England

Wiltshire

51.324131

-1.9257

1796

1812

Partially Extant

Dec 21, 1825 the Tower collapsed, bringing much of the rest of the Abbey down with it. A small part of the House stands and is occupied as a private home.

Unknown

Unknown

No

CXL, 1370 plan, 1430, 1572. 1966.

2.S. Vol.I. 1824.

No

Individual / Family Trust

Private Home

William Beckford. John Farquhar.

William Beckford

William Beckford originally started the Abbey as a folly on his father's 8,000-acre estate of Fonthill Splendens. The folly grew in size and eventually became Beckford's obsession, as well as his home (Fonthill Splendens was eventually demolished, the stone being used for the new Abbey). With his architect, James Wyatt, Beckford planned the tower of the Abbey to pass the height of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the tallest in England. Beckford's creditors forced him to sell the Abbey in 1822 for the vast sum of £330,000 (approximately £26 million using the retail price index adjusted for 2008 values). It was purchased by the eccentric gunpowder millionaire John Farquhar, who lived in the Abbey until the collapse of the Tower. The famous incident took place on the night of Dec 21, 1825, taking most of the Abbey with it. After the collapse the subsequent disappearance of the rest of the Abbey was the result of the Marquess of Westminster, who used the ruins as building material for his new Fonthill Abbey (demolished 1955). The remains of the original Abbey today are the Sanctuary, the Oratory, and the Lancaster Tower.

The collections at Fonthill Abbey were spectacular, with a particular emphasis on hardstones, with which William Beckford was obsessed. In this category two exceptional pieces stand out: The Rubens Vase, a 4th century AD peach colored agate vase with gold French mounts (added 1809-19). The vase was once owned by the artist Peter Paul Rubens and is today in the collection of The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The second is The Fonthill Ewer, attributed to the workshop of Ferdinand Eusebio Miseroni, Prague, circa 1680. The Fonthill Ewer is of smoky crystal with enameled gold mounts set with diamonds, probably done in Paris, circa 1814-17 (today in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City). Among the many notable paintings once at Fonthill are "Portrait of Vincenzo Capello," circa 1540, by Titian (today in the collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington) and "The Father of Psyche Sacrificing at the Temple of Apollo," 1663, by Claude Gellee, known as Claude (Lorraine) (today in the collection of The National Trust at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire). A solid gold teapot and stand (with fruitwood handle and bone finial) by Robert Sharp and Daniel Smith, made 1785-86, is today in the collection of The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham. The teapot was made for Beckford and is engraved with his arms and those of his wife, Lady Margaret Gordon, and was in his collection at Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Crescent in Bath. Gold objects from this period are exceedingly rare (utilitarian objects like this teapot are virtually unknown, largely because the softness of the gold makes them impracticable) and are mostly confined to racing trophies and other presentation pieces. It is virtually impossible to tell this teapot from teapots of the same style produced in silver gilt; only its owner would have known that it was made of solid gold and not silver gilt. The teapot was apparently very important to Beckford, as he kept it until the end of his life. After Beckford’s death the teapot and stand passed to the Hamilton family and were sold in the sale of silver and gold from Hamilton Palace by Christie’s in 1919. Beckford also had at Fonthill a solid gold and ebony toasting fork, made 1793-94 by an unknown English maker; the exquisitely crafted appliance appears to be unique (silver toasting forks were not uncommon) and is today in a private collection. A fantastic cup and cover of lapis and hardstones (the stones probably 18th century Florentine) with silver-gilt mounts by John Harris (English), 1826-27, was formerly in the collection of Fonthill Abbey, from whence it descended to the Dukes of Hamilton and was sold in the Hamilton Palace sale of 1882; it is today in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Also in Beckford’s collection was a very fine bloodstone bowl and setting, mounted by Paul Storr using a bowl that is probably several hundred years older than the setting. The setting (hallmarked “London, 1824”) is made of a silver gilt stem in the form of two dolphins set on a square pedestal with panels of bloodstone mounted with silver gilt. This piece is featured as the centerpiece of the painting “Objects of Vertu” by Willes Maddox; the painting is today in the collection of the Beckford Tower Trust, Bath. "Lady in a Red Corset and Satin Dress" by Jean-Honore Fragonard was one of the artist's last works and, atypically for Fragonard, is not flamboyant and sensuous, but reflects a new direction in his stylistic development: the style of 17th century Dutch genre paintings. This Fragonard, together with "Woman Feeding a Parrot" by Frans van Mieris (now in The National Gallery, London), "Interior with a Lady in White Silk" by Pieter de Hooch (now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin), and "Interior of a Chamber With a Lady Washing Her Hands" by Eglon van der Neer (now in The Mauritshuis, The Hague), were all purchased by Beckford. The Fragonard was recorded at Fonthill Splendens in 1801, where it hung in the upstairs gallery; it also hung at Fonthill Abbey, where it was in the Dining Room. The painting followed Beckford to Lansdown Crescent and thence passed to the Hamiltons, where it was sold from Hamilton Palace in the sale of 1882. Beckford had two paintings by Benjamin West at Fonthill Abbey: an oil sketch of King Lear, circa 1788, now in the collection of The Detroit Institute of Art, and an oil painting of St. Michael and the Dragon, 1797, today in the collection of The Toledo Museum of Art.