The Dining Room — Historical Note
The furniture and painted paneling in the Dining Room are modern, designed in the spirit of the English state dining rooms of the eighteenth century. Adjoining the Boucher and the Fragonard Rooms, the Dining Room demonstrates clearly that Mr. Frick’s catholic taste was equally drawn towards English period design. With the exception of Gainsborough’s unusual landscape, The Mall in St. James’s Park, the paintings hanging here are all British portraits. Over the English eighteenth-century marble chimney piece hangs a portrait by John Hoppner of The Ladies Sarah and Catherine Bligh, painted probably about 1790. Hogarth’s Miss Mary Edwards, which originally hung in the Library where Mr. Frick’s portrait is today, represents one of England’s wealthiest heiresses, who was remarkable for her forthright, independent spirit. The brilliant scarlet of her dress is echoed in Reynolds’ red-coated General Burgoyne, the ill-fated British commander who surrendered in 1777 to the Americans at Saratoga. Two monumental Chinese famille rose covered vases stand in the corners of the room by the windows facing the park. A set of four smaller Chinese jars and some examples of English silver are placed on the serving tables. On the chimney piece a pair of dark blue Chinese vases in eighteenth-century French gilt-bronze mounts stand on either side of a Louis XVI clock with movement by Ferdinand Berthoud.
Works of Art
Use the following link to see a list of works of art in the Dining Room.
Tour the Dining Room
 Click on the photo bubble to place yourself inside of the Dining Room. Click on art objects for a closer view, descriptive text and link to a brief artist’s biography. Click here or click the bubble at right to launch the tour of the Dining Room.
For technical information and support, see Virtual Tour Help.
Acoustiguide Audio Tour Commentary
Curator Edgar Munhall speaks about the Dining Room and Old Master paintings dealer Nicholas Hall, comments upon Hogarth’s portrait of Miss Mary Edwards. |
