Knole’s big project one step further

Late-seventeenth-century mirror, its ebonised frame inlaid with pierced gilt brass chased with acanthus patterns, one of a pair, probably English, in the Cartoon Gallery at Knole. The pilasters with grotesque decoration are topped by ram’s masks, the old crest of the Sackville family. ©National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has just announced that the Inspired by Knole project qualifies for a ‘first round pass’. This means that the HLF is recognising the project’s potential, and that the Knole team can now develop a detailed business plan for it.

The Cartoon Gallery. ©National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel

The aim of Inspired by Knole is to improve the state of conservation of the house and its collections ad to put it on the map as one of the UK’s most spectacular examples of  a combined Tudor palace and Renaissance mansion.

Trompe l’oeil grotesque decoration in the Cartoon Gallery, probably created by Paul Isaacson in about 1608 for Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset. ©National Trust Images/Matthew Hollow

Plans for the project include the rewiring of the building, the installation of conservation heating and the creation of an on-site conservation studio which will be open to visitors.

Painted motif of a vase with a small lemon tree or branch in the frieze of the Cartoon Gallery, probably by Paul Isaacson, c. 1608. ©National Trust Images/Matthew Hollow

In addition the Knole team wants to open up more of the attics and tower rooms to the public, to develop new ways of volunteering and to make Knole a centre of heritage skills training.

Gilt table and candlestands in the Cartoon Gallery, thought to have been given to Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset, by Louis XIV in 1670-71. ©National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel

The HLF will make its final decision about the £7.5 million grant application in 2013, but this initial response is very encouraging and will help the National Trust with its other fundraising towards Inspired by Knole.

The ongoing behind-the-scenes work at Knole can be followed on the Knole Conservation Team Blog.

The Prince of Wales at Knole

HRH the Prince of Wales walking through the Outer Wicket and into the Green Court at Knole with property manager Steven Dedman and assistant director of operations Nic Durston. ©Professional Images

HRH the Prince of Wales recently visited Knole to learn about the major conservation project that is beginning to get underway there. Among his many duties Prince Charles is also President of the National Trust.

The Prince of Wales ascending the early-seventeenth-century Great Staircase with curator Emma Slocombe. ©Professional Images

Knole is a rare example of a Tudor palace that has survived and accumulated many subsequent layers of decoration and collections. Over time the house has developed some serious structural and conservation problems which are now being tackled.

The Prince of Wales talking to house manager Helen Fawbert in the Ballroom. ©Professional Images

Curator Emma Slocombe guided His Royal Highness around the house. Prince Charles saw how the furniture is cleaned – testing the suction on a ‘museum vac’ – and how pest infestations are treated.

The Prince of Wales and curator Emma Slocombe looking at the decorative plasterwork in the Ballroom. ©Professional Images

He also inspected the ’Eyemat’, an extremely realistic photographic replica of a seventeenth-century Goan carpet. The Knole team is using this to test how an experimental heating mat, which has been placed below it, will cope with the footfall of thousands of visitors.

The Prince of Wales and Emma Slocombe looking at the seventeenth-century furniture in the Brown Gallery, mostly acquired as ‘perquisites’ – royal hand-me-downs – by the 6th Earl of Dorset when he was Lord Chamberlain to King William III. ©Professional Images

The Prince of Wales appeared to be impressed with what is happening at Knole and the visit gave a great boost to everyone involved with the conservation project.

More images of the visit and a photograph of a previous visit of a Prince of Wales to Knole (1898) can be seen on the Knole Conservation team blog.

Travels with Barbara

Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), portrait of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland (1640-1709), at Knole (inv. no. 129855). ©National Trust/Jane Mucklow

The Knole conservation team blog has been reporting how one of their paintings was recently packed up and sent off on loan to Hampton Court Palace. The picture, a portrait by Sir Peter Lely of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland, normally hangs in the Spangled Dresing Room at Knole.

The Great Hall at Knole. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

The relative humidity in that room can fluctuate considerably, and therefore the portrait was kept in the more stable environment of Knole’s Great Hall to acclimatise for several weeks before going off to the controlled climatic environment of the Hampton Court exhibition rooms. These humidity issues are one of the reasons for the major conservation project currently underway at Knole.

Old reference photograph of the Spangled Dressing Room at Knole, featuring Barbara's portrait by Lely second from right. ©National Trust

The picture will feature in the exhibition The Wild, the Beautiful and the Damned, exploring the lives and loves of the courtesans and libertines at the English court in the late seventeenth century.

Conservator Siobhan Barratt compiling a report on the condition of the portrait in prepration for its departure on loan. ©National Trust

Barbara Villiers became the mistress of King Charles II in 1660 and for some ten years reigned supreme as one of the most glamorous and powerful women at court. The diarist Samuel Pepys called her his ‘lovely lady Castlemaine’ and penned a heady description of seeing her freshly laundered smocks and petticoats drying in the Privy Garden. The more priggish John Evelyn called her ‘the curse of the nation.’

