When Lord Marchmain asks for a bed downstairs, he requests ‘the Chinese drawing-room; and Wilcox the “Queen’s Bed” ‘.  His final days are spent in a  Chinoiserie chimera – to aid his vision of a heavenly kingdom beyond?  And so Chinoiserie’s enchanted role in aristocratic lands is immortalised by Evelyn Waugh or Olivier (depending on your cultural medium).

But what was Lord Marchmain’s ‘Chinese drawing room’ really like? Chinese-Chinese? no it was Chinoiserie: a European interpretation of the fabled East creating a fantasy space – why? because  Chinoiserie is  a game of Chinese Whispers.  A whole continent of craftsmen and fashionable patrons inspired by tales of  mythical lands and wondrous, sought-after imported products.  The stylish reverbrations of this inventiveness still echo today, centuries down the whispering line: CHI-nois-ERIE….

from Haute-Getty style…

to uptown lacquered chic:

it’s inviting:

a sophisticated adult retreat…

oh go on, stay put for an chinoiserie evening drink, mixed with a dash of the exotic:

relaxed? take a seat,  it’s inviting:

after dinner, ‘All rise, Charge your glass’,  chinoiserie goes all the way…

To royal residence’s

and ‘boudoir scenes’, for princesses from Park Avenue to Highgrove and beyond, seeking space to dream:

These days Chinoiserie is timeless – beyond fashion, that was last century when leading decorators liberated the phoenix, pillaged the bamboo and raised a red lantern.

Rose Cumming’s  lavish entertaining space in 1930’s Manhattan…. encourages sophisticated conversation and mai-tai cocktails.

Madeleine Castaing’s inventiveness transforms the service corridor in her  mid-century Parisian apartment into a chinoiserie-time-tunnel, coolie-hats ON.

Now? it never leaves our field of vision.  Chinoiserie’s exoticism and heritage, it’s playful lines and sinuous motifs make a sophisticated statement in any space.  The origins of Chinoiserie, its creative legacy and the underlying reality (it’s a European fantasy of exotic lands), are all complex.

So Chinoiserie - fact and spirit. 

Chinoiserie ‘factually’:  It has an extensive role within European decorative arts,  a trickle of Chinese goods initially arrived via the Silk Route to the Roman Empire  (along with tall tales of the East). It really  took hold of the European imagination  when trading posts were established by the Dutch and East India Trading Companies in the 17th Century.

Why? The merchandise was so fantastically different and the Chinese as as disinterested in us as we were fascinated by them.

Although China allowed some trading links, incredibly few foreigners gained ‘mainland’ access, hence the highly fanciful, illustrated  accounts of China which couldn’t really be verified.  European craftsmen got creative developing their own versions of ‘Chinese’ goods.  In many cases we lacked an understanding of the raw materials or missed the vital ingredient to produce them. Porcelain, lacquer, ivory and silk were  coveted by all who saw them.

SO….

‘Blue and White’  porcelain was a 17th C symbol of wealth in Europe, creating a ‘porcelain race’ which produced delft-ware, faience, soft paste porcelain and a wealth of ‘china’ wares highly collectable today, while we searched for the recipe for a translucent porcelain strong enough for both boiling water and dinner service.  Meissen achieved this ultimate ‘hard paste’ victory in 1710.

An English example of delftware (tin glazed earthenware)  at the V and A (found in Lambeth).

details…

We smuggled out the silk worm in the middle ages and  this culminated in the creative legacy of Lyonnaise and Venoese silks.

embroidered satin brocade Lyon 1735

exotic coral transforming floral silk  Lyon c.1765

We lacked the raw material, a tree sap: Rhus Vernificera, to produce ‘true’ lacquered pieces however that didn’t stop us: from Georgian ladies  ‘home crafts’ to Gobelins factories,  serious French ébenistes and English cabinet makers – we lacquered up.

John Linnel’s lacquered dressing table for Badminton House 1754, at the V and A.

detail from a commode delivered to Choisy in 1743 by Mathieu Criaerd  very similiar to work delivered for the Dauphine’s cabinet in Versailles 2 years later.

supplied for the Chinese ‘breakfasting closet’, now the ‘birdcage room’ at Grimsthorpe castle c. 1755 with ‘lacquer’, gilding and pagoda cresting.

even when working in the European area of speciality marquetry, we still couldn’t resist a Chinoiserie twist:  here pagoda mounts operate as the handle:

Ivory, those poor elephants. Moving on.

Chinese wallpaper:  Inspired by the silk hangings popular with the Chinese elite these papers were ‘export only’.   They were  innovative both in design and style: creating a flowing image around a space rather than a drop pattern repeat they  created an Eastern world of Chinese country life or exotic flora and fauna.  British manufacturers won the ‘wallpaper’ race,  printing designs which were then hand coloured.  Traditionally they would be used in bedrooms, drawing rooms and dressing rooms.

An English version of Chinese wallpaper, in this example hand painted in tempura on paper for Berkeley House, c. 1740

chinoiserie wallpaper 1770 English

chinese wall paper from 1753 delivered to a château in Vosges.

The examples above illustrate how readily we assimilated  Chinese motifs.   Inspired by the the wondrous accounts of Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville and Johan Nieuhof  presenting a land of extraordinary wealth, Confucian wisdom and mystical charm.

Niehof’s book published in  1665 with 150 illustrations was  an instant best-seller swiftly re-published throughout Europe and widely circulated.  It offered documentary style images of Chinese life rather than the highly fanciful and romantic vision offered by Rococo artists in the 18th Century. Above is the influential engraving of the porcelain nine-story pagoda  at Nanjing,  built with white porcelain bricks that shimmered in the sunlight and  were lit at night by one hundred and forty lanterns, topped by a golden pineapple.  Destroyed 1856.

The Motifs:

Fret-work, pagodas, pig tails, koi fish, dragons, conical hats, parasols, bamboo, exotic birds, deers, camellias, gorgeous girls, star crossed lovers, willow trees are all in the mix.  We added added ‘singerie’ (monkeys) and the ho ho bird (the phoenix) to you and me and a symbol of good fortune

Japanese lacquer to the Indian ‘tree of life’ design and Chinese porcelain –  Europeans classed them as  part of the same thing, a wondrous mythical ‘otherness':  in a society seeking to catalogue and chart the world, geography  was in its infancy. Items, motifs and a range of countries inspire the goods we consider ‘Chinoiserie’.

The Goods? From silver ware to furniture, garden design and fairy tale follies, from fashionable fans to fabric design to all out ‘chinoiserie interiors’ we embraced the new found  Orient, the East, the Exotic.

We start to  see Chinoiserie in the late 17th century:

Baroque Chinoiserie:

Vasco de Gama’s discovery of the sea route to India in 1498 meant that ‘Eastern/Chinese’ goods were part of Baroque’s lexicon: from blue and white porcelain found in royal and aristocratic collections through to luxurious ‘curiosity cabinets’.

An engraving of Daniel Marot’s design for Queen Mary at Hampton Court Palace: the mantlepiece could display quantities of blue and white porcelain and the wall panels feature exotic scenes.

Luxurious coromandel screens and japanned/lacquered ‘cabinets’ on a stand are highly fashionable.

Cabinet on a stand time… again.

The latest fashion: reassuringly exclusive and expensive was drinking the exotic beverage: tea,  this activity took place in private closets and dressing rooms which had accompanying chinoiserie pieces to enhance the experience. The culmination of which must be Claydon Hall created in the 1760’s and shown here after John Fowler’s restoration.

Back in  Baroque: Louis XIV  took it to another level with the ‘Trianon de Porcelaine’ 1670 (inspired by Nieuhoff’sporcelain pagoda) the building’s balustrades were loaded with Chinese vases, the roof compiled of blue and white faience tiles (porous) with blue and white  interiors  furnished ‘in the chinese manner’. Gone by 1690 (porous)…

Meanwhile In England Burghley, Chatsworth, Drayton and Hampton court all have lacquer rooms by 1700.

Coromandel screens inserted to create panelling…. oh! lost the credit, it must turn up…

Come the new century though, Baroque feels heavy, pompous and out of touch with a new generation.

Rococo-Chinoiserie

‘The mythical East’  reaches its decorative peak in Rococo’s absorption of Chinoiserie producing ‘the look’ that we most associate with the style today: A light hearted, frivolous  style offering asymmetrical, rule breaking fantasy.  China hadn’t discovered perspective, therefore  the surreal, flat  images on porcelain and panels could be easily treated as a fairytale world, and if  European ‘copies’ maintained the necessary light touch, appropriate costume, face and posture – well there was the recognisable ‘Cathay’.

British porcelain c. 1758 with the popular ‘jumping boy’ pattern

However 18th Century Rococo chinoiserie moves beyond applying the Chinese motifs to European forms,  they create furniture and objects inspired by Chinese shapes.  You can see the evolution from Baroque to Rococo in the two gold pieces below:

The cocoa mug from 1660 has Chinoiserie motifs flat chased onto a traditional shape.

The tea canister by Paul de Lamerie in 1747 is alive with a sculptural force.

Thomas Chippendale changed the shape of pieces of furniture to emulate Chinese forms both for his elite clients and to a wider audience through his catalogues.

The quintessential images of this era come from France.  Watteau and Boucher’s elegant illustrations fuse Chinese motifs with French style and beauty. Watteau’s Chinoiserie decorations c. 1710 of the Cabinet du Roi in Chateau de Muette were destroyed in 1741, however the painted interiors were largely copied into engravings, primarily by Boucher and hugely inspirational.  Boucher went onto a design a series of Chinoiserie tapestry designs of Gobelins which defined the Chinoiserie style of the period, particulary through the work of Jean Pillement who he inspired to create ‘ The New Book of Chinese Ornaments” in 1755 a widely used pattern book.

Salon Pillement, Château de Craôn, exemplifies Jean Pillement’s beautiful, delicate Chinoiserie style.

close up: Jean Pillement’s carved and painted chinoiserie panels for Hôtel de la Lariboisèrie, Paris

The book he created exemplifying the art and style at the Vand A: 

frontispiece.

close up

Singereie:  Monkeys are given key roles in these chinoiserie decorations ‘apeing’ human behaviour. These panels were part of the decoration created by Christophe Huet in 1735 for Chateau de Chantilly directly inspired by Watteau’s ‘Idole de la Déesse Ki Mao Sao‘.

Finally, Boucher’s The Chinese Garden (1742), he makes Chinoiserie  very accessible by  using exotic motifs and settings, with inhabitants who resemble his chic Parisian clients.

At this time From Sweden to Potsdam, via Catherine the Great in Russia down to Piedmont and Sicily  Chinoiserie was supremely chic.

Catherine the Great’s Summer Palace Oranienbaum, an enfilade through the state rooms.

When something becomes all the rage  (grey walls watch out) it has to pass. Chinoiserie’s hold waned in the new century despite the Prince Regent’s last hurrah, ‘The Royal Pavilion’ in Brighton.  19th Century imperialism broke down our fantasies  (boo hoo) amidst the realities of war and trade.

“The curtain which had been drawn around the the celestial country for ages has now been rent asunder; and instead  of viewing an enchanted fairy-land, we find, after all, that China is just like other countries.” Robert Fortune, Wanderings in China, 1847.

While we do not know exactly what Lord Marchmain’s bedchamber looked like, it seems right to assume it was truly beautiful. A space to dream and ponder, offering a fretwork bridge between this world and the next, which I for one would like to walk… in this world.

The Chinese Chippendale Bedroom at Saltram.

Chinoiserie’s complexities are well beyond the parameters of a Decorative Affair post, but follows up will include ‘ Chinoiserie Now’, ‘The Oriental Colour Palette‘, Tea Time‘ ‘ Deco-Decadence’ and ‘The Chinoiserie Bedroom‘ …oh and whatever else takes my fancy.

books consulted  and images taken from include:

Chinoiserie: Dawn Jacobson

Chinoiserie: Oliver Impey

Chinese Whispers Chinoiserie in Britain 1650-1930:  edited by David Beevers

French Interiors of the 18th Century: John Whitehead

British Porcelain: John Sandon

The English Country  House: Gervase Jackson Stops and James Pipkin

Wall paper: Charlotte Abrahams

Magazines perused and in some cases ripped asunder:

WOI and Elle Decor USA, from decorators’  Miles Redd to Celerie Kemble and beyond, any omissions in credits can be added and my apologies.

