3-008-710 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Great International Exhibition: library chimneypiece by Trollope and Sons, 1862. 'The lower portion is formed of Portland stone elegantly carved, and inlaid with marble and granite, and at each side occur two marble columns...In the centre the stonework rises into a pediment, in which occurs a clock, by Dent, with an arabesque border, which is remarkable, as the whole work is of an early Italian character, being in the style known as the Lombardo-Venetian. Rising from the stonework, and resting upon it, is an enriched chimney-breast, wrought in woods of various colours, and set out into panels...The smaller elongated panels are filled with ornaments carved with great feeling and spirited in design; and these alternate with square panels which contain heads of the poets Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Petrarch, Socrates and Demosthenes, and the head of Apollo in glory as a centre; and at each side of the clock is a recumbent figure, one representing Day and the other Night. The woods employed in the upper portion of the work are chiefly dark and light oak and ebony, and these are so combined with each other and united with the other materials as to form a structure worthy to grace the library of any nobleman in the land'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.