Barbara being put into her travelling frame. ©National Trust

Barbara’s influence extended to important political appointments and even foreign policy. She pursued the King relentlessly when she wanted something, but she could also be great fun and, in the words of Antonia Fraser in her biography of Charles II, she had ‘great buoyancy of spirit’.

Cloth tape is tied around the travelling frame in preparation for wrapping it in polythene. ©National Trust

She had at least five children by the King who were all given titles and estates (the current Duke of Grafton is descended from her, for instance). When her role as royal mistress came to an end she went on to have affairs with the rope dancer Jacob Hall, the actors Charles Hart and Cardell Goodman, the playwright William Wycherley and John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marborough.

Barbara is carefully hoisted into the art transport van. ©National Trust

Visitors to the exhibition may also meet a live ‘Barbara Villiers’ who will tell them more about life as the King’s mistress.  The exhibition will run at Hampton Court from 5 April to 30 September 2012.

Between science and art

X-ray of painting on panel. ©National Trust/3DX-Ray

The previous post about the x-raying of furniture at Knole was so enthusiastically received that I thought you might enjoy seeing some more images.

The painting being x-rayed. ©National Trust

The pictures were taken by James Young of 3DX-Ray, working with the National Trust team at Knole.

X-ray of part of sofa. ©National Trust/3DX-Ray

This experiment with x-raying furniture and works of art in situ has been undertaken to help National Trust conservators in assessing the condition the objects are in.

X-ray of sofa leg. ©National Trust/3DX-Ray

But many of you have responded to the ethereal, uncanny beauty of the images.

Chair being x-rayed. ©National Trust

Perhaps this proves that good science is always in some way beautiful, and that beauty is somehow always connected to insight.

X-ray of sofa armrest. ©National Trust/3DX-Ray

The images also expose the material complexity of objects that have been around for several hundred years and have been repaired a number of times.

X-ray of seat. ©National Trust/3DX-Ray

And this is perhaps where the ‘art’ and ‘science’ views will diverge.

X-ray of tunic of torchère figure. ©National Trust/3DX-Ray

Whereas the aesthetes among us will shudder at the crooked nails and massive screws that have been driven into the wooden frames, the conservators will relish the clarity of the images, like doctors examining a particularly interesting patient. 

Seeing beneath the surface at Knole

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

Helen Fawbert and her team at Knole have recently spent a day x-raying some of the magnificent pieces of furniture in the house.

The x-ray equipment being set up. ©National Trust

This was part of the conservation work being done in the Reynolds Room at Knole, which I featured earlier.

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

X-radiography is a non-invasive technique that can reveal the construction, condition and previous repairs of antique furniture.

A torchère being x-rayed. ©National Trust

James Young of 3DX-Ray Ltd was called in to trial the process at Knole.

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

3DX-Ray’s equipment is portable and can be safely used in situations where the objects to be examined are fragile or difficult to access or move – particularly useful in the context of historic houses.

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

The resulting images were unexpectedly clear – and even beautiful in themselves – and revealed not just nails and screws but also layers of upholstery and even woodworm tunnels.

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

These images will be part of the initial assessment of the furniture in the Reynolds Room.

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

This will be followed by a physical examination of the pieces by a conservator, who will then put together a conservation plan.

©National Trust/3DX-Ray

The Reynolds Room project will be used as a model for the conservation work planned to take place all over the house during the next ten years.

More about the Chinese celebrity at Knole

The western settlement along the waterfront at Guangzhou (Canton), where Chinese and Europeans were allowed to meet and trade, on a late-eighteenth-century Chinese porcelain punchbowl at Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire. ©National Trust/Robert Thrift

Andrew’s response to the previous post about the Chinese page Huang Ya Dong at Knole has revealed further details about him. It looks like Huang did make it back to Guanghzou by 1785, when he corresponded with Sir William Jones, a linguist who was soliciting his help with a translation of selections from the Chinese classics.

Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds by Angelica Kauffman, 1767, at Saltram, Devon. ©NTPL/Rob Matheson

In his reply Huang warned of the difficulty of such a translation, saying it would take several years to complete. But he also recalled with pleasure the kindness of his English friends, and mentioned in particular dining with Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr Blake.

Portrait of Huang Ya Dong by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1776, at Knole, Kent. ©NTPL/Horst Kolo, with the kind permission of Lord Sackville.

The source Andrew mentioned also led me to an interesting article about the Knole portrait of Huang in the Old Sennockian Newsletter for Easter 2006, in which Ong Seng analyses the sitter’s ‘Chinese’ pose and accoutrements. Seng detects an element of ‘chinoiserie’ in this, asserting that Reynolds is emphasizing Huang’s otherness.

Chinese gouache made for export to Europe showing elegant company in an interior with a view of a garden, late eighteenth century, at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire. ©NTPL/Matthew Hollow

I think it more likely that Reynolds was just trying to create an ‘authentic’ setting for Huang, based on what was known from Chinese export art about Chinese dress, architecture and interior decoration. Compared to the outrageous Chinese fantasies of Luke Lightfoot, for instance, Reynolds’s portrait of Huang shows great restraint and delicacy.

