Tuesday 2 February 2016

The Chinese Room, Claydon House / VÍDEO: Claydon House Virtual Tour





The Chinese Room in Claydon House is the most elaborate Chinoiserie interior surviving in Britain. It was designed in 1769 by Luke Lightfoot. Above each door is a pagoda motif supported by Chinese figures. Oriental faces also appear among the flowers around the chimney-piece. The most remarkable part of the room is the tea alcove which is painted with a latticework design and covered in an abundance of Chinoiserie details.





Style Guide: Chinoiserie

Chinoiserie, from 'chinois' the French for Chinese, was a style inspired by art and design from China, Japan and other Asian countries. In the 18th century porcelain, silk and lacquerware imported from China and Japan were extremely fashionable. This led many British designers and craftsmen to imitate Asian designs and to create their own fanciful versions of the East. The style was at its height from 1750 to 1765.

Characteristics

Chinese figures
People in Chinese clothes are a feature of the Chinoiserie style. Sometimes these figures were copied directly from Chinese objects, but more frequently they originated in the designer's imagination.

Fantastic landscapes
In 18th-century Britain, China seemed a mysterious, far-away place. Chinoiserie drew on this exotic image. Objects featured fantastic landscapes with fanciful pavilions and fabulous birds, sometimes inspired by those depicted on actual Chinese objects.

Dragons
To British designers Chinese and Japanese dragons summed up all that was strange and wonderful about the East. These mythical beasts became common Chinoiserie motifs.

Pagodas
The sweeping lines of the roofs of Chinese pagodas were incorporated into a wide range of Chinoiserie objects.

People

Sir William Chambers (1723-1796)
Sir William Chambers is best known as a classical architect, but in his garden buildings he worked in a great variety of styles including Chinoiserie. As a young man Chambers travelled in the East, visiting the great Chinese port of Canton (Guangzhou). In 1757 he published Designs of Chinese Buildings which contained his observations. He designed a number of Chinoiserie buildings for Kew Gardens. The pagoda, aviary and bridge were not based on any real Chinese examples, but Chambers did aim for accurate imitations which contrast with the rather fanciful creations of his contemporaries.

Jean Pillement (1728-1808)
Jean Pillement was a French artist who settled in London in 1750. He was a major designer of Chinoiserie decoration, who published two influential collections of prints - A New Book of Chinese Ornaments, published in 1755, One Hundred and Thirty Figures, Ornaments and Some Flowers in the Chinese Style of 1767. Pillement's fanciful images of Chinese figures, pavilions, flowers and foliage were copied and adapted for all kinds of objects including ceramics, wallpaper, furniture and most especially textiles.

William (1703-1763) and John Linnell (1729-1796)
Father and son William and John Linnell were very successful 18th-century furniture manufacturers. In about 1754 they designed one of the earliest Chinoiserie interiors in Britain, the Chinese bedroom commissioned by the 4th Duke and Duchess of Beaufort for Badminton House in Gloucestershire. The most dramatic piece of furniture the Linnells made for the room was the bed. This typifies the Chinoiserie style with its pagoda-like canopy embellished with dragons, its decorative latticework and its imitation lacquer surface in red, blue and gold.
Sir William ChambersJean PillementWilliam and John LinnellJohn Linnell
Buildings and Interiors

Kew Gardens, Surrey
The botanical gardens at Kew, on the outskirts of London, were established in 1759 by the Dowager Princess Augusta. She employed the architect William Chambers to create a number of exotic Chinese and Moorish style buildings. His famous pagoda remains the most celebrated example of Chinoiserie in Britain. The publication of Chambers' plans and views of Kew in 1762 started a fashion for Chinese-style gardens.
www.kew.org

Chinese Room, Claydon House
The Chinese Room in Claydon House is the most elaborate Chinoiserie interior surviving in Britain. It was designed in 1769 by Luke Lightfoot. Above each door is a pagoda motif supported by Chinese figures. Oriental faces also appear among the flowers around the chimney-piece. The most remarkable part of the room is the tea alcove which is painted with a latticework design and covered in an abundance of Chinoiserie details.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/claydon

Related Style
Rococo 1730 - 1760
Chinoiserie was closely related to the Rococo style. Asymmetry, scrolling forms and an element of fantasy characterise both styles. Rococo and Chinoiserie styles were often used together in interior decoration or even combined in a single object.







Claydon House is a country house in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England, near the village of Middle Claydon. It was built between 1757 and 1771 and is now owned by the National Trust.

The exterior of the house is quite austere — seven bays in total, on two floors, with a three-bayed central prominent elevation surmounted by a pediment. The fenestration is of sash windows. (The ground floor windows are crowned by small round windows suggesting a non-existent mezzanine.) The centre bay contains a large central venetian window on the ground floor

By contrast to the exterior the interiors are an extravaganza of rococo architecture in its highest form. The principal rooms: the north hall, a double cube room (50 ft × 25 ft × 25 ft high (15.2 m × 7.6 m × 7.6 m)) may have lost its adjoining hall under the lost dome. However, its magnificence remains. The broken pedimented door cases are adorned with rococo carving, by Luke Lightfoot, the most talented wood carver of the era, who worked extensively on the great mansion. His work can be found on the ceiling and the niches in the walls. The adjoining saloon is slightly more restrained in its decoration. However the ornate carving continues into the dado rails, and onto the Corinthian columns supporting the huge venetian window. The third principal room was redecorated as a library by Parthenope, Lady Verney in 1860. The plaster rococo ceiling remains in all its splendour.

A staircase of inlaid ivory and marquetry leads to the first floor. The walls of the staircase hall are ornamented with medallions and carved garlands reflecting the theme established in the main reception rooms. The wrought iron balustrade of the stairs contains ironwork ears of wheat, which rustle like the real thing as one ascends the flights.

The marvel of the first floor is the Chinese room: one of the most extraordinary rooms in the house if not England. Here the rococo continues, but this time in a form known as chinoiserie — essentially a Chinese version of the rococo decorative style. The entire room is a fantasy of carved pagodas, Chinese fretwork, bells and temples while oriental scrolls and swirls swoop around the walls and doors reaching a crescendo in the temple-like canopy, which would have once contained a bed, but now gives a throne-like importance to a divan.

Also on this floor is a small museum dedicated to the nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, the sister of Parthenope, Lady Verney. In her later years Nightingale regularly stayed at the house.

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