Alexander McQueen

Swans, they are rather elegant aren’t they? beautiful in fact, as every girl whose read the Ugly Duckling knows.  The stuff of fairy tales and ancient myths.  Swans are devoted, mating for life.   One of Venus’s symbols is the swan, representing love, purity, grace and a duality: water and air, masculine and feminine.  There’s a lot  to draw on….and  from Ancient Rome to now ‘the swan’ has only become increasingly  multi-layered, her flight path echoing down the decorative time line.

In 1965 they found the Dunstable Swan Jewel:

A  livery badge from 1400 asserting the wearer’s loyalty to his liege, look closely and you can just see the crown collar.

In Medieval England several noble families claimed they were descendants of a legendary swan knight, who arrived (sword in hand)  naturally in a swan-drawn boat to rescue ‘the fair lady’.  An era when the Duchess of Gloucester’s  Westminster tomb was engraved with a swan and her will contained a treasured, precious book:  a so-called ‘swan romance’.

Fast forward to the Baroque when ‘berocca pearls’ were popular and here is a ‘swan’ jewel made in 1490 and now at the hermitage museum.

I am rather taken by the silver swan, an automata produced in the 18th century.  

As the music begins the swan glances about,  preens and then catching sight of a silver fish appears to bend, catch and swallow it.

But swans really came into thier own ‘decoratively’ in an era that was all about establishing power though symbolism.  ‘Empire’ when parvenu Napoleon sought to assert his position through visual references to the powerful Roman emperors  and who chose the ‘bee’ as his personal insignia: a symbol of immortality and resurrection, specifically chosen by Napoleon to link his new Empire to the very origins of France.

Josephine: stylish, cultured, consort, wife, Empress, divorced, regime survivor made the swan her emblem.

Malmaison was her private home, its interiors remain intact with their  ever-present swan  motif: symbolic of her enduring love and grace. Josephine was laid aside by Napoleon in his quest for an heir and a dynasty, however after his fall from power she continued to represent France as a hostess for state occasions.  Enduring grace.

Josephine’s bedroom with swan motif at the centre of the circular rug and with wings raised on her bed post.

I am very taken with the Swan’s realistically produced in porcelain, and now sought after in 1st Dibs land.

Meissen and Sévres: tureens and/or lamps.

The 20th century has continued to celebrate swans from Art Nouveau through to Mid century design heroes, fairy tale fashion shoots  and beyond.

The Swans seem both to guard and invite you into: Old Swan House. Once inside, choose your seating:

a step forward into art deco elegance or a step  back to turn of the century charm:

I would take any seat under this Empire chandelier:

Upstairs, I don’t think many of us could make like Mae West in a swan bed:

but I would happily swivel on the mid century classic, the swan chair…

updated in playful 21st century pattern power.

 where I’d daydream over  Tim Walker’s ebullient imagination, recently the subject of an exhibition at Somerset House where the swan almost swam gracefully along…

Can’t quite see the water for the reeds? why not don a pair of swan glasses à la Man Ray’s widow- naturally a gift from Peggy Guggenheim:

and I would certainly enjoy sharing tea with  Nonagerian Mrs Hitchcock who lives in considerable style with her swan planters:

In fact after that I might rush home and  buy one from Rockett St George …

To keep ‘Delilah’ company who currently  glides over an ikat river.   (I think she should be a Christmas centre piece one year, but  let’s not get distracted)

No swan ode would be complete without the black swan?

Swan Lake’s powerful story transcends time and artistic re-invention: from Pavlova to Portman, beauty, darkness, tragedy in grace.

Pavlova’s costume

Portman in costume.

Let our Swan-Song return us to the beginning,  a duality the ancient myths encourage…

Alexander McQueen

 Swans immortal in their grace and beauty, inspiring man’s creativity and wonder. Ode complete.

Images: Tim Walker photographs, final shot Laetitia Casté by Mario Testino. Pinterest boards ‘Swan’, ‘Cygnet’ and ‘Automata’. World of Interiors. Fox pictures.

 *occasionally swans that have built a next are unable to proceed off spring, only then do they separate, nature’s way

So who…

is best friend with Min Hogg, legendary founder of WOI

was getting down with Tallulah Bankhead age 15 (in between Eton College term times)

was a stalwart companion of Diana Cooper née Manners

had reclusive star Greta Garbo over for breakfast

personally delivered  the last EVER photo shoot proofs to  a troubled Marilyn Monroe

absorbed hi-art in the fading light of the painters’ swirling brushes on an idyllic Cote d’Azur

lived in London as it started to swing (in fact started the swing)

moved to New York to really swing and worked at Vogue for Diana Vreeland

Lived in a ranch amongst cowboys and indians in Arizona

returned to London to become Decorator extraordinaire to the A list

oh and naturally ranks in GQ’s and Vanity Fair’s best dressed lists

whose life is it, that charges through the whose-who of the 20th century…

who? well the man who has it…. Haslam.  Lucky to be born gay in the right half of the century, lucky to be born beautiful, lucky to be supremely talented and extremely well connected. Charged by a childhood illness:  polio and  a 3 year paralysis, Haslan emerged to lived voraciously.  He’s a one off and pretty legendary himself at this stage.

Haslam looking dapper via ‘zimbio’

It seems appropriate then that his heart belongs to ‘quite simply the prettiest small house in the world‘ (his words).  The hunting lodge, equally beloved by its previous occupant John Fowler, has a worthy custodian. Fowler wrote: What I wanted here was something utterly unpretentious, very comfortable, with a veneer of elegance and informality, it could equally describe Haslam’s current atmosphere.

Fowler through an upstairs window

In London last week, copies of this book were everywhere and on the internet there’s been a steady flow of glowing reports for ‘Folly de Grandeur’. as the Foreward says: ‘not many small houses could live up to this level of forensic examination’ but Haslan’s can.  Min Hogg reviewed the book for WOI and explains: in many ways today’s resident is the epitome of fashionable, but in decoration he has long eschewed the latest fads; his style, his taste, his rooms evolve.  Haslam’s aesthetic is consummate, finely honed and confidently asserted.

Born in 1939 he grew up in a gloriously proportioned Baroque house, with appropriately beautiful interiors. He subsequently absorbed all the major decorative styles first hand: including  the vibrant fizz of Billy Baldwin and David Hicks.  He soaked up graphic design under Vreeland’s legendary eye  whilst prowling the Met studying imported European rooms: their scale, proportions and architectural details.  Free time –  well he hung out in the finest high society interiors Babe Paley, the Mellons, the Harlechs and the Agnellis. All the time observing, learning, absorbing.  All this is distilled and poured into his home, Folly de Grandeur invites you in for a full tour.

the romantic facade from 1720-40 which  evoked loved at first sight

Open up and the book is dedicated to Colette:

His right hand and creative director, Colette met Nicky through the house which she made the subject of her Masters theses  in 2003.  A shared passion for the building forged into friendship and working partnership: the power of walls.

The book presents the house in intimate detail, right down to illustrated floor plans.

A miniature house with a flower room, pantry and library ….gotta love it.

Haslam describes his style as hotchpotch, but only an individual of exquisite taste and knowledge could pull this off, everything goes because it passses through his super-refined lens.  It’s a glorious confidence aligned with sensitive sensibility: happily getting out the copydex and marker pen – whilst carefully respectful of walls that talk!

a false door which he added because he felt the  facade needed it, later research showed there had in fact previously been a door here.

the tiny staircase where Nicky ‘stuck down’ Fowler’s Mauny wallpaer  for years until faithfully replacing it, why? it works. Nicky advises: beef up the scale of wall coverings in small spaces.  The size creates an coup d’oiel pulling everything together whereas small patterns tend to simply trail away.  

I find it touching that several aspects of Fowler’s interior schemes remain.  Unlike many incoming residents, Haslam does not need to assert his ownership and taste, he has nothing to prove.

Fowler’s sitting room

Nicky’s sitting room, the walls in the sitting room were painted in oxblood with distemper
(‘research’ led Nicky to conclude this was exactly the same colour as 70’s fabric elastoplasts).

the entrance hall which also echoes Fowlers original design

Nicky cites the architectural elements as the source of his inspiration, ‘giving the rooms a structural form on which to base decorative forms‘.  What makes his decoration sing is his humour and charm projected into the decor, he constantly makes you look again –  strong visual harmony is consistently teased into something more exciting.

The heron’s  head disappearing, complemented by the facing heron’s on the mantlepiece. Go closer and…

the handwritten lampshades appear, while the panelled walls behind are actually a trompe l’oiel illusion.

It’s all in the details… as an English house should be, layered and sifted, casually and artfully arranged.

miniature fireside chair (with standout silk leopard skin velvet) under a gothic cupboard with an oak leaf fastening ‘exactly the kind of detail I find iressistable‘

the butterflies ‘appear to be attracted to the toile lamp shades‘.

the bowls precariously aligned over a chair, safe to sit? the bird taking off overhead advises you to possibly remain standing.

I love tôle, (french imitation lacquerware painted on tin) and this dahlia lamp is as impressive as it gets, indeed Haslam calls them ‘aggressive‘.

look closer and you can see where Haslam marbleised it up  one day with marker pen.  He also marbleises walls and ceiling to hide the cracks… cheap-chic.

his bedroom where Mauny strips applied in vertical stripes, visually heighten the room, curtain pelmets echo the ogee shape windows and a bed where ‘edging chintz in a solid colour is an essential touch‘.’

through the landing Haslam leads you with visually gay abandon…

 to a tiny uber-striped room, completed with saddler’s horse blanket as rug.

stripes of different size abound off set by solid red curtains

 a lone chair’s organic red foliage leading into the stripe

back downstairs and Haslam visual feast continues from surprising one-off pieces to collages of pattern and colour.

the  library has a ‘book’ table for newspaper clippings

‘I don’t believe in the accepted view that all materials have to match. I prefer to jumble up several different patterns, like a kaleidoscope.  The eye soon sorts out the various motifs and vivacity is replaced by calm.’

And of course Haslam decorates with friends:

from his mother’s portrait presiding over the drinks table offering ‘silent approval’ of evening drinks.

from dog to dog  and man to man …

to the crammed mantelpiece

friends’ paintings of the lodge

pencils ready by the ‘gifted’ phone.

.

joke lobster from an event beside Min Hogg’s sequinned card

oh and watch out as you turn the light off and leave the lodge

Because Haslam’s book really invites you to stay, to look again and listen.  Haslam’s style may not be yours but his knowledge and insight which light up this book transcend  styles and genres, Haslam has it.

All photos from ‘Folly de Grandeur‘, photography by Simon Upton, except images of John Fowler from ‘The Prince of Decorators’.

No matter how you arrive, once here, the heat seeps into your bones, rosé flows liberally, summer days are hazy, in tune with the cicadas and the path of the sun. The daily schedule and demands of life  melt away, I flow gently along. Except when the antiquaires are open:

Saturday through Monday to be precise chez Isle sur la Sorgue, and then my pulse quickens, the hat is on, and I barter my way out the door…for as long as possible.

I weave quickly through the town’s dusty heat and hidden corners, to where the ‘îles brocantes’ exist, 40 dealers or so to an ‘island’, next to glass green rivers. Each entrance offers a promise of possibility and lures me in,  quite surprised by my re-found vigour.

There’s plenty to choose from in the long parade of riverside antiquaries,  from grand proclamation

to the discreet sign

and gated enclave…

oooh and a seductive courtyard ahead

 Not forgetting upstairs…

 In fact, myriad possibilities at every turn, which at this stage I am quite familiar with.

 There’s plenty of options for sustenance, from the chic courtyard gardens chez Jardin de la Quai

 to a cheeky pit stop.

The first few trips, I try not to succumb, but let the vast array of merchandise wash over me, and see what floats to the brain’s surface aprés, persistently, demanding a second look.

even though I am not in the market for ‘asperge’ pilasters, they make smile on arrival.

