Thomas Jeckyll rediscovered

Magazine Antiques, August, 2003 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Thomas Jeckyll, an architect who designed domestic and ecclesiastical buildings as well as impressive pieces of furniture and metalwork during the second half of the nineteenth century, faded into obscurity because many of his projects were destroyed or radically altered, few documents relating to his designs survive, and for the last five years of his life he was largely confined to mental asylums. His reputation has been resuscitated in the last few decades by scholars who have identified him as one of the leading figures of the British aesthetic movement. His most creative period--the 1860s and 1870s--encompassed just a few commissions for domestic interiors, but these were executed often innovatively and sometimes brilliantly An exhibition on view through October 19 at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture in New York City adds much information to the record and situates Jeckyll in the fascinating period in which he lived and worked. Nearly 160 objects are on vie w, including furniture, metalwork, works on paper, photographs, architectural fragments, interior fittings, and textiles. The show is entitled Thomas Jeckyll: Architect and Designer.

Jeckyll's early career was spent in Norwich where, during the 1850s and 1860s, he designed or renovated a number of buildings in the Gothic revival style. By the late 1850s he had hired an agent in London, and in 1857 he moved there without giving up his office and busy practice in Norwich. In London he moved in elite artistic circles and counted Du Mauler, Sandys, Rossetti, Swinburne, and Whistler among his friends. Like a number of artists at the time, Jeckyll became enamored of Japanese art and incorporated aspects of this aesthetic into his own designs. In 1873 he began designing andirons, grates, stove fronts, and other pieces of metalwork for the firm Barnard, Bishop, and Barnards of Norwich. His most extraordinary commission, however, was the famous Peacock Room (now in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.), which he designed for Frederick Richards Leylands house at 49 Prince's Gate in London. This innovative dining room was initially conceived as a showcase for Leyland's antique blue-and-white Chinese porcelain collection, eighteenth-century Dutch embossed leather wall hangings, and James McNeil Whistler's painting La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine of 1864-1865. Whistler subsequently painted the walls, ceiling, and shutters in a greenish-blue tone with gilded motifs and gold panels decorated with attenuated peacocks. These alterations generated lasting praise for Whistler and completely overshadowed Jeckyll's considerable role in the creation of this magnificent architectural and decorative scheme.

The curators of the show, Susan Weber Soros and Catherine Arbuthnott, are the coauthors of the accompanying catalogue, which is published by the Bard Graduate Center in collaboration with Yale University Press and may be obtained by telephoning 800-405-1619.