Images via Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum
First Image, A Regency Egyptian revival settee designed by Thomas Hope (1769-1831) for the Egyptian Room at his Duchess Street residence in London, c. 1802, and Second Image, a drawing of the Egyptian Room.
A wealthy (the Hope Diamond was in his family, hence its name) art collector and architecture enthusiast from a family of bankers, Hope was particularly interested in arts from the Ottoman Empire. He designed many classicist pieces in addition to the rooms he fashioned for his residence at Duchess Street, and notably published a book of his own designs, called Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, in 1807.
Less notably, there's a lot of bizarre Hope-related ephemera floating around the internet. Wikipedia, for instance, dubiously cites him as the inventor of the Battenberg cake. While I would like for this to be true (it is, after all, a square pink and yellow checkered cake covered in marzipan), I very much doubt it.
There's also this little interactive site hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, where you can design your own Hope-inspired room by placing his sketches of furniture, ornaments, ceilings, and other items, in one of the four Duchess Street room backdrops, and then digitally coloring them. All I can say is: embarrassingly time consuming.
Less notably, there's a lot of bizarre Hope-related ephemera floating around the internet. Wikipedia, for instance, dubiously cites him as the inventor of the Battenberg cake. While I would like for this to be true (it is, after all, a square pink and yellow checkered cake covered in marzipan), I very much doubt it.
There's also this little interactive site hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, where you can design your own Hope-inspired room by placing his sketches of furniture, ornaments, ceilings, and other items, in one of the four Duchess Street room backdrops, and then digitally coloring them. All I can say is: embarrassingly time consuming.
10 comments:
Lauren, what a wonderful blog! I am a sucker for Neo-classical and love the frayed tapestry as well. Look forward to more visuals!
Just stumbled upon your blog. Gorgeous! You have quite an eye!
wow... your blog is really really beautiful... definitely going to come back often!!
x.katie
Mr Hope - a true genius.
I cannot recommend Hewat-Jaboors book on the great man enough.
Have a look at 1st Dibs Style Compass at Jaboor' house on Jersey.....he basically made Hope what he is today; if that makes sense.
Oh - and comments on the porphry walls???
the settee was purchased by bright young thing Gavin Faringdon in the 20s at the estate sale of Hope's country house Deepdene - you can see it installed at his house Buscot Park here http://www.buscot-park.com/frameset4.html where it still is to this day....
Wow the sette is incredible!!
Wow the settee is really amazing!
http://fashionroadkill-halifax.blogspot.com
Theresa- Thank you! The frayed tapestry is gorgeous, but what's even more amazing is that it isn't a tapestry at all! It's a painted canvas that's really worn down over the years.
Lindsey and katie- thank you!
EEE- Thank you for the link. What an interesting story Buscot Park has surrounding it. I only wish it were feasible for me to take a trip and see it in person right now, along with the settee in its natural habitat.
Off the List- Thank you, I will definitely check out that Style Compass. As for porphyry walls, I think that alone deserves a post! I love porphyry, its such an unusual stone with such a magnificent color.
regarding the settee: something about that restoration seems ever so incorrect. It's the recumbent lions. They have been buried alive in black lacquer. I have been back a dozen times looking and looking again and then cerebrating and finally seeing. It just does not feel right and I have learned to trust my gut. I think that those cats were originally GILDED. Glowing, growling and Gilded. If I am wrong I am humbly sorry, but I do not think that I am. Envision them my way and see if they don't come alive and set the piece afire with their gilded insoucience. They were conceived in an age of utter refinement and wretched excess. Not a bad combination in the right hands. The dunning down of their presence with black is unsettling and denies the complete piece its visual glory and spatial energy. Where's the gold?
Anonymous- this is really interesting. While I can't speak to the accuracy of the restoration (because I know very little about it), something about what you've said makes sense. Just following the pattern of black and gold on the from the leg upward would seem to suggest that the cats SHOULD have capped the settee with gold. It would have sung, you are right.
Post a Comment