Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1978.43.5
Gallery Label:
This conversation piece is remarkable for the elaborate architecture and decoration of the interior, a succession of three splendid rooms with (left to right) a seventeenth-century ancestral portrait mounted as an overmantel, Ionic pilasters, rich stucco ornament, a frescoed ceiling in the middle room, small paintings hung high in oval recesses, a marine painting overdoor flanked by marble busts, and a Palladian window overlooking the park beyond. Presumably Devis extracted some or all of these details from an architectural pattern book. The group of children consists of a little boy riding a gentleman's cane; the elder daughter with her sewing basket; the younger daughter, who is building a house of cards; and the eldest son and heir, who holds onto the tail of the paper kite that is propped in the corner of the room. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005
