South London Gallery and Meissen

Ian Davenport Plate 2
(c) Meissen

The South London Gallery’s wide-ranging education work in support of children and young people within the local area is supported by the SLG Council. The Council is a group of art philanthropists and each year the members receive a limited-edition plate (edition of 26 unique plates) which is specially created at the world-famous Meissen factory. The plates’ decoration this year has been done by the 1991 Turner Prize nominee Ian Davenport and reflects his bold abstract use of colour and unconventional painting process.

He said of the project: “Earlier this year I spent a week in Meissen factory doing a research trip and making some prototypes for the project at South London Gallery. It was an incredible experience, learning about porcelain manufacture and the history of its development over the last 300 years. The factory is a treasure trove of different techniques, approaches and objects of this wonderful material. In collaboration with the art studio at the factory I began trying to find a way of making the glazes and colour work, pouring the liquid colours. It took a while and some raised eyebrows, but eventually we began to see the results. Making something of this kind, under time pressure and unsure of the process takes an act of faith from all parties but the positive outlook with which Meissen embraced this project, made it very enjoyable.”

Ian Davenport
(c) Meissen

Meissen are also proud of this connection and sum it up saying: “The value of supporting emerging talent and allowing their creativity to express itself, has been a subject at the core of Meissen since the start of the company, some 300 years ago. We are very proud to be supporting the South London Gallery’s education programmes, we feel this is an important initiative which will benefit the artists of tomorrow.”

http://www.southlondongallery.org

A Celebration of Tea Drinking

Sep9

LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair 2016, Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London W1, 13th – 18th September 2016

Famille Verte Teapot
China, Kangxi period, ca.1690

Now in its eighth year this popular fair is the place to find fine pieces from across all disciplines. It is therefore appropriate that this year there is a select group of highlights from the Chitra Collection which celebrates tea over the centuries through the vessels and other paraphernalia involved in its drinking and preparation.

Tea Caddy, boîte à thé
Sèvres, Louis-Jean Thévenet (painter)
France, c. 1765

This is the first time pieces from the collection have been shown in the UK and its curator Olivia Fryman has selected items that reflect the long history of this beverage. Starting with the beginnings of the tea story in China and Japan, we then pass on to the growing interest and consumption of it in Europe (Catherine of Braganza, Charles II’s wife, introduced tea to this country) in the 17^th and 18^th centuries and then go on to see how it played an important role in the story of the British Empire. The last piece of this story looks at the global interest, especially in Russia and America, and how tea became a part of everyday life for many.

Copper Gilt Mounted Chinese Porcelain Teapot
China and Germany, Kangxi period (1654 – 1722), mounts ca.1680

The collection has been put together by the London-based businessman Nirmal Kumar Sethia, who says “The Chitra Collection will continue to inspire generations of tea lovers long after I’m gone. It is my wish that, for centuries to come, the world will be able to appreciate and experience the beauty and significance of tea, art and culture”. His interest has continued since he first started working as an apprentice tea buyer in London, aged 14. He started the luxury tea company Newby Teas in 2000.

Cup and saucer
Meissen, J. G. Höroldt (painter)
Germany, c. 1722-3

There are in excess of 1700 tea-related objects in the collection which was named in memory of his late wife and I think you may agree from the selection illustrated here that it is a fascinating subject.

Teapot
Royal Worcester, George Owen and Samuel Ranford
England, 1878

lapadalondon.com

Silver kettle and stand
Paul de Lamerie
England, 1751

Three Cs – ‘Capability’, Coventry, Croome

Aug15

‘Expect the Unexpected’, Croome Court, near High Green, Worcester, Worcestershire, WR8 9DW

The south front of the house seen across the lake at Croome Court
Credit: Andrew Butler

What a lovely co-incidence that in this ‘Capability’ Brown’s 300^th Anniversary year I am fortunate enough to be able to write about Croome Court which as well as being Brown’s first major commission was a complete project due to the fact that he was asked in 1751 by the 6^th Earl of Coventry to create a house and estate that would be the dernier cri. The photographs show the resulting building and landscape. Although the outside design and some of the interiors are Brown’s work the Earl later commissioned Robert Adam to design some of the rooms – the Long Gallery, the Library and Tapestry Room.

