Harmony in Blue and Gold

Rooms that are created by designers and artists are rarely named, unlike a work of art, or a piece of mass marketed furniture. However, one room in particular was. (And with a juicy, scandalous story behind it.) I've been waiting some years to see it, and I finally did at the Freer Gallery in Washington DC. The interior design of rooms is so fleeting, composed of everyday objects like paint, fabric, ornaments, furniture and knickknacks. They can change as quickly in color and detail as the leaves on a tree. While the initial visual impact may be memorable, its longevity is limited and subject to the whims of popular taste. Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) recognized a masterpiece of a room and had to have it, as is. He purchased the Peacock Room in 1904. It was painstakingly taken apart and reassembled in his house in Detroit. What is so interesting about interior design is that it is much more than a space filled with furniture, color and ornamentation. It tells the story of the designer who created it, the clients who commissioned it and the people who lived in it. The Peacock Room (1876-1877) was all that.

Sunflower andirons by Thomas Jeckyll, from around 1876. Picture from the New York Times. The room started in London with Thomas Jeckyll, a creative and innovative mid-to-late nineteenth century architect, furniture designer and metalwork designer, who has largely faded into obscurity. Mainly because many of his projects were destroyed or radically altered, in particular the dining room he designed for the London home of the wealthy shipping magnate Frederick R. Leyland. Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F.R. Leyland by James McNeill Whistler, (1870-1873). In the Freer Gallery. Leyland wanted his valuable collection of Chinese porcelains to be showcased in his dining room. His collection consisted of Qing-dynasty pieces, primarily from the Kangxi period (1662-1722), in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Jeckyll constructed an étagère of sorts – with beautifully intricate carved shelving with varying heights to frame each piece of porcelain. He then tacked up antique leather on the walls. Supposedly, leather salvaged from the wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588, which an antique dealer who sold it to him had claimed. Jeckyll painted a few pomegranates and flowers on it but left the natural rich, dark color. A painting by James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) called La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine (The Princess from the Land of Porcelain) was placed above the fireplace, (see top photo). Leyland commissioned quite a few works from Whistler and they soon became friends. Whistler, Self-Portrait, (1872). Once Whistler's Painting of the Princess was framed and neatly affixed to the wall, and Leyland's prized collection of blue and white porcelain was each carefully put into place, the doors leading into the dining room still needed to be done. Jeckyll asked Whistler, who was working on decorations for the entrance hall of the house, for his advice. Whistler scratched his head, sighed and said he was unhappy with the muted paint of the flowers on the wall and wished to paint over it in yellow and gold to bring out the color of his painting. Leyland, a very busy man, agreed. Whistler still wasn't happy and Leyland gave him permission to paint a wave pattern above the wainscoting. Believing the room was almost finished; Leyland went back to his business in Liverpool. But Whistler changed a lot more. He covered the ceiling with gold leaf, and on top of that he painted a pattern of peacock feathers. He also gilded Jeckyll’s walnut shelving. Jeckyll was long gone from the house at this point. Whistler knew exactly what to do about Jeckyll’s door quandary – he painted four fantastically plumed peacocks against a shining gold ground, two on each set of doors. Whistler was thrilled with himself and wrote to Leyland that his dining room was "really alive with beauty — brilliant and gorgeous while at the same time delicate and refined to the last degree." He urged Leyland not to hurry his return to London as was not entirely finished with the room and did not want to spoil the surprise. In the meantime, once he had completed the room Whistler invited friends over to view it, printed up a pamphlet and distributed it all over London for people to come see it. He even held press conferences in the room. Apparently Mrs. Leyland, who remained in the house, didn’t mind. Was she a bit smitten by the arrogant, bad boy artist? Leyland returns and does not find it "alive with beauty". He becomes irate. Whistler smugly sends him a bill twice of what the original antique red leather walls procured by Jeckyll cost. Leyland pays Whistler, but only half the amount. This does not sit well with the artist.

Leyland leaves the house again and Whistler somehow gains entrance once more. (Perhaps because he was on friendly terms with Leyland’s wife?) Whistler felt the leather walls would look better in Prussian blue and began to coat all the leather walls with paint. On the opposing wall from the Princess painting, Whistler depicted two more peacocks fighting each other -- one with money under his claw and silver feathers on his throat which signified the ruffled shirts Leyland always wore. The other peacock squawking in defiance with a silver crest feather that resembles the lock of white hair which curled above Whistler's forehead.

