Author: Michael Chappell

One of the things I had most looked forward to in an era that has seen a dearth of country house sales was the one scheduled nine years ago of the contents of Dumfries House. Is this politically incorrect? A heritage industry solecism? Of course it is, but I am unrepentantly acquisitive, and it is as a dealer that I fuel my obsession with buying things. Imagine, then, my initial disappointment when Prince Charles  intervened at literally the 11^th hour, saving the house and its contents for the nation.

Oh, well, now I’ve offended every English Heritage, National Trust and Historic Homes Association card member, I must say that, absent owning a bit of the treasure trove of Chippendale furniture that had existed unchanged and in situ since placed there in the 1750’s by the 5^th Earl of Dumfries it was my goal to sooner rather than later visit Dumfries House.

Not the easiest place to get to, the estate is rather at the back of beyond, in possibly the wettest part of the Scottish lowlands, known heretofore for sheep- there in abundance- and lead mines, a few still operating. Generally, though, this part of Scotland is not economically robust, and it was as a part of the acquisition of Dumfries House a consortium headed by Prince Charles- more accurately styled the Duke of Rothesay in Scotland- sought also to accomplish some economic regeneration, with the establishment of studios onsite to teach restoration techniques, and the eventual construction of a housing estate nearby.

The house itself, though, is something of a disappointment. The design initially the work of William Adam, and completed after his death by his sons, the house has the reputation of being an early visual essay in classical architecture by Robert Adam. All this prior to Robert Adam’s own grand tour, and nurturing and tutelage by Piranesi and Clerrisseau, the house is not much more than a box with internal rococo plasterwork of passing interest. After seeing the virtual invention of neoclassicism in the mature work of Robert Adam in places like Harewood, Kedleston, and Syon, it is hard even to draw a linkage between these works of an accomplished, mature architect and this a very early effort.

‘French’ chairs, from Chippendale’s 1754 Director…

But as at least as much as the association with the Adam brothers generally, the house is famous for its association with Thomas Chippendale, and indeed is vaunted as one of the first large-scale commissions of arguably the most famous English cabinet maker, executed at about the same time as the issuance of his exquisite pattern book, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director.

‘French’ chair, as executed by Chippendale. Modern blue damask, matching the period original

No question about it, the furniture does not disappoint. The Chippendale pieces were wrought by the master’s London workshop largely to patterns associated with the Director… and selected by Lord Dumfries himself. The influence of Chippendale within Dumfries House is hard to overstate, as even the large numbers of pieces completed by Scottish cabinet makers were in very many cases executed to match Chippendale’s published designs. I must say that, as a tremendous enhancement to the visual experience, reading Sebastian Pryke’s masterful essay in the Dumfries House guidebook does a wonderful job of contextualizing the furnishing of the house.

Detail of Dumfries House serving table, attributed to Alexander Peter

Unfortunately, the house and its contents are less than the sum of the component parts. The Adam portion of the house itself is not the prodigious effort wrought by Robert Adam in his later years, and the interior decoration, and certainly the furniture pieces, while lovely in themselves, seem in many cases out of scale and just plopped inside. As Dr Pryke makes clear in his essay, the pieces were selected by Lord Dumfries and included readymade stock, as well as pieces purchased at auction and taken from other of Lord Dumfries’ homes.  The effect, sadly, is of something of a jumble that contrasts negatively with the care and effort Robert Adam was able to achieve with his controlled outside-inside decoration, where scale and style and colour were in complete harmony. Those few of my regular blogophiles will note that Lord Dumfries was very much concerned about some modest association of the exterior of the house with the Palladianism of Lord Burlington, noting in contemporary correspondence that some versions of the plan were favorably reviewed by the renowned gentleman architect, the acknowledged style setter of his day.

Sideboard table, Chippendale’s Director…

Unfortunately, though, the work of Burlington’s protégé William Kent and the notion of an interior befitting the grandeur of the exterior were ignored. Indeed, as must be implied from the manner in which the house was furnished and the paucity of exterior decoration, Lord Dumfries very much had economy on his mind.

