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THE FUTURE OF COUNTRY HOUSES

4/28/2024

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This post originally ran in November, 2018. I am re-posting it and several more as newly relevant to some upcoming subjects. Enjoy!!!
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I recently attended a lecture by Jeremy Musson, whose many books are a constant source of delight, if a bit too heavy to carry around. However, I toted one home anyway.
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I photographed Mr. Musson in 2012 at the Milwaukee Art Museum where I listened to him talk about one of his  previous books (which I also bought of course) English Country House Interiors.
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Mr. Musson wrote for many years for Country Life magazine and visited a large percentage of the country houses in Britain. In his new volume he partners with David Cannadine in their volume for Rizzoli and the Royal Oak Society, American affiliate of Britain's National Trust.
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Mr. Cannadine's essay opening the volume explains the significance of the 1985-86 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. As a serendipitous coincidence, we toured this exhibition, and its catalogue has long been one of my prize possessions. I have gone on in the subsequent decades to study and visit as many Stately Homes as I can, not only in Britain but also in the U.S. and on my travels elsewhere.
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The photo above, from the National Gallery's website, shows part of the installation of the exhibition featuring the marble statue Three Graces by Canova, which was purchased in 1994 from its then-owner the Duke of Bedford of Woburn Abbey. It  has since been shared by its newer owners, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
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As I page through the Treasure Houses catalogue, I am surprised and gratified at how many of the objects--paintings, sculpture, furniture, china, etc.--I have visited in situ since my first forays into the splendors of the country houses and their collections. Above is the magnificent sofa, c 1762-65, from Kedleston Hall's Drawing Room designed by Robert Adam and executed by the firm of John Linnell. Also by Linnell for an Adam-designed house are these chairs from Osterley Park.
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Getting back to the The Country House, Past Present and Future, the cover picture shows us Uppark in West Sussex, a house which the National Trust painstakingly restored after a terrible fire in 1989. Below, the fire on August 30, 1989.
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Fortunately, most of the furnishings, paintings and decorative arts on the ground floor were saved by brave volunteers, but the roof was destroyed and collapsed. The 17th century house not only had a heritage of fine collections and architectural significance, but it also had a fascinating history of inhabitants before it was turned over to the NT in 1954. The Trust decided to restore the house after the fire and it was re-opened in 1995 after years of careful restoration.
Fire struck again in 2015 when Clandon House, an 18th century architectural gem burned. Again, many of the furnishings were saved and the NT has begun restorations. The picture on the right shows the house as it was when we visited a few years before the fire.
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Before I wander off topic a bit again, as I do so often, come with me briefly to Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire.  The first time I visited, shortly after the 1995 TV version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was shown in the U.S., the version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the House was exhibiting a selection of the costumes from the film.

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After looking at the costumes, we enjoyed all the attraction of the lovely old house, assisted by the usually voluble and patient volunteers for the NT. However, when we reached the Red Room, a handsome bedchamber, we ran into a curmudgeon. "Ooh," we exclaimed. "This is the room where Mr Darcy changed his coat!" The volunteer guide was downright offended.  "Madam!" he huffed. "This was the bedroom of Queen Adelaide!"

​We apologized and heard this story. After the death of King William IV in 1837, his widowed queen spent several years traveling among country houses away from the Court. Though Queen Victoria was sincerely fond of her aunt Adelaide, apparently the Duchess of Kent resented her influence.  So she politely stayed away. 

This little story illustrates two points. First, even when run by the National Trust, they can use the income from films and TV,  no matter if it annoys their volunteers.
Secondly, the families and individuals associated with these houses are often more interesting then the estates themselves. 
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In the volume ostensibly the subject of this blog, Jeremy Musson and his essayists discuss many topics associated with the study and enjoyment of country houses. not the least of them the 'Downton Effect.'  As he notes, the country house 'business' has never been better.  Building on books and films such as Brideshead Revisited, the Jane Austen phenomenon, and so forth, we are all captivated by the stories, whether real or fictional, of life in stately homes, whether above or below stairs.  For further captivation, I highly recommend a comfy chair, a cup of tea, and an afternoon (or several) devoted to reading and gazing at The Country House, Past, Present and Future.
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A Regency Era Sculptor

