Page 21 - cn-The Art of Style Status STUDIO pres April 2024

The richly decorated room was the first of Adam’s great Saloons. His design assimilated his encounters
with the aesthetic expressions of Italy yet adapting to the English patron. Originally the Saloon was
conceived as a Drawing Room, now it is used as a picture gallery for the Cobbe Collection.
The Cobbe Collection was begun in the Mid - 18th Century by Archbishop Cobbe with the assistance of his
young Dublin Clergyman, Mathew Pilkington, who came to work as his private secretary and vicar in 1740
in Dublin. Pilkington retired and started in a career of art-historical criticism and research. He advised
Archbishop Cobbe and his son Thomas in their picture purchases and in 1770 published the pioneering
‘Gentleman and Connoisseurs Dictionary of Painters’.

The composition focuses in on the Saloon in part as an interior subject, but emphasis is made with a still life
approach. The painting explores the relationship in expressions of styles and individual pieces that make up
part of the Cobbe Collection, which has been lent and displayed at Hatchlands by Mr Alec Cobbe to the Na-
tional Trust throughout his tenancy.
The 1622 harpsichord made by Girlano Zenti is foremost in the painting, this brings the viewer into imme-
diate visual connection with the interior scene. Also, the Cobbe Collection is renowned for its collection of
early keyboard instruments as music plays a fundamental role at Hatchlands. Behind the harpsichord an
assembly of fine pieces are set on a console table (circa 1750) which is original to the house and is made of
Brecia marble with eagle supports of carved wood. Set on this is a statue of Venus, a bust and Louis XV
Boulle Ormalo Clock mounted by Mesnil of Paris (circa 1715.) Beside the table can be seen one of a pair of
Colza oil lamp standards. The backdrop to the assembly is the altarpiece ‘The Madonna Coronata’ painted
by Alessandro Allori, which was formally part of a Florentine church. The painting was documented in the
Gonzaga collection in the18th c and subsequently passed through the Colonna Borghese and Bonaparte
collections before being sold by Napoleon’s mother to the Earl of Shrewsbury for Alton Towers.

The essence of the painting celebrates beauty at the hands of the artisan, but also the dynamics of living and
its expression through music, art and faith.

Hatchlands, Surrey. NT