The Original tapestry Room
Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Tapestry Room, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, featured a specially commissioned set of Gobelins tapestries and seat covers. Coventry was one of the great 18^th century English collectors of Vincennes and Sèvres porcelains and he asked Adam to design a tripod stand to hold a Sevres jug and basin whose colours reflected those of the room.

Artist Will Datson with ‘Chair Play’ and two of the original chairs
Credit: Jack Nelson

In1948 the family disposed of the house and many of its contents were sold by auction and thus nowadays only about twenty percent of the collection remains. There are plans to bring these pieces back to the house later this year. The National Trust bought the park in 1996 and started on its restoration and in 2007 the house was purchased by the Croome Heritage Trust and they have granted a long lease to the National Trust.

‘Chair Play’ in the Entrance Hall
Credit: Jack Nelson

Contemporary art installations have been placed in the house to evoke the idea of ‘expect the unexpected’ but are inspired by and use pieces that were originally in the house. Upon entering the building one sees the artist Will Datson’s original take on the idea of hall chairs through his 2.5 metre high installation. He says of it “It was my task to display the original hall chairs in a new way. We all see chairs every day, and usually ignore them, so I’ve attempted to create something out-of-the-ordinary, dramatic and playful, that’s hard to ignore.”

The ‘Golden Box’ in the Dining Room at Croome
Credit: Jack Nelson

In the dining room, whose plasterwork was painted by members of the Hare Krishna Movement who used the house as their headquarters (1979-84), visitors are confronted by a 2 metre high golden box which contains beautiful examples of Meissen, Worcester and Sèvres porcelains from Croome’s remarkable collection which have been installed by the noted artist Bouke de Vries to form a dazzling ceramics treasury. He simply sums it up saying “It’s been extraordinary to work on this project with the amazing team at Croome”.

Artist Bouke de Vries making the final finishing touches to the ‘Golden Box’
Credit: Jack Nelson

In the Lord’s Dressing Room you will discover two 18^th century Adam-style commodes made for the house by the celebrated firm of Mayhew & Ince who also supplied the seat furniture for the Tapestry Room. It is worth remembering that the 6^th Earl also bought French furniture for Croome in Paris from A la Couronne d’Or, the shop of the renowned marchand-mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. There is also a portrait of Barbara St John, the Earl’s second wife.

Beautifully crafted 18th century Adamesque commodes with the portrait of Barbara St John in the background.
Credit: Jack Nelson

While Croome’s Tapestry Room is now bare of its glorious contents it inspired the idea of bringing Grayson Perry’s tapestries ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ to Croome (until 11^th September 2016). The six large-scale works, inspired by Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, tell the story of Tim Rakewell and many of the people and things depicted reflect events that Perry encountered in his life. A 1994 earthenware vase by Perry, entitled Spirit Jar is also on show.

Visitors looking at the Grayson Perry Tapestries
Credit: Peter Young

‘Capability’ Brown and the Earl had become friends and thirty years after he started his transformation at Croome he still visited there and indeed Croome was described as his ‘first and most favourite child’.

Visitors looking at the Grayson Perry Tapestries
Credit: Peter Young

In 1783 Brown died while on his way home from dining with the Earl at his London residence. The Earl had a monument erected in Brown’s memory and it bears the inscription:

“To the Memory of Lancelot Brown

Who by the powers of his inimitable and creative genius formed this garden scene out of a morass.”

The Coade stone monument to Lancalot “Capability” Brown by the lake at Croome Court.The memorial was erected in 1797 following the death of Brown in 1783.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/croome

Inside the Golden Box is an amazing collection of porcelain
Credit: Jack Nelson

For those of you interested in learning more about the 6^th Earls collection Sèvres I recommend:

THE SIXTH EARL OF COVENTRY’S PURCHASES OF SÈVRES PORCELAIN IN PARIS AND LONDON IN THE 1760s by Rosalind Savill in the French Porcelain Society Journal, Volume V 2015

A further display of porcelain in the Dining Room
Credit: Peter Young

Grayson Perry (b. 1960), The Upper Class at Bay, 2012 Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London and British Council. Gift of the artist and Victoria Miro Gallery with the support of Channel 4 Television, the Art Fund and Sfumato Foundation with additional support from Alix Partners.