An entrance console in hammered gilt, Italian 1940’s would make me smile at home.

Or slightly more sombre, but still chic.

Or maybe I should take ancient and distressed, over mid century glamour, for country life.

I love the Baroque drama of THIS, complete with tassels.  Retreating slightly…

A pair of mer-swan consoles catch my eye, but rather black and formal.

The fish sideboard is more fun, in lovely colours, but surely someone here chez Sorgue and rivers should buy it?

Next stop, I could leave the camel, but appropriate the 19th century butcher’s tables with scrolled X frame, there’s a couple of  boucherie options here, equally leaving the teddy bears aside.

On the more serious (expensive side) I could go for French provincial charm in fruitwood, early 19 th century, the top inlaid with a treillage design, I wish I had photographed its geometeric precision, and he said he’d throw in the Varage soupiére too, it’s all quite tempting.:

The faux bois bench in cement with preening swan beneath is sold. phew.

Some dealers even have a bespoke side, creating seriously stylish new pieces:  the kaleidoscope cabinet in bleached walnut,  would I think be rather breathtaking chez moi…or indeed toi.

If I was feeling flush I would definitely ask him to conjure up another of his free-form,  wood-we-trust,  coffee tables as well.  Apparently he has also made a kitchen table in this style…. hhhmmm.

Or further along  the isle  there’s hewn wood from Java, but really I’d like something more local…let’s stay French.

A pair of fauteuils look good in crumbly crumbly gilt, with rustic upholstery, bedroom ready.

As for the curiosity cabinet ready to go, obviously I am interested:

But sometimes it’s easier to just think decorative: easier to transport, easier decor-re-ranging, easier on the wallet.

A mirror, that would slide in the car…

Ventetian, early 20th century, with that blue étoile…

or the Louis XVI mirror, complete with turtle doves:

Or while in fantasy land, let’s fly away, I love the hot air balloon, Montgolfière, complete with clouds. Symbolic of the French designers’ zeal for ‘souvenir’ design: à la mode decorative arts.

Or sticking to that ‘easier on the wallet concept’, a fun sunburst (or two please)

A boullabaise serving set, I can’t even cook bouillabaisse, but I could learn? all the things you end up convincing yourself of (almost) when in mode Antiquaire, I love that grass green glaze, it’s almost lettuceware:

although they are endless gorgeous chandaliers, it’s the lamps that catch my eye.

To sail away with?

a selection of Casapupo style lamps delicate,  ornate and intact. Have one at home, surely a pair would be good?

pineapple lamp 1, unfortunately dulls beside the allure of ‘Masion Charles’ pineapple lamp 2:

Could go the whole way and add on the palm tree wall lights?

or maybe the bar cart complete with pineapple lamp, just waiting for the cinzano?

Then I could take my pick of ice boxes… strawberry, duck? pumpkin? or owl?

Which brings me to my couple of preliminary purchases,  inevitably I can’t walk away from it all? The owl came home. The pineapple lamp, we know which one.  A bamboo magazine rack will slide behind the front seat of the car:

Now I am back to think, with what’s left of my summer brain.  Putting them all down like this makes me realise my surrealist bent needs some restraining pieces. But  the joy of Isle sur la Sorgue is it  offers something for all tastes, particularly in its August fair when the town overflows with dealers, you can have as much fun with 70 EU as several thousand, by evening time each dealer is rosé lit, expansive and ready to barter in the golden glow, from vintage wine cooler to Louis XVI glories.  I just need to hold on to my hat. Sorgue again.

All photos by me.

Please forgive any rosé typos.

Patrick Leigh Fermor was once described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene,”  he kept good company with Deborah Mitford, AKA the Duchess of Devonshire.  Their correspondence written ‘in tearing haste‘ over 50 years makes a compelling read as you are swept into their charmed world.  My (almost favourite exchange) is when Deborah asks Paddy if he could rustle up some suitably low brow titles for ‘fake books’  in the seriously grand Chatsworth library…

I confess, I am not sure which one of 6 libraries she intended these for, but rumour has it, this is the one.

Debo writes: Now for something really important. We’ve had to put a new door with false book-backs in the library at Chatsworth and we’ve got to think of 28 titles….

Paddy throws himself at the task with self deprecating gusto:

clearly she asked the right man because the list flows on…

He concludes  They’re most of them pretty rotten, but one or two might do.

(A bit like my photos, apologies)

Pondering this post I have decided my lowly addition might be:

Decor8   –  Bee  Logge

A Decorative Carry On –  by A. Hobbyist

Affairs in Tinterland  – A. Stray

However these are for Chatsworth, the grandest of country houses, where only superlatives  apply -

The setting, the facade, its  extraordinary Baroque interiors, its unrivalled family collection, the libraries containing 27,000 books – yes, the largest in private hands.  Amidst all this pomp and splendour resides Mustafa Swig, Ivor Belch and of course – Abel and Willing.  Chatsworth  nows rests lighter in my mind, suddenly it is not quote so imposing, behind concealed doors – it makes me smile.

Antique books at Chatsworth via prettybook.com

Surely this is part of the purpose of libraries: maintaining links between past and present, enabling  us to mentally journey, to experience another voice in our mind’s ear … human contact.

Bess of Hardwick  began, what is now the Chatsworth library, 6 books are listed in 1601.  What is surprising, is how long it took for the idea of collecting  books into a library and creating the appropriate architectural space took.  100 years during which the ‘classical education’ emerged with the Grand Tour,  the Palladian mansion and  a self confident belief in democracy and learning: a gentleman had to be educated, in the rediscovered classics to natural history.

Holkham: Palladian mansion extraordinaire

‘Book Closets’ emerged, first in an intimate corner of a gentleman’s private rooms, gradually entering into the public sphere: Sir Robert Walpole’s library at Houghton is one of the first examples of book shelves being incorporated into the architecture of the room, recessed shelves designed to fit the architectural elements of the room lined in leather and gold volumes.  A room to visit, a room to show off, a room to contemplate.

Holkham in 1741 provides the next architectural break through, here books go beyond being fitted into a scheme and their shelving inspires the architecture, the rhythm of the groined vault (ceiling) are further accentuated by the pedimented  sections beneath …

It was Robert Adam who introduced the library table : Osterley, Nostell Priory, Harewood all feature a  substantial Chippendale ‘desk’.  His supremely comfortable, well appointed rooms ushered in the concept of the library as a sitting room, a relaxed family room even.

The turn of the 18th century sees the culmination of the library decoration, often still emulated and alluded too today.  Petworth’s library around 1780 is positively cosy:

one way and tother

I am rather partial to the busts, a popular library feature visually linking the room to philosophers:  those ancient and modern ‘lovers of knowledge’.

Humphrey Repton in  1816 wrote Modern custom is to use the library as the general living-room, and that sort of state room (drawing room) …is now generally… a melancholy apartment. His illustration showed the newly fashionable french windows leading out to the newly invented conservatory, full of people  genially engaged in various activities.

Woburn Abbey’s sitting room designed by Henry Holland in the 1790’s and described by Repton above.

And so we return to the Chatsworth library redecorated 1815-1830, described in The English Country House, as containing an overwhelming sense of warmth and comfort, like … a luxuriously appointed London Club.

Library Rules:

• A classically masculine space decorated in  timeless style.
• Shelves integrated into the architecture of the room or the providing the framework for the decor.
• Comfortable seating often in leather to tone with book covers and age gracefully
• essential kit: a library desk
• jib doors, often providing a concealed exit whilst preserving symmetry of the scheme, and giving rise to the tradition which Paddy entered into so wholeheartedly …of ‘dreadful puns’ across the false book backs.
• A space inspired by classical learning: we educate ourselves in order to make a noble use of our leisure (Aristotle).

It’s only in knowing the rules, that  you can play them.  The 2oth Century libraries which really set magazine pages aflutter and continue to inspire today are by the master Billy Baldwin and naturally his protégé Albert Hadley.

Baldwin’s library for Cole Porter, featured chic shelving in brass, mahogany and lacquer.

Look again… leather: check  table: check, Shelving incorporated into architecture, in this case framing the doors: check, but then all freshened up by the spiffy brass shelving. 

Albert Hadley’s decor of Brooke Astor’s  library is sumptuous and RED.

Lacquer red walls with brass edged shelving, the brass continues in strong graphic lines, framing entrances and fireplaces.

Super comfy seating and opulent details.Hadley may have left out the leather but he fed all the senses.

This side of the Atlantic my favourite libraries are from  Yves Saint Laurent, a wonderful mélange of objects all held together by his aesthete’s eye.  His partner Pierre Bergé talks of  his poetic ideas, which originated in his imagination, allowing us to live in a charmed universe…each house had a story.  Yves spent alot of time in his libraries, books occupied a central role in our homes, with libraries full to overflowing.

The egg is a bar which opens to store bottles

the adoration of the Magi tapestry, centre place,  Burnes Jones 1904.

A modern Mondrain painting  above the mirrored fireplace

the shelving overflowing with pictures and inspiration

This Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s library was inspired by the famous de Noailles’ drawing room decorated by Jean Michel Frank.  The sheep are an Yves addition.

Fast Forward to London  21st century  chez uber-designer Marc Newson and family.  Here – the library itself is the secret surprise, an aesthetic counterpoint to the rest of the interior? a reference to the power of books in the digital age? a wife’s demand for traditional comfort?

Read into it  what you will, but one thing’s for sure: you need to keep reading to stay in touch.

and keep smiling.

interested in libraries? read about the extraordinary gift Scottish libraries received. Explore the world of Assouline, ultimate luxe publishers.

See various library schemes on Pinterest,

Images  and quotes from

The Private World of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, Robert Murphy

The Country House (as above) Gervase Stopps

 Iconic Interiors 1900 to the present Dominic Bradbury

Albert Hadley Adam Lewis

Billy Baldwin see lectures 1,2,3,4 on this blog.

Do you remember your first tear sheet? I know, I know, it’s not quite up there with some other firsts, BUT…

Way back when… I ripped out this American decorator’s guest house, oh alright, like 17 years ago (I did the maths). I used to pore over it, the ceiling, the floor, the pared back … yet still inviting CHIC of it all.   It was etched in my mind, the interior, not the decorator unfortunately (note: I am very bad on names and birthdays).

Anyway, life rolls on, and then Stephen Sill’s book arrives this weekend…lo and behold, there it is, yes…evolved, but still essentially the same.  Sill’s exquisite scheme stands the test of time. He himself says:  The most common decorating mistake is overdecorating. There’s nothing more vulgar in an interior.

So what did he do here ? I wanted to make a cozy, comfortable place, but nothing sweet or sentimental.

The hand-painted canvas ceiling was inspired by  none other than Pauline de Rothschild’s patterned tiled floor at Château Mouton Rothschild.

The floors? Canadian marble blocks painted white.

The walls?  two shades of tinted plaster.

I wanted to make a sort of nebulous, modern background and put beautiful objects in here, because I love objects. I think objects are the things in decoration that make a room.

and what objects…

The Robert Morris felt sculpture (to the rear above) was  introduced to create visual clarity.

The Spanish lantern, made from an old sugar container and the belts of soldiers from the Spanish-American War, is from Art Basel.

The 18th-century Italian round-back chairs are from Sotheby’s over 20 years ago ,

They now sit beside a contemporary straw chair, made by a young Korean artist.

A pair of English twig tables, initially too expensive on Pimlico Road, turned up at an English furniture sale in New York.

The 19th-century French wine-tasting table that Christian Dior once enjoyed was found in Paris.

Sills placed 18th-century English grotto furniture alongside Louis XVI chairs with Bergamo slipcovers. A gilt Régence sofa found in Belgium and a pair of 18th-century gilt Roman chairs complete the seating area, with its Chinese Qianlong Period blue floor vases.

Columns from the Hearst Castle,  a Louis XVI bed purchased in 1980; antique linens are combined with a footstool from a Parisian flea market and a Jean-Michel Frank lamp on top of a Régence side table from Christies.

Why the list, well  as Sill’s makes clear, it’s the objects which inspire him.

