Chatsworth House is in the pink

This weekend Beverly @How Sweet the Sound is celebrating 6 years of Pink Saturdays!

Congratulations, Beverly.

Although it has been a long while since I joined in the pink party "ness" Beverly never-the-less invited me to her party and I have just the perfect thing for show and tell this week.

Magenta is the new pink.

Martin Craig-Martin, a former teacher at Goldsmith's College in London is currently exhibiting some of his sculptures in the grounds of Chatsworth House  one of these is a giant high heel shoe, it's pink of course!

Inside the house he has also covered some of the plinths, on which the marble and mosaic sculptures rest, in magenta, too. They are quite striking and our guide told us that they take some getting used to. He wasn't a fan of them, personally.

The Chatsworth lions were commissioned by the 6th Duke of Devonshire in 1823. The sleeping lion was made by Rinaldo Rinaldi; the crouching lion by Francesco Benaglia after the famous lions made by Antonia Canova for the Rezzonico Monument in St Peters, Rome.
The Chatsworth lions each weigh 3.5 tonnes!

If you're feeling in the pink yourself why not pop over to How Sweet the Sound 

to see who else is partying and wish Beverly a very Happy Birthday.

 I'm sure she'll be very happy to see you.

Chatsworth - some of the paintings

The highlight of our stay in Derbyshire earlier this month was a long awaited visit to Chatsworth House, home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.
I'm not going to attempt to relate Chatsworth's history here on my blog as I'm sure you know there have been many books written about the house and it's occupants and this link to the wonderful Chatsworth website will tell you everything you could possibly want to know about what's happening there at the moment.
What I will share with you are photographs of some of the absolutely stunning works of art that we were able to see on our recent guided tour.

The tour began in the Painted Hall.

Perhaps the most famous (infamous) chatelaine of Chatsworth was Lady Georgiana Spencer who married the 5th Duke, William Cavendish in 1774.

Portrait of Georgiana Spencer

Duchess of Devonshire 

Maria Cosway 1759- 1838

 Georgiana was 25 years old 

when this portrait of her portrayed as the goddess Diana 

was painted in 1782

The Duchess of Devonshire

by

Thomas Gainsborough

William Cavendish

the 5th Duke of Devonshire

Georgiana's husband

Lady Elizabeth Foster

by

Joshua Reynolds

Lady Elizabeth was Georgiana's best friend, she was also the Duke's lover and the three of them lived together at Devonshire House. Elizabeth bore him two children and became his second wife after Georgiana's death.

Since visiting Chatsworth I have become fascinated by Georgiana and am thoroughly enjoying reading "Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire" by Amanda Foreman.

All of Chatsworth's rooms are sumptuously decorated and furnished, the collections on display are jaw droppingly beautiful, as the above photograph shows.

An inlaid wall panel surrounds a portrait of a gentleman.

In the library a whimsical portrait of two of the current Duchess's pet dogs.

A man in oriental costume

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 - 1669)

The oak staircase 

Portrait of the Acheson Sisters (1902)

by

John Singer Sargent

These three elegant Edwardian ladies are the granddaughters of Louise, Duchess of Devonshire; wife of the 8th Duke.

As it began, our tour ends in The Painted Hall, but fret not there's so much more to see: ceramics; furniture and statues......oh my!