Emma Ferry

The Late-Nineteenth Century Interior: Three new essays

The essays in this section of Designs for Living make new contributions to the historiography of the late-nineteenth century interior. In ‘‘Plate-glass and Progress’: Victorian Modernity at Home’, Trevor Keeble discusses Lewis F. Day’s lecture ‘Commonsense House Decoration’, which was first presented as a public lecture at the National Health Society Exhibition in 1883 and later published by The Furniture Gazette alongside examples from broader discourse of furnishing and decoration, notably John D. Crace’s lecture on ‘Household Taste’ (1882) later published by both The Builder and The Furniture Gazette. Demonstrating the ways in which a dialogue of ‘progressive’ domestic furnishing and arrangement was unfolding during this time, this chapter uses Day’s example of plate glass window to consider the ways in which the design professional and the decorating householder jostled for position within this rhetoric and to highlight the often contradictory roles that notions of ‘taste’, ‘sentiment’ and ‘commonsense’ played in the negotiation of domestic modernity.

In ‘Mediating Social Relations in the Modernized Public House’ Fiona Fisher examines the spatial and visual relations of the late-Victorian public house. Set within the context of contemporary concerns surrounding alcohol consumption and intemperance, through an examination of surviving plans, Parliamentary Papers, government legislation, contemporary photographs, newspaper reports and trade publications such as the Barman and Barmaid and the Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, Dr. Fisher demonstrates how the interiors of London’s late-nineteenth century public houses were adapted to moderate and mediate social activity. In particular, this chapter highlights the use of visual and spatial divisions such as curtains, counter-screens and partitions to negotiate a period of rapidly changing custom and instability in urban social relations.

Finally, in her chapter ‘The German Interior at the end of the Nineteenth Century’, art historian Sabine Wieber considers the two rooms designed by Martin Dülfer (1859-1942) and Theodor Fischer (1862-1938) and displayed in the Glaspalast at Munich’s 7^th International Art Exhibition in 1897. Recognized as the first manifestation of Germany’s Jugendstil, the two rooms have been celebrated as the eagerly anticipated arrival of a truly modern style of interior design in central Europe. Drawing upon the contemporary rhetoric surrounding the Exhibition published in a range of German-language magazines such as Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Pan and Kunst und Handwerk, Dr Wieber interrogates the meanings of the terms ‘modern’ and ‘modernity’ used to describe Dülfer’s and Fischer’s interiors to uncover the complex and often contradictory nature of this modernity.

Highlighting the problems associated with the word ‘modern’ in this period, all three essays demonstrate the range of materials available for the study and analysis of the late-nineteenth century interior: moreover, this diversity in subject matter, source materials, methodology and interpretation serve to emphasize the rich and exciting possibilities of this developing field of research.
Endnotes:

1 R. and A. Garrett, Suggestions for House Decoration in Painting, Woodwork and Furniture, Macmillan & Co., 1876, p. 6

2 R. Williams, Keywords: Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Fontana Press, 1976, revised and expanded edition, 1983, pp. 208-9

3 C. L. Eastlake, Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and other Details, Longmans, Green & Co., 4th edition, 1878 [1868], p. 6

4 C. L. Eastlake, 1878 [1868], p. 7

5 C. L. Eastlake, 1878 [1868], p. 29

6 C. L. Eastlake, 1878 [1868], p. 45

7 For a comparison of Eastlake’s Hints with the Garrett’s Suggestions see my article ‘‘Decorators may be compared to doctors’: An Analysis of Rhoda and Agnes Garrett’s Suggestions for House Decoration (1876)’, Journal of Design History, No. 1 Vol. 16. 2003. An excerpt (pp. 26-9) has been reprinted together with an extract from Eastlake’s Hints in M. Taylor and J. Preston, Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, pp. 110-116