It’s funny with objects. If you’re really passionate, and you really understand your sensibility, and you’re patient, they will come to you. That’s what I love about the magic of objects. You never really own anything in this world, but you can be lucky enough to possess something for a time, and enjoy it, and then it goes on to another person to enjoy.

All this got me thinking, and so I ask you too….what do you really want to own, enjoy and pass on…

take a seat and think about it, possibly if your very, very lucky chez Sills at the ‘chicest house in America‘.

All photos from Town and Country magazine or Stephen Sills, Decorates.

‘The chicest house in America‘… is according to Karl Lagerfeld.

Me, I am back to the tear sheets.

There’s nothing quite like playing hooky? right, especially when it’s with your business partner in the name of ‘Research’, actually maybe we should call ours ‘R and R’ days (Retail gets a look in).

 Just a little excited.

So we went to London to the Decorative Fair, this promotes itself as the Antiques fair for ‘Decorators seeking unusual antiques and statement pieces for interior design’. 

 really you never know what you’ll find…

The more ‘decorative’ dealers put together fantastically evocative lifestyle stands, CHATEAU ready  for West London, the Home Counties and beyond.

Anyway I always see a myriad of things I like, it’s inspiring.

This time there’s a couple of pieces coming my way, can you guess? I will share the photos once they are in situ Dublin.  Getting excited.

Next stop V and A, fashion ready glamour pusses that we are…(when playing hooky)

Well Laura anyway.

Underneath the travertine entrance, legendary dresses ahead, the lure of luxe-Italian fashion and film-star glamour reel me in … just as it did those post-war buyers in Italy where fashion shows in crumbling aristo  palazzos and  evening cocktails smoothed the buyers’ path.

It’s a beautiful exhibition: Slim Aarons meets la Dolce Vita, the Swans glide by, and Valen-Sace takes a bow.  As always it’s timeless beauty and craftsmanship that really resonate.

a degradé 50’s gown from blush to scarlet, with scrolling lace work…opening booth.

She shall go to the ball…

and you could even come home in style… I swooned over this now, when it’s springtime, and I don’t do red.

I felt a stab of optimism for the future and pride in the present when the final room, dedicated to current designers was as exquisitely beautiful as the start, with Valentino’s Haute Couture centre stage.

It was such a treat to see this piece close up, 

Afterwards I had to take Laura to the café, this is my favourite room in London, it’s extraordinary, completely tiled fantasia.  The restoration cleverly let’s OTT sing with OTT creating a visual feast, so I always look up!

which the V and A encourages you do from arrival, they understand the power of statement lighting:

Bravo Murano

Quick dash to J. Crew, girls got to see what Jenna can do, it’s FUN.  I love the stores’ interiors and Laura’s eyes on the merchandising… oh and the bling!

chic…

loved the lighting here too:

Hicks greets Sputnik.

Laura loitered with intent by the jewels, I did a smash and run upstairs.

We said good bye and  I snuck in a night out with the Irish husband, always fun, cabaret in Shepherds Bush – who’d put the two together?

Needed to inhale fresh flowers and main-line cappuccino to get the juices flowing.

Ran through Fulham Road shops, Birgit Israels’s copper and green scene was beautiful:

stuck too accessories though:

loitered with intent at Julian Chichester:Interiors wise I could tune into a guitar shaped mirror

paw feet and pineapples (as we know)

always have to drop into the colourful world of Jonathon Adler, loved his new owls. Contemplated chic darts…

which would look v good in J Crew.

Home now and waiting for the spoils to arrive, meanwhile I think I am going to put my feet up on the new sofa (which has arrived)

and watch Sophia weave her magic spell:

With the other partner, aka the Irish husband.

photos by me except  some from V and A which were collected online, please click into them to see origin.

The wattage of Catherine Deneuve’s fame,  her trajectory through film history and modern culture as Belle du Jour and France’s Marianne to Grand Dame and Auteur creates dazzling refractions it’s difficult to see past to the woman within.

Deveuve has kept her ‘homes’ out of the public eye, they reveal too much, she puts herself into them creating houses that feel layered with love and memories. They are brimful with treasured collections and personal effects woven together with a sophisticated eye and assured ease.  Her ‘grand dame’  house has recently been the focus of attention as it came up for sale:

 Chateau de Primard’s entrance exudes a relaxed grandeur.

The vast kitchen appears friendly, it’s the casual arrangement of units, haphazard displays and blasts of vibrant colours against country cream. Oh and  that dart board in the corner, fun right?

An inviting sitting room or two, looking like they evolved gently, in sumptuous textiles and warm colours.  I like the random tiny pair of pictures above the book shelves and the bauble chandelier which must have been bought chez YSL in Morocco alongside the light below, non?

Moving upstairs… 

There’s a Madelaine Castaing quality to this bedroom’s floral and rayured stripes which appeals and the carpet …well, I’ve seen it before.  Deneuve’s previous Normandy retreat was photographed in another era, 1989, when she was France’s Marianne and the World of Interiors was declaring itself ‘the best glossy magazine in the world’.

Shall we go in…

Deneuve bought the long, low Normandy farmhouses when she was barely 20 as a  retreat with her young son, 20 years on it has a burnished glow, a home to enjoy with the people I love.  I love  that she arrived with just a mixed pile of ceramics in hand and  scrap of vintage blue fabric in her mind’s eye (still produced today).

 She is a collector, having spent her childhood playing attic high amidst eccentric hoardes and vintage toys,  her adult taste is on parr with the best of  Isle sur la Sorgue‘s  antiquaries: she loves Provençal things, and anything painted and 18th century whilst  her foibled buying habits sound reassuringly familiar: I always seem to buy on impulse, especially when my finances are at low ebb.   But what a hoard young Catherine stashed in her Normandy retreat…

The entrance halls just fits a chandelier, the corner cupboard and bench sofa are 18th century, facing them you catch a glimpse of the extravagent gilt console, out of sight bridal bouquets in glass domes, a curio touch? I also rather like how the curved stripes on the carpet echoing the hexagonal tonnettes beneath, highlighted below.

World of Interiors describes the interior as dotted with cane chairs, faded cashmere and cotton quilts, curios, gouaches and various small landscape paintings –  objects chosen for pleasure rather than value. With … collections  dotted all over: dogs in the bathrooms; in the kitchen – platters; in the corridors hats.

boho-country style in the ‘jardin d’hiver’

paisley cashmere over a card table with stripped 18th century panelling and a delft tiled fireplace

18th Century provencal chaise-longue gently quilted and cashmered, with deep red Chinoiserie screen behind and vintage style wallpaper

18th century sideboard beneath a collection of needlepoint pictures

collected Provençal pottery for everyday use, ‘lot’s of them are chipped as a result, but it can’t be helped‘.

I think my favourite shot is of her dining room, where 3 glass walls commune happily with a mirrored rear wall and a glass topped table, she has grown jasmine, citrus, bougainvillea and passiflora in each corner and they spread across the ceiling on a green trellis, she loves to see the sky reflected in the surface of the table. Imagine the scent?

there, you see the rug? reflected in the mirror?

Upstairs her bedroom is charming and  feminine, again  with 18th Century provincial ‘Provencal’ furniture and classic French fabrics.

 Her bathroom, follows her belief  that ‘delicate’ areas need a ‘delicate’ tonality.

The pillar table and chairs are from a Viennese tea room of 1905 and in the back nestles a grotto chair…

and outside, well it turns out Deneuve is a gardener too.

I just have a feeling that if you were looking for the real Deneuve, beyond the refracted light of  her legendary beauty, her homes speak of woman who has lived well in under the graceful aegis of  inner beauty.

photo credits:

Louis Vuitton 2007 campaign

Normandy chateau via HabituallyChic blogspot and Sotheby’s International realty

Normandy Farmhouse 1989 WOI

As man’s (and gal’s) loyal best friend dogs have a special place in our hearts and homes.  I spotted this interior the other day and the dog leapt off the page, for he is an heirloom dog whose presence in this space  is not only visual, it is personal.

John Andrews inherited this painting from Woodson Taulbée who was given it by Billy Baldwin, for me it perfectly illustrates the Billy Baldwin interiors maxim:  Nothing and I mean nothing, is interesting unless it is PERSONAL. 

chez Woodson

and in his master’s house, the late, great Billy Baldwin.

All of which made me think again about what I love in my home, why, the stories behind pieces and what I really want to live with, time for a final maxim: Buy less, choose well …and don’t forget to tell your loved ones how you LOVE that painting/trunk/string of pearls.

John Andrew’s interior from ‘Decorate Fearlessly’ by Susanna Salk, thank you Lizzie.

Other images from A Decorative Affair, the series of   Billy Baldwin Lectures, 1,2,3 and of course 4: Billy Baldwin Gets Personal.

September is a storming calvacade after the languor of Summer months, there’s endless shows, events and a constant instagram fizz of fabulous shots: are you Fashion Week frenzied? LDF? Focus-ed? 100% design? Top Drawer? A Decorative Fair? LAPADA’d? V and A bound, Tent-ed or Design Junction ready…and that’s just London.   Full-on-Fall or what? Choices, choices…

one can’t be front row at everything…

And as the dust clears I am left with a lingering mental imprint of what really caught my eye.    There’s the on-trend East End and the hi-end West End, increasingly the 2 meet through heritage and craftsmanship, as young creatives and established designers seek out traditional production methods and values, a folk sound track is pumping out over both FROW and artisan studio.

Having interviewed de Gournay and Vanderhurd, Decorex was my top spot: it’s a visual feast of sophisticated design where interior players cruise the show, hang out ‘on stand’ and seminar en force.

First up…It was rather magical to see the finished entrance installation de Gournay and Kit Kemp’s dreamt up  – for their interpretation of the Marriage.

I loved how Wedgewood blue met Hockney-graphics.  From the tiered cake and ‘portrait’ fans to  fluttering birds, forest flowers …and bell jar heads it was beautiful and tongue in cheek, A Modern Marriage nailed it. Once inside, appropriately the first stand was de Gournay, justifiably showing off their Lanvin/Rambateau triumph, Art Deco is suddenly quite appealing and a little less masculine in their elegant hands.

There were a lot of Instagram shots celebrating this… including mine. The show celebrated ‘Future Heritage’ the designers and craftsmen of today creating the ‘antiques’ of tomorrow and ‘In the Making’  feature areas showed this in action, having done the factory rounds in India…I like getting close up and personal with the block printing, weaving and master plasterer.

Front weaving their ‘Erased Heritage’ rug, each one 2 years in the making and entirely bespoke.  Michael Eden’s ‘future heritage’ vessels combining modern colour and construction with Neo Classical design. Locker and Riley carving out the lion’s mane and Watts of Westminster block printing… I am regretting not taking up their offer to wield the block stamp… should have right? I let it flow over me walking around, but coming back in replays in groups, lighting, take your pick, for me it’s the colourful glass pendants and sculptural modern beauties which sing loudest.

I am properly obsessed with the Le Deun lighting, ever since I saw them at ABC Carpet and Home and Calypso in NYC:. I love how their sculptural simplicity makes them perfect across the interiors range: classical to uber modern – shaken and stirred any-which-way would all be improved by one of these.  Total Lust. Am I alone in finding lampshades a challenge? It sounds wrong … walking 15 k uphill should be challenging… but it’s true, as Melodi Horne one of my favourite stands at the show said: Lampshade making is a forgotten  art…. It has the power to create mood, an ambience and coloured linings are of paramount importance… dark blue is boudoir, pink is romantic and yellow gives a sunshine feel. Oh and she had fab Cecil Beaton quotes all around her stand, I love ikat fabrics and adore Cecil,  so count me in.

Those fabric wrapped sweeties obviously came home and are tantalisingly jewel-like on my dressing table. Textiles are my first love, I am obsessed with rugs, adore pattern, texture and the transformative power of colour.  So Vanderhurd’s charismatic stand with it’s neon pink backdrop made my heart sing, a little Melodi lamp or Le Deum luminaire and I could move in.

