At auction this November in the sale of Fine & Decorative Interiors, a pair of Regency giltwood sofas that have graced the rooms of two extremely grand English houses.
The first of these residences is Ditchley Park, the Grade I country house near Charlbury in Oxfordshire, which in its current form dates from 1722 and was designed by James Gibbs for the 2nd Earl of Lichfield. In the late 18th century Ditchley was the home to the Viscounts Dillon, and it passed through the family until 1933 when following the death of the 17th Viscount, the house was sold to Ronald Tree (1897-1976). With an Anglo-American pedigree, and great wealth coming from both his father’s and mother’s families, Tree had grown up at Ashorne Hill House in Warwickshire. In the 1920s he was living in New York where he edited Forum magazine and invested in the New York Stock Exchange. He had married the widow of his cousin, Marshall Field, Nancy (the interior decorator known as Nancy Lancaster after her third marriage in 1948) in 1920 and in 1927 the couple moved with their two sons to England. The Trees initially took on a 10-year repairing lease on Kelmarsh Hall, in Northamptonshire, where Nancy honed her decorating skills with Ethel Bethell (1865-1932) of Elden Ltd. Bethell was a huge influence and it is said that over the subsequent years the younger decorator continually cited the crucial role she had played in the development of her own career; regrettably very little documented evidence of Ethel’s projects remains. It was through Ditchley, where she restored its rooms making them both comfortable and beautiful, that Nancy came to be described as having ‘the best taste of almost anyone in the world’. Ditchley had been neglected over the years, it was not wired for electricity and there was only one functioning bathroom. Nancy’s collaborators in the transformation of Ditchley were the decorator Sibyl Colefax and Stéphane Boudin, from the Parisian interior decorators, Maison Jansen.
In the year of the purchase of Ditchley Park Ronald Tree had become a Conservative Member of Parliament for Market Harborough and was a joint Master of the Pytchley Hunt. From 1940-43 he acted as an advisor on American affairs to the Ministry of Information and in 1944 he was serving in Churchill’s cabinet as Under Secretary for Town and Country Planning. The Trees moved closer to the heart of the British establishment when during the war Churchill chose to spend periods of time at Ditchley in preference to Chequers which was an obvious target for Luftwaffe bombers, although he had been a frequent dinner guest at the house from 1937. And, of course, when Churchill was at Ditchley other world leaders congregated there too.
We catch sight of the Regency sofas in Tree’s autobiography, When the Moon Was High, published in 1975. He recounts that during the war it became impossible to staff a house the size of Ditchley and so they turned the Hall into their principal sitting room. The Trees moved most of the furniture out from the White Drawing Room in order to fill the large, cavernous space – camel-back sofas and chairs upholstered in white and red damask, made specifically for the White Drawing Room, now furnished the Hall. Alexandre Serebriakoff’s watercolour of the Hall shows these sofas flanking the fireplace. Our pair of sofas were then moved into the White Drawing Room which was then styled in a more formal manner.
The ‘White Room’ was a well-known concept in interior decoration at the time. In October 1929 the London edition of the magazine Harpers Bazaar was launched, the aim being to promote British talent in design, photography and art. ‘Mrs Somerset Maugham’s White House’ featured in this first issue, Syrie Maugham was famed for creating white rooms although the only all-white room she actually designed was her own drawing room at her home at 213 King’s Road, London. By the mid-1930s her colour palette had shifted away from white to hot shades of pink, red and green. Maugham’s decorative schemes helped to popularise, amongst various pieces, plump furniture upholstered in white fabric. Syrie’s neighbour on the King’s Road was Sybil Colefax, who lived with her husband Arthur at Argyll House (number 211) and Sybil and Syrie are depicted together by Sir John Lavery in the oil on panel, Argyll House Hall – a Summer’s Day, from 1930.
The latest splendid home of the Regency sofas is the Royal Opera House, where they were to be seen in the Crush Room. A brass plaque is now attached to the back of each sofa and it reads, ‘The sofas were presented to the Royal Opera House in memory of Sir David Webster by Else and Dennis Lennon, 1972’. A latter-day taste and style maker himself, Dennis Lennon (1918-1991) was an architect and designer known for his work on the 1951 Festival of Britain, the interiors of Cunard’s ocean liner, The Queen Elizabeth II, as well as his set designs at Glyndebourne from 1963-68 – to name just a few of his many high-profile assignments – a table and light designed by Lennon are held in the collection of the V&A Museum. Lennon had served in as an officer in the Royal Engineers during World War II and was awarded the Military Cross. His link with the Royal Opera House dated from 1950 when he was appointed as a consultant architect and from 1955 he worked on the first of six Royal Galas hosted at the House.
Sir David Webster (1903-1971) was Chief Executive at the Royal Opera House from 1945 to 1970. He played a vital role in the establishment of the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera companies, both of which at the time of his retirement had achieved worldwide recognition. Before the War there had been no permanent company based at Covent Garden and for the duration of the conflict the Royal Opera House operated as a dance hall. Post war it was agreed that there should be a full time ensemble at Covent Garden and that it should be run by a businessman. Webster was a good fit, he had a history of working in retail with an ability to understand and meet customer service demands combined with a successful track record in arts administration. The Royal Opera House re-opened in February 1946 with a production of Sleeping Beauty, designed by Oliver Messel. The trajectory of the development of ballet at the House ran relatively smoothly under Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton, and in 1957 the company was granted the title of ‘The Royal Ballet’. Opera proved more challenging, but with the appointment of Georg Solti in 1961, the company started to gain global respect. Within sight of stepping down from his role, David Hockney was commissioned to paint Sir David’s portrait, and the work was funded by the Opera House staff and singers. Sadly, Webster passed away soon after the painting was completed and less than a year into his retirement.
The Regency giltwood sofas possess undoubted and illustrious provenance, and with their classic, low lines would be equally at home in a contemporary crush room or in the current interpretation of a monochrome reception room.
View the catalogue entry here | Lot 98, Fine & Decorative Interiors, 28 November 2023 at 1pm
Contact us with your auction queries: info@thepedestal.com | +44 (0)207 281 2790
To request an auction valuation: valuations@thepedestal.com | +44 (0)207 281 2790