Furniture and Sculpture

By the 1730s, the Palladian style in architecture had taken hold in Britain and was evident in furniture design. William Kent was the chief designer of furniture in this style, which made use of classical emblems such as shells, lion paws, leopard heads and acanthus leaves as well as incorporating architectural details such as an Ionic capital or the Vitruvian or wave-scroll. Italian sculpture continued to be highly prized and George II acquired two sets of the Four Seasons, one carved in white marble of c.1700, by Camillo Rusconi and another cast in bronze relief by Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi of 1715.