High Victorian Design. By Nikolaus Pevsner.
(Architectural Press. 12S. 6d.)
Ttus little museum of genuine = VictOrian horrors, very charmingly presented, will de- light and astonish a multitude of perusers, and especially those who are not well ac- quainted with all the tasfes and inventions that were shown in the Great Exhibition of 1851. There are no fewer than 122 illustra- tions, reproduced from contemporary wood- engravings ; and there will surely be few who, after contemplating these forms of de- based and ungainly opulence, can still main- tain the possibility of applying such a word as " aesthetic " to the designs of the mid- Victorians. Having looked at the " Day- dream " chair made of papier mache, the Gothic and Egyptian engines, the gutta- percha sideboard, the sprawling fireplaces, the overwhelming piano by Collard, the frenzied elaborations of ewers and ice pails, the naturalistic hooks and allegorical brackets, and the crowning spasm of the iron canopy, one feels no hesitation in de- scribing the general effect of all these ex- hibits as entirely abominable—though cer- tainly amusing. The single object which merits the use of such a term as elegance inspired by utility is the handsome barouche by Hallmarke and Aldebert of Long Acre. The limitations of the carpet and the wall- paper, which at any rate have to be flat, come as a welcome relief. Even the teapot, reasonably graceful only twenty years pre- viously, has gone wrong. Dr. Pevsner does not write a very confi- dent English, but his critical and explanatory observations are just and illuminating. He shows perspicacity in describing the signifi- cance of the mid-Victorian bulge, though an analysis of style is not the same thing as an
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