Brit shop par excellence Liberty made country living vibrant and quirky: Whilst Danish husband and wife team Tapet Cafe create beautifully layered textiles, wallpapers and interior design in 50 shades of Farrow and Ball, tie me up and take it home.

The textile list goes on and on, from A to B, Eley Kishimoto to Verdon Fleece. I am always interested in how you create character and comfort in a space and a transformative element is wood: it’s natural, back to basics quality is both nurturing and cocooning. I could commission Courchevel or Meribel straight away for the home counties…. where is their catalogue?

The cabinet makers abound at Decorex, Julian Chichester, to William Yeoward and Paolo Moschino. They take the lexicon of Bristish design heritage and  punch it into 21st century desirability.

But there are so many… where to stop the sketch?  For me designers like Russell Pinch are a real pleasure,  his pieces whisper the word heritage whilst embracing a warm modernism. creating timeless furniture … did I mention he is properly charming?

with his partner Oona

Whatever your after … perfect Georgian cabinetry today. to mud room or boudoir hardware… it is Namaste.

 to Bert and May, the editorial favourite this year.

Lucky those feet were made for walking uphill, 15 k….although I fancied taking a seat under Lewis and Wood’s scenic ‘Sika’ deer  for House and Garden.

and after checking lipstick in the Chinoiserie mirror… look great, foxing works for me.I left the building,

Now I am home the mental sketch book is full of luminous visuals but being a Decorative Affair we might have to start with that Curiosity cabinet I have always fantasised about and saw stand size, including ostrich… yes at Decorex.

Ireland’s country houses are the stuff of interior dreams and good life fantasies, whilst the Irish ‘themselves’ are famed for their céad míle fáilte hospitality, That’s ‘guaranteed a grand time’ to you and me, put it together and you have memories for life.

Last weekend we ALL headed down to Ballyvolane House, yup – the dog was welcome too, on arrival it was high tea with the family’s children in the red clover dining room (complete with dinner gong outside) and the plans began… this is family run hotel with a difference.

Justin and Jenny Green used to run Babington House and met at the Mandarin Oriental they have adroitly created a heritage experience which appeals to the Hip Hotel generation: in a house chock a block with beautiful things exuding country life charm:  there are deep baths, late breakfasts and  ‘farm to table’ dinners on Chinoiserie plates.

(Oscar unable to believe his luck … funnily enough we were first down.)

Mummy unable to believe her luck when this arrived under glowing candlelight.

It’s a magical place: whether your the ‘bride to be’ ready to walk  down the aisle under arched beech trees surrounded by banks of hydrangeas ….

or age 5 and 8 pulling on one of Justin’s country caps and ‘house’ wellies to ‘get down’ with the pigs and collect  still-warm eggs.

Team ready

Me surveying, Oscar surveying,  his whoops-muddy- knees.

Before we both checked out the chickens

job done… 

Ballyvolane ticks all my boxes: its relaxed yet chic, foodie but not fussy, old school but fresh.  This is a tough act to pull off and the Greens have nailed it with boundless charm and enthusiasm.  Shall we walk through together, while I dream once more of the claw foot bath, chinoiserie drawing room and that warm welcome…

The entrance hall with Corinthian topped columns and grand piano centre stage, set off by a glowing coral –  since 1850.  All around are lovely things from grotto chairs  and Turkey-rugs to decorative lamps and flying ducks.  Take a seat after helping yourself at the bar and toss a coin for whose playing “what shall we do with the drunken sailor’ primed and ready on the piano.

The chinoiserie accented drawing room, where when we left Justin was just settling down a family group for tea and where we spent evenings playing cards and perusing the wine list, G and T in hand.

Replete? Day complete? Shall we retire upstairs…past winking cupids, crossed swords and a welcoming buxom lady, to the long corridor smartly upheld by grinning dogs and rococo shells.

to the 8 bedrooms, Tippi settled in straight away:

As did I *…cosy, no?

Of course they are all lovely and all welcoming, we just managed to resist the cookies but I suspect Lyra and Oscar might have eaten them under the covers.

When the food’s this good it’s difficult.

As you leave the guest book is full of glowing compliments: Ballyvolane is special, it has something money can’t buy and 5 stars don’t guarantee. Returning home Lyra turned to me …Please, please can we go again? when? when? Hmmm, Don’t tell her… I’ve booked her birthday weekend and as it’s salmon fishing season, Grandpa’s coming too.

The majority of images are taken by me, the rest are from the photo gallery at Ballyvolanehouse.ie,

*the bath shot is how I felt, however I used Ballyvolane’s as my images were a little more steamed up and hair down…

We fought to protect civilisation in WWII, and during it we saw the ultimate extremes of which human beings are capable: monstrous in fact to profoundly generous,  brave and  determined in the most testing of circumstances.  It was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz recently, one survivor recalled that in this darkest of places the smallest acts of human kindness were like stars falling, and that he chooses to remember these moments, this power of the human spirit to find a golden shaft of light amazes me.  A few of  the thousands of shoes displayed  at Auschwitz in memory of all those who never walked out.

The atrocities of war are only ever a generation away, this complacency and expectation for our way of life is a gift of peace.  With peace also comes the freedom and time to commit energy and effort to creativity,  conversely the destruction of life and civilisation takes but a moment.

The medieval cathedral in Cologne still still standing after World War II … just.  The miracle of Bath and Oxford, St Pauls in London and Kings College Cambridge must be weighed against the myriad losses from Gloucester and Coventry to fairytale towns throughout Europe flattened irreversibly.

But it’s the individual story that brings the mass scale of the destruction home, World  of Interiors visited  Schloss Loosdorf in 2010, describing it as: one of the few extant architectural sites in Austria where WWII can still be felt – the air raid towers of Vienna and the concentration camp of Mauthausen are others. My heart beats faster when I look through this article, the images are scorched on my brain.

A neo classical palace of extraordinary beauty, home to conoisseurs and collectors for centuries, it was vacated briefly in the final brutal sweep of WWII as the Soviet forces closed in, the owners interring their collection of Meissen and Berlin,  Wedgewood and Majolica, Chinese and Japanese porcelain in a concealed cellar space.  The soldiers’ fury at the aristo-decadence contained within the innocent building knew no bounds: the furniture was hacked to pieces, the rare books flung from the windows and burned, the priceless porcelain …well that was unearthed used for target practise and  smashed into irretrievable smithereens.

That the soldiers left the interior scheme from the 18th century, exquisitely detailed and hand painted was due only to a lack of time, their occupation lasted just 12 weeks.  

But apart from this their destruction was so absolute that the owners swept the scattered shards into piles of epic proportion and displayed them alongside the soldiers’  gallows, as a solemn and permanent reminder of our capacity for destruction once unleashed.  There was nothing left to salvage or repair.

the Soviet gallows alongside smashed remnants of the porcelain.Soviet signage presiding over aisles of destruction.

These columns bring home the scale of the damage …

As I make arrangements for a Masters in the Decorative Arts  in a comfortable home free to write what I wish, and plan leisurely travels through Europe this summer, I am grateful: I am not held fast to the yoke of extremism or the extreme circumstance of war. My world is civilised.  What is our civilisation though?  Well if the grand master Kenneth Clark can’t define it, I won’t try, but I appreciate his exploration of its values and the ‘European’ culture we are part of, it seems apt that his introduction to this epic 1969 series was filmed in Paris, the scene of the extremist attacks on the freedom of speech, western values and civilisation as we know it.

Kenneth Clake’s magisterial introduction to Civilisation.

Images from WOI June 2010 photographed by Fritz von der Schulenburg, article written by Michael Huey.

The Oxford Dictionary  defines provenance as the record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality.  In practise provenance reflects the role that ownership has to play in the value we attribute to an item, the more illustrious the owner, and the more closely associated that item is with their personality and interests, the more collectors are prepared to pay.

Take Sotheby’s sale 2 March 2016, 496 lots from the personal collection of Debo, last of the legendary Mitford sisters, Duchess of Devonshire and chatelaine of Chatsworth.  Sotheby’s estimated sale value  was £500-700,000 but on the day it realised  £1,777,838. That’s quite a lot of provenance.

But then Debo was quite the lady. A bastion of British society* that slid irrevocably into the past with her death giving talismanic status both to her closely-chronicled life and by association her personal effects, the only tangible connection to an aristocrat at the heart of the twentieth century elite, charming, upstanding and stylishly  assured in her taste …Debo lives on through provenance.

Debo’s life was a quintessentially English life, ending in the chicest of Granny vicarage’s  complete with her Elvis collection, a silver powder room and countless chickens. Aspects of this were lavishly recreated by Sotheby’s.

So when I passed by their Bond Street window (tantalisingly the day before viewing), I  gazed transfixed into her country kitchen  and pondered  her cosy writing desk both seemingly still ready for their mistress and a pot of tea, oh…please wait for me.

In reality it can’t have been a large amount of her estate, children, grand-children and great-grand children must have all wanted personal mementoes and treasured family pieces.  But what was on sale inevitably reflected her fabled family, her imaginative eye for character and charm and her life-long love affair with the English countryside and its animals which are of course hall marks of aristocratic English style.

Sotheby’s tagged the sale The Last of the Mitfords.

So clearly this line up of the sisters was going to take some bidding. All the Mitfords have provenance and en masse that was multiplied.

Who knew Nancy painted? and this scene from the window of their childhood house immortalised as Alconleigh in The Pursuit of Love proves the power of both her pen, her brush and of course provenance. The Christmas before its publication Evelyn Waugh sent 50 copies of Brideshead Revisited to friends, Debo’s copy was one of only 12 with an added personal note. Brideshead  became the 20th century classic  of the aristocracy, their great houses, and their place in the English landscape and English scheme of things. Whilst  Debo  was a champion of one of England’s great houses, a pioneer in making Chatsworth viable and beloved in the modern age.  Thus the provenance of this edition reflects and magnifies the novel’s themes multiplying its value.

Personally I was rather keen on Debo’s fun jewels, and what better place to keep them than a red lacquer butterfly jewel case… and clearly someone else agreed. SOLD.

You could say it was cupid’s dart.

Or a wise owl.

Or someone got the curio BUG.

Debo had a great line in brooches, which was partly her generation, and partly her eclectic eye. You want to wear them ‘massed’ in my view to be modern.

Yes really! a lobster inkstand brilliant for cheering up correspondence or blank paper-itis .

I like that Debo collected owls too.

Naturally her daughters delicate  watercolours which capture the charm of wild flowers and herbaceous borders also SOLD very well, double provenance.

It’s interesting how well the books did, I think this is because they so accurately reflect a person’s interests and tastes. Whilst the timeless nostalgia of children’s books gave this selection heirloom appeal.

Add a Kennedy connection, double-provenance.

Lettice ware was a surprise winner at Brooke Astor’s New York sale, so it should come as no  surprise how well the green leaf did here.

The english love affair with animals may be well documented but Debo’s provenance transforms their value and as for Debo’s love affairs with chickens….

Champion breeder, she fed hers every day from an Elvis mug, part of her collection of Presley ephemera…to which the title’her grace’s’ adds provenance.

Provenance is the single most powerful factor in raising an item’s value, the intangible allure of owning something which belonged to a celebrated beauty/icon/aristo/conossieur becomes extremely tangible at auction.  It’s importance has only increased in our media obsessed celebrity age, it adds a gilded quality, acquiring talismanic powers way beyond an item’s intrinsic value.  So watch out … for provenance.

Credits and Notes:

images of Deborah Devonshire, please see pinterest, ‘Mitford and More‘.

All other images and videos Sotheby’s.

…of the aristocracy, their great houses, and their place in the English landscape and English scheme of things… quote from A.N. Wilson.

society* : the term used to describe the highest echelon of  British aristocracy in early 20th century Britain.

You may not have heard of her, but you have seen her work, it resides in every fashionable interior’s combination of antique and modern, each trompe l’oeil tease and striped pavilion. It’s reflected in every mirrored wall and all those exotic fur accents that we applaud and  French fantasy trellis rooms we swoon over.  Because Elsie de Wolfe did it first, she wrote the book… literally: The House in Good Taste published in 1914.

Elsie sketched by Cecil Beaton whose career she helped launch in New York.