One particularly unpleasant feature that did nothing to enhance the aesthetics of the house was the treatment we received as visitors. Required to book a tour, we did so several weeks in advance and upon arrival, were shunted into a small room with 20 or so other tour visitors to watch a long-ish video of the Duke of Rothesay discussing his role in saving the house and grounds, and his plans, with Dumfries House as the centrepiece, for the regeneration of the local area. It was embarrassingly self-congratulatory and did nothing to aid in the understanding of the house. We were then shunted outside, and introduced to our guide who looked and acted like a Hattie Jacques character from a ‘Carry on…’ film who then quick-marched us around the main and upper floor of the house, and who likewise mouthed with numbing regularity the debt owed to the Duke of Rothesay in saving the house and jumpstarting the local economy. ‘Hattie’ told all of us at the start we could ask questions but her diatribe and the fast pace at which she moved us along made anything other than a quick look impossible. However, along with Keith and our friends Michael and Jane Furse, we took our time and gave everything a careful look. Michael and I were, as it happened, in such rapt, albeit quiet, discussion about a clock case in the entry hall that we didn’t hear ‘Hattie’ chastising us about avoiding private conversation. Jane and Keith heard it, though and let Michael and I know once we were in the car park. Good thing, as I might have treated ‘Hattie’ to some Scots words and phrases, whilst certainly known to the Duke of Rothesay, are not often heard during most tours.

It is difficult to consider Lord Burlington and his lifelong work as a gentleman architect without a constant nod to his long time collaborator William Kent. Not of gentle birth but someone whose early promise led to support on the Grand Tour by a gaggle of Yorkshire gentry, Kent did languish in Italy for nearly 10 years before his transformative 1719 meeting with Lord Burlington, a man nearly 10 years Kent’s junior, upon the younger man’s sojourn in northern Italy. What attraction these men had for one another has been a matter of speculation for the past 3 centuries, but whatever it was, it lasted the rest of Kent’s life, lodging as he did in Burlington House as an honored member of the household until his death in 1748.

Chiswick House- ceiling of the blue velvet room, with an allegory of architecture

The ceiling of the saloon or ‘tribunal’ at Chiswick House

It is also difficult to know where Burlington’s work ends and Kent’s begins, but suffice to say, they both brought back to England a Palladianism that sought to capture an Italianate style of decoration, both without and within, that was a marked departure from the Baroque style then in vogue. Sometimes, though, as at Chiswick House, Kent’s work can seem more than a little ponderous. With its intense colour and riot of decoration, the Blue Velvet Room is rendered nearly claustrophobic, with its ceiling an allegory of architecture, bespeaking an econcomium to Kent’s patron Lord Burlington. It is in scale though perhaps more appropriate to a very much larger space. The saloon or tribunal, as well, positioned as it is to be the main gathering place within Chiswick House, seems small and pokey, despite being well lit from above with the placement of ‘thermal’ windows. Nevertheless, coffering appears small and fussy, and visually less effective than that in the original vastness of the Pantheon the saloon sought to evoke.

The drawing room, Dumfries House, with blue damask upholstery

A quick sidebar, the use of a blue ground colour in the Blue Velvet Room, its pigment perhaps derived from turnsole, was a striking inclusion. As mentioned in my earlier blog, the exterior elevations of Lord Dumfries’ slightly later house was influenced by Burlington and Chiswick House. Although the interior of Dumfries House is rendered in a less antiquarian, more pedestrian rococo style, the damask covering of most of the soft furnishings including the pelmet and hangings of the bed of state are in the same, turnsole blue. It is further worth noting that Lord Dumfries was particularly insistent that the fabric of this colour be used.

Portion of the Great Staircase, Kensington Palace, with William Kent in turban, by William Kent’

But as with Chiswick House generally, its interior design, including furnishings, function as a manifestation of a new style in architecture and design with a focus on an antiquity particularly Roman in character that achieved a striking resonance in the Britain of its day. While certainly the political influence of Lord Burlington was instrumental in obtaining appointments for William Kent, patronage of Burlington’s older protégé moved very quickly apace. Royal appointments included decorative commissions for George II at Kensington Palace  and perhaps most significant of all, an enormous amount of work for the first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole.

The overarching figure of his day, Sir Robert Walpole, also of relatively humble birth, was extraordinarily useful to the court, bridging successfully as he did between Parliament and the king, easing the way for the German Hanoverian monarch and maintaining a long-lived, albeit fractious balance between Whigs and Tories.  With an era known even in its day as the Robinopolis, Walpole himself was aware of and sought to promote his political success with a visual language that found its most obvious vocabulary in the virtue of the republican Rome of antiquity, in which Kent, as it happened, was particularly conversant.

Stone Hall, Houghton, with bust of Sir Robert Walpole in the Roman manner above the fireplace

Walpole’s supreme expression of worldly and political success was his stately home, Houghton. While its Palladian exterior is the work of Burlington’s contemporary Colen Campbell, the interior design and decoration, and including the furniture, is wholly the work of Kent.

