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http://www.watercolours-drawings.com/drawings_gallery_1.htm#
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Pen and
ink with coloured washes 330 x 482 mm (13 x 19 inches) Inscribed: ‘Section of the Intended Library at Cobham Hall’ Provenance: Ben Weinreb, London |
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This rare detailed drawing
illustrates the skill and dexterity of Shakespeare as an
architect-draughtsman, underlining his capabilities as an interior and
furniture designer to rival his contemporaries, albeit presumably
constrained by the cautious taste of his employer. This reinforces the
point that established styles were often employed by even the very rich
long after they had ceased to be what might be termed ‘fashionable’ and
that consequently the precise dating of much English furniture must
necessarily be a fluid exercise in the absence of such valuable
information as we have here of vital importance to the furniture
historian.
The re-decoration of Cobham Hall in Kent for the 3rd Earl of Darnley is fraught with problems of documentation. There was a general restoration by Sir William Chambers from c.1767, but it would seem that the Earl’s general architectural factotum from 1770 to 1781 was George Shakespeare, a pupil of Isaac Ware, and a skilled interior architect who could cleverly respond to the work of Chambers. His design for the Gilt Hall at Cobham may belong to the period 1771 to 1774 and it is significant that not only does it incorporate Chambersian elements, but so does this ‘intended’ design for the library. For the 1770s the proposed bookcase is archaic, resembling the Chippendale bookcase in Chambers’ design for a study in Pembroke House, Whitehall, c.1760-62. John Cornforth, ‘Cobham Hall, Kent II’, Country Life, March 3, 1983, illustrating designs from the Cambridge School of Architecture, Cobham portfolio, The Yale Center for British Art. |
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