The Wallace Collection, Part 1

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The first time I walked through the door of the Wallace Collection, my jaw actually dropped.

And that was simply standing in the Entrance Hall and gaping at the staircase. I’ve returned several times, and never cease to marvel or make a discovery.

The building itself is Hertford House, familiar to many of us who set books in the early 19th century. We know that the Marchioness of Hertford (wife of the 2d Marquess) and the Prince Regent had a thing going on for more than a decade.

Hertford House in 1813, from Ackermann’s Repository, June 1813

The Court Journals of the early 1830s make numerous references to this lady’s entertainments. By the 1830s, she’s the Dowager Marchioness. Her son, the third Marquess of Hertford, truly began the art collection with his wife’s money. She was Maria Emilia Fagnani, the lady who won the half-million pounds, reported in the news clipping below. This pair separated—unsurprisingly, since he was definitely not romance hero material.

“Lord Hertford paid £700 for the exclusive use of the steam-boat which conveyed himself and suite from Marseilles to Naples, in the autumn; to the great inconvenience of various persons who were detained for some weeks in the former city, for want of the usual conveyance."—Court Journal 4 January 1834.

Their son, the fourth marquess, grew up in Paris, and added substantially to the collection. The wife of his illegitimate son, Richard Wallace, left the collection to England. This family’s life is so complicated that I’ll leave it to you to pursue if you wish.

After recovering from the Entrance Hall swoon, we make our way to the Front State Room, which gives an idea of what the place was like in the 1870s. This is where one received important visitors, and it was meant to impress.

In this room hang the famous 1822 Thomas Lawrence portrait of the Countess of Blessington (which you’ve no doubt seen on countless book covers and social media accounts), Sully’s 1838 portrait of the young Queen Victoria, and John Hoppner’s portrait of King George IV when he was the Prince of Wales.

Moving on to the Back State Room:

The chandelier dates from 1751. This is where Sir Richard Wallace entertained guests amid the rococo splendor of works from the time of King Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour.

The Billiard Room holds some beautiful furniture by André Boulle(1642-1732) as well as many works created in the time of King Louis XIV. A huge billiard table did stand here in 1897. I have no idea where it is now. Like virtually every other room in the house, this contains many fine paintings, which you can view on the website’s online collection.

Here and elsewhere I tend to focus on what I might use in a book, and that tends to be furnishings rather than paintings (although a Botticelli plays an important role in Vixen in Velvet). For instance, what’s on the mantel? These sorts of items give my characters something to look at. And I often have something to say about the clocks. Note that one didn’t encounter clocks in such profusion (or at all) in the residences of the less affluent. Here’s what drew my eye in the Billiard Room.

The Small Drawing Room these days showcases works from the time of Louis XV. In Sir Richard Wallace’s day, it was the Reynolds Room, as shown in the black and white photo below. As to my photo choices: Yes, I’m drawn to the various timekeeping devices—a stunning contrast to our digital clocks.

The video below will give you an idea of the other treasures in this room. If you’d like to investigate the paintings, the online collection allows you to search by gallery.

This is another large collection of interesting objects, which means I will attempt another blog post in the near future. With any luck, I’ll also have my YouTube site functioning properly, which will allow for easier (I hope) viewing of these and other short video tours.

The Linley Sambourne House Part 2

Self-portrait of the artist Edward Linely Sambourne

Self portrait of Edward Linley Sambourne. Dated 1891, scanned from The History of "Punch", by M.H. Spielmann, Cassell & Company Ltd. 1895, page 531. Source: Wikipedia.

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A month ago we paused our tour of Sambourne House after the ground floor Dining Room.

The Drawing Room is not only on the first (U.S. second) floor, but is the first floor. This is the showplace, the most public part of the house. Like some of the other rooms, it may appear cluttered and even claustrophobic to modern eyes. According to the guidebook, the room held 250 objects by 1877, and the number continued to increase over the years.* It seems that Linley was an avid collector, often to his wife’s dismay. I was not dismayed. So much to look at! So many beautiful things! The reel will let you judge for yourself.

Video of Sambourne House Drawing Room

Moving up to the second (U.S. third) floor, we enter a more private area. While the furniture of the Main Bedroom is arranged much as it was in the Sambournes’ time, the wall coverings (here and elsewhere) have undergone some changes. In 1877 the original Morris & Co. wallpaper was replaced with a Japanese embossed paper. Then in 1960, the Countess of Rosse did a little redecorating, which included replacing it with another Morris & Co. paper.

