Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now

A strikingly modern portrait of Chatsworth, the grandest of English country houses

No house embodies the spirit of one dynasty better than Chatsworth. Set in an unspoilt Derbyshire valley, surrounded by wild moorland, and home to the Cavendish family for sixteen generations, this treasure house is filled with works of art and objects – from Nicolas Poussin’s The Arcadian Shepherds and Antonio Canova’s Endymion to great contemporary paintings by Lucian Freud and David Hockney – which have all, in their time, represented the very best of the new. As Stoker Cavendish, the twelfth Duke of Devonshire, likes to point out- ‘Everything was new once.’

Following the completion of a decade-long programme of renovations, the exterior of Chatsworth is gleaming, its stone fa ade newly cleaned and its window frames freshly gilded. Inside, through the inspired juxtaposition of old and modern, its rooms fizz with creative energy. Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now tells the story of this extraordinary place through seven scenes from its life, alongside a stunning photographic portrait of the house and its collections, captured at a moment of high optimism in its long history.

Author Biography

John-Paul Stonard (Author) John-Paul Stonard is an art historian and author. His books include Creation, German Divided and, as editor and contributor, The Books that Shaped Art History. He co-curated the 2014 exhibition Kenneth Clark- Looking for Civilisation at Tate Britain. His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian and The Burlington Magazine. He lives in Suffolk.