Leyland banned Whistler from the house and Whistler was never to see the room again. But he continues his alleged affair with Mrs. Leyland.

The Leylands separated shortly afterwards. Despite all the controversy, Leyland kept his dining room as is and continued filling the shelves with porcelain until his death.

The redecoration of Jeckyll's room generated lasting praise for Whistler and completely overshadowed Jeckyll's considerable role in the creation of dining room.

When Jeckyll saw what Whistler had done, he fled from the house and was reported to be found babbling while frantically working gilding his own floor at home in his bedroom. He died soon afterwards in an asylum. Whistler was reported to have said: "That's the effect I have on people".

Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland (1872-1873) at the Frick. Although there are no hard facts that Whistler and Frances Leyland had a roll in the hay, it is interesting to note that Whistler has given more time an attention to the great detail on Mrs. Leyland's dress (which he chose for her to wear) rather than the details of her face...

Klismos Chair: The Most Popular Chair

The soft sweeping legs and curved crestrail of the klismos chair set it apart from most everything else the Ancient Greeks did. Their stools had harsh angles. Their stone thrones were cold and cumbersome. Their beds (klines) were simple. When it came to furniture, the ancient Greeks were about function and practicality.

The Greek house was unassuming, humble with limited decoration. The only place to sit was mainly on backless stools -- three and four legged stools, box stools, rectangular stools and folding stools.

But the Greeks, with their zeal for the human body, designed a particular chair that married beauty and comfort. Perfected by the fifth century BC and popular throughout the fourth, it echoed the rhythm and precision, clarity and proportion, and even order of their architecture. It was the most important creation in the history of the chair.

The klismos chair had grace, symmetry and perfect proportions.

No original klismos chairs reached modern times. It was made from wood which didn't survive through the times. But the Greeks left a rich history of bas reliefs and vase paintings of the chair.

Homer even said "Goddesses liked the klismos". And interestingly enough, primarily women were the ones who sat in this chair. Bouncing babies on their knees, spinning thread or getting their hair braided.

The klismos chair was forgotten until the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum in the mid-eighteenth century created a frenzy of design and a fad for all things Grecian (and Roman). The clean lines matched very well with the neoclassical style. It France it appealed to those who reacted against the excessive, whimsical rococo style. In England the klismos became popular during the Regency period of the early nineteenth century. And it soon made its way to America.

So what do we think? Is this a chair we would like to incorporate into our own homes? Which style, which era and in which finish? As a set or for single use quietly paired with a desk in the corner of a room.

Klismos Chair, by James Newton (1760-1829). Made from mahogany with modern leather upholstery. London, England, circa 1805. V & A Museum.

Architect Benjamin Latrobe designed a suite of Greek style furniture for the White House. This Federal chair is just one of a set of nine. It has curved sabra legs of the Grecian klismos chair but the turned front legs borrowed from the Romans. MET Museum.

Three different finishes on the klismos chair by the legendary Terence Harold Robsjohn-Gibbings. Which finish is most preferable?

Klismos chair of 1937 at the MET Museum

Brooklyn Museum has a walnut version created in 1961.

Bleached wood version at JF Chen.

A pair of nineteenth century Swedish klismos chairs Antique Art & Exchange.

French Consulat Style Chairs circa 1930 available at Trianon Antiques.

Donghia's version?

Pair of contemporary klismos chairs in Gustavian Style copied after Swedish klismos armchairs of the early nineteenth century. Available at Burden and Izett on 1stdibs.

Kreiss - Klismos Side Chair - in rattan, leather and iron. Does the material work with the form of this chair?

Cannot find the maker of this chair. Looking a little Barbara Barry-ish to me. Anyone know the source?

I Can See Clearly Now...

(image from The Washington Post)

Looking to the River Nile for Inspiration (part II)

It’s difficult to sum up America’s fascination with Ancient Egypt. Rather, I’m having difficulty understanding it. It doesn’t seem terribly defined. There has been a long history of interactions between various countries and the ancient land, particularly with Napoleon’s invasions beginning in the very late 1700s and the interior and furniture designs by Thomas Hope. America has been influenced by the culture, but evidence of this seems to be only through tiny, intermittent glimpses -- manifested either through lessons in history or physical characteristics in architecture, furniture and decorative arts. So how much are we really interested?