8 L. Orrinsmith, The Drawing Room: its Decoration and Furniture, Macmillan & Co., 1877, p. 6. For an overview of the production of Macmillan’s ‘Art at Home’ Series and a discussion of the dangers of using this type of literature as historical evidence see my chapter ‘‘… information for the ignorant and aid for the advancing …’ Macmillan’s ‘Art at Home Series’, 1876-1883’ in J. Aynsley and K. Forde, Design and the Modern Magazine, Manchester University Press, 2007

9 W. Morris, ‘‘Making the Best of It’, December 1880. The production of this familiar publication is complex. On 13th November 1880, Morris delivered a version of this lecture (then titled ‘Some Hints on House Decoration’), before the Trades Guild of Learning in the lecture hall of the Society of Arts, John Street, Adelphi. On 20th November 1880, The Architect published a summary of Morris’s lecture as ‘Making the Best of It’ (p. 318). A second version of ‘Making the Best of It’ was published in The Artist in December 1880. In December 1880, Morris delivered ‘Some Hints on House Decoration’ at the Royal Society of Artists, Birmingham and on 18th December 1880, The Architect printed the first installment of ‘Making the Best of It’ as ‘Hints on House Decoration’ (pp. 384-7). The second part appeared on 25th December 1880 (pp. 400-02). The essay was finally published in Hopes and Fears for Art, which is a collection of talks given by William Morris during the late 1870s and early 1880s. The talks were first published in book form by Ellis and White in 1882, and were reissued in 1883, 1896, 1898, 1903, 1911, and 1919. It was reprinted in Bristol by the Thoemmes Press in 1994. A version taken from the 1919 Longmans, Green and Co. ‘Pocket Library’ edition, originally prepared by David Price for Project Gutenberg, and converted to XHTML by Graham Seaman is available online at: www.marxist.org.uk.

10 W. Morris, ‘Making the Best of It’ (December 1880)

11 W. Morris, ‘Making the Best of It’ (December 1880)

12 O. Wilde, ‘House Decoration’, in Essays and Lectures by Oscar Wilde, Methuen & Co., 1908. This lecture was delivered in America during Wilde’s tour in 1882. Announced in the American press as ‘The Practical Application of the Principles of Aesthetic Theory to Exterior and Interior House Decoration, With Observations upon Dress and Personal Ornaments’ the title of Wilde’s lecture on interior decoration varied between House Decoration (first delivered in May 1882) and ‘The House Beautiful’, reflecting the popularity of the American Clarence Cook’s successful advice manual, The House Beautiful (1876). The earliest date in which it is known to have been given is 11th May, 1882

13 M. E. Haweis, The Art of Decoration, Chatto & Windus, 1881, Book One, Chapter One, p. 16

14 M. E. Haweis, 1881, Book Three, Chapter Eleven, p. 396

15 M. E. Haweis, 1881, Book Two, Chapter One, p. 60

16 D. Watkin, The Rise of Architectural History, Architectural Press, 1980, p. 165

17 D. Watkin, 1980, p. 174. Chronologically these publications include: P. Ferriday (ed.) with an introduction by Sir John Betjeman, Victorian Architecture, Jonathan Cape, 1963; R. Furneaux-Jordan, Victorian Architecture, Penguin, 1966; J. Summerson, Victorian Architecture, Four Studies in Evaluation, Columbia University Press, 1970; M. Girouard, The Victorian Country House, Yale University Press, 1971; R. Macleod, Style and Society, Architectural Ideology in Britain 1840-1914, RIBA, 1971; P. Stanton, Pugin, Thames & Hudson, 1971; P. Thompson, William Butterfield, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971; J. M. Crook, The Greek Revival: Neo-Classical Attitudes in British Architecture 1760-1870, John Murray, 1972; S. Muthesisus, The High Victorian Moment in Architecture 1850-1870, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972; N. Pevsner, Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century, Clarendon Press, 1972; M. Girouard, Sweetness and Light, the ‘Queen Anne’ Movement 1860-1900, Yale University Press, 1977; M. Girouard, Life in an English Country House, a Social and Architectural History, Yale University Press, 1978; and R. Dixon and S. Muthesius, Victorian Architecture, Thames & Hudson, 1978