By contrast, though, Kent was also engaged in a variety of tasks both public and private that were at times considerably removed from his initial association not only with Lord Burlington, but also with a type Palladianism with ancient Roman overtones. More on this in a  later blog, but suffice to say, it is indicative of the character and affability of Kent that he was generally companionable and well liked. His appointments and commissions had arguably at least as much to do with Lady Burlington, as lady of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline, as to her husband. Lady Burlington’s surviving correspondence are full of endearments directed at Kent, referring to him variously as her dear little ‘signor’ and ‘Kentino’.  Whatever the relationship between Kent and Lord Burlington, it did not seem to interfere with the regard in which Lady Burlington held the man, who, along with her husband, spent his entire life in her household.

Pundits since the time of and including Horace Walpole have tried to impart a political message contained within sometimes abstruse symbolism and motifs in the work of Kent. What seems more obvious, given the variety of styles employed and political persuasions of those for whom Kent worked, he was in his day, to put not too fine a point on it, fashionable. It seems that fashion and the freemasonry of the rich and aristocratic did then, as now, override political divisions. Indeed, Kent himself had the final word on the subject, writing in his own idiosyncratic fashion that ‘ as Politicke are not my genius, it diverts me much now at night to look & read of these fine remaines of Antiquety.’

For reference:

The last two decades have seen much written to reexamine the life and work of Kent who’s remained by and large in the shadow of his most long-lived patron, Richard Boyle, 3^rd Earl of Burlington. The exhibition staged at the Bard Graduate Center in New York and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London entitled ‘William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain’ was an exhaustive examination of the life and work of Kent. The catalog and essays accompanying the exhibition, edited by Susan Weber, are a tour de force and do much to elucidate and rehabilitate the reputation Kent enjoyed in his lifetime.

Susan Weber, ed., William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, Yale University Press, 2013

That since I’ve known of it Chiswick House has always served as an exemplar of classical architecture is hardly a unique opinion, but in this opinion I newly find myself in the company of the Adam brothers and the 5^th Earl of Dumfries.

Chiswick House west front- Pantheonic dome surmounting ‘Diocletian’ and ‘Serliana’windows’.

It is always a treat to visit Chiswick House and I’ve lost count of the numbers of times it’s been over the years, as a visitor, as a student, and as a professor of art history. But this last time, in a happy synchronism, it was shortly thereafter followed by a visit to Dumfries House. We visited both Chiswick House and Dumfries House a couple of weeks ago and, while Dumfries is perhaps more well known for its link with the Adam family of architects, and noteworthy as perhaps the earliest work in which Robert Adam took a major hand, the visual language owes very much to the genius of the gentleman architect Lord Burlington, whose acolytes included most of his contemporaries, both aristos and architects.

Chiswick House- north front

With the design of Chiswick House, Lord Burlington sought to construct and give homage not just to Andrea Palladio, whose work he had seen in situ in Venice and the Veneto, but also to antiquity, Palladio’s contemporaries, and his then greatest English adherent, Inigo Jones. Still, Burlington’s work does contain some idiosyncratic touches, including a marked fondness for the tripartite window design popularized in the work of Serlio, and while known variously as a ‘Palladian’ or ‘Venetian’ window, it is most often, in homage to Serlio, called a serliana. With its use on the west front of Chiswick House, a serliana marks the primary decorative element, while the north front uses three, placed within balustrades and relieving arches, to establish a symmetrical rhythm.

Although the serliana would have been unknown in antiquity, there exists a sufficient nod to the likes of Vitruvius in the Pantheon inspired dome above a window design taken from the Baths of Diocletian, and known as either a Diocletian or ‘thermal’ window. The chimney stacks were formed in the manner of obelisks, a Roman trophy taken from an Egypt conquered in antiquity, and re-erected by Sixtus V to mark significant locations and viewpoints in the midst of the thoroughfares of late Renaissance Rome. Clearly, study enhanced with not one but two Grand Tours was not wasted on Lord Burlington.

Corinthian columns in the Chiswick House portico.

While Chiswick House is most commonly assumed to derive from Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, itself derived from the Pantheon, it is hardly a literal quotation and has always seemed to me that, with the greater abundance of ornamentation, Burlington sought to provide more explicit visual references to classical antiquity than did his Venetian predecessor. The columns of the portico are of the Corinthian order, and copied from the Temple of Jupiter Stator in Rome. While a lot has been written over at least the last two millennia about the anthropomorphised personalities and uses of the different orders appropriate to those personalities, it is hard to doubt that Burlington knew everything written up to that time, and used the Corinthian order deliberately. While it has been said that visually the Corinthian was assumed to communicate an air of refinement Serlio had also written it was the appropriate order for churches, particularly those dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is known that Burlington was a recusant Jacobite, devoted, in his private moments, to the Stuart cause. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to think his use of the Corinthian order is some subtle albeit coded nod to the Stuarts and the Church of Rome.

