Living with antiques: A collection of Victorian decorative arts

Magazine Antiques, June, 2000 by Martin Levy

The vase on the table in Plate V is an example of one of the best known forms designed by [acute{E}]mile Auguste Reiber (Fig. 3) for the French ceramist Joseph Th[acute{e}]odore Deck. [12] Although Reiber was associated with Deck from the beginning of his career, he is today perhaps best known for his Japanese- and Chinese-inspired metalwork made by the French firm Christofle et Gompagnie (1830-present). A vase of this type may have been exhibited for the first time at the Exposition des arts industriels held in Paris in 1861. [13] Such vases, sometimes described as a porte-bouquet, remained in production for some time, [14] were oft en reproduced in articles about Deck. [15] The collection contains several other notable works by him, including a large plaque painted by another of his long-standing collaborators, El[acute{e}]onor Escallier (1827-1888). The plaque corresponds to examples exhibited at the Exhibition Universelle in Paris in 1867. [16]

Among the most charming and intimate surviving works by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company (1861-1875; then Morris and Company until 1940) are hand-painted tiles. [17] The earliest tiles, with geometric flower patterns, were probably designed by William Morris (1834-1896) and Philip Webb (1831-1915) for the Red House, which was built for Morris at Bexleyheath, Upton, Kent, in 1859 and 1860. By the time of the London International Exhibition in 1862, more figurative designs were being supplied by Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), and other artists.

As a result of its display in 1862, the firm gained the patronage of the watercolor painter Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899), for whom it decorated his house in Witley, Surrey Above three bedroom fireplaces were tile panels designed by BurneJones entitled Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast. The complete Cinderella is in the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool, [18] but other elements of this design, of unknown provenance, have also survived. The two-tile panel shown in Plate VII depicts the moment the clock strikes midnight and Cinderella runs off, shedding one of her slippers. It must have formed part of one of these early Morris overmantels. The collection contains other tiles from the Cinderella series as well as examples from Sleeping Beauty. There are also two framed watercolor designs for tile panels dating from the 1860s, which were retained by Morris and Company until it closed.

The kitchen is as much home to the collection as any other part of the house. The carved oak cabinet shown in Plates I and II is a late work by Bruce J. Talbert. This woodcarver, architect, and furniture designer supplied designs to many cabinetmaking firms, including Gillows, and the London firms of Holland and Sons (1843-1942) and Collinson and Lock (1870-1897). In 1867 Talbert published his influential Gothic Forms..., with designs for robust Gothic revival furniture. The cabinet in Plates II is closely based on a drawing room cabinet in a later series of softer Talbert designs published posthumously in 1881 as Fashionable Furniture... (Fig. 1). [19] Such is the quality of the four carved boxwood panels depicting fish and fruit that it is tempting to suggest the hand of a Japanese craftsman employed by the manufacturers. The two robustly carved door panels maybe the work of Talbert himself. The subjects, it has to be said, seem more appropriate for a dining room than a drawing room. [20] Among the more no teworthy objects displayed on and around the cabinet are ceramics and metalwork by John Pearson, who was associated with both Morris and Company and the Guild of Handicraft (1888-1908).