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View of long gallery from east
The long picture gallery, which had taken
up the entire first floor of the main or north block of the late
17th-century palace, remained a major feature of the 10th
Duke's monumental edifice, overlooking the south court but now
masked on its window-less north side by his massive additions of
the 1820s. Inside, the 35.7m-long gallery received not only some
of the 10th Duke's own prize treasures, including a canopied
throne, but also two replacement chimneypieces
and a new grand entrance. The deeply coffered (sunk-panelled) ceiling
and panelling were also heavily refurbished to the extent that this
room in effect became yet another monument to his intervention.
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This photograph of about 1890 shows some two-thirds
of the gallery looking from a point in front of the throne across
shafts of sunlight towards the entrance in the west end wall. In
the north or main picture wall (right) the pair of black marble
chimneypieces and the Rubens painting
are clearly visible, while the gallery chairs and sofa are shrouded
by dust covers. In the centre of the west end wall is the pedimented
architrave (surround) of the grand entrance doorway, wrought from
black marble and framed by columns of green porphyry, discernible
here against the dark background, a composition that was evidently
unique in Europe. Beyond, through the open door, is the top-lit
and balconied tribune which forms a linking ante-chamber between
the gallery and the new dining room further to the west.
The 10th Duke's passion for marble, especially
pure black Galway marble, was in evidence throughout the palace,
and his deep interests in Egyptology gave him a special taste for
porphyry, a rare and precious crystalline rock of Egyptian and Numidian
(Tunisian) origin. In addition to the door-shafts of green porphyry,
red porphyry busts of Augustus and Tiberius flanked the ambassadorial
throne, purple porphyry was used for table tops, and two columns
of black porphyry, also associated with the gallery doorway, had
ultimately derived, via a church in Viterbo, from the Basilica di
Semproneo in Ancient Rome.
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