18 D. Watkin, 1980, p. 170

19 See for example: E. Aslin, The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art Nouveau, Elek Books, 1969; N. Pevsner, ‘Art Furniture of the 1870s’ in Studies in Art, Architecture and Design, Thames & Hudson, 1969; M. Girouard, Sweetness and Light: The ‘Queen Anne Movement’ 1860 - 1900, Yale University Press, 1977; G. Naylor, The Arts and Crafts Movement: a study of its sources, ideals and influences on design theory, Trefoil, 1990; E. Cumming & W. Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement, Thames & Hudson, 1991; M. Richardson, Architects of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Trefoil/RIBA,1983; I. Anscombe & C. Gere, Arts and Crafts in Britain and America, Academy Editions, 1978; S. Escritt, Art Nouveau, Phaidon, 2000; P. Greenhalgh (ed.), Art Nouveau: 1890-1914, V&A, 2000

20P. Thornton, Authentic Decor: The Domestic Interior 1620-1920, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984; 1993, p. 308

21P. Thornton, 1984; 1993, p. 308

22 J. Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors: from the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau, Thames & Hudson, 1987, p. 7

23 J. Cooper, 1987, pp. 7-8 quoting from W. R. Lethaby’s Philip Webb and his Work, Oxford University Press, 1935

24 C. Newton, Victorian Designs for the Home, V&A Publications, 1999, p. 8

25 D. Watkin, 1980, p. 174

26 P. Floud, ‘Introduction’, Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1952, p. 5, quoted in D. Watkin, 1980, p. 174

27 These notable curators include Elizabeth Aslin, Simon Jervis and Clive Wainwright. See for example: E. Aslin, Nineteenth Century English Furniture, Faber & Faber, 1962; E. Aslin, The Aesthetic Movement: Prelude to Art Nouveau, Elek Books, 1969; S. Jervis, Victorian Furniture, Ward Lock, 1968; S. Jervis, Nineteenth Century Papier Mâché, HMSO, 1973; S. Jervis, High Victorian Design, Boydell, 1983; C. Wainwright, ‘A. W. N. Pugin’s Early Furniture’, Connoisseur, (1976) CXCI, No. 767, pp. 3-11; C. Wainwright, George Bullock: Cabinet-Maker, Murray, 1988; C. Wainwright, The Romantic Interior: The British Collector at Home 1750-1850, Yale University Press, 1989; P. Atterbury and C. Wainwright (eds.), Pugin: A Gothic Passion, V&A Publications, 1994

28 D. Watkin, 1980, p. 174. High Victorian Design toured Canada, but was not displayed in London. Watkin also highlights Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Art, an exhibition of the collection of Charles and Lavinia Handley-Read (both d. 1971) held at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1972

29 These exhibitions and new galleries have been accompanied by lavishly illustrated books and catalogues, which include essays written by curatorial staff and other scholars of international repute working in these areas.

30 See for example C. Gere, with L. Hoskins, The House Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Interior, Lund Humphries/Geffreye Museum, 2000, which was published on the occasion of the exhibition The House Beautiful: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Interior at the Geffrye Museum 18 July 2000 – 21 January 2001.

31 Founded by the Countess of Rosse at 18 Stafford Terrace (Linley Sambourne House) with the support of Sir John Betjeman and Christopher Hussey, among the high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful campaigns launched by the Victorian Society were the ‘Save the Arch’ campaign led by Betjeman to preserve the Euston Arch built by Philip and P. C. Hardwick (1835-9), and the attempt to save J. B. Bunning’s Coal Exchange (1847-9): both were demolished in 1962. More successful campaigns include ‘the Battle of Bedford Park’

32 English Heritage, officially known as the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, was founded following the passing of the National Heritage Act in 1983

