After last year's foray into Fabergé's imperial treasures at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, I'd had enough of aristocracy's precious gewgaws to suffice for a good while. So I was prepared to write a neutral column advancing its current show, Treasures from Chatsworth: A British Noble House. This is, after all, a traveling exhibition, not organized by PaperBall, the folks who program the BGFA.
But I kept hearing that Chatsworth, which runs through Jan. 18, is spectacular. I won't go that far, but I can report that these selections from the Cavendish family collections include some remarkable objects. The wall of Old Master drawings alone would constitute a sparkling, small exhibition. They are hung in the old salon style, one atop another almost to the ceiling, as the second Duke of Devonshire—whose Charles Jervas portrait (c. 1710-15) hangs nearby—would have enjoyed them. It's a clever idea to give you the drawings' context, but it would have been better to make it possible to examine some of them more closely.
Fortunately, Raphael's "Woman Reading to a Child" (1511-14) is hung low enough to afford a good study. It was made with a stylus, probably silver, on a prepared white background. I marveled at the master's bold, sure line contouring the mother's face, and the delicacy with which he fleshed out the balance of the tender scene.
The show is partly the chronicle of a family's collecting habits from Tudor days to the present, and is mostly arranged chronologically. The audio guide informs you how various pieces were acquired, and in some cases the chronological order deceives. King Henry VIII's striking, carved boxwood rosary is displayed in the first room, along with a letter from his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, to a Cavendish ancestor. But, the letter was acquired by auction in the 19th century. In other instances, it remains unclear how and when artifacts entered the family's possession.
It's clear that several dukes of Devonshire and other Cavendish relatives were enthusiastic supporters of the arts and sciences, resulting in a particularly rich, broad and deep collection.
Among the salon-hung drawings is a rich and peculiar Antony van Dyck "Dying Tree Covered with Bramble" (c. 1615-20). Nearby, in a niche devoted to the third earl of Burlington who married a Cavendish, is found van Dyck's drawing of English architect Inigo Jones. The drawing is the model for the John Michael Rysback marble bust of Jones that flanks the niche, along with Rysback's bust of Andrea Palladio (both c. 1725). The Jones bust, in turn, is seen in George Knapton's oil portrait of Burlington (1743), who holds the book of Jones' designs he saw into print. Not surprisingly, a number of Jones' drawings, including his Italian sketchbook, are found in the show, too.
Down the centuries we tumble, past a first-edition Copernicus (1543), open to his revolutionary diagram of the solar system; past a pair of Canalettos (c.1760), superb views from the same spot near the Doge's Palace in Venice; past Sir Joshua Reynolds' splendid portrait of Georgianna, Duchess of Devonshire (c. 1780-1), unfinished because he kept it for himself; down to the "Devonshire Parure" (c. 1856), the sinfully overwrought jewelry suite created by C.F. Hancock for a Devonshire relation to wear to Czar Alexander II's coronation in 1856.
The show closes on a rummy note, as a Brit might say: a suite of family portraits by contemporary painter and family friend Lucian Freud, who has the 11th duke lean his head forward to highlight his balding scalp. Quaintly British and wonderful.
On another note: French artist Michelle Auboiron will demonstrate her brisk painting technique at the Neon Museum Boneyard, on McWilliams Street, one block east of Las Vegas Boulevard, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday. Admission is free. Auboiron's work will be shown at the Charleston Heights Arts Center and UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum, Friday through Dec. 7.