Mission: Impossibly Smart

Boiled leather and stainless steel chair

by

Simon Hasan

 

Johnson Trading Gallery

Now playing: Sade - Skin

Mission: Impossibly Smart

T-chair-3LC

William Katavolos, Ross Littell and Douglas Kelley

Designed in 1952/53

Made by Laverne International, New York

 Now playing: Soft Cell - Tainted Love

Now

Cocktail cabinets are a completely different kettle de poison.

1920s chinoiserie drinks cabinet loosely eluding to the Queen Anne period

 An Art Deco D shaped walnut cocktail cabinet

The upper section enclosed by panelled doors and fitted with brushing slides.

A very smart 1960s Danish rosewood cocktail cabinet

Now playing: Cher - Welcome to Burlesque

at Home

Lord and Lady Rendelsham

Their Chelsea house (also decorated by David Mlinaric) as it appeared in The World of Interiors, 1988.

The house was in fact only twelve feet wide and arranged over three floors benefiting from a courtyard almost as large as the house itself. In the courtyard were two mulberry trees planted by James I in order to encourage silk weaving in England.

The drawing room

The drawing room chimneypiece designed by Mlinaric

The libray/dining room with its very Soane like ceiling

Lady Rendlesham's bedroom reflected in an English 18th century tear drop mirror

Sadly,  Clare Rendlesham died shortly after the house was completed.

Scale Model by Mirabel Cecil

The World of Interiors July/August 1988

Photography by Fritz von der Schulenburg

Now playing: Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)

Thinking

This

+

This (in black)

Now playing: Human League - Together In Electric Dreams, Extended Mix

Too old to be young.

And, too young to be old. 

Without saying it, that is what my client meant.

And that shall be the premiss when we begin their new house.

The double drawing room.

Currently a very poor mix of neo Georgian, Arts and Crafts, and contemporary Scandinavian elements. 

 With an absolutely hideous reproduction Louis XV chimney thrown in for good measure. 

Luckily, we had concentrated on a few good pieces for their transitional rental.

Current inspirations for the new house:

Lady Ottoline Morrell 

photographed by Baron Adolph de Meyer, 1907

Fontana Arte and Cole & Son

And, the randomness life can bring.

Now playing: Deee-Lite - Groove Is In The Heart

Une table à écrire

Louis XV Writing Table

by Bernard Van Risen Burgh (b. after 1696-1766) 

                      

The top is a late 17th century Japanese lacquer work panel of the Edo period.

Now playing: The Kingsmen - Louie Louie

Woman's work

A Regency brass inlaid rosewood ladies work table

Of casket form, the hinged cover with bead edge enclosing a fitted interior  on a lyre support and splayed legs.

Now playing:  Violent Femmes - Color Me Once

Je n'aime pas à résister à la tentation.

I am not over-fond of resisting temptation.

from Vathek by William Beckford

William Beckford

by Sir Joshua Reynolds
oil on canvas, 1782
National Portrait Gallery



William Thomas Beckford  (1760-1844)

 Beckford was the only legitimate son of Alderman William Beckford, twice lord mayor of London and Member of Parliament. His mother, Maria (nee Hamilton), was descended from the royal House of Stuart. Being the only child of a late marriage, he was given every encouragement. At the age of five he received piano lessons from the nine-year-old Mozart. He also received instruction from Sir William Chambers and Alexander Cozens in architecture and drawing. Upon his father's death in 1770, he inherited a vast fortune built on the  Jamaican sugar trade. Making him, as his distant cousin Lord Byron later put it, England's richest son.

 While touring England in 1779, he developed what he called a strange wayward passion for William Courtenay, the eleven-year-old son and heir of Viscount Courtenay. Beckford also became involved with Louisa Beckford, the unhappily married wife of one of his cousins. In 1780, the restless Beckford embarked on a European tour that his family hoped would ease his inner turmoil and dispel any rumors surrounding his friendship with Courtenay.

In 1781, inspired by a Christmas party held in Courtenay's honour at Fonthill, Beckford wrote Vathek - the story  of an impious voluptuary who builds a tower. A tower so high that he not only can survey all the kingdoms of the  the world, but he can also challenge god in his heaven. Beckford claimed to have written the initial French-language draft of Vathek in one sitting over the course of three days and two nights. He had based his characters on historical figures and provided a wealth of detail. He intended to add to this story four episodic tales.  While composing them, he arranged for the Reverend Samuel Henley, an oriental enthusiast and former professor, to translate the entire work into English and to add footnotes explaining the allusions.