Elsie became an interior decorator before the term officially existed.  Billy Baldwin the ‘Dean of American decorators’ explained:  What Elsie did became the foundation for all that was to follow: she purged those Victorian houses of their stuffiness and clutter, rid them of bad pictures and bad furniture, began painting walls white, introduced the cult of the antique and the idea of comfort.

The over flowing Victorian interior (above) was swept away by her  new aesthetic  which fused modern elegance with the 18th century, an era poorly represented and out of fashion in 1900.  Elsie embraced the graceful proportions of antique furniture, the soft colour palettes, whimsical elements and  plentiful natural light that made up  the 18th century aesthetic. She worked the distant past to create something new and fashionable.  Shining a light into the cluttered, dark interiors popular at the time she swept away Victoriana creating a decorative vocabulary that still resonates today.

Elsie’s celebrated New York sitting room in 1911 designed with french style panelling and 18th century furniture and lighting. hhhm,  you think it looks a bit dull? well look again.

It’s Warm and inviting.  Elsie made quite a journey to make this trophy room.

Elsie was born in the right place at the right time and made it her own, although she put it rather differently stating:  I was an ugly child born in an ugly time (1865). America was still a young country, where a new elite wanted trophy homes in a heritage style inspired by the European aristocracy of the ‘old world’.  Elsie created schemes which re-defined ‘good taste’ and fashionable living, she then repackaged these into magazine articles and books for the aspiring middle class and made a fortune. The celebrity decorator selling lifestyle dreams started with Elsie de Wolfe.

Famously Elsie was born into the fringes of the elite New York society she longed to join, a plain child dressed in hand me downs.  She escaped to England and enjoyed the season where she saw many of the UK’s finest country houses, absorbing their graceful inherited interiors undamaged by the 19th century’s deluge of bad taste.

A damascene moment occurred as she was presented at court dressed in tulle, train and ostrich feathers (above) and felt the thrill of glamour and beauty for the first time she swore: If I am ugly, and I am, I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life. I could steal for beauty, I could kill for it. Later each interior scheme successfully emphasised a room’s best features, a skill she claimed to  have learnt in the face of her own limited physical attributes.  Back in the US as an aspiring actress she understood and cultivated the power of fashion, photography and personal style to create her own ‘de Wolfe’ brand of allure and celebrity.

One of her couture Parisian gowns which wowed New Yorkers and helped make her name.

Elsie’s big break was not on stage but in being sent to Paris to learn French and absorb French culture for a period play ‘Thermidor’ set just after the 1789 revolution; she became fluent, fell in love with France and the 18th  century. She developed influential friendships including Pierre de Nolhac, THE Versailles curator whose books and passion helped rehabilitate  Marie Antoinette and the Ancien Regime in popular culture.  Naturally fashionable Elsie also discovered Parisian Haute Couture a passion which culminated in the 1936 accolade ‘Best Dressed’ woman in the world… age 70.

In her Mainbocher sunburst cape, inspired by Louis XIV and Versailles, now at the Metropolitan museum.

So while Elsie ultimately failed as an actress she learnt valuable skills and in her increasingly spare time decorated her home.  A home established with Elizabeth Marbury, 10 years her senior and from one of the richest, smartest families in New York society, together they entertained and kept a salon, described as glittering and frequented by Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt, the Morgans, Vanderbilts and Astors. The clearest space to chart Elsie’s decorative journey, on display to her influential friends, is through the dining room.

This begins as a theatrical space, bric and bracced and unrestrained… complete with Elsie in costume painted on the screen.

Then wood work turns white, the copious wall plates are removed, the fireplace is mirrored, a bust of Marie antoinette appears while the layered carpets disappear and Louis XVI cane chairs replace dark English ones.  Finally the harsh over heading lighting is banished and french mirror backed wall sconces installed.

The dining room’s elegant final appearance in early 1900’s, here mirrored panels frame cupboard doors, there’s a new table with chic foot stools for her diners’ added comfort doubling as extra seats for their busy Sunday afternoon salons. Elsie was developing her ‘creed for comfort’ incorporating all the small details that enhance the functionality of a room.

She doesn’t make this pioneering journey all by herself.  Elizabeth Marbury aware of her frustrations both at home and at the demise of her theatrical career, hires Ogden Codman the architect  who believed: the French Revolution brought about the general downfall in taste.   He helped her tackle the architectural elements between 1987 and 1903  achieving the transformation which established her early aesthetic, such as the drawing room where they added panelling, a decorative niche and mirrroring to improve the long narrow space.  I also like the sound of a chinoiserie hall with a soft grey velvet handrail… however no images exist for this.But what about this chinoiserie entrance she created for Anne Vanderbilt in 1921 with 6 ft pagodas  (from Brighton Pavillion) and  a  Chinese statue in a bamboo trimmed niche surrounded by a hand painted wallpaper of flowering cherry trees and delicate bamboo.

In 1905 Elsie won the contract to decorate the first ever ladies club in New York. The bad press of such an immoral establishment (respectable women could not travel unaccompanied at this time…) was overcome by the spectacular interiors Elsie created over an intense two year period often living on site. Where the world expected the standard gentleman’s’ club environment, Elsie offered up a new creed of power interior: elegant, feminine and sophisticated.  Believing : It is the personality of the mistress that the home (and club) expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there.  Everyone was seduced.The club’s Trellis Room was a sensation, Ogden Codman had used trellis in a private ball room in New Port in 1900, and Elsie had read about it in 18th century Paris,  but  the American public (including the press) had never seen the like. 40 ft by 20 ft with dark green trellis work, a fountain  and hanging lanterns  Elsie created an 18th century garden room for New York ladies. Her private dining room made an intimate success of the most banal of rooms, panelled mouldings on soft yellow walls were lined in pale grey paper then hand painted in exuberant Rococo designs of flowers, ribbons, arabesques in Pompadour colours. Complemented by striped upholstery with rose brocade on elegant Marie Antoinette style chairs. She even created grille cabinets to hide radiators, lined in rose silk with inbuilt planters on top.

The bedrooms set the standard for hotel bedrooms EVER since. This image is from the ‘show house’ she created with Ogden a few years later, naturally America’s first and another huge hit with the press. Elsie included: desks for notes (pre-texting), dressing tables by the windows, a slipper chair and stool for … stockings, bedsides with handy lights, a daybed for resting, and of course the hi-tech telephone. All with lashings of floral chintz in cheerful colours.

Elsie even designed the blue and buff uniforms for the Colony Club staff.

Her career and her brand were established, under her maxim: suitability, simplicity and proportion.  Put more simply: I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint.  

Elsie’s interiors inspired an American  population awed by the pace of change in their modern cities,  by making it chic to aspire to a cultural past, she entranced the nation and her book ‘In Good Taste’ became a bestseller and first interiors guide.

Her trophy client list grew and grew. She even designed the private rooms for Henry Clay Frick’s mansion, after writing: Please don’t forget me! I am specailly good at detail and fitting up and the comfort of women’s rooms, the intimate little tricks that no mere man, no matter how clever he may be, can ever know. Here above what is now the museum she created beautiful living quarters along this corridor with sleek panelling and softly lit coved ceiling, I love the ceiling  painted in 18th century style Arabesques and the modern gallery wall.

In Conde Nast’s apartment she designed a Chinoiserie ballroom …the hand painted wallpaper shipped over, from the Duke of Portland’s attic, a provenance  coup which Nast and Elsie appreciated.

like the zig zag leopard print pelmets ?Wallis Simpson , the Pierspoint Morgans, Vanderbilts and Astors were all early clients. After the war her clientele and taste embraced Hollywood and Café Society becoming more glamorous and flamboyant, her evolving style more obviously relevant and inspiring to designers working today.

Take the hall below where clean architectural lines reflect in mirrored pilasters, there’s slick black skirting and stairs vividly off set by an exotic zebra runner alongside her signature 18th century furniture and lighting. New York apartment for Hollywood actress Hope Hampton.
Then look at Kelly Wearstler’s modern entrance…

Or the bathroom below, Elsie became the talk of Paris when she received guests… in her bathroom in the 1930’s age 60 plus.

She literally reinvented the bathroom as a glamorous entertaining space, taking inspiration from the 18th century ‘Toilette’ ritual where women received admiring callers in their dressing room boudoirs… so Elsie hung out in her bath-boudoir practising yoga or mixing cocktails depending on the hour.  She combined her elegant 18th C  langauge with the exotic materials of Art Deco and the glamour of Hollywood creating a new interior aesthetic.As she said, possibly from a head stand position: It is my boudoir-bathroom…that I can always come home to with joy… it (is) the last word in modern luxury.

The cocktail of decorative effects that Elsie shook together in her bathroom dazzled; marble walls were offset  by a mirrored cornice and fireplace etched with sea monsters and mermaids.  Oyster light fittings gleamed overhead while gilt swan’s head taps hung over the marble bath.   The curtains were shimmering silver lamé, the floor dense creamy pile with moroccan rugs, equipped with black lacquer and mirrored furniture and a zebra skin sofa (later white) for guests to lounge on…The New York Times  gossiped: Ambassadors, statesmen, famous artists and authors, even royalty, have admired it and have enjoyed tea parties and after-dinner coffee surrounded by its beauties.

   The chicest of New York decorators today Miles Redd not only has a trellis garden with stripes,

and zebra skin doors…

but also a mirrored bathroom he entertains in…

In black tie with the girls…

So Elsie lives on.

Elsie painted by Boutet de Monvel.

Because Elsie is a legend, self-created and pioneering, she combined  great style  with great substance. So keep looking out for her she’s still here.

Credits:

Penny Sparke: Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration.

Nina Campbell and Caroline Sheebohm: Elsie de Wolfe, A Decorative Life.

Charlie Scheips: Elsie de Wolfe’s Paris, Frivolity before the storm.

Adam Lewis: The Great Lady Decorators 1870-1945.

Elsie’s true love was her houses and the most beloved of these was ‘Trianon’ in Versailles which I think deserves its own post alongside ‘After All’ the extraordinary house she created in Los Angeles.

Post 1: The Making of a Legend

Post 2: After All (out May 2016)

hey and maybe Post 3: Elsie Now (because once you start looking Elsie’s influence is everywhere…)

London is championing the crafts, the quality of materials, the detail and precision of skilled craftsmen. Experienced designers harness crafts to create unique pieces that give depth and character to interiors. These crafts are the modern decorative arts, future heirlooms and antiques, they help the creative world and interiors stay beautiful. Worth championing and so the great and the good were out in full force…

Including me, I went off to hear Kit Kemp and Christine Van Der Hurd in conversation. A powerful pair who know how to collaborate, their  designs celebrate the sensory power of colour and texture, our global heritage and the bespoke possibilities of commissioning craftsmen and artists. Listening I was really struck by the compositional rigour, the intensely structured interplay of colour, scale, pattern and global folk references woven together both at ‘home and hotel’. Ground rules you might say.

A hotel bedroom. Note the colour inserted into the valance kick back. The picture frames. Headboard. The arrangement of colour in graphic blocks.

A sitting room in Kit’s house, where the artwork is at the heart of the interior scheme and a piano (out of sight)…art and music, great combo right.

 A suite at Ham Yard uses several framing elements to define the space: those colourful back rests, the floor rugs and then the geometrical interplay of rectangles along the rear wall.

Kit Kemp’s spaces are uniquely hers, something which Firmdale has turned into the cognescenti’s hotel brand, championing her exuberantly idiosyncratic English style. Her aesthetic is inimitable, something which Christine through Vanderhurd shares, their synergy is based on common values and mutual understanding.

Kit describes Christine as the ‘chicest person I know…a brilliant colourist…‘. Above are examples of Christine’s designs across woven, printed and embroidered textiles.

Each collaboration produces unique results, despite years of sampling and thousands of coloured yarns  – the infinity of colour requires new samples for each of Kit’s rooms.  Christine’s ‘infallible eye’ skilfully develops these over several samples deliberating woven structures, material and scale.  The detail and precision of this are vital to the quality and longevity of the finished product and scheme. And what schemes.

