Page 9 - cn - fg -fragments and traces - studio curated 07-07-2024

The Saloon - Hatchlands, Surrey NT

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 National Trust throughout his tenancy.
The 1622 harpsichord made by Girlano Zenti is foremost in the painting, this brings the viewer into
immediate 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 subse-
quently 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.