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Camden Place Chislehurst Kent + Napoléon III

Les Boiseries

It was a two day conference investigating the cultural and commercial migrations of 18th century French boiseries from their places of production in Paris and the Bâtiments du Roi to the drawing rooms of Britain and America. The first major study of boiseries in the context of transatlantic cultural history was appropriately held at Camden Place outside London, a country house with a history and interior shaped by the migration of people and decoration over four centuries.

William Camden, author of Britannia and the Annals of Queen Elizabeth I, built a house close to the current building in 1609. A century later businessman Robert Weston constructed a new residence, calling it Camden House. In 1760 a lawyer named Charles Pratt bought the property and, working with architects George Dance and James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, spent 25 years transforming it into a country house. He renamed it Camden Place. In 1765, Charles Pratt was ennobled and took the title Lord Camden. Cabra Castle in County Cavan and Enniscoe House in County Mayo were Pratt family estates in Ireland. In 1862, the enigmatic lawyer and fixer Nathaniel Strode bought the house. He was friendly with Napoléon III and that is how the Empress came to lease the property.

Dr Alexandra Gaia, lecturer in history at Jesus College Oxford, later confirmed at the Society of Antiquaries in Burlington House Piccadilly London, “William Camden was one of the greatest of English scholars. He was the first chair of history at Oxford – there still is the Camden Chair which is now political, not civil, history. He was at the centre of 16th century intellectual political life in Britain if not the centre.”

Dr Lindsay Macnaughton of the University of Buckingham, who organised the conference with Laura Jenkins of The Courtauld Institute of Art, opened the conference: “We are marking the death of Napoléon III here 150 years ago. The name ‘Camden’ evokes somewhere that doesn’t exist anymore, Château de Bercy.” We are in the dining room of Camden Place which is lined with boiseries from that château. “The scattered surviving evidence of the architectural vestiges of lost houses continue to live and breathe. These panels possess a sense of scale, of shared taste, the layering of history. From an historical perspective boiseries have always, in a sense, been mobile. In the 18th century, Parisian joiners and carvers travelled to locations outside the city to install panelling. Entire decorative schemes were sent abroad to Germany, Spain and Latin America. Shifting fashions and continual reallocations of appartements at Versailles set into motion near ceaseless rotations of décors, including boiseries.”

Her colleague Dr Thomas Jones spoke next on ‘Camden Place as a Headquarters of Bonapartism 1870 to 1879’. “The movement of boiseries is the movement of people and their things, of exile, of friendship. There were nine glorious years of Bonapartism at Camden. This house was ideally located close to ports and accessible to London by rail and the local church is Catholic. Eugénie and her son Louis Napoléon established a household of 62 while they waited for Napoléon III to join them. The year after the Emperor’s death, the Imperial Prince’s 18th birthday had a sense of massive celebration with 4,000 guests. Could there be a Third Empire? Both Napoléons had overthrown Republics, curbing the excessive influence of Paris with provincial assemblies. Their shared dynamic was one of dramatic action, over reach and disaster.” The potential Napoléon IV was killed serving for the British army in Zululand in 1879.

Scholar Dr Pat Wheaton referred to Camden Place as, “A composition of decorative taste, weaving the past until fragments become whole.” As well as Camden in north London he noted there are 23 Camdens in the US, one in the West Indies and three across Australia and New Zealand. Dr Rebecca Walker, also an independent scholar, referred to Camden Place as “an eclectic mix”. Dr Lee Prosser, Curator of Historic Buildings at Historic Royal Palaces, called the house “an architectural conundrum, an eclectic melange”. On a different note, Dr Frédéric Dassas, Senior Curator at Musée du Louvre, observed how the Paris Ritz is an American style hotel of 200 bedrooms behind a retained façade. Another case of design fusion.

The 48 hours (or 72 if you add the pre and post celebrations) spent at Camden Place were full of highlights. As Lee remarked, “There are so many luminaries in this room we hardly need the lights on!” The after lunch graveyard slot on the second day was anything but dead. Here are just some of the quickfire lines of Dr Mia Jackson, Curator of Decorative Arts at Waddesdon Manor, on ‘Contextualising the Rothschild collection of panelling at Waddesdon Manor’: “Waddesdon was originally meant to be twice as large. Think of how more stuff we could have fitted in! It’s like a Parisian townhouse albeit one that has been smoking opium. This is a brief segue into how obsessed I am with the house. If Waddesdon is a stage, boiseries aren’t scenography, they’re actors. The West Hall has some stonking panelling from Palais Bourbon. With the added excitement of carved cats! The Green Boudoir panelling is from Hôtel Dudin and has frankly bonkers iconography. The men ate their first meal of the day in the Breakfast Room while the ladies ate breakfast in bed as is right and proper.”

