Living with antiques: A collection of Victorian decorative arts

Magazine Antiques, June, 2000 by Martin Levy

The collection of Victorian works of art and furniture that is the subject of this article consumers every available inch of a Regency villa in the south of England. The collectors have formed this assemblage over a period of more than period years. They share a hope held by many dedicated aficionados of the period that the passage of time implied by the advent of the twenty-first century will not spoil their fun by forcing prices beyond the means of those who have for so long championed the cause.

In the mid-1950s the two young professionals, already conscious of design, moved into their first flat in Hampstead, London. Their landlord gave them one hundred pounds to buy furniture, which they spent on modern pieces from Heal's in Tottenham Court Road, London. [1] The first "antique" that entered their apartment was a bulbous upholstered Victorian parlor chair, which they said "looked like a toad." They bought it for the standard price of four pounds in the Portobellor Road antiques market in London, choosing from dozens of examples available there at the time. They now recall how much this long-departed chair amused their friends. Also gone from the early days is a flambovant silver centerpiece made by Elkington and Company of Birmingham that incorporated deer, grapes, and candle sconces. This was another acquisition subjected, probably unfairly, to ridicule.

Charles (1916-1971) and Lavinia Handley-Read (1917-1971), the pioneer collectors and scholars of nineteenth-century decorative arts, [2] became friends and mentors of the collectors, and all four were early members of the Victorian Society, which was founded in 1958. [3] It was through the influence of such kindred spirits that the collection began to take shape as the collectors grew in confidence. From the outset, they aimed to tell the story of the fine and decorative arts created during the second half of the nineteenth century which was, quite simply, an area in which they could afford to collect out of income. The eclectic nature of the collection differs from others more recently formed in that it does not exclude the excesses and eccentricities of Victorian taste to concentrate solely on the protomodern aspects of nineteenth-century design that were the concern of the scholar Nikolaus Pevsner. Today such is the range and quality of their collection that acknowledgments in exhibition catalogues over th e past twenty years suggest that few curators fail to inquire what might be available for loan from the collection. [4]

The growth of cities, towns, fortunes, and a prosperous middle class in nineteenth-century Britain caused many manufacturers of furniture, ceramics, metalwork, and glass to flourish, as this collection reflects. A city such as Manchester was typical of the age. Its wealth and expansion were based on the cotton industry and other enterprises. By 1838 it was already considered "one of the commercial capitals of Europe." [5]

To meet demand in northern cities such as Bradford, Leeds, and Liverpool, Manchester cabinetmakers enjoyed a considerable boom, one of the most successful being the firm founded by James Lamb in 1843, which merged in 1898 to become Goodhall, Lamb and Heighway. The firm followed rather than created fashion, but on occasion it sought the services of leading designers such as Charles Bevan, who is thought to have worked with and learned from the architect and furniture designer John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906). [6] Bevan made furniture under his own name (none of which has been traced), as well as supplying designs to Marsh and Jones of Leeds (1864-1872; then Marsh, Jones and Cribb until 1936) and Gillows of Lancaster and London (c. 1728 or 1729-1900).

The cabinet shown in Plate III [7] is stamped by Lamb and is in the reformed Gothic revival style associated with Bevan. The attribution to Bevan is strengthened when details such as the side panels, lacquered brass strapwork hinges, and shaped framing to the central glazed doors are compared to a bookcase Bevan designed for Lamb that was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle In Paris in 1867. [8]

Across the room from the cabinet is the lavish octagonal table shown in Plate V. It is part of a suite probably dating from the early 1860s that includes a pair of card tables and a small writing table, now all in the Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster in London, and a larger writing table, now in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. [9] Although undocumented, it is reasonable to attribute the manufacture of this suite to the London firm of Grace while it was under the direction of John Gregory Grace (1809-1889). The table owes a clear debt to Augustus Welby North-more Pugin and may have been designed by Grace himself, who had a close working relationship with Pugin. Alternatively, it may have been designed by his son John Diblee Grace (1839-1919). [10] The legs of the table recall those on a pair of tables supplied by Grace in 1844 to Knebworth House in Hertfordshire. The marquetry top is a reduced version of the decoration on a series of octagonal tables designed by Pugin and made by Grace in the late 1840s and early 1850s. [11]