Today, in the brilliant sun, I became interested in the quality and range of the original garden statuary.   I’ve found it hard to find out about them.   Caius Gabriel Cibber was paid to supply Flora, Diana, Venus and other classical subjects between 1687 and 1690 and an otherwise unknown sculptor, Augustine Harris, was paid £44 18s. 6d. in 1688 for seven statues.   But some look later.   They presumably provided ornament and diversion to the original formal gardens, mostly as copies of famous antique sculptures (see Haskell and Penny).   Any further information and identification would be gratefully received:-

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The first talk of the morning was the Duke of Devonshire talking about the evolution of his taste and what he is doing in terms of the acquisition of contemporary art at Chatsworth.   He gave a robust description of his interest in contemporary art, influenced by his father’s decision to commission a portrait of his wife by Lucian Freud in 1958 and they way they ignored the criticism of their friends and by his parents-in-law who lived in a flat designed by Chermayeff in Chelsea.   Then as a student he discovered contemporary work in Kasmin’s Gallery, but now contecentrates more on furniture and ceramics.   I found it intriguing hearing a description of the difference in attitude between his father (and his generation) who concentrated on the task of preservation and protection after the depredations of the war and the current Duke’s generation which is as interested in making its own contribution through a process of organic change.

I slept as near as could be to the Sabine Room, one of the state rooms on the third floor on the west front, which was decorated not by Verrio and Laguerre, who had been employed in the previous phases of construction, but by James Thornhill.   Thornhill was unusual at this period in being English, born to a Dorset gentry family in 1675, apprenticed to Thomas Highmore, and completing his apprenticeship in 1696.   This is one of the grandest of his decorative schemes, painted with much more flair and vigour than I would have expected from him, and depicting the Rape of the Sabine Women.   It was done in 1706, just before he was commissioned to paint the hall at Greenwich Hospital, and before the death of the first Duke.

One of the pleasures of attending the Chatsworth Arts Festival, Art Out Loud, is the opportunity to explore the grounds in between sessions.   I have never really had a chance to appreciate the great West Front, which one sees from across the river and was designed post-Talman, possibly by Archer, or even the first Duke himself:-

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