The most recent biography of Napoléon III is The Shadow Emperor by Alan Strauss-Schom (2018). Colourful extracts include: “a red blooded young man bent on adventure and excitement, and this, combined with an unquenchable idealism, was bound to resurface at the next opportunity … the young man continued to dream in a world of his own … Queen Hortense was without doubt the most influential person in Louis Napoléon’s life, inculcating his moral and spiritual values, strengthening his ego, and enforcing his determination to achieve supreme power … Louis Napoléon spent every day at her bedside. ‘My mother died in my arms at five o’clock in the morning today,’ he wrote his father on 5 October … As for the mourning 29 year old Louis Napoléon, his was a grief that would never disappear.”

“Downing Street gave Louis Napoléon permission to come to England, and the great houses of the capital opened their doors to offer him a warm welcome once again. The prince settled in at the spacious and fashionable 17 Carlton House Terrace, Pall Mall, overlooking St James’s Park. The prince’s second and last principal residence was at nearby 1 Carlton Gardens, a large, handsome, white two storey corner house, now the Foreign and Commonwealth Officer, then owned by the wealthy and influential Frederick John Robinson, the Earl of Ripon.”

“Although the French have never had clubs on as large a scale as the English, and never replicating the ambience and purpose of English clubs, Louis Napoléon himself was a natural ‘club man’ and a frequent visitor to the Athenaeum, Brooks’s, and especially the Navy Club … The key to Louis Napoléon’s private and public life was a modest gentleman rarely mentioned by historians, but whose real role was fundamental to everything … naturally he took his pleasures seriously, which centred more and more around Gore House, Kensington (on the site of Albert Hall). There the lovely Marguerite Gardiner, the Countess of Blessington, resided with her dissolute, effeminate lover and Parisian playboy, the talented painter and sculptor Alfred Count d’Orsay dubbed ‘the Archangel of Dandyism’ by Lamartine.”

Unlocking the Secrets of Camden Place: Remembering Napoléon III 150th Anniversary Dinner sponsored by Ovation Data was held on the first night of the conference. It was hosted by Peter Unwin, Chairman of Chislehurst Golf Club, with guest speech by historian and author Dr Edward Shawcross, and grace by Father Dr Francis Lynch of St Mary’s Church Chislehurst. Wine was suitably cross-channel: Gardner Street Henners Classic 2021 (English Sussex), Château Beaumont 2015 (French Haut-Médoc) and Vouvray Demi Sec Domain de la Rouletiere 2020 (French Loire). Vegetarian courses were roasted squash, Graceburn feta and cobnut dukkah followed by leek, mushroom and potato pithivier. Kingcott blue was served with quince jelly and cheese sablé and pudding was mandarin and lemon posset. Julie Friend was the Chef. Preceding dinner was a reception in the drawing room fuelled by Jacquesson, the Emperor’s favourite bubbly.

Chislehurst Golf Club was founded in 1894,” explained Peter, “We have an 18 hole course in 70 acres of beautiful parkland.” He expressed his compliments on the star studded array of speakers at the conference and summarised the French connection: “On 9 January 1873 Napoléon III, France’s first President and last Emperor, died here at Camden Place. His funeral was a huge event attracting tens of thousands of mourners from France and England. For a combination of reasons his less than ordinary life has been largely eclipsed by his famous uncle. He lived at Camden Place for less than two years but he certainly made his mark! Chislehurst is proud to celebrate its French Imperial heritage and this week we remember the man who gave France 22 years of stable government and economic growth.” The Chairman also remarked that one of the guests, who works for a housebuilder, observed the golf course would make a great housing site.

