A Thomas Hope Valentine

A wall applique in the form of a Phyrgian helmet designed by Thomas Hope

Classicists are all aflutter over the current exhibition "Inspired by Antiquity: Classical influences on 18th and 19th century furniture and works of art" at Carlton Hobb's uptown mansion. The show is embarrassingly full of museum-worthy riches whose provenances are as notable as the objects themselves.

In fact, I have been bursting at the seams to show you this table which I first encountered on a tour of Carly's gallery months ago.

 A royal porcelain demi-lune table by Bellangé, c. 1820, from Carlton House.  Note how it's photographed in front of a mirror so that its reflection completes the ellipse.

It was installed in the Prince Regent's fabled Carlton House whose late Louis XVI-inspired decor of the 1790s set the London beau monde on fire.  The Prince, later George IV, earned a deserved reputation for extravagance and large sums were spent on constant redecorating.  This table was acquired in 1822 for the Blue Velvet Room when the full-blown stylings of Walsh Porter had the monarch in its clutches.

 

 The Blue Velvet Room, Carlton House, as painted by W.H. Pyne in 1818 - yet another scheme before the table was purchased

It is also interesting to note that the table is French in manufacture.  The Regent had to curb his subversive Francophile ways during Britain's war with Napoleonic France, but the 1822 date of the table, well after the battle of Waterloo, suggests that nationalism was no longer an obstacle to sating his gout francais.

I was sworn to secrecy until now, as the table was being officially unveiled at this show. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.

 Regency aesthete and designer Thomas Hope in Turkish costume

The cornerstone of the exhibition is the rare collection of Thomas Hope works painstakingly assembled by international art advisor Philip Hewat-Jaboor. As all my fellow Regency-maniacs know, Thomas Hope was an enormously wealthy banking scion who, after taking the Grand Tour of all tours, returned to London determined to showcase his artifacts in a suitable, "Classically correct" setting.

Hope's Egyptian Room at Duchess Street.  The Flaxman illustrations don't convey the brilliant color scheme of pale yellow and bluish green of the Egyptian pigment, relieved by masses of black and of gold"

The result was his fabulous and fabulously idiosyncratic house on Duchess Street, originally built by Robert Adam in the 1770s, and enlarged by Hope with the help of Charles Heathcote Tatham.  Furniture and decorative objects necessary for the conveniences of modern life - but not found in ancient times - were designed by Hope himself.

 Thomas Hope design for a wall light, left, and the carved and bronzed limewood wall light itself, c. 1802

Hope was so pleased with the results, he commissioned John Flaxman to illustrate the interiors which were published in 1807 as Household Furniture and Interior Decoration. As Hewat-Jaboor has pointed out, Hope's ultimate mission was to improve taste and what better way than to lead by example.

Hewat-Jaboor also highlights Hope's lesson of combining new works with antiques, which he believes is as important in today's interiors as it was for Hope's. “You have to present things in a fabulous and exciting way, and that means there has to be a mixture of the very best – new and antique. You have to see how objects interact as a whole. It’s the fusion of paintings, objects and furniture that makes everything come alive."

 Hewat-Jaboor's previous London flat with a pair of predestals and settee, both from Duchess Street and now on view at Carlton Hobbs

Hewat-Jaboor's Hope works were very much alive in his London residence, but, after a move, he found he no longer had the proper setting for them. "They are demanding pieces", he says, and it is undeniable that Hope's high style designs are not shrinking violets. Instead of relegating the collection to storage, Hewat-Jaboor is sending them off with this final valentine.

"Inspired by Antiquity" runs through February 18th
Carlton Hobbs
60 East 93rd Street
New York, NY
Tomorrow: More on Philip Hewat-Jaboor, the aesthete behind the aesthete

For more on the exhibition, click over to  1stdibs and the Huffington Post.

Los Angeles April 7 Lecture: What IS Hollywood Regency?

Tuesday, April 7, 11am
Regency Redux Lecture & Book Signing

PACIFIC DESIGN CENTER POTTERTON BOOKS
SilverScreen Theater, G291
8687 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood, CA

RSVP - Lynda Brenner 310-360-6418

"Hollywood Regency" has become a label much used by the design industry, but few seem to know exactly what it means. Design historian Emily Evans Eerdmans will discuss the historical Regency style and how it was restyled by Hollywood's art directors in the twentieth century to create bold and glamorous settings - often on a dime.

