Description
comprising THREE PANELLED DOORS, two with purple ground and one green, each with panels painted in gilt and colours with flowering plants and opposed beasts, 223cm x 99cm; also THREE PAIRS OF SHUTTERS, one purple, two green, each 266cm x 20.5cm (closed), 266cm x 60cm (open), each with corresponding decoration; and a QUANTITY OF MOULDED ARCHITRAVES
Footnote
Provenance: A private residence, Cheltenham, England
Literature: Gere, Charlotte 'Artistic Circles: Design and Decoration in the Aesthetic Movement', V&A 2010, p. 85
Note: These doors and accompanying shutters and architraves represent a rare surviving example of an 'Aesthetic' or 'House Beautiful' interior. The Aesthetic Movement of the late nineteenth century advocated the use of foreign or 'exotic' influences in the decoration of the home. Long-running articles in influential publications such as the 'Magazine of Art' and the 'Art Journal' encouraged the idea that it was 'important to be up-to-date with artistic activities. Mrs Haweis, the popular authoress found a lucrative new direction for her journalism in this area and commented that "most people are now alive to the importance of beauty as a refining influence. The appetite for artistic instruction is even ravenous." As a cartoonist for Punch and a regular lampooner of the craze for decoration, Edward Linley Sambourne, whose London house is still preserved today, was not immune and the doors and architraves of his house at 18 Stafford Terrace are painted in a very similar fashion to the present lot.