page_title: Chatsworth House
section_title: 19th-century alterations
hierarchical_section_title: Chatsworth House / Interiors / 19th-century alterations
caption_attribution_description: The painting was exhibited in 1820 at the RA "to acclaim" and winner of the Royal Academy Painting of the Year in 1823
context_page_description: Chatsworth House is a stately home in Derbyshire, England, in the Derbyshire Dales 3.5 miles north-east of Bakewell and 9 miles west of Chesterfield. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has been home to the Cavendish family since 1549. Standing on the east bank of the River Derwent, it looks across to the low hills between the Derwent and Wye valleys. The house is set in expansive parkland and backed by wooded, rocky hills rising to heather moorland. It contains major collections of paintings, furniture, Old Master drawings, neoclassical sculptures, books and other artefacts. Chatsworth has been chosen as Britain's favourite country house several times.
context_section_description: The 6th Duke conducted many modernisations of Chatsworth House to meet 19th-century standards of comfort, that suited a less formal lifestyle than that of the 1st Duke's time. The corridors around the edges of the courtyard were enclosed and furnished with a multicoloured marble floor, so that rooms could be easily reached from indoors, and more shared living rooms to replace individual guest apartments. The cook's bedroom and the back stairs made way for the Oak Stairs, topped by a glass dome, that were built at the northern end of the Painted Hall to improve internal communications. Along this staircase hang portraits of the first 11 Dukes and some of their family members. The Duke transformed the long gallery, originally created by the 1st Duke, into a library. He was a great lover of books and purchased entire libraries. The Ante-Library in the adjoining room was originally used by the 1st Duke as a dining room and then a billiard room before the 6th Duke used it to house his increasing collection of books. This was just one of the rooms in which the Duke installed a single pane window, which he believed to be the 'greatest ornament of modern decoration'. The window in the Ante-Library is the only one to have been preserved. Much of the scientific library of Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) is in this room. The most notable addition by the 6th Duke to Chatsworth was the Wyatville designed North Wing. Plans for a symmetrical wing to the south were begun but later abandoned.
  The entire ground floor of the North Wing was occupied by service rooms, including a kitchen, servants' hall, laundry, butler and housekeeper's rooms. On the first floor, facing west, were two sets of bachelor bedrooms called 'California' and 'The Birds.' The main rooms in the new wing face east, and were accessed from the main house through a small library called the Dome Room. The first room beyond this is a dining room, with a music gallery in the serving lobby where the musicians played. Next is the sculpture gallery, the largest room in the house, and then the orangery. The Belvedere Tower contains a plunge bath, using the marble from the 1st Duke's bathroom, and a ballroom that was later turned into a theatre by the 8th Duke. Above the theatre is the belvedere itself, an open viewing platform below the roof.
caption: Venus supported by Iris, complaining to Mars by George Hayter, exhibited in 1820 at the RA "to acclaim" (in the Ceiling of the Ante Library Chatsworth House) – Winner of the Royal Academy Painting of the Year in 1823
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