A VICTORIAN GILTWOOD AND PAINTED PINE ARMORIAL CARTOUCHE

This lot is offered without reserve. No VAT will … Read more

JOHN FOWLER: An 18th Century Dream The interior decorator John Fowler (1906-1977), whose centenary is being celebrated this year with an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, is the inspiration for this sale. Fowler, together with his business partner Nancy Lancaster, has been credited with the revival of the English country house style; a vivid and elegant creation of original paint colours, classical English furniture and above all pretty, flowered chintzes used for soft upholstery and curtains. Fowler changed the look of English post-war country house interiors in a profound and extremely influential manner. Fowler was obsessed by the 18th century and knew an enormous amount about English decoration of the time. He was never happier than when he found himself in a sad, grey, post-war English stately home, able to scrape away at centuries of gloomy 19th century layers of paint with a coin to get to the original 18th century colours underneath. He had not been brought up in this rarefied world: a self-made, self-educated man, Fowler had been discovered by the pre-war decorator Sybil Colefax when he was working in the Peter Jones department store and living in a tiny house on the Kings Road opposite Mrs. Colefax's much grander house opposite. Fowler can never be considered as a major shaper of taste without citing the influence of Nancy Lancaster (1897-1994), an aristocratic Virginian who spent most of her very long life in England but whose childhood had been spent in the pretty, bright interiors of her native, America. For if the 18th century English country house was Fowler’s dream-world and inspiration, his work with Mrs. Lancaster brought a strong element of American spit-and-polish, bold use of pattern and colour to his schemes for private country houses and latterly for National Trust restorations. For English decoration of the 18th century was less colourful and used fewer prints than one can find in the typical Fowler interior. Indeed, the surviving décor of many post-war English country houses, featuring dusty brown colour schemes and heavy, dark curtains with drab paintwork as a background to classical 18th century furniture, are far removed from the bold use of colour and pattern so typical of Fowler and Mrs. Lancaster. They were known as the unhappiest unmarried couple in London but Fowler and Mrs. Lancaster'’s productive collaboration and partnership over many years has influenced almost every decorator of note in the last half of the 20th century and, with minimalism now looking slightly vieux jeu, their bold colourful approach to interior decoration, their superb use of soft upholsteries to lift and beautify the sombre classical room, their revisionist approach has a new resonance for a new generation. But Fowler was far more than a decorator; his deep knowledge of the furniture of the 18th century and his appreciation of the architecture of its grand houses added to the brilliance of his designs. His famous 'three whites' provided a logical system for painting a room architecturally; the darkest white was used on the stiles and railings, the mid-white on the panels and the lightest on the mouldings. He was obsessed by original paint and virtually founded the historical paint industry; original textile documents were also used to revive patterns not seen for two hundred years and given new life in the form of glazed chintzes and woven silks. Fowler also re-imported this Americanised country house into America; he worked for some leading shapers of post-war American taste including those good-taste heroines Pauline de Rothschild, Bunny Mellon and Evangeline Bruce, decorating wonderful houses in America for them and apartments in Albany, 18th century London's original co-op apartment building, for Pauline and Evangeline. Few Fowler interiors have survived intact, but one English stately home was decorated by him between 1949 and 1953 and everything is still exactly as he arranged it, so it is possible to see how he took the grandeur of the past and made it relevant to the present. His approach was essentially a romantic one, to give the illusion of the past. The 18th century was his dream, his perfect world and he recreated it and modernised it for 20th century life. Meredith Etherington-Smith The photography for this sale uses three wallpaper backgrounds from Colefax and Fowler. Selwood Stripe was created recently by the Colefax & Fowler design studio. Amelia uses a design of tulips adapted from a French 19th century wallpaper. Berkeley Sprig is taken from an 18th century lining found by John Fowler when decorating the Clermont Club at 44 Berkeley Square in 1962. It was found behind the Victorian red damask in the first floor front room with a painted a coffered ceiling. Its design may have been taken from a late 17th early 18th century embroidered quilt. It was chosen for the endpapers of the hardback edition of Chester Jones's book Colefax & Fowler: the Best in English Interior Decoration, London, 1998. A MAS NEAR SAINT-TROPEZ (LOTS 1-99) LE SALON

A VICTORIAN GILTWOOD AND PAINTED PINE ARMORIAL CARTOUCHE

CIRCA 1876

Details

A VICTORIAN GILTWOOD AND PAINTED PINE ARMORIAL CARTOUCHE
CIRCA 1876
The shield-shaped crest above the motto 'ESTO QUODVESSE VIDERIS', headed by a helmet and flanked by foliate scrolls, reeds and dolphins, lacking further armorial carving to the helmet, the reverse inscribed in pencil 'no. 25'
29¾ in. (75 cm.) high; 28 in. (71 cm.) wide

Provenance

Christopher Cowlin, Lyegrove, Avon, sold Christie's house sale, 26 September 1988, lot 57.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve. No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The arms (Azuure on a Chevron nebuly between two Martlets in chief and a Rose in base Argent three Crescents of the field) and the motto (Esto Quod Esse Videris - Be What You Seem To Be) are those of Watson as granted to John Watson (1803-1889) of Bowdon, co. Chester (College of Arms Ms: Grants 59/292). He was the only surviving son of Joseph Watson (1768-1849) of Christopher Street, Finsbury, London, Bridgemaster to the Corporation of London, and grandson of John Watson (1725-1804) of Kidderminster, co. Worcester.
This armorial escutcheon is conceived in the early 19th century French 'picturesque' fashion to evoke love's triumph with its shell-scalloped frame borne by ribbon-tied Venus dolphins embowed amongst reeds.

More from A Tribute to John Fowler : Furniture and Decorations

View All