A densely layered suite at Ham Yard: woven carpet, embroidered fabrics over the sofa and fuchsia chairs, printed fabrics on the curtains (and a final blue chair ) then look beyond and printed fabric becomes framed artwork on the walls.  Here several elements play with scale over the different textures.  Zoning in on one element: Christine’s woven tribal carpet uses a  hand spun hemp yarn for an organic feel within the block design. It’s all in the details…

In Covent Garden you can see how the colour and pattern graduates, embroidered fabrics appear over the chairs in different densities,  printed curtain feel neat and then the pattern becomes an abstract presence once overscaled in the rug.  It’s the rug that anchors EACH space, without it, the scheme would float,  it grounds the schemes.

At Ham Yard, the headboard’s embroidery is scaled to complements its size and shape, picked out with orange piping. Once again the ‘grounding’ carpet is woven, the curtains printed, here the walls are covered in fabric, but do you start to see a few ground rules underpinning these schemes?

The drawing room at Crosby Street in NYC two identical rugs anchor each seating area, both overscaled florals. An embroidered Vanderhurd fabric reflects Kit’s love of 3D fabrics on 3D shapes to accentuate their sculptural presence.  The chunky woven stripes and patchwork sofa layer up behind the vibrant velvet chesterfield.

The drawing room in London hits the spot too, can you spot some ground rules?

These interiors invite you to relax, they spill over with interesting things, that offer a seemingly casual harmony, comfortably layered and evolved.  Kit’s well honed aesthetic has captured customers’ hearts and won several design awards. So if you love the Firmdale hotels, who doesn’t? and you lust after Vanderhurd’s vibrant creations there are a few ground rules.  A ‘do try this at home’ checklist for bold interior statements.

Embrace your location, got a caribbean hideaway? make like Kit who used colours of equal vibrancy to the exotic locale,  off set by a neutral textures here coral stone walls,  driftwood  pendants and rope lamps  further connecting the interior to the landscape. That back wall has mirror framed vintage fabrics, the mirror expands the pattern increasing their presence within the scheme.

Outside sea, sky and ceiling are turquoise…Kit says she is more frightened of beige than any other colour.

There’s lots of London references at Ham Yard (particularly the Queen who is after all in residence down the road) …

I might make a collage like the one below, which is in the lift  playfully layering images of London and Ham Yard, linking space and place and forming a visual moodboard for the hotel/ your /my interior:

When it comes to creating the graphic lines within a scheme Kit likes to break the rules, to play with scale:

Firmdale is well known for its statement headboards which dominate a bedroom.  My friend did this recently to great effect and we all want to stay over (but the cat gets there first -everytime).

In Ham Yards basement Dive Bar, a tricky space with no natural light a fabric design ‘rik-rak’ was overscaled and appears on the rear wall with a giant mud chandalier in front of it.  Check out the cheeky neon diver just splashing the wall …

In the restaurant a huge sunburst mirror energises the wall.

While In the entrance a Venetian console has a giant painting over it, which both enlarges the space and plays against the traditional console/painting arrangement. Note the smaller scaled rik rak below.

Ham Yard is on a larger scale than any previous Firmdale hotel and Kit skilfully wove together her signature elements over half an acre of ground floor space with epic results, the common thread: hand crafted pieces and folk art.

The reception takes place under a giant  loom installation reflecting Kit’s passion both for textiles and artisan work.

Walk round… and behind this area the cream wall reflects and bounces the vibrant juxtaposition of Anatolian rug, modern art work and sculptural chandelier, look closely and spot the colourful marbles in the balustrade.

Kit’s interiors tell a story and part of this tale is conveyed by ‘words and pictures’ as Kit says,  a wall of books is the best wall covering a room can have. I like how she often takes the dust covers off so that the books are softer and more textural in the shelves.

Library Ham Yard

Artwork is deeply personal and Kit is mistress of the witty reinvention and stand out framing to make pieces sing.

Beetles in embroidered frames again crisp checks and over mother pearl bedside.

1000’s of penny passementerie butterflies gathered and framed in perspex.

Dog framed and embraced by … dog food labels … yes really.

Kit creates visually compelling artwork both through the framing and quantity:

The bowling alley at Ham Yard has a wall of vintage bowling shoes scoured from eBay and framed in perspex boxes.

Lovely Robina Jack plates are set into perspex boxes against black felt so that they really stand out in the drawing room at Ham Yard.

Where 3 ships  -not 1- come sailing home and next door there are  3 lamps in 1…

Finalé of the (my) multiple- moments … an installation of clocks in front of the lifts… because everyone in London is always in a hurry.  It’s so many things at once: striking, surprising, thought provoking, humorous and CREATIVE.

In fact, I might have to sit down in the Shade Bar next door and just take a moment and cup of English tea to absorb all this, book in hand.

Indeed you could fill a book (and several blog posts) with just Ham Yard and Kit has pretty much done that,  Every Room Tells a Story, is not only a beautiful picture book but also openly generous with sources and design advice. In it she explains I like to weave stories with colour and pattern, objects and art is how I try to incite a visitor’s curiosity and keep them moving from one room to the next.  Working with artists and designers like Christine weaves their meaning and stories into an interior space that draws you deeper into the experience. This is what makes Firmdale hotels so interesting to stay in and this is why when creating our homes Kit’s words of wisdom resonate, let the conversation continue and her ground rules could just let your creativity go bold.

Credits:

Kit Kemp and Christine Van der Hurd in conversation at London Craft Week.

Vanderhurd

*Every Room Tells a Story. book by  Kit Kemp

I finally went to Versailles, it was Monday the palace was closed to the public and we echoed through the vast space of the state apartments, I could have cart wheeled through the Hall of Mirrors…WHY didn’t I? I suppose I was scribbling furiously as John Whitehead held forth eloquently. While we were there they were moving furniture and paintings and the most famous of Versailles’ queens floated past…

Versailles is synonymous with the King Louis XIV who conjured up the most magnificent palace in Baroque Europe from marshland to dazzle both his court and royal neighbours.
A flamboyant display of power: gilded, carved, mirrored and marbled to excess throughout the state apartments with the enfilade thoroughfare ensuring maximum display and power-play.

Louis’s vision and determination transformed the French decorative arts, importing craftsmen, establishing guilds, factories  and academies, commissioning and commissioning, building and decorating – all with a connoisseur’s eye.  His legacy was France’s unquestioned leadership in fashion, taste and luxury goods supported by unparalleled craftsmanship. His ticking time-bomb an insistence on absolute rule and a crippling system of royal protocol that detonated a fault line between Versailles and the country at large exploding in revolution. Caught in this gilt rift and final blast, Marie Antoinette, the last queen of Versailles and the queen of taste.

Marie Antoinette’s formal life was conducted in the very state apartments Louis created almost a hundred years before.  Desperate to escape  and have a ‘vie privée*’  her private apartments and the Petit Trianon are some of the most exquisite rooms and interiors in Versailles.   So this palace which is synonymous with Louis and his grand scale self-glorification is also synonymous with its last inhabitant, a female intent on escaping it. Pierre de Nolhac, Versaille’s extraordinary curator (1892-1920), who helped restore, re-furnish and revive Versailles describes her Petit Trianon as: exceedingly elegant, but in no case lavish: pure good taste in place of the expected luxury. Marie Antoinette’s charming rooms  are both sophisticated and naturally beautiful,  the finest craftsmanship and designers of 18th century Europe focused on creating rooms which are a sensory balm and a personal Eden.Petit Trianon’s graceful  neo-classical proportions were designed by Jacques Anges Gabriel in 1762.  An elegant exercise on a ‘cube’ each facade  was modulated to its function and position within the palace domain, celebrating the classical orders. Does it looks familiar?..well it has been a source of inspiration ever since its completion, the facade and scale celebrated and repeatedly explored.

Designed as a Maison de Plaisance for Madame de Pompadour, but completed only after her death in 1768.  Louis XVI gave Marie Antoinette (aged 19) a key studded with 513 diamonds on ribbon…Madame you love flowers. I have bouquet to offer you. It is Petit Trianon… Marie Antoinette had her own miniature kingdom, where even the king needed an invitation to enter.

Shall we can go in…

The entrance facade features a giant order, topped by corinthian capitals.

Why? well the giant order symbolically announces the illustrious royal connection, then scale wise their monumentality unifies the facade and from a distance delicately ties it with decorative ribbons.  My kind of ribbons. Inside is where we see both the early emergence of the new neo-classical style  architecturally  (1760’s) and its decorative peak in Marie Antoinette’s redecoration of the principle rooms. 

The vestibule is a beautifully proportioned, purely architectural space echoing the exterior’s facades and its bucolic location, look at the chequered floor – now softly faded – the  green campania marble squares were chosen to echo the grass outside. 

looking up to the first floor and under the lantern…The lantern was traditionally used to protect candles from the wind in vestibules where guests dismounted from their coaches: the transitional space from the exterior to interior. At Petit Trianon Marie Antoinette and her designers used it in several public spaces enhance the interiors connection to nature. Marie Antoinette had her cipher inserted into the balustrade (replacing Louis XV’s) made  by Francois Boichois.  Framed by the French cockerel and symbols of french royalty  and alternately hung with trophies celebrating Hermés the God of transition and boundaries.

Spot the exterior’s garlanded windows?

Spot the interior’s garlanded windows? Inside and Out, Inside-Out, Outside-In, the Trianon plays with your senses.

So let’s make sure we have our bearings (thank you internet!):

As you enter the anti-chamber ‘Rustic Luxe’ which is the Style Trianon fully reveals itself.. even from the turn of a door handle it’s ALL about: the use of flowers and floral motifs on every surface and in every form, roses and lilies of the valley, myrtle and lilies, sunflowers and ears of corn (épis), strewn in all their natural simplicity, woven into graceful garlands, arranged in artful bouquets, mingled with motifs of pearls and ribbons, and scattered in profusion over furniture and objets d’art.  You got the message…it’s exquisite. Carved by Honoré Guibert – Marie Antoinette didn’t touch it. Do you see the fleur de lys  -lillies (symbols of French royalty) intertwined with the ornate looped  myrtle-leaf ‘L’s’ .

‘French Grey’, is really ‘Trianon Gray’ which is actually  a bad 19th Century paint job over the original, pale green ,which restoration has only recently revealed  … and chosen once again to echo nature beyond the windows.  There’s little of Versailles gilt here…and no formal court dress, Marie Antoinette and friends received ‘en chemise’.  The  painting of the Queen in this boho-chic caused such a storm at the 1783 Salon du Louvre that it had to removed:It’s difficult to imagine now how scandalised people were but then Elizabeth Vigée le Brun hastily repainted the Queen in a  more formal and patriotic style: a Lyons silk dress in a royal and loyal shade of blue  (tellingly in exactly the same pose to refute the queen’s critics claiming lax morals and more besides) with a rose the symbol of love and grace.

It’s the first thing that greets you in the ante chamber today.

Opposite busts of her brother and husband, (her brother who saved the queen by literally explaining the requirements of the marital act to her husband Louis) .  You’d probably walk by the wooden stools, but they survived the revolution,  created for her dairy at Rambouillet and designed to mimic ancient Greek stools traditionally made with strapped leather, strongly neo classical and in the plainest wood, these were designed by Hubert Robert and carved by  Georges Jacob.

There’s another pair dotted either side of the console, beyond the dining room door where  garlands of grapes drape either side of a mask of Bacchus, the God of the harvest and wine. A recurring theme in this space, where the art reflects the source of its food in scenes of fishing, hunting and the harvest … and  do you see the carved quivers full of arrows to catch your prey?

Marie Antoinette’s bust still presides over the mantlepiece carved with  nature’s bounty.

Even the chandelier hangs from a ceiling rose articulated by cornucopia, classical horns of plenty, overflowing to the feast below… possibly served on the Sèvres dinner service hand painted with Marie Antoinette’s favourite cornflowers, encircled by pearls and framed in GREEN. 

Through the small dining room we trot, still large enough for billiards…

to the Grand Salle.

