The Great Haul of China at The Decorative Antiques fair

At the last Battersea fair, exhibitor Great Haul of China sold this group of  Southern Chinese, late C19th ceramic wine pots.

Based in Sevenoaks, Kent, The Great Haul of China sells antique Chinese, Tibetan & Burmese furniture & decorative accessories, including contemporary paintings, old lamps, jewellery & vintage posters.

For an extensive list of exhibitors at the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair (2011 exhibitors published soon) please see the ehxibitors page.

Having spent some time in India last week, both in the northern cities and in the more tropical south (where the Portuguese influence is strong in architecture and design in the old colonial ports especially), I was wondering just how much of the Indian decorative style had enterered the European interior design world over the last 300 years. The style is both distinctive and attractive.

And the antique furniture and artefacts and textiles themselves?  Have the pieces been imported in what volume – as well as the style for home manufacture? I will be told by those who are in the know and I will come back on this.  There have been many pieces at the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair and there will be some at the next Antiques fair starting next week, no doubt…

PS Being stuck in Dubai, I’m also wondering if any of our overseas visitors will be able to fly into London for the antique fair starting on Tuesday…  (It’s quite surreal being in the East and finding that a volcano in Iceland can affect air travel home and disrupt things in little old Blighty!)

As you’d know by now, if you read the Antiques & Interior Design Diary, the lobby theme for the January 2010 antiques fair in Battersea Park is Chinoiserie – to give it the full spiel “Pagodas & Pavilions: Eastern Influences on British Design”. 

So it would be obvious, if you have a tatse for the like to visit the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park while you’re visiting the textiles & antiques fair.  For more info on the pagoda in the park visit the park’s website or for moreinfoon peace pagodas generically visit wikipedia

Japanning is a technique developed in Britain in the last quarter of the 17th century which aimed to imitate the much sought after oriental lacquer which was being imported from the East.

Lacquer is made from layers of tree resin which is allowed to harden and then polished. The drying and hardening process is temperature and humidity dependant and aside from the lack of appropriate resins in Britain the climate conditions are also not conducive to producing the material in the traditional way. When demand for lacquer started outstripping supply local materials and skills adapted to meet it.

Black Japan, which was among the most widely used traditional japanning materials, is a mixture of molten asphalt, natural-resin varnishes, drying oils, and turpentine and has a clear, brownish undertone. Overtime the constituents were refined and the process improved. Initially the most common base material was wood and the designs were very close to the originals which had inspired them. They consisted mostly of a black ground with gold decoration in a traditional Japanese style. Later the designs became more adventurous and natural colour paintings on a variety of ground colours, principally red, green and blue, became more popular. In the 18th century papier mache as a base material became more common as did tinplate. Mother of pearl as a decorative feature was also commonly used.

Almost anything could be japanned and products produced ranged from stage coaches, large pieces of furniture to snuff boxes and everything in between.

In Britain large scale production started in the West Midlands with Bilston in 1719. Production was well established by the late 18th century and Wolverhampton and Birmingham became prominent in the trade.

Tôleware

Japanned tinplate is known as tôleware, a term derived from the French name for such objects, tôle peinte. Tinplate sheets of iron or steel were dipped in molten tin or pewter and worked into a variety of domestic and decorative items, such as teapots, trays, urns, and candlesticks. The objects then were japanned with a varnish the composition of which differed from maker to maker and area to area.

Tôlewares were principally produced in Pontypool and Usk in England, Zeist and Hoorn in Holland, Paris, and, in the United States, Pennsylvania. Pontypool in the south of Wales was the first place in Britain to produce tinplate in the 1720s and from the 1770s became the leading centre for the production of japanned metal objects.

Do It Yourself

Amateur japanning became very popular and recipe books and guides were widely available from the late 17th century eg. John Stalker and George Parker’s, A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing (1688) and Robert Dossie’s, The Handmaid to the Arts (1758). Japanning was considered to be a respectable female accomplishment of the upper and middle classes. This evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries into the handicraft of découpage. A small box or item of furniture is here covered with cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers and each layer is sealed with varnishes. So many layers are applied that the result looks like painting or inlay work, this is then polished.

