Office of John Nash (1752-1835) - Two Italianate Villas for Sir James Murray Pulteney, the first inscribed verso "A house intended to be built in Scotland by Sir James Murray Pulteney. This view given to Mary Countess Harcourt. Sir James was the... friend of William Earl of Harcourt and his Countess... his death was occasioned by the...", the second inscribed verso "This is of a house... to be built by... [signed] Mary Harcourt", oil on paper laid on panel, 36.5 x 55cm, each with printed trade label of Baker Carver & Guilder to Her Majesty Thames Street Windsor, unframed (2) Provenance: Sir James Murray-Pulteney (1755-1811) by whom presumably commissioned from John Nash; William Harcourt, 3rd Earl Harcourt (1743-1830) and Mary Harcourt, nee Danby, Countess of Harcourt (1749-1833); acquired in the mid-20th century by the family of the present vendor.One or other of these newly discovered alternative perspective designs by Nash, differing in scale but not in style, was to be built at Clermont, Fifeshire for Sir James Murray Pulteney.The larger villa was to be closed modelled on Nash’s Cronkhill of 1802, the earliest example of an Italianate villa in England. This similarity is not surprising as Pulteney would have been familiar with the design of Cronkhill. That was originally intended to be a larger building and much closer to that in the present lot as is clearly evidenced by the drawing by Nash’s assistant George Stanley Repton (1756-1858), now in the Sir John Soane Museum, London. It is entirely possible that the present works, executed in pen, ink and thin oil on paper instead of pen, ink and watercolour, are also from the hand of Repton.Both the siting of Cronkhill at Atcham near the River Severn and the Wrekin, and the area around Clermont are not particularly mountainous but in country with relative ‘hills’.The soldier and politician General Sir James Murray-Pulteney, PC, 7th Baronet, was the son of Sir Robert Murray, 6th Baronet and his first wife Janet Murray. His lengthy military career included service in the American War of Independence in which he was injured at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777. He assumed the additional name of Pulteney when, in 1794, he married Laura Pulteney, 1st Baroness Bath (1766-1808), the daughter and heiress of his cousin Sir William Pulteney, 5th Baronet and MP for Shrewsbury (1729-1805).The familial link between Sir James Murray-Pulteney and Sir William Pulteney (his cousin and father-in-law) who’s home was only five miles distant from Lord Berwick’s Attingham Park, where not only Cronkhill, but the picturesque estate village of Atcham (c1797) was also built by Nash (a prolific visitor of his clients) is strongly suggestive of an introduction to or recommendation of Nash.The present designs were almost certainly commissioned in the years immediately following the death of Sir William Pulteney. Sir James Murray Pulteney’s death in 1811 removed the raison d’etre for a house at Clermont.Her father, who also married an heiress and took her name, was said to be the wealthiest man in Great Britain. Remembered for his role in the development of Bath, he was a patron of the architect Robert Adam and the civil engineer and architect Thomas Telford. Sir William Pulteney purchased Shrewsbury Castle in 1775 as a family home. Thomas Telford was responsible for the improvements and alterations that swiftly followed. These included the building of ‘Laura’s Tower’, a picturesque folly of c1790 commissioned for his daughter (she who later married Sir James Murray-Pulteney) as a Summer or Tea house. Mary, Countess of Harcourt (1749-1833), nee Danby, was the daughter of a Yorkshire clergyman. She married, firstly, Thomas Lockhart and secondly, in 1778, General William Harcourt, 3rd Earl Harcourt (1743-1830). A pupil of Alexander Cozens, the countess was herself a keen and accomplished artist. The couple enjoyed a close friendship with the royal family and their various interests and activities were recounted by the diarist Joseph Farrington RA (1749-1821).Nash was by far the most successful, fashionable and subsequently controversial British architect of the regency. He worked throughout England, Wales and Ireland but it is surprising that he built hardly anything in Scotland. The influence of Nash's design for Cronkhill on the history of British architecture has long been recognised. Sources:Summerson (Sir John) - The Lift and Work of John Nash ArchitectWilliams (Gareth) - The Country Houses of ShropshireTyack (Geoffrey) - Cronkhill Shropshire, article in Country Life, February 19 2004 Further potential sources (not examined)William Pulteney paper, Huntington Library, CaliforniaCorrespondence of Sir James Murray-Pulteney, his family and contemporaries (in 33 volumes), The Morgan Library, New York Condition ReportBoth require conservation but in basically good original condition, varnish dirty, paper lifting in places, panels sound