The wilder shores of chinoiserie: relief by Luke Lightfoot, 1760s, at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire. ©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

Nevertheless, the very fact that the 3rd Duke of Dorset commissioned this portrait from one of the celebrity artists of the day indicates that Huang was seen, on some levels at least, as a glamorous curiosity.

An old China hand identifying with Chinese customs and lifestyle: portrait of Thomas Kymer of Kidwelly by Gavin Hamilton, 1754, at Newton House, Carmarthenshire. ©NTPL/John Hammond

Another interesting source about Huang that I have found through Andrew’s reference is a letter dated 18 February 1775, probably by Reynolds, in which Huang is described as being 22 years old – which means that he must be about 23 at the time the Knole portrait was painted, a young man rather than an adolescent.

The empirical view of China: elevation and plan of a pagoda in William Chambers's Designs of Chinese Buildings, 1757. ©NTPL/John Hammond

The letter also reveals some of Huang’s own motives for coming to Britain. Apparently he had heard from the artist Tan Chitqua of his favourable reception in England, and he then ‘determined to make the voyage likewise, partly from curiosity, and a desire of improving himself in science, and partly with a view of procuring some advantages in trade, in which he and his elder brother are engaged.’ Rather than being the passive object of John Bradby Blake’s schemes, Huang clearly had his own agenda.

I am very grateful to both Andrew and Hongbo for bringing this up and leading us to discover more about this fascinating portrait.

A Chinese celebrity at Knole

Portrait of Huang Ya Dong by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1776, at Knole. ©NTPL/Horst Kolo, with the kind permission of Lord Sackville.

Hongbo Du, a keen reader of this blog, recently asked me about the Chinese boy in the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (owned by Lord Sackville rather than by the National Trust) at Knole which can be seen on one of the walls of the Reynolds Room in this previous post.

The Knole guidebook mentions that he worked as a page in the household of John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset (1745-1799) and that he attended Sevenoaks School. The boy had been brought to England from Guangzhou (Canton) by the Duke’s old schoolfriend John Bradby Blake (1745-1773), who worked for the East India Company.

Portrait drawing of Huang Ya Dong by George Dance the younger (1741-1825). ©Trustees of the British Museum

However, when I did an online search for Blake I found out that he was a keen naturalist and that he had brought the boy, called Huang Ya Dong, to England because of his knowledge of the propagation and use of Chinese plants. 

Huang became a minor celebrity, advising Mrs Delaney and the Duchess of Portland on Chinese plants, Josiah Wedgewood on porcelain manufacture and the physician Andrew Duncan on acupuncture.

Portrait of the 3rd Duke of Dorset by Reynolds, 1769. Accepted in in lieu of inheritance tax by HM Government and allocated to the National Trust, 1992. ©NTPL/John Hammond

There is an interesting parallel between Reynolds’s portrait of Huang and his grander, more romantic portrait of the Polynesian Omai (also painted in 1776): both are shown as exotic but dignified exemplars of faraway cultures. A later portrait of Huang by George Dance the younger in the British Museum, by contrast, shows him dressed in European garb.

It is not known what happened to Huang subsequently – he may simply have lived out his days as a servant at Knole (where he was known by the other servants as Warnoton). Perhaps he followed the 3rd Duke to Paris when he was appointed ambassador to the court of Louis XVI. But thanks to Hongbo’s enquiry we can now at least show the two known portraits of Huang together.

A self-conscious room at Knole

©Richard Crowest/Corvidae Ltd

I recently wrote about meeting a person ‘for real’ whom I had previously only known as ‘a blog’. Now I have just heard about a room at Knole, in Kent, which has been ‘dematerialised’ – but which you can still physically step into.

©NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel

The Reynolds Room at Knole contains a group of paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney and others. The Reynolds paintings include portraits of the artist himself, of Samuel Johnson, of the Chinese pageboy Wang-y-Tong and of the actor and impressario David Garrick.

©Richard Crowest/Corvidae Ltd

As the first stage in a major programme of conservation work, this room was recently stripped of its paintings and furniture. The windows were sealed with new lead, the floor and ceiling were insulated and the walls were rewired and fitted with hidden environmental monitors.

©Richard Crowest/Corvidae Ltd

Then a seamless panoramic photograph, produced at ultra-high resolution by Corvidae, and exhibition and website design company, was installed in front of the walls. This will allow an estimated 90,000 visitors to walk through the room from now until October. The monitors will be collecting environmental data, enabling our conservators to work out what the optimum climatic regime should be in future.

A 360-degree view of the room can be seen here. The images were printed on vinyl by Street Graphics, Bethersden, and were mounted in the room by Colnet Builders of Sevenoaks. 

©Richard Crowest/Corvidae Ltd

Not only is this a fascinating conservation project, it also poses some conceptual paradoxes: Here we have a room which is a real space and simultaneously a virtual one. It is a room containing a life-size copy of itself, questioning Korzybski’s dictum that ‘the map is not the territory.’ And you could even call this a ‘self-conscious’ room, as it sits there monitoring itself and contemplating its own future.