33 The following studies relate to the presentation of historic houses in Britain, Europe and America rather than the wider heritage industry debates or histories of the preservation movement: E. Barker, ‘Heritage and the Country House’ in E. Barker (ed.) Contemporary Cultures of Display, Yale University Press, 1999; G. Chitty and D. Baker (eds.), Managing Sites and Buildings: Reconciling Presentation and Preservation, Routledge, 1999; J. Cornforth, The Country Houses of England, 1948-98, Constable, 1998; J. F. Donnelly (ed.), Interpreting Historic House Museums, Altamira Press, 2002; J. Fawcett (ed.), The Future of the Past: Attitudes to Conservation 1174-1974, Thames & Hudson, 1976; V. Horie (ed.), The Conservation of Decorative Arts, Archetype Publications, 1999; G. Jackson-Stops (ed.), The Treasure Houses of Britain, Washington D.C. National Gallery of Art, 1985; P. Mandler, The Rise and Fall of the Stately Home, Yale University Press, 1997; G. W. McDonald, Hearth and Home: Preserving a People’s Culture, Temple University Press, 1982; M. Ponsonby, Stories from Home: English Domestic Interiors 1750 – 1850, Ashgate, 2007; A. Tinniswood, The Polite Tourist: a History of Country House Visiting, National Trust, 1998; P. West, Domesticating History: the Political Origins of America’s House Museum, Smithsonian Institute Press, 1999

34 D. Watkin, 1980, p. 183

35 D. Watkin, 1980, p. 186.

36 C. Wainwright, The Romantic Interior: The British Collector at Home 1750-1850, Yale University Press, 1989, p. 2. Other notable publications that relate to this area include M. Girouard, The Victorian Country House, Yale University Press, 1971; 1980 2nd edition, M. Girouard, Life in the English Country House, Yale University Press, 1978; and J. Franklin, The Gentleman’s Country House and its Plan, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981.

37 J. Fowler and J. Cornforth, English Decoration in the 18th Century, Barrie & Jenkins, 1974; revised edition, 1978; J. Cornforth, English Interiors 1700-1848: the Quest for Comfort, Barrie & Jenkins, 1978; and Louise Ward’s critique of English Country House style in ‘Chintz, swags and bows: The myth of the English Country House Style’, Things, No. 5, Winter 1996-97, pp. 7-37, reprinted in S. McKellar and P. Sparke (eds.), Interior Design and Identity, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp.92-113

38 J. Banham, J. Porter and S. MacDonald, Victorian Interior Style, Studio Editions, 1995, p.10 [first published by Cassell as Victorian Interior Design in 1991]

39 P. Sparke, ‘Introduction’, in S. McKellar and P. Sparke (eds.), Interior Design and Identity, Manchester University Press, 2004, pp.1-9

40 Both publications contain essays that consider aspects of the late-nineteenth century interior. See S. McKellar and P. Sparke (eds.), Interior Design and Identity, Manchester University Press, 2004 and M. Taylor and J. Preston, Intimus: Interior Design Theory Reader, John Wiley & Sons, 2006

41 Gender is the dominant tool of analysis in a number of important books that relate to interior design in the nineteenth century. See for example, the early chapters of Penny Sparke’s As Long as it’s Pink: the Sexual Politics of Taste, Pandora, 1995, which examine domesticity and feminine taste in the context of the design reform movement in the period 1830-90, highlighting the importance of the home and its much-contested decoration to middle-class identity and status and Juliet Kinchin’s essay ‘The Gendered Interior: Nineteenth Century Essays on the ‘Masculine’ and the ‘Feminine’ room’ in Pat Kirkham (ed.), The Gendered Object, Manchester University Press, 1996 examines the gendered nature of the middle-class dining room and the drawing room of the Victorian home. Interestingly, A View from the Interior: Women and Design, (1989; 1995), edited by Judy Attfield and Pat Kirkham, which presents the subject of design history from a feminist perspective: interestingly, uses ‘interior’ within the title ‘as a metaphor for the archetypal feminine position’. See J. Attfield and P. Kirkham (eds.), Introduction to the Second Edition, A View from the Interior: Women and Design, The Women’s Press Ltd., 1989; 1995 edition, p. 1

