Double doors used as screens

ca. 1743-44

Two sets of double doors (only one set shown in image) with mirrored grounds and gilt wood carving overlay made for the Golden Gallery in the Palazzo Carrega-Cataldi, now the Chamber of Commerce in Genoa. Sphinxes sit back on altars from which scrolling strapwork with winged caryatids, foliage, cornucopia and putti emerge, all within a carved fluted frame.

This pair of double doors and another pair just like them were purchased and brought to New York by the architect Stanford White in the 1890s. One pair, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Rogers Fund, 1991.307a, b), stayed with White until his death in 1906.

The Rough Point doors became part of the ballroom furnishings for the William C. Whitney Mansion in New York (871 Fifth Avenue), which Stanford White renovated for Whitney - to much acclaim - around 1900. As in the ballroom of the Whitney Mansion, in the Yellow Room at Rough Point, Doris Duke used the hinged doors as freestanding screens.

Italy (Genoa)

Lindenwood, carved and gilded; mirrored glass panels, walnut, pine

Overall: 107 x 2 1/2 in. (271.8 x 6.4 cm)
Panel: 107 x 25 1/4 in. (271.8 x 64.1 cm)

Palazzo Carrega-Cataldi, Genoa; Stanford White, New York (by late 1890s); William C. Whitney (d. 1904), New York; James Henry "Silent" Smith (d. 1907), New York; Harry Payne Whitney (1872-1930), New York; Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), New York; sold prior to the Whitney Mansion (871 Fifth Avenue) being demolished in 1943. Elinor Dorrance Ingersoll (1907-1977), Newport, RI; purchased by Doris Duke at Christie's, Newport, RI, September 27, 1977 (Contents of Bois Dore, the property of the late Elinor Dorrnace Ingersoll), lot 148.

1999.897.1-.2