Gallery chimneypiece. Digital image of G 85088 PO.

Description Gallery chimneypiece. Digital image of G 85088 PO.

Date c. 1920

Catalogue Number SC 749933

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of G 85088 PO

Scope and Content One of the two colossal black marble chimneypieces in the Long Gallery, Hamilton Palace (site), Hamilton, South Lanarkshire As part of the refurbishment of the old palace in the late 1820s/early 1830s, Alexander decided to install two colossal chimneypieces of black marble in the Long Gallery and to erect a black marble doorway with porphyry columns at the west end of the gallery. These chimneypieces really were colossal: 1.95m high by 2.56m wide by 1.13m deep. They were in a hybrid Neo-Baroque/Neo-Classical style, with acanthus-clad volutes, a frieze of oak leaves and acorns bound with ribbon, egg-and-dart borders, and foliate and beaded ornamentation. Similar, smaller, chimneypieces were set up in other rooms in the old state apartments. The chimneypiece from the Drawing Room was acquired by the National Museums of Scotland in 1991-2. The two chimneypieces from the Long Gallery were in New York in 1970, but their present whereabouts are unknown. Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852), developed a love - indeed, an unhealthy passion - for Irish black marble, from quarries situated near the city of Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/749933

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap