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Lot Essay
Alfred Morrison's house, The Pavillion, at Fonthill, now demolished, was designed by Thomas Henry Wyatt and David Brandon in 1849 and incorporated the surviving wing of William Beckford's 'Fonthill Splendens'.
Between 1862 and 1865 Owen Jones worked at Fonthill and his work included the decoration of a drawing room, probably the one described by The Builder, 9 May 1874, as 'built, decorated and fitted up' by Jackson and Graham 'from Mr Jones's designs in the Cinquecento style, of which it forms an exquisite example. The ceiling is of wood, panelled, and inlaid, the mouldings being black and gold'. The room was created to house Morrison's extensive collection of Chinese Porcelain, including many of the finest objects from Peking's Summer Palace, which had been looted and burned at the end of the Second Opium War in 1860.
It is interesting to note that it was the study of Morrison's porcelain which led Jones to reconsider his scant representation of Chinese art in his seminal Grammar of Ornament, 1856, and which induced him to publish xamples of Chinese Ornament, 1867. See Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth Century Design From Pugin to Mackintosh, London, 1993. At the beginning of the 20th Century the room was dismantled and some of the contents were installed at Barton Hill House, Shaftesbury, including a cabinet subsequently offerred at Christie's London, 10 July, 2003, lot 80.
A square upright display cabinet from the suite was exhibited at The Fine Art Society, Architect Designers: Pugin to Mackintosh, 1981, no. 6, and another similar is displayed in the Dunedin Art Gallery in New Zealand.
Between 1862 and 1865 Owen Jones worked at Fonthill and his work included the decoration of a drawing room, probably the one described by The Builder, 9 May 1874, as 'built, decorated and fitted up' by Jackson and Graham 'from Mr Jones's designs in the Cinquecento style, of which it forms an exquisite example. The ceiling is of wood, panelled, and inlaid, the mouldings being black and gold'. The room was created to house Morrison's extensive collection of Chinese Porcelain, including many of the finest objects from Peking's Summer Palace, which had been looted and burned at the end of the Second Opium War in 1860.
It is interesting to note that it was the study of Morrison's porcelain which led Jones to reconsider his scant representation of Chinese art in his seminal Grammar of Ornament, 1856, and which induced him to publish xamples of Chinese Ornament, 1867. See Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth Century Design From Pugin to Mackintosh, London, 1993. At the beginning of the 20th Century the room was dismantled and some of the contents were installed at Barton Hill House, Shaftesbury, including a cabinet subsequently offerred at Christie's London, 10 July, 2003, lot 80.
A square upright display cabinet from the suite was exhibited at The Fine Art Society, Architect Designers: Pugin to Mackintosh, 1981, no. 6, and another similar is displayed in the Dunedin Art Gallery in New Zealand.