The In Plain Sight blog series explores the fascinating stories behind often unnoticed objects along the visitor route at Chatsworth. From subtle details in furniture to lesser-known works of art, each object has a quiet history waiting to be discovered by those who pause and look more closely.
The State Music Room, part of the 1st Duke’s sequence of grand State Rooms created in anticipation of a royal visit, is filled with elaborate furniture and paintings. Amid such splendour, it would be easy to overlook this oil lamp. Yet those who notice it often find themselves wondering exactly what it is.
Its form is strikingly unusual. A fluted column rises from a triangular base, at each corner of which stands a curious creature, lion-faced, yet with curving goat-like horns. The feet of the piece are also modelled as lions’ paws.
The upper section is no less extraordinary. It supports a boat-shaped chalice, crowned by a carved agate tiger’s head, which is linked by a chain, an unexpected and intriguing detail.
The lamp is designed in the ‘Antique’ manner, reflecting the revival of classical bronze forms inspired by the archaeological discoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the second half of the 18th century. Disseminated by engravings, these discoveries sparked widespread interest in decorative motifs and furnishings based on Antique models.
This torchère is clearly influenced by the work of the French Neoclassical designers Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-Honoré-Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853). Active during the Napoleonic period, these interior decorators and designers undertook major refurbishments at the Château de Malmaison, the Palais des Tuileries and the Louvre. A comparable torchère appears in their influential publication Recueil de décorations intérieures (1801).
The inclusion of a carved agate tiger’s head suggests that this beautiful object may have been produced in Russia, where precious stones were highly prized by 19th-century collectors and used to express the rarity and refinement of the piece they adorned. It is also known that designs by Percier and Fontaine were reproduced, often with variations, by bronziers working for the Russian Imperial Court, who were well placed to reinterpret such forms.
It's not known exactly how the piece entered the Devonshire Collections, but the lamp appears in William Henry Hunt’s 1822 watercolour of the Gallery (Saloon) at Chiswick Villa. It may therefore have been acquired by the 6th Duke of Devonshire, a noted Russophile who first visited Russia in 1817.