Unfortunately, completion of the episodes was to be interrupted. In the autumn of 1784 scandal broke . Beckford was charged with sexual misconduct with young Courtenay. Reports of the scandal spread quickly, and, though his guilt was never proved, he, with his wife (he married Lady Margaret Gordon in 1783) and baby daughter, was forced into exile. In May 1786, in Switzerland, his wife died of puerperal fever after giving birth to their second daughter. Beckford also learned that Vathek was to be published anonymously, with the preface claiming that  the work was directly translated from the Arabic. Subsequently, Beckford published a French edition in order to claim authorship (the uncompleted episodic tales were to remain unpublished until 1912).

In Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Byron wrote, 

Unhappy Vathek, thou wert smitten with unhallowed thirst

Of nameless crime, and thy sad day must close

To scorn, and Solitude unsought - the worst of woes.

Beckford spent his time in exile traveling throughout Europe, eventually returning to England in 1796. Ostracised, he spent the remainder of his life collecting books, paintings, and rare works of art and building his extravagant Gothic pile, Fonthill Abbey. Beckford supervised the planning and building of what was to become the most extraordinary house in England. In 1807 the house's great central tower collapsed and was rebuilt. Beckford grew notorious as both the creator of the increasingly popular Vathek and as the reclusive owner of Fonthill, where he lived until financial difficulties forced him to sell in 1822. The tower again later collapsed, destroying part of the building.



The design of the interiors and the furnishings at Lansdown Tower,  the house Beckford later built in Bath,  gave tangible evidence to his creative genius. And quite possibly, if not laid ,  solidified the foundations of the English eclectic style.

One of a pair of silver-gilt waiters made by William Burwash for William Beckford

Coffer-shaped display cabinet
William Beckford and Henry Edmund Goodridge
probably made by English and Son, Bath
1831-41

Oak cabinet on stand made for the Scarlet Drawing Room 

Lansdown Tower, Bath

1831 - 1841

Oak cabinet

Most likely designed by Beckford and his architect Henry Edmund Goodridge

A superb example of the furniture Beckford commissioned during his final years.

Cabinet made in Paris around 1825

Richly encrusted with hardstones and mounted in gilt bronze

The panels were made at the noted Gobelins workshops in Paris, late 17th Century.

Roman chair, circa 1800 

Originally part of a suite of furniture at Fonthill Abbey

Sold at the Fonthill sale 1823

Siena marble console table    

Commissioned by William Beckford for the vestibule at Landsdown Tower, Bath. 
Most probably designed by the architect of the Tower, Henry Edmund Goodridge, in collaboration with Beckford.

Now playing:  Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade 

Pravda

Late 19th Century Russian mahogany sofa

Europa horsehair

Now playing: Air - Left Bank

Rule of thumb I

Be contrary. Adopt that which is unfashionable and make it your own.

 William IV figured rosewood sofa table 

The rectangular top  above a shaped frieze drawer on carved pillar supports with paw feet.

Late 18th century Portuguese rosewood side table

Serpentine top above a frieze drawer and a scrolling-foliate carved apron, 

on cabriole legs with ball and claw feet

Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,
Remote, serene, and inaccessible...

Mont Blanc (L 96-97), Percy Bysshe Shelley

Now playing: Barbara and Georges Moustaki - La Dame Brune

Tuffet, no Muffet

Gebrüder Thonet stool

Austria, c. 1905

lacquered beech, cane

16 w x 13 1/2 d x 7 h inches

Now playing:  Laura Nyro - Mama Roux

From little acorns

A late 18th century Baroque corner cupboard of dark polished oak

A fair exterior is a silent recommendation. — Publilius Syrus

 Now playing: Joan Armatrading - Love & Affection

Good bones

A 19th century giltwood framed and upholstered sofa.

George III in style with a shaped back, out swept arms terminating in scrolls, 

serpentine fronted seat on eight square section tapering fluted legs and spade feet.

A cut velvet with a strie ground

Now playing: Martha Wash - Carry On

Polished and painted

Regency satinwood side chair with painted decoration and caned seat.

The swept front stretcher and back splats are particularly fine details.

Now playing: Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite

Mission: Impossibly Smart

Illum Wikkelsø (1919-1999)

 

1960s Danish King Chair and sofa.

For some, the be all and end all is Wegner's Papa Bear Chair. 

If that concept existed here, then Wikkelsø's  King Chair would fill the bill.

Now playing: Kate Bush - King of the Mountain

Polished, not painted

An 18th century Norwegian Rococo dark polished sofa, 

with carved c-scrolls and ornaments, the cabriole legs terminating in ball and claw feet. 

Mid 18th century Rococo dark polished canapé, carved with shells and foliage. 

Time will pass, and we shall go away forever, and we shall be forgotten, our faces will be forgotten, our voices, and how many there were of us; but our sufferings will pass into joy for those who will live after us, happiness and peace will be established upon earth, and they will remember kindly and bless those who have lived before. - Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters

Now playing: Zero 7 - Simple Things