From the Apollo archives

Apollo, May, 2004 by Ralph Edwards, Anthony Blunt

In the May 1974 issue, the furniture historian Ralph Edwards recalled his collaboration with Percy Macquoid on The Dictionary of English Furniture, one of the cornerstones of modern furniture history.

The first edition in three volumes (1922-25) quite fails to satisfy present exacting standards. There are palpable omissions in the alphabetical entries and the treatment of some of the most important subjects is very perfunctory --facts which do not prevent it from still commanding a considerable secondhand price. Percy died soon after the publication of the first volume, and the statement in the Foreword of the second that Mrs Macquoid was in possession of his notes for the completion of the work was a calculated falsehood, which the publishers, prompted by commercial considerations, a regard for the prestige attaching to Percy's name, perpetrated without the least scruple ...

For me the tedium of the enterprise in the early stages was appreciably relieved by frequent deliberations--on these occasions gossip and chat, with wisecracks from Percy breaking in--at the Yellow House, Bayswater (a sad contrast now to what it was then), and at Hoove Lea overlooking the sea at Hove, whither the Macquoids often went in summer and autumn. In a marked degree they were 'period' houses--the one in Bayswater is of the early 'nineties and was built for them by George and Peto, the other not far removed in date. Both were spacious and comfortable, even by present standards luxurious, with a devoted efficient staff. In each of these houses there was a collection of English furniture of different periods assembled by Percy since his marriage in 1891: nearly all was of admirable quality and the best was at the Yellow House. There, to cite examples, in the dining-room (not very suitably) were a Queen Anne red and gold japanned bureau-cabinet, the decoration of exceptional excellence and mercifully untouched by time or the restorer, and a set of mahogany dining-room chairs with contemporary needlework seats corresponding closely to a design in Chippendale's Director, which chairs Percy bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum ...

Two or three years before his death, Percy was beguiled, or beguiled himself, into participating in a deplorable affair which, after prolonged controversy and negotiations, ended up in the High Court. Basil Dighton, a prominent West End dealer, had disposed of a large quantity of furniture to a man named Schrager, a minor plutocrat of mid-European origin. He brought an action against Dighton for fraudulent misrepresentation in selling him spurious antiques ... Percy managed to convince himself--I think with no more than his wife's half-hearted approval--that the dealer was falsely charged and that he should enter the lists on his behalf. To those who saw and heard him in the witness box, as I did at one session--the trial lasted several days--it must have been obvious that Percy was enjoying himself: he flourished his eyeglass, looked jauntily around and made expressive gestures of dissent or approbation. Schrager's chief witness was Herbert Cescinsky, who had published a large book on English furniture, reproducing many dubious specimens and a few with preposterous dates; nevertheless he had a considerable practical knowledge of cabinet-making and was widely accepted as an authority.

Some of the objects displayed in court went far to convince one that Percy must have had in full measure the will to believe. Personal considerations too may have biased his judgement: the plaintiff and chief witness did not, to put it mildly, evoke his sympathies. Schrager lost his case, but many of those present in court must have seen in the trial conclusive proof that the matters at issue were far too technical to be left to an unqualified tribunal.

Percy died in 1926. Almost his last instruction for Theresa's guidance, so she told me, was 'never give anyone a bad glass of wine', an injunction she most scrupulously observed.

In January 1979, Anthony Blunt described Count Antoine Seilern, whose collection had passed to the Courtauld Institute, following his death the previous July.

Seilern's 'purchasing power' was limited by the fact that he was not able to touch the capital of the Trust from which his money came, and he was forced therefore to buy out of income ... He made most of his important purchases through the firm of Colnaghi, one of whose partners, James Byam Shaw, became a close friend. In this he was unique because Seilern had an almost neurotic suspicion of dealers and they were never allowed to visit his collection. In order to contain this he had bought, during the War, 56 Princes Gate, a large gloomy Victorian house, extraordinarily ill-suited to the display of pictures. The light was only good in two relatively small rooms, one of which he used as his dining-room, and the bigger canvases hung in a large room in which they were difficult to see, the more so as Seilern objected strongly to the use of electric light to support the daylight ...