Which clearly inspired Vogue on the release of THAT film:

So picture that right here…

Where flowers are combined with musical trophies and Marie Antoinette would play her harp  …Everywhere there’s a jewel like quality to the work, look closely at the candelabra’s mounts  and the mirrors carved edging:

see?

When the General Estates met in 1789 the provincial deputies were all desperate to see the Petit Trianon, where the rooms were apparently decorated with precious stones. Although the queen demanded the finest work, this is the closest it gets to diamond studded walls…

So we dream on today, imagining close friends and the queen  reclined on the sofa, buying  19th century copies of these finest 18th century chairs. The square  die joins (the dice at the top of the leg) and fluted legs (en carquois) are quick identifiers as to whether your having a Marie Antoinette chair moment. These though are the originals made by Jean-Baptiste Claude Sené (second only to Georges Jacob) and covered in Lyons damask.Then there’s the central lantern: can you just make out the stars in their enamel surround at the top?This lantern is one of the most beautiful ever made, with mounts by Thomire of musical elements on deep blue enamel work , sold in the revolution, its importance meant the government bought it back under Napoleon in 1811.  Just when  Marie Antoinette’s Austrian niece Marie-Louise was Empress of France and the Petit Trianon once again a private refuge, how often did she consider her Aunt’s fate I always wonder.Her Aunt who was so intent on privacy that her boudoir had mirrored panels installed by the Métivier brothers which could cover the windows.  The  ‘Wedgewood’ inspired blue and white boiserie scheme,  made by the Rousseau brothers would then infinitely reflect Marie Anoinette: shielded entirely from the outside world,  oblivious to day or night, cocooned.

Small rooms are so much more intimate, their beauty embraces you.

Beside the boudoir, Marie Antoinette’s bedroom. documents have recently shown that the queen’s locksmith  Sieur Juneau created a system whereby , she can open and close the doors from her bed at will.  All this leads us into Mills and Boon speculation around Axel de Fersen her reputed lover and the Queen, whose bed looked out over the Temple of Love.

The bed and chairs are climax of the bucolic fantasy created at Trianon,

The ‘ears of corn’ suite, by Georges Jacob, topped with pine cones and entwined with jasmine, honeysuckle and lillies of the valley, rustic details painted in the colours of truth and nature and upholstered in embroidered roses and cornflowers.

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Marie Antoinette arrived in Versailles age just 15.  She kept talismanic reminders of her Austrian home and family whenever she could and here in her  bedroom the clock resting between the Hapsburg eagles still strikes the hour …
Why does Marie Antoinette and the Style Trianon endure?  In an era surrounded by such extraordinary beauty and wealth, backed by the writings of Rousseau, refined simplicity and ‘back to nature’ became the ultimate chic in la vie douce*. Petit Trianon is the pastoral dream of a supremely sophisticated urban design team, a project which still resonates loudly today as city types dash down to country retreats for the weekend, or spend summers in greener pastures – just as Marie Antoinette and her friends did.  We still seek to reflect nature’s  beauty as a source of solace, inspiration and restoration.

When the fish wives marched on Versailles in October 1789, forcing the royal family to return to Paris with them,  mob rule overturned the established order and the revolution’s fuse was lit.  That day as guards desperately sought members of the royal family, Marie Antoinette was found alone in the grounds of her private kingdom, rural idyll and enchanted world that is the Petit Trianon,  it was the last time she saw it.

History continues to rewrite the life of Marie Antoinette but one thing is clear, Petit Trianon, is a lasting legacy of the Ancient Regime*,  the queen’s taste and a creation of timeless beauty, I could go back again and again.

CREDITS:

photographs of the Petit Trianon taken by ADA.

Paintings of Marie Antoinette from the internet, sources easily available, except the last image photographed by ADA at the Victoria and Albert museum.

the Petit Trianon’s decoration under Marie Antoinette was overseen by her premier architect Richard Mique, with a dream team! Thomire, the Rousseau brothers and Jean Henri Riesener.

la vie privée is a termed which only entered french society in the 18th century. as notions of privacy asserted themselves, and the concept of a private life emerged.

la vie douce, the aristocratic sweet life, a life of refinement and beauty.

Ancien Regime: the established order of pre-revolutionary France divided into its three estates.

How was your birthday this year? because quite frankly however you celebrated, the ultimate birthday celebrations are Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s  33rd birthday in 1753. After a private theatrical performance, the Swedish royal family strolled through Drottingholm park and there her 7 year son – dashingly dressed as a Chinese prince – presented her with a key on a red velvet cushion, then the trees parted and there stood a Chinese pavilion, which had been secretly constructed off site and then erected in the palace grounds overnight, a real fairytale creation…the loveliest imaginable (she wrote to her mother).  Thus began eight days of celebration and a birthday gift which has kept on giving, to the extent that it is now a UNESCO world heritage site.  So when we went to Stockholm  I persuaded my husband to join me on a the chinoiserie-pilgrimage…I think it helped we went by boat.

It slipped through the archipelago while we sipped clear white wine and slipped back local delicacies.  Fortifying for a ‘cultural heritage’ tour with the Mrs, who map in hand at Drottingholm, swerved left as we arrived …at the guards pavilion:

It was a pit-stop for one and total inspiration for the other.

STRIPES! lambrequins! tassels! trompe-l’oeil, Rope… curtains UP.

It’s a perfect fantasy construction, an ephemera recently restored to its former 18th century  glory.  The chinese pavilion’s construction failed fairly quickly (1763), but its popularity meant it was swiftly rebuilt in its present form by 1769, as  chinoiserie mania was at its pagoda’d heights in 18th century Europe.  

The central grand pavilion  shown above was framed by four separate smaller pavilions, containing billiards, wood-turning (I kid you not) and the ultimate in private 18th century dining style… ‘the confidence’ … a mechanised dining room where servants hoisted the dining table and dumb-waiters into position, course by course, from below and you dined in strictest confidence.

All this was designed by Carl Frederick Adelcrantz, director of Public Works,  and Jean Eric Rehn, Surveyor of the King’s household.  But Chinoiserie entwined itself throughout 18 th century Europe, we can see French and English influences within the building .   Sir William Chamber’s illustrated guide ‘Designs of Chinese Buildings,Furniture, Dresses, Machines and Utensils’ was widely disseminated despite its tongue-twister of a title:

plate 2 from Chamber’s book.

chimes with the exterior of the Chinese Pavilion.

While inside the main Green and Blue Drawing Rooms at either end of the central pavilion, have romantic Rococo -Chinoiserie painted interiors inspired by the fashionable French artists Francois Boucher (below), Antoine Watteau and Jean Pillement.  

So this Eastern inspired summer house is also realised and inspired by multiple European sources and influences, and yet at its heart remains Swedish, reflecting the tastes of the royal family and their interests, from the tiled Swedish stoves to their collection of Chinese dolls,  from the embroidery the queen and her ladies undertook to her husband the King who gave his wife a precious link to her family home in Prussia …

Where the  Chinese Tea House  was commissioned for Sanssouci. So back to those trees parting… WHAT a present.In Lovisa’s era the walls gleamed with oil paint to mimic the lacquered red and yellow of chinese temples, today dragons and palm trees still support the second story and bells chime under the undulating roofline.

An inventory compiled in 1777 just before Lovisa’s death, when it fell out of fashion, has enabled a large scale restoration project to return the pavilion not only to its ‘original state’ but also to source and accurately place over 75% of the original furniture.  As you step through the door, you step back in time and feel the full skill of the 18th century decorative arts.

The marble hall’s restrained neo-classicism is  a visual palette-cleanser before you travel the Chinoiserie rainbow.  Its angular geometric shape accentuates the cool colour scheme, the monochrome marble floor and the soft shades of scagliola (imitation marble) walls are only enlivened with gilt trims and rococo gilt reliefs poised between the five double doors.

Either left or right, you enter the Red or Yellow Rooms, symmetrical rooms and schemes, both incorporating costly imported lacquer panels into the European conception of Chinese design and reflecting the exterior colour scheme.

The intersecting rings (above) and ‘meander’ (at the top of walls above the chandelier below) are both in William Chamber’s book. The circular overdoors are Swedish visions of the Chinese lacquer panels incorporated into the walls below where they are  finished with Swedish ‘Chinese’ symbols framed by European ‘Chinese’ garlands. There’s a constant through ‘the looking glass’ effect  of endless refractions between East and West as you peer deeper into these schemes.

Then the overdoors from the yellow room are inspired by Francois Boucher’s romantic Chinoiserie and the vibrant yellow bounces off bright pink in the embroidered room beyond.   Look closely at the details….details…details…to seehow much intricate work and thought was put into these tiny rooms.The occasional splash of fashionable Rococo  even occurs in these supposedly ‘authentic’ Chinese interiors, like the corner console above.  The 17 th century porcelain urn is once again resting  on its top…within touching distance of us, the 21st century visitor.

These are jewel box rooms, you could literally have tea for two,  but its their intimacy that makes you inhale their jewelled interior, lit up by Rococo foliate chandeliers, framed by the rocaille gilt trim and meander edging (in red and gilt).

So we pass through to the curved galleries – see the door open above- one either side of the red and yellow rooms, a yellow gallery connects the red to the green drawing room, a green gallery connects the yellow to the blue drawing room.  Do you sense a rainbow theme here? I do.There are delicate and unassuming Chinese lanterns, simple panelling and display cabinets for family treasures, my favourite? the beaded glass pagoda from the 17th Century and Queen Hedvig Eleonora.The blue and green drawing rooms at either end of the pavilion (and these galleries) are the ultimate in 18th century entertaining, simultaneously channeling the inside-outside trend still going strong today whilst serving as drawing room, dining room and banquet hall as required. Sometimes both sets of drawing room doors would be open and guests could mingle between these rooms in scented summer gardens and the rooms would become virtual verandas with potted plants inside and out to blend space and fantasy together. Both rooms are hand painted with imaginary scenes of mythic Cathay, Chinoiserie pilgrims show their respects.Emerald green, gilt and fresh white –  add trellis work, panelling and cartouches -timeless chic. I love looking into the framed scenes and carved details.

snapping away…

Before crossing the courtyard to its Blue pendant. Here enlarged scenes are placed into panels, each one a musical tableau:looking back into the green gallery.Up into the chandelier…see how each pictorial element is at eye level.Not forgetting those gilt edged panels and trellis work:and then the musical scenes themselves:In this romantic Rococo vision of China, inspired by the ‘blue and white’ export porcelain  collected by European royalty and aristocrats, there are endless charming details beautifully painted to entertain visitors and massage away daily life, no wonder Chinoiserie still appeals today…The ho ho birds, the flowers, the ladies … it’s all idyllic.  You might want to stay… Queen Luvisa never did, but her bed chamber exists, for retiring too between the summer fun. Its original cerise watered silk with silver trims has faded now, but its still exquisite teamed with vibrant green.Upstairs the octagonal room’s  walls are covered in silk hangings painted by  Chinese artists to their idea of far-flung European taste, our native flora and fauna… Euroiserie?Completed with the Swedish tiled stove, it’s an idiosyncratic mix that twists the Chinoiserie kaleidoscope one notch further.

From here the oval room (see those colour shifts, pink-blue-green, move  over boring Grey on Gris):

Shall we just move in?

The Chinese Pavilion is an incredibly rare, well preserved example of the exquisite Rococo Chinoiserie in the 18th century, why does it matter? why do we care?

Our desire to create beauty, infusing sensory and intellectual pleasure into our surroundings, is the most powerful and lasting expression of civilisation, while an interest in the world beyond our own reflects the curiosity essential to all our progress.  The Pavilion enshrines this in the finest of 18th century craftsmanship, enabling a dialogue between past and present, to treasure and enjoy. Indeed perhaps like Mr OC you might have to lie down and recover at the dizzying wonder of it all after the extensive pilgrimage…

as you hear the wife say, ‘Next birthday could you possibly …make mine a pavilion’.

Credits:

all images taken by me except for plans of the pavilion and the Sanssouci Tea house, from Wikipedia.

Specific information about the pavilion is from ‘the Chinese Pavilion’ a room by room guide for visitors.

Want to know more about Chinoiserie? it’s on the blog… origins, history and contemporary examples.