Croome Court
Credit: David Norton

Masterpiece London 2016 – Preview

Jun29

Masterpiece London 2016, The Bull Ring Gate Entrance, South Grounds, The Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3, 30^thJune – 6^th July 2016

Nazy Vassegh, CEO of Masterpiece with J.F. Courville, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the RBC Wealth Management
2015
Courtesy Masterpiece London

Now in its 7^th edition one can easily understand why Masterpiece has become a magnet for collectors and museum curators from around the world. There is a great emphasis on quality and connoisseurship and the pieces on show reflect more than five thousand years of art history – and yes they are for sale.

Vetting during Masterpiece London 2015
Courtesy Masterpiece London

Masterpiece’s chief executive Nazy Vassegh says: ‘I am delighted to announce so many exciting additions to this year’s fair. Masterpiece 2016 will have unrivalled depth and quality, and I am pleased that Masterpiece continues to strengthen every edition. We are looking forward to another great year.’

It truly is a must visit fair and allow yourself plenty of time because there are so many exciting things to see and tempt. Like me you may well want visit more than once.

Vetting during Masterpiece London 2015
Courtesy Masterpiece London

Over the coming days I will post varied selections of what is on show.

http://www.masterpiecefair.com

AUCTION ALERT – MEISSEN FIGURE, 25th May 2016

May20

Matthew Barton – EUROPEAN & ASIAN WORKS OF ART, 25 Blythe Road, London, W14, 25 May 2016

I know that many of my readers have an interest in ceramics and I thought I would bring this rather unusual Meissen figure to your attention:

“Lot 6

A MEISSEN MINIATURE FIGURE OF A FRIESIAN SAILOR, CIRCA 1755

probably modelled by J.J. Kändler or J.F. Eberlein, the mustachioed figure with arms akimbo and wearing a grey knitted conical hat, pink doublet, pale green full breeches and black shoes, on a shaped circular flower encrusted naturalistic base, underglaze blue crossed swords mark to rear base

8.4cm high

This apparently unrecorded figure seems likely to be from the Meissen series of ‘Nations of the Levant’, modelled by J.J. Kaendler and J.F. Eberlein between 1748 and 1760, after prints taken from Le Hay and Ferriol’s Receuil de Cent Estampes representant Differentes Nations du Levant, published in 1712-13. Confusingly this series includes non-Levantine Bulgarian and Hungarian figures, so may have included a sailor from Friesland. See the British Museum No. 1871, 1209.2663 for a print of a ‘Matelot de Frise’, after Bernard Picart (Le Romain; 1673-1733), Amsterdam, 1728. Variant costume plates of this mustachioed Friesian sailor figure, but always in the same akimbo pose, were widely circulated in Europe right through the 18th century.

£1000-1800”

http://www.25blytheroad.com

Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, Sotheby’s London, 2nd March 2016

Feb25

Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire: The Last of the Mitford Sisters, Sotheby’s London, 34-35 New Bond Street, London W1, 2^ndMarch 2016

Lot 111 – David Dawson
DEBORAH, DOWAGER DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE AND ‘SKEWBALD MARE’, 2004
Estimate 400 — 600
Chromogenic print. Signed, dated and titled ‘Lucian’s Studio’ in black felt tip pen on the reverse. Mounted and framed.
sheet: 20.3 x 25.3 cm, 8 x 10 in.; image: 19 x 21.5 cm, 7 ½ x 8 ½ in

A lady of great, presence, elegance and taste and very much to my mind an archetypal Duchess. One can, through her writings, understand why she was so respected and admired. Now following her death in 2014 some of her personal belongings come to what I am sure will be a memorable and nostalgic auction.