19TH CENTURY

Geoffrey Bennison (d.1984), the renowned and influencial Pimlico Road antiques dealer, decorator and artist, was one of the major players in the evolution of 20th century English style. Stephen Calloway writing in Architectural Digest described '... Bennison's eye for the rich and splendid, his love of the eccentric and his predilection for vastly overscale pieces made entering the shop unforgettable. From dense theatrical gloom, distressed baroque mirrors gleamed; always there were columns of rare marble, ancient or seventeenth-century busts and other sculptures, faded brocades and Moroccan or Turkish embroideries, gilt Kentian tables, old leather or lacquered screens, impossibly large chandeliers, and exquisite Ziegler carpets underfoot. Amid these wonders he held genial court, especially at teatime, during which he would entertain duchesses and decorators usually haranguing the former to 'open the handbag and blow the cobwebs off the checkbook.''