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- Ground Floor
- Front State Room
- When Hertford House was the home of Sir Richard and Lady Wallace important visitors would be received in the Front State Room. This room was refurbished in 1994 to return it as closely as possible to its appearance in the Wallaces’ time.
- Gallery Views
- Works of Art
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- Musical clock
- Attributed to Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis, the Elder (1695 - 1774)
- France
- 1763
- F96
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe Stollewerck Carillon Clock is a spring-driven musical mantel clock (pendule à musique), attributed to Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis the Elder. The carillon plays a different tune each hour from a total repertoire of 14 tunes and dates to around 1763. Molinier was the first to attribute Stollewerck Carillon Clock to Duplessis, comparing it to the wall-lights attributed to him in the Isaac de Camondo collection, which show a combination of leaves and berries similar to those on the sprays that flank the case of the clock. Its movement is by Pierre Daillé, and the carillon itself is the work of Michel Stollewerck. Stollewerck made elaborate astronomical movements such as that of the clock F98, but also conventional clock movements such as that of the wall clock F255.
In 2010, in order to avoid further wear and tear to the particularly complex and delicate carillon movement, a miniaturized sound system was installed inside the clock, enabling the tunes to be replaced with digital recordings. This innovative system, developed by sound engineer John Leonard and senior furniture conservator, Jurgen Huber, is activated by the clock’s ‘going train’ movement, and plays the original tunes of the musical clock, on the hour, every hour. The clock movement itself remains unaffected by the device but allows the visitors to enjoy the wonderfully evocative and arresting sound of the chimes whilst protecting the delicate mechanical musical movement for posterity.
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- John Hoppner (1758 - 1810)
- George IV as Prince of Wales
- England
- 1792
- P563
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLGeorge IV (1762-1830), Prince Regent 1811-20, and King 1820-30 was a frequent visitor to Hertford House during his his close friendship with the 2nd Marchioness of Hertford (c.1806-20), and he was also a friend of her son, Lord Yarmouth, later 3rd Marquess of Hertford. This portrait, which may have been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1792, demonstrates Hoppner’s vigorous technique and direct approach to composition. The pose is influenced by the male portraits of Reynolds; indeed Hoppner is known to have copied Reynolds’s earlier portraits of the Prince. The picture has retained its 1810 frame by John Smith, bearing the Prince of Wales’s feathers and motto 'ich dien' (I serve).
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- Thomas Lawrence (1769 - 1830)
- Margaret, Countess of Blessington
- England
- 1822
- P558
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe Irish beauty Margaret (‘Marguerite’) Power (1789-1849) married as her second husband Charles John Gardiner, the 1st Earl of Blessington (1782-1829), in 1818. Thereafter she became known as Marguerite, the Countess of Blessington. Lady Blessington published her first novel in 1822, the year in which Lawrence painted this portrait.
The sitter is dressed very simply and wears little jewellery. The only indication of her aristocratic status is the ermine-trimmed robe draped over the chair. The low-cut neckline of her dress is also notable. On seeing the painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1822, the critic William Hazlitt remarked on the sitter’s ‘voluptuousness’; according to Lord Byron, the painting ‘set all of London raving’.
The portrait is one of the best examples of Lawrence’s tendency to combine precise detail (in the sitter’s face) with a loose handling of paint. Although the background is particularly sketchy, it is very unlikely that the artist considered the portrait to be unfinished.
The picture was bought by the 4th Marquess of Hertford in 1849 at the sale of Gore House and its contents (a site now occupied by the Royal Albert Hall), where, since 1836, Marguerite had been living with the so-called ‘dandy’ Alfred, Count D’Orsay (c. 1801/4-1852). Between 1836 and 1849, the Countess had established a renowned salon at there, where she also met the 4th Marquess.
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- Cabinet
- Etienne Levasseur (1721 - 1798)
- France
- c. 1775
- F388
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLA rectangular, break-front cabinet (bas d'armoire) veneered with ebony and contre-partie Boulle marquetry and mounted with gilt bronze. The central oval plaque depcits a scene known as the Rape of Helen, a story from Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, with Paris ushering Helen down some steps to the water's edge during her abduction from Troy. This cabinet may have originally been sold with its pair, which may have been veneered in première-partie marquetry or may have been decorated with a central medallion depicting a different scene. Another cabinet in the Wallace Collection (F389) is very similar but is not the original companion piece.
