass servant's bell. You can see the red marble on the wall, with the original silk brocade trimming.

Below: An ornate pier glass above a gilded marble console.

Next we have The Saloon, popularly thought to be the grandest of the rooms at Holkham. The crimson wall hangings are made from caffoy, a fabric blended from wool, linen and silk.

Above: Peter Paul Reuben's famous depiction of the return of the holy family from Egypt.

Below:Anthony van Dyck's portrait of the Duke of Arenburg.

Above: Close up of the Reubens

Below: Detail of the marble urn on the table below

Below: Detail of the table top

Below: Detail of the carved table legs

Below: Panorama of the saloon

Above: The paintings above each of the fireplaces were commissioned in Rome by Coke when he was on his grand tour. They are Andrea Procaccini's Tarquin raping Lucretia (left) and Giussepi Bartolomeo Chiari's Perseus and Andromeda (right).

Below: Details of the Fireplace below the Chiari.

Above: Central door into Saloon, with large over-mantel containing a bust of Hera/Juno, 2 large torchieres and 2 large Chinese porcelain jars with Little dogs on top...

We finish this series' tour with The Landscape Room...

The room is upholstered in vibrant red damask and contains 22 old masters, 7 of them by Claude Lorraine and 5 by Gaspard Poussin (Nicolas Poussin's brother in law). Claude Lorraine is one of my favourite artists. I love the ancient capricios he painted, the follies, the gardens and the mythological subjects. I was lucky to find a relatively good copy of a Lorraine when I was visiting my mother in Nelson (picture here). It will hang above the sideboard in the formal dining room at WBP (which also has red damask walls).

Apart from Giordano's St Johnthe Baptist Preaching (below), all the rest are landscapes.

Well, that concludes our tour of the gardens and interiors of Hokham Hall. We will be back this weekend with a brief update of what's happening back at WBP.

Adelaide Part Two - Art Treasures of Adelaide

On my other afternoon off I decided to go for a quick trip to the art gallery and look around the city.

I passed the parliament buildings for South Australia...

The Railway Station... 

Bronze pig sculptures on Rundle Mall...

The War Memorial...

and then arrived at the art gallery...

It was a lovely classical building in a sand stone. Below: The detailing around the front door... 

Some more detailing around the base of some columns and a flattened copper down pipe, recessed into the side of the building...

I like the way the down pipe goes under the frieze band.

It gave me an idea for WBP manor - the down pipe needs to do a zig zag from the guttering above to come down between the columns below. That zig zag is now going to happen behind the frieze line...

The inside the gallery comprised of the front rooms, which were very Victorian...

 

There were works of art depicting the aboriginal people...

and quite a few paintings of pastoral scenes...

Several 18th century and 19th century paintings of classical subjects...

I liked the painting above most of all. If you looked closely apart from the main subject of the painting, there were other things happening around the canvas...

There were examples of colonial furniture...

and gold and silver pieces...

The piece above was odd, it was a cup, whose base depicted an aboriginal man chasing an emu, with two kangaroos mating! But that was not the only strange thing in the gallery. There were also several unusual modern pieces. I'll let you decide on their artistic merit. There was a tattooed hermaphroditic sculpture with a head like Winston Churchill...

A skeleton carved out of wood...

But strangest of all, a giant headless taxidermied horse strung up by its back legs!

The Bronzes: Below is a bronze called the three shades, an original Rodin. I think the subject is a nice counterpoint to the very common subject of the three graces...

There was also a bronze of St Sebastian...

and of the flagellation...

In the last room were art works lit with spot lights on black walls. Here are some striking Chinese golden panels...

and then some very imaginative shadow puppetry. There was a silhouette of a man and a woman's head cast upon the wall by some deftly assembled twigs...