4/14/2024

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Antonio Canova  (1757–1822) Wiki: "was an  Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists, his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, and has been characterised as having avoided the melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter."  Well said.
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     Above, Self Portrait, Antonio Canova, 1792.
    Below, Venus Victrix, by Canova, 1805-08, Borghese Gallery, Rome, 2023.  Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, (1780-1825) posed for this sculpture, though accounts vary on whether she was semi-nude or not. Wikipedia and other sources report the possibility that she quipped the studio had a stove and was warm. Please click for larger pictures.
    Above left, a side view. Right, a plaster cast in the Museum in Possagno; the gentleman behind her head is about to tell me that no photos are allowed, though I had already taken this one and another (below).
   Below, the Museo Canova in Possagno, actually his tomb; right, a plaster cast of Canova's sculpture Napoleon as Mars, the Peacemaker,  aka  Mars the God of War. (You choose.).
      Above left, a model of the original; this copy stands in the Palazzo Bonaparte in the Piazza Venezia in Rome, one of the homes of Napoleon's mother, Letizia, also known as Madame Mere. We visited both to see the building and a vanGogh exhibition on our Rome trip in 2023. 
      ​Below, Mars, the original statue Canova made for Napoleon. However, the Emperor did not like it and it sat in the basement of the Louvre until after his defeat at Waterloo. The Prince Regent eventually purchased and presented it to the victorious Duke of Wellington. It stands today in the staircase at Apsley House, the Wellington Museum in London. The floors beneath it had to be reinforced to bear the weight of the ten-foot tall statue.
Above left, a Canova sculpture of Napoleon's mother in the  Chatsworth Gallery. Right, Endymion.
   from Wikipedia: In May 1819, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, on his first trip to Rome, paid a visit to the studio of the most celebrated sculptor of the time, Antonio Canova. He marvelled at what he saw and commissioned a marble statue from Canova, leaving both its size and subject to the sculptor to decide, and paying a deposit in advance. The marble was roughed out by 1822, when Canova asked for a further £1,500. It was completed before his death later that year. It arrived in London the following year and caused a stir when first displayed at Devonshire House in Piccadilly.... In Greek mythology, Endymion was a handsome shepherd boy of Asia Minor, the earthly lover of the moon goddess Selene, and each night he was kissed to sleep by her. She begged the god Zeus to grant him eternal life so she might be able to embrace him forever. Zeus granted her wish and put Endymion into eternal sleep. The highly polished finish on Canova's statue is believed to represent the reflected light of the moon goddess.
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 left, another view of Endymion; right, a closer view of his companion canine.    ​
   Above left, The Three Graces in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. By Canova, the marble sculpture portrays the mythological three Charities, daughters of Zeus, who represent youth/beauty (Thalia), mirth (Euphrosyne), and elegance (Aglaea).
   Right, a second version of the Three Graces 
is owned jointly and exhibited in turn by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Scottish National Gallery. John Russell, the 6th Duke of Bedford, visited Canova's studio in Rome
 in 1814 and had been immensely impressed by a carving of the Graces which Canova produced for the Empress Josephine. When the Empress died in May of the same year, he offered to purchase the completed piece, now in Russia. Undeterred, the Duke commissioned another version for himself. In 1819 it was installed at the Duke's residence in Woburn Abbey. This item is now owned jointly, as indicated above. 
   Below, left, The Three Graces, in the V&A. Right, a version of three males, in the V&A's exhibition, Fashioning  Masculinity in 2022.

    Above left, Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, Louvre; right, detail.
   I could write on for ages on Canova's brilliant output, his international fame, the urgent pleas made to him for original work, or if necessary, copies. But I will close this blog with a sculpture exhibited in three of the world's most prestigious museums, the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and the Metropolitan in New York City.

  Wikipedia covers it perfectly: "Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss was commissioned in 1787 by Colonel John Campbell. It is regarded as a masterpiece of Neoclassical sculpture, but shows the mythological lovers at a moment of great emotion... the god Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche with a kiss... Joachim Murat acquired the first or prime version in 1800. After his death the statue entered the Louvre Museum in Paris, France in 1824; Prince Yusupov, a Russian nobleman acquired the 2nd version of the piece from Canova in Rome in 1796, and it later entered the Hermitage... A full-scale model for the 2nd version is in the Met. 
   Below, the Met's version, a copy in plaster.
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    Victoria Hinshaw, Author


    Here I will share some of my articles on favorite topics, such as English Country Houses, the Regency Royals, Jane Austen, and the like. Some of these articles have been published elsewhere, probably on the blog I share with Kristine Hughes and Louisa
    ​Cornell:  numberonelondon.net

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