Dumfries House, east front, with serliana and thermal window.

Where Lord Burlington handled classical and Renaissance elements to elegant and sophisticated effect, the translation to the seat of a Scottish nobleman was not quite so successful. Simon Green, in his guidebook to Dumfries House, cites correspondence between Lord Dumfries and another Scottish lord, the Earl of Hopetoun, wherein Hopetoun mentions how the Adam brothers had shown some of the drawings for the proposed house to Lord Burlington who, it seems, gave his approval. No question, in the second quarter of the 18^th century, Burlington was one of the premier arbiters of taste and refinement amongst the aristocracy, and Chiswick House naturally functioned as a real manifestation of that taste and refinement.

Elevation of the Ends of Dumfries House, signed by the Adam Brothers and Lord Dumfries.

However, in the inexperienced hands of the Adam brothers, the result is substantially less refined. In a view of the east end of Dumfries House, one sees a serliana  used to light the main staircase, and a thermal window placed beneath it to light a passage for the floor below. While the elements are recognizable, their placement and effect are visually dissonant. The arch of the thermal seems flat and heavy with its too close placement below the serliana and directly above the rustication of the ground floor creating thereby a discordant effect. Moreover, the use of both these elements, placed in a central, projecting bay, emphasizes this clumsiness made even clumsier by a lack of a symmetrical and stylistic relationship between the windows of the two bays on either side. The more careful and appropriate scale, placement and rhythm Burlington achieved with a serliana and a thermal was a subtlety that was perhaps beyond the ken of John, Robert and James Adam. Lord Dumfries was no more enlightened, and was doubtless of the belief that use of classical elements, no matter how ineptly wrought, would nevertheless signal his sophistication in matters of design. In this, architect and patron were alike, witness that all of them signed off on the elevation which drawing in itself is of discordant effect. Could something of this sort, as correspondence between Dumfries and Hopetoun implies, been shown to and received the approbation of Lord Burlington? Surprising if it were.

Register House, the serliana well placed.

With all that, Dumfries House and the work of the Adam brothers are significant in that they mark what was the first Scottish residence to display these elements, and also in that it is yet more proof, if any were needed, of the overarching influence of Lord Burlington in matters of design that pervaded Great Britain, even if that influence may not have been shall we say favorably executed. Something to note, perhaps gratuitously, the Adam brothers, and most notably Robert Adam, ultimately became the deserved torch bearers for classicism, with Robert Adam the virtual inventor of a neo-classicism espoused visually to extraordinary effect. Performing something of the role as apologist for Robert Adam, Simon Green does acknowledge the facility and effect with which the mature Adam employed the serliana, citing the Register House in Edinburgh.

For reference, the following are both accessible and worthwhile:

Simon Green, Dumfries House, 2014- the official guide to Dumfries House, with excellent, new scholarship derived from archival sources

Chiswick House, English Heritage. The edition written by Richard Hewlings or the edition updated by Roger White, are complete and succinct. Both Hewlings and White are redoubtable architectural historians closely connected to The Georgian Group, the licensed consultancy in England on the built environment between 1714 and 1837.

It is sad to read about the vicissitudes of the Keno Brothers, characterized by a friend and ‘Antiques Roadshow’ stalwart as ‘the rockstars of the series.’ No question, that they are twins, relatively young, not precisely handsome but certainly distinctive in appearance, and, as the New York Times article detailing their problems has it, ‘telegenic’, they have over the years functioned to bring an interest in and attention to a trade that has been suffering for the lack of it. They are possessed of an intensely energetic delivery that while engaging, is at times so much of a muchness that it makes one wonder whether they have had too much coffee, or having had too much must needs make haste for the gent’s.

Still, what’s been said about them in the press is at the very least bad news for a trade that is often seen to operate in an environment of shadow and prolixity akin to the arcana that is the stock in trade of many of its dealers. The two have debts from unpaid auction invoices in the high six figures, and worse yet, it appears they colluded to run up the hammer prices on a number of the pieces knocked down to them. In the latter, they claim they had miscommunicated, that one brother was bidding online while the other was bidding by phone, and that neither was aware of the actions of the other. Really? Pull the other one- it has bells on it. In the former case, the unpaid invoices result from cash flow difficulties, with the clients who had commissioned the brothers to make these purchases on their behalf then reneging. With the prices for these pieces ostensibly run up by them, I shouldn’t wonder.

