SULTANABAD REGION, WEST PERSIA, CIRCA 1880

Bernard Nevill was one of Britain's most important textile designers and, at the age of fifteen, the youngest student to attend London's St. Martin's College of Art. Fashion illustrator, costume designer, interior decorator and professor in fashion and textile design, he was a forerunner in the design of "shabby chic." In 1960, Nevill was hired as consultant designer of textiles for Liberty London where he created prints that revitalized the traditional Liberty textiles, and strongly influenced the modern fashion designers of London during the sixties.

Nevill lived at West House, a Grade II listed house in Chelsea, London, from 1976 to 2011, which was crammed full of antiques, curios and works of art. The paintings and furnishings, including this impressive Ziegler carpet, became synonymous with the sitting room furnishings of the larger than life character, Uncle Monty, in the 1987 British film Withnail and I, which was filmed on site.