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Updated: June 10, 2025
We entered a large, dusky hall with white pillars and arches midway, and with two rooms opening off from it the dining-room on the one hand, the drawing-room on the other. In the old chimney-pieces, fire leaped behind quaint andirons taking the chill from the evening air.
There was a veranda looking over the little garden, and a large balcony over the veranda; the dining and drawing-rooms were divided by double folding doors, and both had access to the veranda by porte-fenetres; the low and wide marble chimney-pieces were surmounted by plate-glass windows affording a sight of trees and flowers, and giving a most light and cheerful effect to the rooms.
Wherefore on one occasion, when the Duke of Ferrara showed to Pope Paul III a Triumph of Bacchus in oils, five braccia in length, and the Calumny of Apelles, painted by Benvenuto at that age after the designs of Raffaello da Urbino, which pictures are now over certain chimney-pieces belonging to his Excellency, that Pontiff was struck with astonishment that an old man of such an age, with only one eye, should have executed works so large and so beautiful.
We give an illustration of three designs for chimney-pieces and overmantels by James Gibbs, the centre one of which illustrates the curved or "swan-necked" pediment, which became a favourite ornament about this time, until supplanted by the heavier triangular pediment which came in with "the Georges."
Athelny was very proud of the county family to which he belonged; he showed Philip photographs of an Elizabethan mansion, and told him: "The Athelnys have lived there for seven centuries, my boy. Ah, if you saw the chimney-pieces and the ceilings!" There was a cupboard in the wainscoting and from this he took a family tree. He showed it to Philip with child-like satisfaction.
Solidity! Look at the massive blocks of marble in the chimney-pieces, and the gorgeous parapet on the top of the house! Publicity! Why, Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance company is painted on the very coal-scuttles. It is repeated at every turn until the eyes are dazzled with it, and the head is giddy.
The best suite of rooms I never saw by any other light than what glimmered through the tops of the window-shutters, which however served to shew the carved chimney-pieces, and the curious old ornaments about the rooms; but the worked furniture and carpets, of which I heard such constant praises, I could have but an imperfect sight of, peeping under the covers which were kept over them, by the dim light; for I constantly lifted up a corner of the envious cloth, that hid these highly-praised rarities from my view.
Lawyers, and architects, and agents, dwell in apartments where the richly-sculptured chimney-pieces, the carved and gilded pediments over the doors, and sometimes even the painted ceilings, tell a tale of vanished stateliness and splendor. A considerable portion of the north side of the square is occupied by one house standing in a courtyard, with iron gates to the thoroughfare.
He usually rushes in and out during the daylight, and recalls but little except the fascinating staircase of the chateau attributed, as to its spiral formation, to Da Vinci; the ornamental chimney-pieces; and the fact that historical events of the past have intermingled inextricably the gruesome stories of the royal houses which bore respectively the arms of hedgehog and salamander.
There are finely-wrought white marble chimney-pieces with boldly-carved heads, angelic figures, and dragons in full relief. There are polished pillars of purple-blue, and red scagliola, hugs china vases oriental, Dresden, unpolished Sevres and glittering timepieces of every shape and device.
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