Tag Archives: Spencer House

MEET THE CRAFTSMEN

I thought I would share this press release with you:

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MEET THE CRAFTSMEN WHO RESTORED SPENCER HOUSE

27 St James’s Place, London SW1

Sunday 16th October 2016, 10.30am-5.30pm

 

This special Craftsmen Day gives visitors an opportunity to meet conservators, decorators and designers employed during one of the most remarkable restoration projects of the last century.

 On site to explain and demonstrate the techniques and materials will be:

  • Ben Bacon who carved copies of the original suites of furniture designed by Vardy and Stuart.
  • Alan Dodd the artist who recreated the trompe l’oeil effect on the staircase balustrade.
  • Peter Hare & Paul Humphreys of Hare & Humphreys responsible for architectural gilding of the fine rooms and restoration of the decorative plasterwork.
  • David Mlinaric who oversaw for the interior decoration of the State Rooms.
  • Dick Reid who carried out architectural carving, including the doorcases, and the elaborate marble copies of original chimney pieces.
  • Peter Schade who, with Ben Bacon, carved the large frames for the Cipriani and Hamilton paintings in the Great Room, copied from original Stuart frames at Althorp.
  • Peter Thuring, who gilded the copies of the original furniture, and conserved and reupholstered Stuart’s original suite of furniture in the Painted Room, on loan from the V&A.
  • David Wilkinson of Wilkinson plc who produced five Adam-style glass chandeliers.

 

Sunday 16th Oct, 10.30am-5.30pm (last entry 4.30pm)
Advance booking recommended, online at www.spencerhouse.co.uk or  020 7067 1958
Adults £14, concessions £12

Milkmaids in St James’s Park

Benjamin West: Milkmaids in St James’s Park, Spencer House, 27 St James’s Place, London SW1, until 29th January 2017

Benjamin West Milkmaids in St. James's Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond (ca. 1801, oil on panel, Paul Mellon Fund) Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art

Benjamin West
Milkmaids in St. James’s Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond (ca. 1801, oil on panel, Paul Mellon Fund)
Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art

I have had the great delight of writing about the fabulous London home of the Spencer family with its remarkable early neo-classical interiors by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart over many years now.

It is hard to believe that it is now twenty-five years since the house was re-opened to the public following the restoration of the fine interiors carried out for RIT Capital Partners PLC, under Lord Rothschild’s chairmanship. The house’s collection is managed by the Rothschild Foundation.

Among the paintings on display in the house are a group of paintings by the American-born artist Benjamin West from the Royal Collection. In the Dining Room are the Death of Wolfe (1771), The Death of Chevalier Bayard (1772) and The Death of Epaminondas (1773) which were commissioned by George III, while upstairs in Lady Spencer’s Room visitors will discover The Family of the King of Armenia before Cyrus (1773) and The Wife of Arminius brought captive to Germanicus (1773).

The Dining Room, Spencer House Courtesy of The Rothschild Foundation

The Dining Room, Spencer House
Courtesy of The Rothschild Foundation

These have been joined by a special loan (to mark the 25th anniversary) from the Yale Center for British Art of West’s Milkmaids in St. James’s Park, Westminster Abbey Beyond (ca. 1801, oil on panel, Paul Mellon Fund). And a very interesting loan it is for this is an unusual subject in West’s oeuvre with its combination of pastoral and urban life.  It depicts the eastern end of nearby St James’s Park where milkmaids had kept cows from the late 17th century onwards and by the time of the painting it had become somewhat fashionable to visit that part of the park to imbibe either milk or a mixture of milk and wine known as syllabub (one of my favourite deserts). Appropriately enough the painting hangs in the Dining Room.

 

Spencer House: Open every Sunday 10am-5pm, £12 (£10 concessions) also for pre-booked and private tours

 

http://www.spencerhouse.co.uk