Sub Total £0.00 View Basket
Checkout
Books

Inside Out: Historic Watercolour Drawings, Oil Sketches and Paintings of Interiors and Exteriors 1770-1870

It is now well over a century since historians first published serious research into the history of interior and garden design, so it is appropriate that both a founder and a new member of The British Antique Dealers Association should celebrate a new century and Millennium with a major exhibition on this theme

INSIDE OUT represents the first such comprehensive exhibition in London for twenty years. It includes works of art never shown before, such as a superb panorama of ancient Rome by a consummate artist, the architect C.R. Cockerell; three extraordinary title pages by the delineator and creator of the Empire style, Charles Percier, and amongst others, William Burges's delicious conceit of a medieval 'Summer Smoking Room' at Cardiff Castle.

A panoply of techniques are represented by a wide diversity of images depicting fascinating interiors and gardens, all contributing at least one foot-note to the history of taste that is INSIDE OUT.

Price: £99.99
Available for purchase below.

A FRENCH ALPHABET BOOK OF 1814 FOR ALFRED BOURDIER DE BEAUREGARD CREATED BY HIS UNCLE ARNAUD AT THE CHÂTEAU DE BEAUMONT DE BEAUREGARD

This uniquely detailed series of watercolour drawings was made in 1814 as a primer or alphabet book for the two-year old Alfred, by his uncle Arnaud. It brings alive the education and everyday life of a young French aristocrat after the Revolution, Napoleon and the return of the Bourbon King Louis XVIII. The drawings now preserved for posterity give fascinating views of the family château and its surrounds, its interior with elegant furnishings, the private chapel, kitchens, workshops and stables. The boy's clothing, occupations and pastimes are all minutely depicted. His instruction in polite manners, music, the arts and architecture, and even the facts of nursery life is all illustrated. Plants and animals in colourful watercolours abound. The pages are filled with amusing puns and now obscured meanings, a source of pleasure as well as knowledge, preserving a life of enchantment and privilege which has long since vanished. The French captioned images are translated into English of the period, as a primer for children of today.

Price: £25.00
Available for purchase below.

DESIGNS FOR GILT BRONZE OBJECTS FROM THE FRENCH RESTORATION 1814-1830

The themes portrayed in these neo-classical designs, once their Classical iconography and allegorical language is de-coded, are still highly relevant to our own times. Made for two leading Parisian bronziers of the early nineteenth century, these designs for clocks and bronzes d’ameublement (furnishing bronzes) bring to life their creators’ joy in peace and prosperity, love and celebratory feasting such as followed the end of the Napoleonic era with its endless conflict. The attractiveness of the images gives them an immediate appeal to the modern collector. There is an almost tangible romance stemming from their association with the royal and princely palaces of Europe, where realised exemplars of these designs can still be seen; for these were truly objets de luxe intended for the grandest patrons of the day. The scale of the objects in these drawings and prints is palatial, giving them a compelling presence: they justly demand and excite the attention of the onlooker, as though one were looking at the object depicted itself. Coupled with the scholarly research into these pieces, presented in this catalogue, these designs provide us with a fresh insight into the world of design and decorative arts in early nineteenth-century France and help to identify the true style of the French Restoration (1814-1830), and separate it from the Empire style with which it has so long been coupled for want of its own identity.

Price: £99.99
Available for purchase below.

DESIGNS FOR GILT BRONZE OBJECTS FROM THE FRENCH RESTORATION 1814-1830

The themes portrayed in these neo-classical designs, once their Classical iconography and allegorical language is de-coded, are still highly relevant to our own times. Made for two leading Parisian bronziers of the early nineteenth century, these designs for clocks and bronzes d’ameublement (furnishing bronzes) bring to life their creators’ joy in peace and prosperity, love and celebratory feasting such as followed the end of the Napoleonic era with its endless conflict. The attractiveness of the images gives them an immediate appeal to the modern collector. There is an almost tangible romance stemming from their association with the royal and princely palaces of Europe, where realised exemplars of these designs can still be seen; for these were truly objets de luxe intended for the grandest patrons of the day. The scale of the objects in these drawings and prints is palatial, giving them a compelling presence: they justly demand and excite the attention of the onlooker, as though one were looking at the object depicted itself. Coupled with the scholarly research into these pieces, presented in this catalogue, these designs provide us with a fresh insight into the world of design and decorative arts in early nineteenth-century France and help to identify the true style of the French Restoration (1814-1830), and separate it from the Empire style with which it has so long been coupled for want of its own identity.

Price: £15.00
Available for purchase below.

Tools of the Trade: Watercolours of Metalwork from the Biedermeier Period

This meticulously drawn folio of watercolours produced in the early nineteenth century shows that the Rhineland metal trades were clearly inspired by the ingenuity and success of British manufacturers in Birmingham and Sheffield. Whilst the Biedermeier period household would have procured its high style objects from France, its everyday needs for the kitchen and workshop could now be supplied locally from the growing local metalwork trades. This book stands as a fascinating historical insight to the homes and workshops of this age with representations of everyday objects, from coffee grinders and knives to the more sinister cast-iron mantraps for capturing prowlers or poachers.These striking works of art reveal not only the design process but also the finished object in a series of watercolour and gouache renderings, carefully painted onto early nineteenth century watermarked paper. Records of such objects are rare, and in our age of mass production they can finally take their place alongside the treasured collections of designs for refined luxury goods.

Price: £25.00
Available for purchase below.

Inside Out: Historic Watercolour Drawings, Oil Sketches and Paintings of Interiors and Exteriors 1770-1870

It is now well over a century since historians first published serious research into the history of interior and garden design, so it is appropriate that both a founder and a new member of The British Antique Dealers Association should celebrate a new century and Millennium with a major exhibition on this theme

INSIDE OUT represents the first such comprehensive exhibition in London for twenty years. It includes works of art never shown before, such as a superb panorama of ancient Rome by a consummate artist, the architect C.R. Cockerell; three extraordinary title pages by the delineator and creator of the Empire style, Charles Percier, and amongst others, William Burges's delicious conceit of a medieval 'Summer Smoking Room' at Cardiff Castle.

A panoply of techniques are represented by a wide diversity of images depicting fascinating interiors and gardens, all contributing at least one foot-note to the history of taste that is INSIDE OUT.

Price: £20.00
Available for purchase below.