IN August 1778, Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, née Caroline Girle (1738–1817), visited Ditchley Park and wrote in her journal that: ‘A bed-chamber with hangings, bed, and furniture of crimson and yellow velvet is shown as a great curiosity, but I think ugly. The pattern is all pagoda.’ Echoing the words of the housekeeper who had conducted the tour, she added: ‘It [the velvet] was a present of Admiral Lee, my Lord’s brother, who had taken it taken out of the loom in China, and the loom broke that no one else might have the same.’
Lybbe Powys’s critical comment on the design was hardly surprising in an age when the delicate patterns of neo-Classicism had superseded the bold colours and curvaceous lines of the Rococo. She was viewing a room furnished in about 1740 that was still—as we know from an inventory of 1772 —complete with wall hang- ings, a bed with mahogany posts, two festoon window curtains, five maho- gany armchairs and two stools. All were hung or covered with ‘Rich figured Genoa Velvet’, a cut and uncut patterned velvet on a satin ground. As John Cornforth has observed, ‘the effect must have been overpowering’.
Ditchley Park is well known to readers of COUNTRY LIFE, the house having been the subject of numerous articles since the first one was published on October 22, 1904. It is, therefore, fitting that new analysis, prompted by the recent conservation of the velvet wall hangings by Zenzie Tinker Conservation, should be recorded in these pages.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 04, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 04, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds