Hamilton Illustrated Auction Sale Catalogue - The Remaining Contents, 1919, M124/5/17: Page 05
Illustrated auction catalogue of the sale of the contents of Hamilton Palace, the property of the Trustees of the Late Duke of Hamilton by Messrs Christie, Manson and Woods in 1919
Transcription
The Remaining Contents of THE PALACE
5
most successful and dignified portions of his additions to the Palace. But in place of Adam’s somewhat numerous and unimportant staircases, he used a large space next to the hall for one of great ampleness and costly material. It is entirely constructed of his favourite black marble. The treads are boldly moulded underneath and the balusters are carved with acanthus-leaf. The gallery, to which the two flights lead and which connects the stone hall with the eastern drawing-room, is likewise of marble, but is supported by caryatids thus described and valued in the Inventory for fire insurance :—
The 2 Immense Bronze Colossal Figures and Caryatides
with Cyphers and Panels in do do ... . .. . .. £8000 0 0
It is a thousand pities that so great and historic a house should disappear. That being inevitable, one must hope for the preservation and adequate use of the splendid materials and choice fitments. Within and without the Palace offers us of the best that the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centnries produced, and the present dispersal yields a very unusual opportunity of acquiring sumptuous examples of all three periods in the finest possible state of preservation.