Although very much in the style of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) and perhaps even derived directly from a Boulle model, this cabinet dates from the early Louis XVI period. Cabinets of this model were commissioned from Etienne Levasseur (1721-1798) by Claude-François Julliot, a dealer (marchand mercier) who specialised in buying and selling old and new Boulle furniture and who is likely to have supplied Levasseur with the mounts for this piece, which are casts after mounts on original Boulle pieces. During the 1760s and 1770s the appetite for Boulle furniture from art collectors and connoisseurs was very marked and Levasseur was one of several cabinet-makers who built up a good business restoring original pieces by André-Charles Boulle, producing copies of them, or making neo-classical interpretations of early eighteenth-century Boulle furniture.
Cabinets such as this one were often used for storing books.
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- Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792)
- Lady Elizabeth Seymour-Conway
- England
- 1781
- P31
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLPortraits of the sisters Lady Elizabeth Seymour-Conway (1754-1825) and Frances, Countess of Lincoln (1751-1820) were commissioned by their father, Francis Seymour-Conway, Earl of Hertford (created 1st Marquess of Hertford in 1793) in 1781. Both paintings are now in the Wallace Collection (see P33). Reynolds had previously painted a number of portraits of the Earl’s children, including three portraits of his sons in the 1760s and one of his eldest daughter, Anne, in 1775.
The portraits of Elizabeth and Frances were conceived as a pair. Pendant portraits of siblings, particularly sisters, were unusual in the eighteenth century. Reynolds appears to have changed details of the portrait to keep up with contemporary fashion. An X-ray image has revealed that the artist adjusted Elizabeth’s hairstyle shortly before the painting left the studio, adding more texture and lowering the curls around the neck. Reynolds painted many fashionable sitters during this period wearing the same voluminous and powdered style.
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- Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792)
- Frances, Countess of Lincoln
- England
- 1781 - 1782
- P33
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLPortraits of the sisters Lady Elizabeth Seymour-Conway (1754-1825) and Frances, Countess of Lincoln (1751-1820) were commissioned by their father, Francis Seymour-Conway, Earl of Hertford (created 1st Marquess of Hertford in 1793) in 1781. Both paintings are now in the Wallace Collection (see P31). Reynolds had previously painted a number of portraits of the Earl’s children, including three portraits of his sons in the 1760s and one of his eldest daughter, Anne, in 1775.
The portraits of Elizabeth and Frances were conceived as a pair. Pendant portraits of siblings, particularly sisters, were unusual in the eighteenth century.
Frances married Henry, Earl of Lincoln (the second son of the 2nd Duke of Northumberland) in 1775. The couple had two children before the Earl’s death in 1778. When Frances sat for the present picture she was a widow. Her 'penseroso' pose, with the chin resting on the hand, signified melancholic contemplation.
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- Thomas Sully (1783 - 1872)
- Queen Victoria
- London, England
- 1838
- P564
- Front State Room
- Bookmarkable URLIn 1837 the English-born American artist Thomas Sully visited London, bringing with him a commission from an American society, the Society of the Sons of Saint George of Philadelphia, to paint a portrait of the new Queen, Queen Victoria (1819-1901). Sully was given five sittings at Buckingham Palace at which he painted a bust-length study from which derived the full-length version (now in a private collection) for the Sons of Saint George. The Wallace Collection’s picture, also based on the life study, was commissioned for an engraving by Charles Edward Wagstaff. Principally through this engraving Sully’s portrait became one of the best known images of the young Queen Victoria.Sully kept a journal in which he recorded his impressions of the Queen: 'She is short, 5 feet 1 & 1/4 of an inch - of good form, particularly the neck and bosom - plump but not fat. Neatly formed head, perhaps rather infantine in the contour of the face. Forehead well proportioned - eyes a little prominent but kind and intelligent. Her nose well formed and such as I have frequently seen in persons of wit and intellect. A lovely, artless mouth when at rest - and when so, it is a little open, showing her teeth - Eyes light blue and large - Hair light Brown, smoothly braided from the front. And to sum up all, and apart from all prejudice, I should say decidedly that she was quite pretty.'
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