A Note on Chinese Goods for Export

Whether items made in the East for export can be termed as Chinoiserie is open to debate. Critically these were items which were designed with European taste in mind and so are symptomatic of the melding of styles which is such a feature of Western chinoiserie.

Chinese export porcelain tends to be generally decorative but without the symbolic significance of wares for the home market. Famille rose and verte, monochromatic pieces, imari and Armorial porcelain were all popular.

Continuing our oriental saga… (Also see our last post on the Interior Design Diary)

Gardens: The Georgian landscape garden was already home to Greek temples and Gothic ruins and Chinese bridges, pagodas or summer houses were happily accommodated. Western interpretations of these architectural wonders were not in the main faithful but picked on key features of design. In particular the broad upcurving eaves of pagodas were a popular element.

Sir William Chambers had the advantage of visiting Canton in his youth and his dramatic Pagoda for Kew Gardens, completed in 1762 was one of the most accurate imitations of a Chinese building in Europe.  This became well known through the dissemination of engravings

Pavilions with bells and dragon finials, garden seats and bridges were popular in the fashionable gardens of private and royal estates. The style grew familiar to the less privileged classes when it was incorporated into the supper-boxes and walkways of the London pleasure-gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh in the 1740s.

The most extravagant enthusiast for this style was Catherine the Great who commissioned a whole village (although not completed) in the Chinese style at Tsarskoe Seloin Russia in the 1780s. Similarly the Chinese Pavilion built for Queen Louisa Ulrika in 1753 at Drottningholm Palace, Sweden is an extraordinary example of the chinoiserie style

Regency Period: The late 18th century saw the decline in vogue for the Chinese style. Interest was only revived by the flamboyant fantasy of the discerning Prince Regent, later George IV. The Royal Pavilion at Brighton takes its oriental inspiration seriously; it is not contained in one room or one area of design but is evident in both the interior and exterior of the pavilion. Influences come from across the orient and are visible throughout especially in the splendid and lavish Music Room and Banqueting Room. Furniture of simulated bamboo and carved Chinese figures are set against Chinese-style wall paintings, and lit by Chinese lanterns.

1930s: Chinoiserie gradually waned during the 19th century, when the appeal of the East had to compete with other exotic tastes, such as the “Turkish,” the Egyptian, the Gothic, and the Greek. It enjoyed a brief revival in interior design, however, in the 1920s and 30s. Chinese rooms for the wealthy and cinemas for the masses were in vogue.

Modernist designers created interiors dominated by dramatic black and scarlet lacquers and mirrors. Gold was used lavishly often in conjunction with large Chinese patterns. Chinese style garments, in particular wide sleeved coats were fashionable, as were hairstyles and oriental pearls and jade.

However the influence, even if not the fashion of chinoiserie persisted in to the modernist era. Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner (1914 – 2007) is frequently referred to as the “master of the chair”. In 1944 he embarked on a series of at least nine “Chinese” chairs inspired by portraits of Danish merchants seated in Ming Dynasty chairs. These were variations on the horseshoe and yokeback chair designs of which the wishbone or Y CH24 chair is perhaps the best known.

Wegner employed particularly intricate woodwork and joinery skills in very simple designs which provided an inspiration to a whole generation of Scandinavian cabinetmakers. The strict mitred corners of many of the Haslev furniture designs are reminiscent of sophisticated Ming joinery which used no glue or nails.

More on Western Techniques for an Eastern Look – Japanning and Tôleware – to follow…

Key Periods in the Development of Chinoiserie Style in the West – How Taste Travelled

In the first decades of the 17th century, English and Italian and, later, other craftsmen began to draw freely from forms found on cabinets, porcelain vessels, and embroideries imported from China. Small quantities of Chinese artefacts had entered Europe by the Silk Route through central Asia since Antiquity, but it was not until after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route to the west coast of India via the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 that maritime contact between Europe and Asia was established. Henceforth, Chinese products, notably silk and porcelain, found their way to Europe in some quantity.

