.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
MONKTON HOUSE, WEST DEAN
These chairs were commissioned as part of the collections formed by Edward James (d. 1985) at Monkton House, the retreat built by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1902 in the grounds of his parents' house at West Dean Park, Sussex, in the mid-1930s. James altered Monkton with the architect Kit Nicholson, son of William and brother of Ben, but the interiors were an extraordinary and personal combination of surrealism and 'Vogue Regency'. James created these in conjunction with Norris Wakefield, then an assistant to the Mount Street decorator Dolly Mann, who encouraged him to introduce 'bamboo' furnishings together with palm-tree ornament as part of his Surrealist enrichment of his 'magical house in the woods' (C. Aslet, 'Monkton House, West Sussex',Country Life, 12 September 1985, pp. 700-704).
These chairs were commissioned as part of the collections formed by Edward James (d. 1985) at Monkton House, the retreat built by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1902 in the grounds of his parents' house at West Dean Park, Sussex, in the mid-1930s. James altered Monkton with the architect Kit Nicholson, son of William and brother of Ben, but the interiors were an extraordinary and personal combination of surrealism and 'Vogue Regency'. James created these in conjunction with Norris Wakefield, then an assistant to the Mount Street decorator Dolly Mann, who encouraged him to introduce 'bamboo' furnishings together with palm-tree ornament as part of his Surrealist enrichment of his 'magical house in the woods' (C. Aslet, 'Monkton House, West Sussex',Country Life, 12 September 1985, pp. 700-704).