ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN LINNELL, CIRCA 1770, AFTER A DESIGN BY ROBERT ADAM

These girandoles are closely related to a design for a ‘Lyre-shaped Wall-light’ by the renowned cabinet-maker John Linnell (d. 1796) of 28 Berkeley Square, London, which he made in 1777 for a ‘Mrs. Porten’ (H. Hayward, ‘The Drawings of John Linnell in the Victoria & Albert Museum’, Furniture History, 1969, p. 18 and fig. 124). ‘Mrs. Porten’ was probably Mary Porten (née Wyybault, d. 1819), who in 1774 married Sir Stanier Porten (d. 1789), from 1782-87, ‘Commissioner of the Customs’. The couple owned or most likely leased houses in St. James’s Street, Berners Street, London, and towards the latter part of their lives had use of an apartment in Kensington Palace, undoubtedly a perquisite of Sir Stanier’s role as a government official. This design was possibly Linnell’s version of an earlier very similar design by Robert Adam (d. 1791), dated 1770, successfully executed by Linnell as a set of six ‘pear-shaped’ girandoles, and supplied to Robert Child Esq. for the Long Gallery at Osterley Park, Middlesex (SM Adam volume 20/36, 37; G. Wills, English Looking-glasses, London, 1965, p. 125, fig. 154). A further comparable design, dated 1772, was made by Adam for George Keate Esq. for no. 9 Charlotte Street (SM Adam volume 20/103).
The present girandoles can thus be confidentially attributed to Linnell after an Adam design, although, to date, the patron for whom they were intended remains obscure.