While this sort of high profile shenanigan does no good for an industry already on the hardest of hard times, I must say that this is hardly the first I’ve ever heard of shall we say missteps amongst old lags on the Roadshow. Witness, for instance, the fairly recent case of one of the valuers who waxed eloquently about a piece of crockery he thought was a treasure of mid 19^th century Americana. Egg on the face quickly followed, when it was discovered soon thereafter the piece was a high school art project of such recent vintage that it was hardly dry.

For those of you who are regular watchers, you might be surprised to find that, with locations changing each week, and nearly all of the faces familiar from week to week, the experts pay all their own expenses- travel, lodging, eats- and are compensated at a rate of zero by the producers of the series. For those experts employed by an auction house- and this constitutes probably half or perhaps more- an appearance can engender interest and result in perhaps a consignment, and presumably this is part of the motivation for some of the private dealers, as well. For myself, this kind of public involvement has not much appeal, as we already get plenty of calls, asking for valuations of items gratis, and offers to sell us something that is totally unlike anything we would ever have in inventory and or could ever sell.

Even across fields of collecting, the trade in art and antiques is a small fraternity, so inevitably, our paths would have crossed, sometimes almost daily, with a number of those on TV. A few, like Allan Katz, are possessed of the highest degree of knowledge and probity. Whatever Allan says, one could take to the bank. We do, though, know some others who  are sadly greater in number with whom we have had, shall we say, a less than savory experience. A particular paintings expert, for example, is someone about whom I have already written, having formerly been our near neighbor. His neighborly and collegial mien manifested itself by badmouthing a painting we had for sale, expressing the opinion that it was not the real thing when in fact its provenance was clearly documented and contained within the artist’s catalogue raisonné.

I am not a communist. As I feel I have the right to do as I wish with my property both real and personal  and resent and strenuously resist anyone else telling me otherwise, I yet know that my rights end where someone else’s begin.

So it is with Pimlico Road. Keith McCullar and I took a walk through the other day, not so much to visit a dealer, but more to visually survey the health of the trade, with Pimlico Road, in London at least, one of the few remaining venues. Keith and I know of the general predations of landlords, and in particular, the proposed development by the Grosvenor Estate of the 19th century timber yard bang in the center of this venue. A cause célèbre, the proposed development has resulted in a fair old bit of publicity in opposition, including an online petition to present to Westminster Council.

Should I say, though, it is, if there can be such a thing, a minor cause célèbre, as the petition has been online for months, and still has  little more than a thousand signatures- not enough to allow its official presentation and review by the local authority- and the press has been mostly in trade publications. Important, yes- but only paramount to those of us whose nostalgic image is of a once thriving trade, and are in a state of angst as we witness that trade in the manner we’ve always known it sink beneath the waves.

With all that, I must say that the most prominent storefront feature along the Pimlico Road is the green graphic film that covers the windows of nearly 25% of the shop fronts, advertising their availability to let- through, of course, the Grosvenor Estate. It occurred to me that, despite the fear on the part of the remaining dealers, with the preponderance of vacancies witnessing a presumed limited demand of new, prospective tenants, development might reasonably be postponed assuming some trepidation on the part of the Grosvenor Estate about offering yet more space available to rent.

Nostalgic for the way the trade was, yes, all of us are. But I must say that, with the plethora of vacant storefronts, I was driven to opine to Keith that we might consider taking space. He looked at me with a mixture of horror and astonishment and nearly yelled the rhetorical query ‘Are you f—ing nuts?’ He was, I need hardly remind anyone, a reluctant shopkeeper for nearly 15 years, and, regaining my sanity a moment later, I have to admit, our virtual as opposed to our actual storefront is not only much more remunerative, but overall, without the daily obligation of unlocking the door and turning the lights on, something akin to having a millstone removed from around one’s neck.

I suppose going back to the point of beginning this blog, while it is, in general, the right of the Grosvenor Estate to do as it will, it is a sodden thought to consider that in accomplishing its yield objectives, yet more of the London trade, and indeed a significant portion of the remaining trade internationally, would be swept away. Am I nostalgic? Well, given that I am nearer the end than the beginning, of course I am. But I am also mindful of the fact that, with the predations I have seen in my lifetime, I can say that, certainly in terms of the built environment, once something is gone, it is gone for good- or, in the case of the Pimlico Road, for ill.