Regency Redux Lecture and Book Signing - Wednesday, Feb 11

Tomorrow I will be giving a lecture at the Institute of Classical Architecture. I am particularly excited to be invited by this wonderful organization as one of my goals with RR was to cast more light on the continuation of the Classical tradition in the twentieth century (which IMO has been for too long dominated by the story of Modernism). And who better to discuss this with than today's design professionals who continue to find relevance and inspiration in Classicism?

The Nitty Gritty:

Wednesday, February 11; the Library at the General Society, 20 West 44th Street, 6:30 reception and book signing; lecture to follow at 7:00 pm. FREE to ICA&CA members and employees of professional member firms. $10 for the general public. Space is limited.

RESERVE ONLINE or by calling (212) 730-9646, ext. 109. This lecture generously sponsored by Cowtan & Tout

RR Backstory 2: Choosing a Cover

It's hard to believe now, but it was a long road to finding the perfect cover for Regency Redux. In fact, the Greenbrier enfilade was a last minute find and wasn't my first pick.

The Initial Work Up

A gloriously decaying interior at Stephen Tennant's Wilsford Manor. Tennant was a Bright Young Thing, great friends with Cecil Beaton and Rex Whistler, and a client of Syrie Maugham.

Rizzoli liked this one best.

The famous David Adler mirrored bathroom now in Miles Redd's NoHo townhouse as photographed by Martyn Thompson for W magazine. The bathroom was originally designed for meatpacking magnate Lester Armour, and torn out when the house was purchased by singer/songwriter Richard Marks.

My editor and I fought for this one, but#1 Rizzoli doesn't like loos on covers and #2 the general concensus was that the image was too difficult to read.

Trying Again

This was the first Greenbrier image we worked with. I thought the Rococo revival chair sent too much of a contradictory message.

Loved this one! Myrna Loy's dressing room in Wife vs. Secretary. Rizzoli really wanted color and although I was devastated for five minutes, I think they were right.

What do you think?

(Susi Oberhelman is the extremely talented graphic designer responsible for all these covers as well as the book itself.)

Regency Redux Backstory: The Ashley Hicks Stools

A few weeks ago, Regency Redux had its book launch in London at the Fine Art Society. It was a lovely evening - I got to see many old friends as well as meet contacts made while writing the book.

One of these was the very charming garden designer Marie-Christine de Laubarede whose country house living room is pictured above and is the closing photo of the book. I was drawn to this photograph because of the pair of neoclassical stools that seemed so academically correct, they could have lept out of the Parthenon. I knew they must be by the designer T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings (1905-1976) - "Gibby" to his friends - who was absolutely obsessed with adhering faithfully to Ancient Greek precedents. In the search for discovering a contemporary style, Gibby thought it was necessary to return to the purity of ancient design when form was distilled to its most simple and beautiful.

Gibby's NY studio in 1936. Doesn't that vase look like something from Jonathan Adler? Photograph by Loomis Dean for Life, reproduced in T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Furniture of Classical Greece , New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963).

Well, I was wrong. And luckily before the book went to press, Marie-Christine corrected me and said they were by Ashley Hicks, son of legendary decorator David Hicks. I confessed all this to Ashley at the book party and he told me that in fact he had thought quite a bit about Gibby while designing them. As a student, Ashley came across Gibby's 1963 book Furniture of Classical Greece which included his iconic version of the klismos chair (see below).

In the 1960s, Robsjohn-Gibbings and Life magazine went to Greece to showcase his "authentic" designs in their "original" surroundings. Life Magazine, circa 1961

Gibby relied heavily on the furniture drawings found in Ancient Furniture: A History of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Furniture written in 1926 by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Gisela Richter to create these replications of antiquity . However, Ashley did a little digging and realized that Richter had revised her descriptions just three years later in the 1966 The Furniture of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans and that Gibby's klismos was no longer on the mark. Ashley picked up the glove and made his own line of even more correct klismos chairs, of which Marie-Christine's stools were a spin off.

Why I find this so particularly interesting is that not only does it affirm that interest in the Classical tradition is alive and well, but that - to my eyes - it continues to be as striking and appealing today as it was to those both decades and centuries ago. This then begs the question: why have we responded for so long to Classical design?

Top photo © Fernando Bengoechea/Beateworks/Corbis