42 M. Taylor and J. Preston, 2006, p. 10

43 See N. Cooper, The Opulent Eye: Late Victorian and Edwardian Taste in Interior Design, Architectural Press, 1979

44 M. Praz, An Illustrated History of Interior Decoration, from Pompeii to Art Nouveau, Thames & Hudson, 1964

45P. Thornton, 1984; 1993, p. 308

46P. Thornton, 1984; 1993, p. 8

47 Edited by Jeremy Aynsley and Charlotte Grant, Imagined Interiors: Representing the Domestic Interior since the Renaissance, V&A Publications, 2006, is the product of the AHRC Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior (CSDI), which completed its project in 2006

48 G. Lees-Maffei, ‘Introduction – Studying Advice: Historiography, Methodology, Commentary, Bibliography’, Journal of Design History, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2003, p. 1.

49 E. Langland, Nobody’s Angels: Middle-class women and domestic ideology in Victorian Culture, Cornell University Press, 1995, p. 24

50 N. Humble, ‘Introduction’, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Oxford World Classics, 2000, p. xv-xvi

51 J. Rendall, The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France, and the United States 1780-1860, Macmillan, 1985, p. 206

52 D. Attar, A Bibliography of Household Books Published in Britain 1800-1914, Prospect Books, 1987, p. 13; P. Branca, Silent Sisterhood: Middle Class Women in the Victorian Home, Croom Helm, 1975, pp. 16-7, also noted that advice ‘was widely purchased’.

53 G Lees-Maffei (ed.), 2003

54 See J. Don Vann and R. T. VanArsdel (eds.), Victorian Periodicals and Victorian Society, Scolar Press, 1994.

55 See also M. Beetham and K. Boardman’s anthology, Victorian Women’s Magazines, Manchester University Press, 2001, for information about periodicals aimed at female readers, many of which, for example, The Queen, The Englishwoman’s Domestic Journal, Myra’s Journal and Sylvia’s Home Journal, contain information about the domestic interior. To these specialist journals and women’s magazines should be added the more general nineteenth century periodical publications, which often include valuable articles on buildings and their interiors: magazines such as Punch, The Pall Mall Gazette, The Athenaeum, The Graphic, and The Saturday Review are all worth exploring.

56 H. Long, Victorian Houses and their details: The role of publications in their building and decoration, Architectural Press, 2002. For a slightly later period see Long’s, The Edwardian House, Manchester University Press, 1993

57 See M. Ponsonby, Stories from Home: English Domestic Interiors, 1750-1850, Ashgate, 2007, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-19, for a methodological discussion that warns against the use of narrative paintings, advice books, prescriptive literature, and other equally ‘mediated’ sources, and which notes the limitations associated with the technique of quantitative analysis.

58 E. Darling and L. Whitworth (eds.), Women and the Making of Built Space in England, 1750-1950, Ashgate, 2007. My own contribution, ‘A Novelty Among Exhibitions’ examines the Loan Exhibition of Women’s Industries held in Bristol in 1885, and considers the interior space of a public exhibition held by women in a domestic villa in Clifton through a range of contemporary newspaper and magazine articles, published locally, nationally and in the Suffrage Press.

59 C. Grant (ed.), ‘The Domestic Interior in British Literature’, Home Cultures, November 2005, Vol. 2, No. 3

60 T. A. Markus, Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types, Routledge, 1993; 2004 considers a range of buildings that includes: schools; baths and wash-houses; clubs, hotels and assembly rooms; institutions such as prisons, workhouses, hospitals and asylums; cultural buildings libraries, museums, art galleries, exhibitions, panoramas and dioramas, mechanic’s institutes and lecture theatres; and those used for production and exchange such as mills and factories, markets, shops and exchanges.