The Stafford House Chandelier

Presumed to have been made for Stafford House, London, for the first or second Duke of Sutherland;

Sotheby's, The Leverhulme Sale, Thornton Manor, 26-28 June 2001, lot 168

This magnificent and lively chandelier was made for one of London's most glorious townhouses, Stafford House; when Queen Victoria visited, she even remarked to the Duchess of Sutherland that "I have come from my house to your palace".¹ Topped by a pineapple finial that presides over a bustle of dragons, birds, winged maidens and rustling leaves, the design of this chandelier is a product of the British Regency’s marked enthusiasm for pre-Revolutionary French design. This revival was enabled by the peace of 1814 that ended the Napoleonic wars, which was followed by a rush of travel to see the previously-forbidden gems of France: Diana Davis notes that passport applications rose tenfold from 98 in 1812 to 984 in 1814.² Among the first to visit was Duchess of Rutland, who bought pre-Revolutionary furniture and seventeenth-century boiseries that she would then use to create the ‘Elizabeth Saloon’ in Belvoir Castle. This influential suite of rooms would initiate a popularity for French eighteenth-century interiors that was erroneously called the ‘Louis Quatorze’ taste, with dealers and decorators often conflating or combining the heavier Baroque style of Louis XIV with the lighter, more florid Rococo taste that was popular during the reign of Louis XV.

This chandelier comes from a great London townhouse overlooking Green Park, which was built in 1825 and sumptuously furnished by Benjamin Dean Wyatt (also the designer of Rutland’s Elizabeth Saloon). While the residence was originally called York House after its owner, the Duke of York, it became Stafford House when the Dukes of Sutherland inherited the house in 1827. While most of the furniture came from Morel and Seddon,³ much of the lighting was supplied by Hancock and Rixon,⁴ a firm who numbered the Royal family among their clients – two magnificent Hancock and Rixon chandeliers hang in the Queen’s Guard Chamber and the Octagon Room in Windsor Castle, RCIN 35334 and RCIN 64053.

When the 4^th Duke of Sutherland sold Stafford House in the 1910s, the building and internal fixtures such as fireplaces were bought by Viscount Leverhulme, the wealthy founder of Sunlight Soap and influential collector of art and fine furniture. Leverhulme bought numerous pieces in the auction of the house’s contents (such as clocks, busts and fenders) and he purchased other pieces privately, which were withdrawn from the auction.⁵ Given that the Leverhulme inventories do not mention that this chandeliers were purchased elsewhere, it is most likely that they were purchased from Stafford House as part of the internal fittings of the house. Under Leverhulme's possession, this chandelier adorned the Dining Room at his Merseyside residence Thornton Manor, while Stafford House was renamed Lancaster House and was gifted to the nation in 1913 to house the London Museum. This chandelier then sold in the Sotheby’s sale of the contents of Thornton Manor in 2001.

A early-nineteenth-century chandelier, described as “style of Louis XIV” and similarly though less profusely decorated to the present example, is in the Royal Collection, RCIN 53252. Another early-nineteenth-century example in the ‘Louis Quatorze’ revival taste sold at Christie’s New York, 19^th October 2007, lot 111.

The 1^st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), one of Victorian England’s most important collectors of fine and decorative art, started his life as William Lever, the son of a Lancashire grocer. After competently growing the family business, he became immensely successful with his company Sunlight Soap. With Victorian Britain becoming increasingly polluted, Leverhulme harnessed the increasing demand for cleaning products by being the first to efficiently mass-produce soap using vegetable oil. As well as putting his fortune towards philanthropy, he was a major art collector, and often used paintings in the advertising for Sunlight Soap.⁶ Many of the gems of his collection are still on display the Lady Lever Art Gallery today, while many others were sold at Sotheby’s in June 2001 – bidding at these auctions reached over £9m, setting the record for a house sale at the time.⁷

¹ James Yorke, Lancaster House: London's Greatest Town House, London, 2001, p.11.

² Diana Davis, The Tastemakers: British Dealers and the Anglo-Gallic Interior, p.40

³ See James Yorke, ‘The Furnishing of Stafford House by Nicholas Morel, 1828–1830, Furniture History, 1996, pp.46-80.

⁴ Ibid., p. 48.

⁵ See the catalogue note in Sotheby’s London, The Leverhulme Collection, 26^th-28^th June 2001, vol I, p.256.

⁶ For examples, see Sam Bytheway, ‘The art of advertising’, liverpoolmuseums.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/art-of-advertising> [accessed 22^nd March 2024]

⁷ ‘Treasure sale breaks UK auction record’, BBC News, 28^th June 2001. Available at: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1411892.stm> [accessed 22^nd March 2024]