Decal Jars

The first four voyages of the English East India Company between 1601 and 1607 were to Bantam in Java where quantities of porcelain were acquired as ‘private trade’ by the ship’s crew. Chinese porcelain was so unlike anything produced in Europe that it was regarded as almost magical. William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598) mounted his Chinese porcelain in silver as did Lettice, Countess of Leicester, whose possessions in 1634 included a ‘pursland boule’ (porcelain bowl) with ‘guilt foote and guilt cover’. Silver settings and ormolu mounts adapted exotic objects to European taste whilst also masking cracks and blemishes and drawing attention to the importance and rarity of the object.

Early ceramic wares at Meissen and other porcelain centres naturally imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and tea wares. The fashion peaked with the wave of rococo Chinoiserie from 1740-1770. Initially images of China were also conveyed to designers and craftsmen by means of works such as the Dutch traveller, Johan Nieuhof’s 1665 illlustrated study of China.

Holland and England were active with the East India Companies in the early 17th century and it was in these two nations that the earliest hints of Chinoiserie are first to be seen. Tin glazed pottery from Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine blue-and-white Ming decoration from the early 17th century.

With the easing of Chinese restrictions on foreign trade in 1684, porcelain and silk began to flood the West and the Chinese influence became all pervasive.

The fashion spread rapidly to all areas of design and no court residence, especially in Germany, was complete without its Chinese room, which was often reserved for the prince’s mistress (e.g., Lackkabinett, Schloss Ludwigsburg, Württemberg, 1714–22).

Chinoiserie on the continent , in conjunction with Baroque and Rococco styles featured extensive gilding and lacquering; much use of blue-and-white (e.g., Delftware); asymmetrical forms; disruptions of orthodox perspective; and Oriental figures and motifs. The style’s lightness, asymmetry and the vivacity of many of its motifs was popular in the fine arts too as in the work of Antoine Watteau and Francois Boucher.

The English embraced the new fashion which was particularly suited to light, feminine spaces: wealthy women’s bedrooms, dressing rooms and drawing rooms in stately homes. One of the earliest complete Chinoiserie interiors in Britain was commissioned by Charles, 4th Duke of Beaufort (d.1756) for the Chinese Bedroom at Badminton House and supplied by John and William Linnell in 1753-55. An escapist fantasy, the room was an European rococo interpretation of ‘Chinese’ design and motifs. The Chinese style Badminton Bed is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

An extraordinary Chinese Room was created at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire in 1760, with an extravagance of woodcarvings by Luke Lightfoot. Wallpaper was key to many of these interiors; both hand painted and of English design and manufacture. Saltram in Devon has four Chinese papers which are probably the earliest still to be seen in Britain, dating from the reign of K’ang Hsi (1662-1722). Houses such as Nostell Priory, Erdigg, near Wrexham and Belton House Lincolnshire also retain papers.

In furniture the major exponent of the time was the much admired Thomas Chippendale, who believed his delicate Chinese, fret-back chairs to be ‘very proper for a lady’s Dressing Room’. His tea tables and china cabinets were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753 – 70, but sober homages to early Qing scholars’ furnishings were also assimilated. The tang evolved into a mid-Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Chippendale’s work of this period can be seen at Dumfries House in Ayreshire, Scotland.

• The Exotic: China as a far away place featuring exotic characters, themes, legends, landscapes full of fanciful pavilions, fabulous creatures such as rare birds and fish, and unusual plants such as bamboo
• Dragons: the most exotic of all the above elements
• Architecture: the sweeping lines of pagoda roofs and Chinese architecture were incorporated into many objects especially furniture
• Oriental dress: the use of silks and embroidered items, people in Chinese clothes added to a fabric design, porcelain figures of such exotic subjects, jade, pearls, clothing in the 1930s
• Tea: afternoon tea drinking as a ‘British’ custom originated in China, period teawares etc
• Techniques: lacquer, porcelain, embroidery, tôle, japanning etc
• Interpretation: Few of the western products of Chinoiserie are entirely true to their Chinese roots. The success of Chinoierie’s fashion is down to its ability to reconfigure itself and adapt to the tastes and requirements of the day. This might mean the introduction of different colour schemes, materials or motifs. It is not unusual to see a printed fabric incorporating Chinese, Japanese and Turkish elements. The approach is not to be “correct” but to evoke an atmosphere of the exotic and this was the power and charm of the aesthetic.

