5. Bonomi (Joseph, 1739-1808 ) Design for the Ceiling of the Drawing Room at Fisherwick Park, Staffordshire, pen and watercolour, 490 x 685mm., 19¼ x 27in., scale at foot, repaired for tears and small losses at sheet edges, verso with the small ink stamp of the RIBA (where the drawing was on deposit) endorsed in pencil “Returned to owner”.
est. £4000 – £6000
Provenance: By descent from Joseph Bonomi to the present owner. A group of drawings by Bonomi from this collection was sold in these rooms, 1 June 2000, lots 80-87.
Arthur Chichester, Baron Fisherwick, later 1st Marquess of Donegal (1739-1799) bought the Tudor manor house of Fisherwick and rebuilt it as a grand Palladian mansion. Bonomi was engaged in 1787 and designed a summer house for the Park as well as furniture and this ceiling for the principal drawing room of the house. The design provides alternatives for the cornice, frieze and borders surrounding the three painted panels. The project was a collaboration between Bonomi and his friend J.F.Rigaud whose paintings, with its centrepiece of Apollo in his Chariot , completed the ceiling. The stucco work was by Joseph Rose and the colouring and gilding by Pastorini and Borgnis.
The house was demolished 1814-1816.
The present drawing is illustrated in Peter Meadows, Joseph Bonomi Architect 1739-1808, An Exhibition of Drawings from Private Collections, London, RIBA, 1988, Fig.19.
Unsold