The State Hermitage Museum: Exhibitions

Park at the West Wycombe estate

The body of the sauce boat is decorated with a view of the famous West Wycombe park that was created between 1739 and 1752. The owner of the estate was Sir Francis Dashwood, a prominent politician and art patron, one of the leading members of the Society of Dillettanti, who later became 11th Lord Despencer. The pictorial source for the composition was William Woollett's engraving "A view of the Walton Bridge, Venus's Temple, etc. in the Garden of Sir Francis Dashwood Bart. at West Wycomb in the County of Bucks (Buckinghamshire)", executed after a painted original by the artist William Hannan (1752). It is amusing that the erudite and knowledgeable Bentley (Wedgwood's partner who compiled the catalogue of views on the service for Catherine II) erroneously considered this a view of the park at Windsor.