The most pronounced symbolism of Ancient Egypt is impressed on some of our biggest icons:

Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool. The obelisk is a symbol of power and erected to commemorate George Washington.

The back of a dollar bill.

Does anyone remember years ago looking for hidden visual symbols as signs pointing to devil worshiping? For example, the groups KISS supposedly stood for Knights in Satan’s Service. The band members ate bloody raw meat and stomped on baby kittens while performing on stage in their big, scary spiky boots. I happened to like stake tartar as a kid, my parents allowed me to take nibbles before they threw yet another one of their many cocktail parties. Then they sent my brother and I upstairs not to be seen or make a peep. My classmates told me on the playground that because I ate stake tartar I would turn into a raw meat eating devil worshipper like Gene Simmons and only devil worshipers stomped on baby kittens.

Did RUSH really stand for Ruler’s Under Satan’s Hands? What about the moon and stars logo on the tube of Crest toothpaste? Did that mean everyone at Proctor & Gamble was a devil worshipper? And the eyeball within the triangle on the back of the dollar bill meant the devil was present. We learned in grade school in one of our history classes what it really meant. But I am ashamed to say I can’t remember. All I recall is trying not to make eye contact with the eyeball on the back of a dollar bill because a classmate of mine told me that if I did, the devil would come to me in my sleep and yank me down into the fiery depths of hell.

I remember being sort of relieved when Van Halen’s Runnin’ with the Devil came out because I felt someone was finally coming clean. David Lee Roth wasn’t hiding anything like embedding hidden symbols on a Mr. Clean bottle. He stood up and sang it loud. And in tight pants that I didn’t understand at age ten and I still do not understand it now. I didn’t fully understand what Van Halen was talking about, but I sang along as I rode my blue Schwinn bike with the pink daisy printed banana seat up and down the streets of my neighborhood. I named my bike after another song from the 70s. I also named my guinea pig after a Foreigner song. I didn’t know what the title meant.

This post is about Egyptomania, not Van Halen or even the Black Sabbath album Heaven and Hell -- I was mesmerized by that album cover of the angels smoking and gambling with cards. I almost went on another tangent.

America’s fascination with Ancient Egypt infused the aesthetics of the American elite. Crazy for all things Egyptian hit a peak in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Mark Twain wrote about it. The decorative arts embraced it.

Our American version of the Art Deco style entwined many decorative elements derived from ancient Egyptian architecture. Nefertiti and her graceful long swan-like neck became an ideal of feminine beauty after her painted limestone bust was unearthed in 1912. Then about ten years later, the unspoiled tomb of Tutankhamen was opened. Architecture, furniture, silver, clocks, jewelry, clothing… all were stylistically influenced. It made a huge impact in America.

Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956), starring Charlton Heston and Yul Bryneer, and "Cleopatra" (1963), starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were big hits. The Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas and the pyramid of glass and steel of the Louvre were inspired by Ancient Egypt.

But what about today? Ancient Egypt seems to be the perfect scenario for artistic imagery, especially through our busy, overwhelmed, over medicated, bleary and irritated eyes. It was a remote and vast desert land. Scarcely populated by exotic people amidst powerful monumental structures at the banks of a mystical river whose source offered answers to the unknown. What isn’t to love? Why don’t we see more of an influence?

Would anyone care to include any of these items in their own homes?

This circa 1930 parcel gilt with ivory-inlaid rosewood daybed in your living room, perhaps? It sold a while back, 2003, at Northeast auctions for quite a bit...

An Egyptian revival bone inlaid vanity bench from James D. Julia Auctions, January 2004, at the end of a bed?

This French clock garniture on top of a fireplace mantel? It has brass sphinxes and matching pair of obelisks. The set sold at the September 2008 auction of Wiederseim Associates Inc.

With these English Aesthetic brass andirons below? Pharaoh head finials, beaded, rosette shafts, arched reeded legs, curved brass covered iron billet bars with log stops -- would this work with a simple, bold fireplace with a stained concrete surround? No one wanted them as they didn’t sell at the December 2008 Neal Auction company.

A nineteenth century Egyptian Revival armchair with a carved winged figure, pierced skirt and light rose upholstery, from David Rago sold in December 2007. What about this for an entryway? If the upholstery was changed?

Sotheby’s failed to sell this pair of gilt, patinated lead and marble tazza circa 1830, possibly Italian, in October 2007. For your sun room? Foyer? Too much?

Are we even interested?

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