Sambourne House Main Bedroom video

Among the wonderful objects in the Main Bedroom are the blue and white china on the mantel and the ornamental fan “whose leaves were decorated for Sambourne by many of the leading artists of his day.” Several leaves are signed, but even zooming in, I can’t make out the names.

Though the main characters in my stories belong to the upper orders, I need to know as well about the people who kept their lives and homes in order, whether or not they actually appear onstage. And so I learned that a typical middle class family of the time would probably have four servants: housemaid, parlor maid, nursery maid, and cook. The latter two would have slept in their own domains. The maid’s room would have been a little plainer in the Sambournes’ time, with painted rather than wallpapered walls—and this room might have held two beds, for the house and parlor maids, instead of one.

Video of maid’s room in Sambourne House.

While his children were young, Linley Sambourne worked at first in the Morning Room, then in an extension he had built at the back of the Drawing Room. The room shown in the reel below was originally the nursery, then his daughter Maud’s bedroom until 1898, when she married. The following year it became his Studio. In the 20th century, the room underwent more changes before restoration, based on his son’s 1920s photographs, began in the 1980s.

Along with the still photo of the Studio are some samples of Sambourne’s work. You can learn more about him and see more images of the house and his work by simply searching his name online, but I recommend you start with the museum’s website here.

Then you might want to look at some of these sites:

https://www.londonxlondon.com/sambourne-house-london/

https://www.withinlondon.com/post/sambourne-house

https://www.diaryofalondoness.com/sambourne-house-london/

https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/museums/interiors-sambourne-house

https://www.nancygouldstone.com/blog/sambourne-house-a-glimpse-into-victorian-artistic-life

*Unless otherwise noted, the information and quotations in these two blog posts come from the Linley Sambourne House guidebook and brochure.

The Linley Sambourne House in Kensington

Linley Samburne House, 18 Stafford Terrace, Kensington, London

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What first struck me about the Linley Sambourne House was the time capsule element. What next struck me was the contrast between it and the nearby Leighton House Museum.

Edward Linley Sambourne (but nobody ever called him by his first name) was a famous Victorian era illustrator, perhaps best known for his work for the satirical magazine, Punch. While both he and Leighton were artists living in an enclave of artists and writers in Kensington, their work, circumstances, and abodes were altogether different.

The house at No. 18 Stafford Terrace was a revelation. We had been staying in a flat in a Victorian-era house. Ours, like so many, had retained only a few of its original features—which makes sense, given the development of things like indoor plumbing, electricity, etc., since the 1850s (when many of these houses were built in Kensington).

However, at Sambourne House, thanks to Mr. Sambourne’s descendants, time stands still for the most part, allowing us to time travel to a middle-class Victorian household. While this was the home of an artist, and reflects that fact, the layout and a great deal of the decoration reflects the taste of the time. And it gave me, finally, a clear sense of the way a London townhouse would be laid out in the 19th century. Yes, I look at floor plans and photos, but nothing compares to being there, and a little imagination allows one to extrapolate from the 1870s to the 1830s.

Since the house was so interesting, and rather like Ham House, a rare survivor, I have many images, which means our tour will be in two parts.

The lavatory under the stairs is a great example of the time capsule element. In most houses, areas like this have been modernized. Also, the level of design was so impressive. The Victorians and their predecessors wanted everyday items to be beautiful as well as functional.

This reel takes us through the entrance hall into the dining room.

The dining room is much as it was in 1877, and like so many other parts of the house, needs video to truly give you a sense of the place.

Collecting the blue and white porcelain plates was a fashion craze among artists in the 1870s. The glass case fitted to the window is a rare survivor. Cultivating ferns and other plants in these cases was another Victorian fashion. Similar cases were once attached to the Drawing Room windows on the floor above—which I’ll get to in the next blog post.

The Morning Room reel completes our tour of the ground floor. This was primarily Marion Sambourne’s domain. This wall, like that of the Dining Room, is divided into three tiers, and the faded paper comes closest to showing what the house would have looked like in the 1870s. Right after purchasing the house, the Sambournes knocked out the rear wall and installed the beautiful window.

In the next blog post, we’ll look at the first and second floors (U.S. second and third floors ).