FINE ARTS
A handful of chintz
James Knox 0 ne of the most dramatic rises in the art market over the last three years has been in the value of English furniture. This, like the demand for English painting has been American led; where it differs, and why this surge is so interesting, is that it can be directly linked with the ever- growing popularity for `English Country House Taste'. Ironically the demand for the 'English Look' has been fuelled by a series of spectacular country house sales held during the last ten years. And this enthusiasm for the contents of country houses will no doubt reach a new pitch next week, when The Treasure Houses of Bri- tain exhibition opens in Washington, prov- ing, at least on the surface, that English taste, like Bauhaus in the Thirties, has become an international style. The prob- lem with this world domination theory is that country house taste is hard to define, and any attempt to do so often leaves one with nothing more than a handful of chintz. One way is to study the fortunes of the very prop of its existence: English furniture.
American demand dictates the market for English furniture, so any discussion must deal almost exclusively with changes in American taste. There have always been serious American collectors of important English furniture. They come from no one particular social background, but they are all very rich. They are scholar collectors and their interest in a piece of furniture is fired by its maker, provenance and condi- tion. It was these collectors who pushed up the value of walnut to its peak in the late Seventies. A rare example to be seen in England of a collection of this sort was the contents of Godmersham Park, sold by Christie's in 1984, which had been created by an American, Mrs Tritton, in the late Thirties. The house contained superb ex- amples of early-18th-century furniture with notable contemporary needlework.
During the last three years there has also appeared another type of American collec- tor. He is rich, often as a result of the Reagan boom; he owns a large featureless apartment, usually in Manhattan; he has a decorator, who is always a tyrant; and he wants to make a splash as soon as possible, `like yesterday'. His needs are quite diffe- rent from those of the traditional collector. He wants furniture which is comfortable and useful, but also striking enough to off-set bleak interiors. The effect this has had on the price of certain types of furniture is extraordinary; dining-room chairs for example are in constant demand, and in Bond Street at the moment there is a set for £150,000 (the table only costs £85,000). An illustration of the difference between the two markets is found in the price of two stools sold by Christie's in the last two years. One was 'a very sober mahogany stool, documented by Chippendale, which appealed directly to the connoisseur collec- tor and fetched £13,000. The other was a George II long stool, white painted and parcel gilt, which had been adapted from another piece of furniture, which fetched £20,000 at the Luttrellstown sale. This piece appealed perfectly to the new taste: it was useful, eye-Catching and came from a country house collection.
The first in a series of great country house sales was staged by Sotheby's at Mentmore in 1977, since then Christie's have cornered this particular market, sell- ing the contents of a number of important houses including Childwick Bury, Luttrell- stown, Godmersham, Elveden and North Mymms. Each sale became a social event in its own - right with county society, crushed against American millionaires, camp decorators and grand dealers at the crowded view days. Young men from Country Life wrote forewords to cata- logues, and but-loads of press and televi- sion crews were lured to report on these rural treasure troves. Past owners would have been amazed to find that the best party of all took place at the break-up of their house. In every case the contents fetched spectaeular sums: Godmersham Park made over £4 million, Luttrellstown nearly £3 million and Elveden over £6 million.
There are a number of reasons for their success. One of the great charms of coun- try house collections is that they are vast emporiums of fixtures and fittings of all periods. and as such offer rich pickings to the American dealer or decorator who is constantly searching for pieces to match specific decorative schemes. For in Amer- ica the world of taste is in a state of anarchy, with Baroque revival (otherwise known as Grand Tat), Biedemeier, the Russian look, French passementerie and Mrs Parrish's English 'chintz' all fighting for position. Nothing adds more style to this confusion than something from an English country house. It brings also a glamorous provenance that acts as a valu- able talking point at parties.
Amidst this eclecticism it is hard to prove the existence, let alone the influ- ence, of English taste, and yet it does exist in the principles behind each decorative scheme. There are three qualities which are considered essential: comfort, intimacy and architectural effect. These are all thought to have originated in the English country house, and they are elements which Americans see reflected in English furniture. The one unfashionable interior at the moment is Louis Quinze, being both formal and uncomfortable, it is considered the unacceptable face of the Fifties.
People who have experienced life in an English country house must be wondering how the adjectives intimate and comfort- able came to be associated with it. How- ever this century a number of houses have been created with these principles in mind, and it is they which have established the principles behind country house taste. Cer- tainly of the houses sold by Christie's, the majority were 20th-century distillations of English country houses. They were formed by rich people with taste, who held the revolutionary view that it was important to be comfortable when living in the country; not for them, nor for the buyers at their sales, linoleum on the bathroom floor, cold food heaved up shafts to the dining-room or bedrooms colder than the stables. The authentic country house, if it survives at all in some dim county, has definitely no appeal to Americans.
This is also increasingly so for the British. When country house owners do run into money, usually by selling a work of art, the first thing they do is spend it on decorating their house in the image of the 20th-century country house look. This in- volves a lot of chintz and a great deal of expensive 'arrangement' of furniture and objets d'art to give a spontaneous and informal air, even books on the subject (and especially one published last week, by John Cornforth on John Fowler) have become an essential part of the decorative scheme. In fact it is difficult to find a more self-conscious style. Perhaps it is time to encourage the French to take their re- venge, and welcome back uncomfortable fauteuils to Fifth Avenue and the Shires of England.
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