Column of Marcus Aurelius

The Column of Marcus Aurelius is a Doric column with spiral relief as in the model shown here to the right. The model on Francis Cook's desk is a Corinthian column with fluting, as can just be made out on the left.

Trajan's Column is also spiralled. Here are the magnificent plaster casts at the V&A

Marcus Aurelius

Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
1465 Bronze, glazed and gilded, height 37 cm
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

What a splendid souvenir this one! Not exactly portable though. Along with the industrial production of sculptural models in eighteenth century Rome, there must have been a thriving haulage business to cope with the crates of milords' fancies sent back home.

A replica of the well-known equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius that Michaelangelo placed in the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome. The antique sculpture had been cast around 161-180 AD. Marcus Aurelius' (121-80 AD) youthful face suggests it was intended to celebrate an early victory in his career, possibly the war against the Parthians in circa 161-166 AD. While some life-size casts were taken from the original bronze, the most common reproductions of this model are in small-scale and date from between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Here is the Monserrate Marcus Aurelius (rather fuzzy enlagement from 1929)

Homer

On the bookshelves, below the poetry stack, there is a bust that looks as though it could be Homer. Gurlett refers to a bust of Homer that he considers a modern reproduction of the well-known type (Archäologische Zeitung, 1868).

Still harping on the Grand Tour tune, see this portrait of the youthful and rather sheepish Robert Clements (later to become first Earl of Leitrim) in a fruitless attempt to gain gravitas by proximity to the blind bard.



Pompeo Batoni, Italian, 1708-1787
Robert Clements, later 1st Earl of Leitrim (1732-1804)1754

This weird space

Now we stand by old carvéd door
Of solemn Library, and lo!
What serried ranks, from roof to floor,
Stand stately whereso'er we go !
Thousand volumes ranged around,
Therein what million thoughts abound!

Ancient armour graceth well
Yon wall, the west extremity
Of this weird space ; time fails to tell
What spoils of grey Antiquity,
Marble spoils of Grecian art,
And Roman frown in every part
Where vantage shows : Oh ! musing mind !
Muse on ! Th' historic Past defined
In beathing Sculpture's deathless bards,
Warriors and Statesmen, well awards
To thy mute spirit joyful meed
Of awful contemplation ! freed
From Time's tyrannic Present's thrall,
His Past doth wrap thee, all in all!

Ariadne

Clearly recognisable between the Library table and fireplace is a marble copy of the Vatican Ariadne. This is a key piece to understanding the purpose of the library. This room, the most intimate and comfortable in the house, was an inner sanctum. Francis Cook, for all his wealth, was a private and reserved character; he created this room for his own pleasure and self-reliance. Surrounded by four thousand books, this temple of Classical culture gave him personal reassurance as the Man of Arts that he wished to be. The decoration of this room dates from the period before he met J. C. Robinson when Cook transformed himself into a serious art collector. It contains souvenirs of the Grand Tour that he made in his youth (1839-40) when he visited Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Spain and finally Portugal where he met and married his first wife Emily Lucas. This was the private face of Francis Cook, not for show, a sitting room in a country house, a thousand miles from London.

Ariadne

She was one of the most celebrated pieces of all antiquity: unearthed on the Esquiline Hill in 1512 and placed in the Belvedere Garden of the Vatican. At that time she was thought to represent the dying Cleopatra. The sculpture was a "must see" of all grand tourists and many souvenir pieces were commissioned as souvenirs. More importantly the sculpture has inspired artists with her classic pose, both voluptuous and serene. For example both Titian and Matisse.

Grand Tour

This painting by Batoni, shows the typical Grand Tourist, showing off his newly acquired cultural polish.

Pompeo Girolamo Batoni
Portrait of Count Kirill Grigorjewitsch Razumovsky (1728-1803), full-length, in a scarlet suit, wearing the star, sash and badge of the Order of Saint Andrew and on his breast the Polish Order of the White Eagle, standing within a Sculpture Gallery with the Vatican Ariadne, Apollo Belvedere, Laocoön and the Belvedere Antinous.

Notice that in addition to Ariadne, the Laocoon group is also on show. Both these are to be found at Monserrate.

By 1929 Ariadne had been replaced by a cosy sofa!

Library at Monserrate, 1891

On the left, as the hall is entered, is the library, a room thirty feet long by twenty wide and nineteen feet high, finished in walnut, with a door in high repoussé work, representing Diana in the chase, taken from an Italian palace. The library contains four thousand volumes of standard works on biography, history, poetry, and theology, in Portuguese, French, and Spanish. In the room are a model of the statue of Marcus Aurelius, in Rome ; a model, also, of the Column of Vespasian, in yellow Antico marble ; Cinque Cento bronzes, and Indian arms captured by the Viceroy of India at the taking of Delhi ; antique busts of the Roman emperors ; and swords from Delhi, taken after the capture by Lord Canning. An immense library-table occupies the centre of the room ; and the windows open on the great sloping lawn at the side of the palace.

Door in high repoussé work

This door, after many years in languish, is about to be replaced in its original (Monserrate) location. Would that we knew more of its original location in Italy. The mythological scene that it represents is certainly not one involving the virginal Diana! More about that later.

Four thousand volumes: biography, history, poetry and theology. The surviving shelf labels rather annoyingly read "Misc." for miscellaneous. So perhaps the label that I thought read "Persia" was Poesia after all.

Marcus Aurelius

Column of Vespasian

There are Roman coins from the time of Vespasian showing a figure standing atop a column. At the centre of the library table stands a model column with a figure at its summit. Better known are the remaining three standing columns at the corner of the Temple of Vespasian, could it not be that the model on the desk was in fact a representation of Trajan's column, or indeed that of Marcus Aurelius?

Colonna Trajana by Piranesi, 1750

Cinquecento bronzes

Antique busts of Roman Emperors

Indian Arms

Captured by the Viceroy of India at the taking of Delhi - swords from Delhi, taken after the capture by Lord Canning.