The mysterious Mr Cuenot: Tessa Murdoch presents new evidence about the identity of the carver who provided ornament and furniture for the 9th Duke and Duchess of Norfolk's London house, unveiled to rapturous acclaim in 1756

Apollo, June, 2006 by Tessa Murdoch

The decoration of the celebrated interiors at Norfolk House, St. James's Square, rebuilt in 1748-56, owed much to the taste of Mary Blount, 9th Duchess of Norfolk. With her Catholic family, she had spent her formative years in exile on the continent and the early, years of her marriage in the south of France. During this time she saw and admired both French and Italian interiors. (1) At the time of the rebuilding of Norfolk House, she owned copies of the latest French engravings by the leading designer Juste-Aurele Meissonnier (1695-1750), published by Gabriel Huquier c. 1749. (2) Although the exterior was designed by the neo-palladian Matthew Brettingham, the interior decoration was masterminded by Giovanni Battista Borra, an architect from Turin who is first recorded in England in 1751. The white and gold interiors had a Parisian ambience, reflecting the latest French fashions, which could be paralleled in London only at Chesterfield House, Mayfair, completed in 1752, but, like Norfolk House, demolished in the 1930s. The carved decoration is by Jean Antoine Cuenot, who was paid 2643 [pounds sterling] 3s 8 1/2 d for work undertaken at Norfolk House between 5 March 1753 and 24 February 1756. (3)

Cuenot, who later worked for George Brudenell, 4th Earl of Cardigan, in 1759, is a mysterious figure. (4) His work at Norfolk House caused a sensation when the interiors were first shown in 1756 and again when the refurbished music room was installed in the British Galleries at the V&A in 2001. At the opening reception, in February 1756, William Farington noted 'the extreme fine Carvings, the Arts and Sciences all Gilt' in the music room. In the next room, he saw 'Gerandoles, fixed in the Frames of the Pictures', an early form of picture lights, which caused an odd but novel effect, although he was concerned about the risk to the condition of the paintings. He described the festoons over the doors in the Great Drawing Room 'as soft as Gibbons could work in wood'. (5)

Jean Antoine Cuenot

Cuenot probably, won the commission for the carving at Norfolk House through Borra's influence and he worked closely to Borra's designs. He was responsible for carving and gilding the ornaments of chimney and pier glasses and table frames in the five rooms of the state apartments on the first floor. The London carpenter William Edwards assisted with the carvings' installation. It is probable that Borra also introduced the Turinese sculptor Giovanni Battista Plura, who was responsible for at least one of the marble chimneypieces. (6) The music room (Fig. 3), the only interior to survive demolition, was approached from the Great Staircase through the Green Damask Room or the Ante Room. The Green Damask Room led through the Flowered Red Velvet Room into the Great Drawing, or Tapestry, Room, the State Bed Room and State Dressing Room. The music room's carved woodwork is French in inspiration; the combination of white-painted panelling and giltwood carving is reminiscent of the contemporary music room at Versailles, created in the early 1750s, which Mary, Duchess of Norfolk would have seen. The decoration is a complex combination of styles and influences. The proportions of the room and the compartmented ceiling, both designed by Brettingham, are neo-Palladian, inspired by Inigo Jones. The trophies in the ceiling compartments are rococo, inspired by contemporary designs by Thomas Lightholer, although the sculptor or plasterer responsible is not recorded. The wall panels and carving, symmetrical in design and ornamental details, are taken from French engravings, the masks after prints by Jean Berain (1637-1711), designer to the court of Louis XIV, and the musical trophies from prints after Jacques-Francois Blondel (1705-74).

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

The room was sparsely furnished. The windows were hung with green silk-damask curtains, and the room was equipped with three card tables, a dining table and 14 stools of different sizes, seven of varying lengths and seven smaller square stools. There is no evidence that the room was used as a setting for music, but the Duchess of Norfolk certainly received her guests here during the reception in February 1756, when Horace Walpole remarked on the 'scene of magnificence and taste. The tapestry, the embroidered bed, the illumination, the glasses, the lightness and novelty, of the ornaments and the ceilings are delightful'. (7)

The panelling from the music room was removed from Norfolk House before its demolition in 1938 and installed at the V&A. Reassessment prior to redisplay in the British Galleries revealed the crisp, high-relief naturalism of Cuenot's carving. The panelling of the window embrasures and wainscot in the style of Brettingham has been embellished with ornamental frames and musical trophies carved and gilded by Cuenot. Bills indicate that he worked from preparatory drawings by Borra. (8) They describe the pier glasses in the music room with 'flowers folding over sticks' and 'an Ornament to cover the joint of the Chimney Glass'. The glass was imported from France in the 1750s, but the glass over the chimneypiece was replaced by Charles Nosotti, 'Carver & Gilder, Upholsterer & House Decorator', who was paid in 1869 for 'Taking out old Silver Plates from Chimney & Consol Glasses supplying & fitting new & replacing & part gilding the Ornaments'. (9)