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Architecture Art Luxury

Lavender’s Blue + Jardin des Tuileries Paris

Come on Gloria  

Jardin des Tuileries Hedge Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

And are you quite pleased to see the Jardin des Tuileries? As ever snappy, Nairn’s Paris states, “The eastern end, next to the Louvre, is a mini Versailles of formal planting: the western end, next to the Place de la Concorde, one of the most soothing places on earth. Nowhere else in Paris is the city’s uniqueness presented with such conviction. Because this end of the garden is, simply, a gravelled space interrupted occasionally with grass and thickly planted with trees in a formal pattern.” A sustainable lawnmower – a tethered goat – keeps the grass trim. Every perspective in these distinctive gardens of sacred and human geometry resembles a Sabine Weiss frame. Photography collector and dealer Peter Fetterman believes, “Aged 95, Sabine Weiss is the last great photographer of that great humanist period. She recently had a retrospective at the Pompidou.”

Jardin des Tuileries Statue Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Jardin des Tuileries Urn Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Jardin des Tuileries Goat Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Jardin des Tuileries Lawn Goat Paris © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architects Architecture Luxury People

Palais du Pharo + Marseille

The Phocaen City

Palais du Pharo Marseille © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Napoleon III’s waterside pad hogs one of the best spots in the city. Marseille’s best dressed palace is now a conference centre for its best dressed delegates. Hector-Martin Lefuel, known for his work at the Louvre, was commissioned in the early 1850s to design a summerhouse fit for an Emperor. Napoleon III never actually stayed in this palace. After his death, Empress Eugénie donated Palais du Pharo to the city. A people’s palace.

Pharo Palace Marseille © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Marseille Palace Vieux Port © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Art People

House of the Nobleman London + Wolfe von Lenkiewicz

Algebra The Reunion of Broken Parts

Wolfe von Lenkiewicz @ Lavender's Blue

The artist, concept and venue are familiar. We last saw Wolfe von Lenkiewicz at Portland Place in the Edwardian space where that interminable yawn The King’s Speech was filmed. A couple of years before that, we popped up at the House of the Nobleman in one of Nash’s terraces overlooking The Regent’s Park. Our jaunt to the French Renaissance styled Il Bottaccio for an Italian job was just a few weeks ago. Combine the three and here we are back at 9 Grosvenor Place. Sometimes, familiarity breeds respect. A New Master | curation as an art form | heritage assets.

It’s a private view, so private it’s Lavender’s Blue* and Wolfe touring the two floors which have been transformed by museum lighting and, of course, art. “You don’t have to go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa!” exclaims the 48 year old British artist. The French surroundings are immediately rather apt. “Some paintings are so iconic they seem unapproachable. But think of how artists like Duchamp and Warhol reinterpreted famous historic art.”

This Mona Lisa for the 21st century – although it will later transpire that time is not of the essence in the House of the Nobleman exhibition – is a recognisably intimate version of its predecessor. Same scale, same pose, same serenity, different detail. On closer inspection the painting is actually a medley of motifs found across Leonardo da Vinci’s oeuvre. The trees to the left are from his Annunciation; the trees to the right, The Virgin and St Anne; the shoulder ribbons from La Belle Ferronnière, and so on. He condenses Leonardo’s artistic output into a single enigma. It’s conceptual without being conceptualist.

Wolfe reveals he chose the Renaissance as a platform for experimentation because it was an age when artists attempted to root the making of art in a mathematical and aesthetically programmable formula. He renders his pencil and oil studies with a careful craftsmanship that seeks to replicate the original conditions and painting practices of Renaissance artists. It’s an exploration of the possibility of algebraic multiplication in reverse, drilling down an aesthetic object to its essential numbers. And onwards, to its prime number. Wolfe presents a Wittgensteinesque proposition that an artwork requires no further description to be in and of itself.

Wolfe von Lenkiewicz House of the Nobleman @ Lavender's Blue

“These works represent a nonlinear flattening of history,” he relates. “They’re inspired by centuries of art… Botticelli, Michelangelo, Bruegel, Stubbs, Riley, Hirst. Why not Rupert Bear too? Inspiration doesn’t always have to be highbrow art or even art! On the surface, Wolfe transfixes and seduces us with his rare technical ability. Dig deeper beyond his respectful grasp of iconography. Yes, he succeeds in reviving the algebra of art, liberating it from the confines of history to a newness of meaning. In this way, Wolfe’s latest works question the notions of resolution and finish while maintaining the utmost respect for his forebears.

*wherever there’s design there’s Lavender’s Blue

House of the Nobleman © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley