Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D , Case DR, Shelf 165

Watercolour

late 1920s (made)
Artist/Maker

The decoration firm of William Henry Haynes & Co. offered the latest in traditional period schemes, revived and adapted for the smaller domestic environments but with modern touches. The early Georgian panelling, including an elaborate fireplace, is stripped in the fashion of the unhistorical preference of the day. This taste was influenced by a display of 18th-century panelling at the V&A in the mid-1920s, in which the paint on the panelling had been intentionally removed to reveal the surface of the wood and the technique of the carving underneath.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Watercolour
Brief description
Watercolour, 'Design for a drawing room', drawn for William Henry Haynes & Co., late 1920s
Physical description
Drawing of a design for a living room. Double-doors at far left, a pottery lamp on a side table, a Japanese-style screen and blue sofa at left, a pottery lamp on a reproduction candle stand and an armchair at right. Rug on the floor. Walls are covered in Georgian-style panelling.
Dimensions
  • Height: 53.8cm
  • Width: 68.5cm
Historical context
By the 1920s it was possible to obtain from firms of interior decorators whole panelled rooms, fully furnished in the 'early Georgian' style. This example, shown in a drawing made for the catalogue of a small interior design firm, reduces to a manageable middle class formula the more elaborate schemes of bigger firms. The furniture is a mixture of modest old pieces and modern reproductions, notably the sofa based on a famous seventeenth-century example at Knole in Kent. The modern pottery lamps stand on antique tea tables and a reproduction candle stand. The wall panelling is new, but is inspired by the quantities of old panelling then available from demolished Georgian houses. It is shown without paint, a fashion partly inspired by the display in the Victoria and Albert museum of panelling which had been stripped of its original paint for instructional purposes.
[Michael Snodin, 'British Design at Home', p.111]
Subjects depicted
Summary
The decoration firm of William Henry Haynes & Co. offered the latest in traditional period schemes, revived and adapted for the smaller domestic environments but with modern touches. The early Georgian panelling, including an elaborate fireplace, is stripped in the fashion of the unhistorical preference of the day. This taste was influenced by a display of 18th-century panelling at the V&A in the mid-1920s, in which the paint on the panelling had been intentionally removed to reveal the surface of the wood and the technique of the carving underneath.
Collection
Accession number
E.6-1977

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Record createdFebruary 8, 2000
Record URL
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