See Chinoiserie in Britain’s great houses:

Chinese Bedroom, Badminton House by John & William Linnell, 1753-55; Chinese Room, Claydon House, Bucks, 1760, with extravagant woodcarvings by Luke Lightfoot; Saltram (Devon) has Chinese wallpapers dating from the reign of K’ang Hsi (1662-1722), probably the earliest still to be seen; Nostell Priory, Erdigg, near Wrexham and Belton House (Lincs) also retain papers; the Royal Pavilion at Brighton led the craze for Chinoiserie in the Regency period. 

‘Thus it is happened …we must all seek the barbarous gaudy goût of the Chinese; and fat headed Pagods and shaking Mandarins bear the prize from the greatest works of antiquity; and Apollo and Venus must give way to the fat idol with a sconce on his head.’ So wrote Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu (society hostess and bluestocking), describing in 1749 the rage for Chinoiserie decoration in England.

More to follow on Chinoiserie… Watch This Space

The January 2010 Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair’s  foyer with it’s eastern flavours, will be designed by Anglo-Oriental Antiques (see previous Antiques & Interior Design Diary news) and will be decorated using wallpapers kindly supplied by Zoffany.  How you wallpaper a marquee remains to be seen…

Zoffany Papers Flavour The Oriental Decorative Fair Lobby in January 2010

The Decorative Fair takes place three times a year, with the first in January, with over 130 exhibitors from the UK and Europe, all specialising in antique and 20th century design.  Its popularity continues to increase in this, its 25th year of business, as an inspiring source for interior decorators and private buyers of the exotic, the unusual and the useful.  The Chinoiserie and Oriental flavours in the foyer display can only help to increase that popularity.

Inside the main exhibition area (Battersea Park’s Marquee) the Decorative Fair continues it’s well known wide range of painted and decorated furniture of all periods, as well as lighting, mirrors and glamorous accessories, the Fair also features a large number of 20th design specialists, as well as more traditional English furniture, textiles, garden ornament, art and sculpture, as well as quirky objets and collectors’ items.

The Decorative, along with other UK antiques fairs, has been experiencing increased visitor numbers this year, a sign of growing interest amongst the public in the more traditional areas of art and design.  Antiques as tangible assets, their ‘green’ credentials and craftsmanship superior to most contemporary high street furniture, as well as value for money, are all major reasons for purchasing antique and 20th century design right now.

A feature-length historical background on Chinoiserie is available: Details to follow.

Now we know… (drum roll…) on the 19th to 24th January 2010 at The Marquee in Battersea Park (London SW11) at London’s favourite event for unusual interior design, The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair will once again splash out on their special foyer display.

And for Winter 2009/2010 the foyer will focus on Chinoiserie – highlighting the many Eastern influences on British interior design and antiques of the past 300 years.

Chinoiserie, always popular at the Decorative Fair, captured the imagination of Europe from the time that intrepid trading ships first sailed to the Orient in the 17th century.  They returned laden with porcelain & silks, bringing us a taste for the exotic and a long-lasting interest in eastern decorations, furniture and interiors.

The Foyer at the Winter Decorative Fair, 19-24 January 2010, will display mainly British examples of the oriental-inspired style, from Chinese Chippendale onwards, but in particular focusing on the later flowering of Chinoiserie in the 19th and early 20th centuries, commonly found in smart country and town houses. Oriental export items will also be included.  Whilst few of the western products of Chinoiserie are entirely true to their Chinese roots, it was the reconfiguring and adaptation of the style to the tastes and requirements of the day that led to its recurring fashion.

Ceramics, textiles, wallpaper, lacquer and its European interpretations (japanned furniture, tôleware), decorative features and ornamentation, will all feature in the Foyer, and all items will be for sale, as they are supplied by dealers at the Fair.

The display will be co-ordinated with the help of oriental specialist, and regular exhibitor, Miranda Brankin-Frisby of Anglo-Oriental Antiques.  The Foyer will be decorated using wallpapers kindly supplied by Zoffany.