Adams’ Period Fender
A pierced steel fireside fender of serpentine form with applied bosses to the fret and a brass sheathed plinth. English circa 1775.
56 inches wide x 7 inches high.
Following information provided by Chris Coles, ‚’Research and Cataloguing, BADA Recommended Service Provider’, we learn that there is a very similar fender at 20 St. James’s Square London.
The house was built for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn between 1771 and 1775. Sir Watkins is recorded as of a pleasure-loving temperament with a taste for the theatre and arts. From around 1771 he was being taught architecture by James Gandon who submitted five plans for the house although none were used. At about this same time Sir Watkins was also viewing other Adam designed houses including Osterley and Syon. The first reference to payments to workmen on site is in April 1772, the same month that Robert Adam provided plans to Sir Watkins for the house at No. 20.
Following an extensive list of principal workmen identifying bricklayers, masons, slaters, painters, plumbers, plasterers, joiners and coppersmiths are the identities of those engaged on the interior, including amongst several others, ‚’William Hopkins who provided iron and steel grates’.
