Unusual Artifacts: Devonshire Villas, 1900

Devonshire Villas No. 3
England, 1900
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This isn’t a dollhouse. It’s actually a replica of an actual house that stood in Kilburn, North London in the Devonshire Villas. The house, No. 3—now long gone—was once the home of Mr. Samuel Loebl who commissioned this model as a gift for his daughter, Cecy, so that she would have a record of her childhood home. The model was made in 1900 and it passed from Cecy to her own daughter who donated it to the V&A in 1972.

The model, like the real house on High Road in Northwest London had been, is decorated in the height of early Twentieth Century fashion—much in the Art Nouveau style--and includes a host of “modern” amenities, including a fitted bathroom with a double sink in the kitchen. The bathroom walls are outfitted with "sanitary" wallpaper—paper coated with a special material which allowed it to be washed, a new concept at the time. The nursery, almost an exact replica of the real thing, was filled with miniature toys and a colorful frieze.

The most interesting thing, perhaps, is that the model contains a small telephone. The six room replica also depicts the house’s conservatory (separated from the drawing room by a beaded curtain). The hallway of the model also replicates the handsome stained glass window of the original house.

Cecy Loebl even had a hand in the decorating of the model. She made the carpets, lampshades and furniture upholstery to match those of the real house’s bedroom and drawing room.

The replica was exhibited at a 1925 Toy Fair in Frankfurt where it was wholly praised for the fine replication of the original house.

Saturday Sparkle: The Georges Fouquet Brooch, 1903

Brooch
Georges Fouquet
1903
The Victoria & Albert Museum

We wrap up our week-long celebration of beautiful brooches with this amazing French piece by Georges Fouquet. The brooch, which dates t 1903, is a work in gold and silver with a subtle relief of young women, framed by diamonds and decorated with a sprig of mistletoe in enameled gold and pearls. 

This is the perfect example of Edwardian era jewelry as designs transitioned from the florid pieces of the Victorian era to the more stylized Art Nouveau and Art Deco. This piece is firmly in the middle of these design trends and shows both the sentimentality of the past century and the stylization of the Twentieth. 

Mastery of Design: The Van der Straeten Pendant, 1901

Today's sparkly thing is a pendant of gold set with diamonds that also doubles as a locket. The front of the locket features the head and shoulders of a woman. Instead of a photo, the locket conceals a handy mirror.

The Victoria & Albert Museum


The female form was an important theme in Art Nouveau jewelry and the entire movement glorified the idea of idealized feminine beauty. This is personified here with this depiction of a graceful woman with flowing, upswept hair.

The gold relief is the work of Georges van der Straeten who was a sculptor born in Ghent in 1856 and who worked mainly in Paris until his death in 1928. It is inscribed on the reverse 'Monte Carlo 13 March 1901' around a sprig of mistletoe.

History's Runway: The Tomalin Tea Gown, 1895

Tea Gown
1895
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Meant to be worn for an informal tea with close friends or family, this purple silk velvet dress features puffed elbow-length sleeves and a full, long-trained skirt which falls from below the bust.

The elbow bands, V neckline and front of the skirt are trimmed with embroidered bands of lilac and green silk in an Art Nouveau design.

The Home Beautiful: The “Flora's Train” Tiles, 1900-1901

Set of Six Tiles called "Flora's Train"
Walter Crane, 1900-1902
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Circa 1900, Victorian artist and illustrator, Walter Crane (1845-1915) designed this set of six tiles which, while similar to the style he used for book illustrations, also shows the influence of the rising Art Nouveau. The tiles have been molded so that the outlines of the patterns are raised in relief. Obviously, the design for the tiles was created before they were fired, allowing this relief to have been made. Each pale blue tile depicts a female figure.

On each tile, the gown worn by the woman depicted has been colored to match the flower with which she has been posed. The flowers depicted are: cornflower, blue-bell, columbine, anemone, poppy and daffodil

Made in Clifton Junction, (near Manchester) England at Pilkington's Tile and Pottery Company, the set of earthenware tiles was called "Flora's Train.”

Gifts of Grandeur: The Pearwood Mirror Back, 1901

Carved Mirror Back of Pearwood
Francis George Wood, 1901
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Mmmm...pearwood.  Speaking of delicious things, we'll be talking a look at this week's "Treat of the Week" tomorrow.  Until then, we'll be looking at lovely Art Nouveau objects like this Pearwood Mirror.

Usually, hand-held mirrors such as this were made as part of a lady’s dressing table set. This one, however, stands alone. It was made as a competition entry for National Competition of Art & Design, held by the Government School of Design in London in 1901. The maker of this decorative back for a mirror won the top honors at the competition. His name was Francis George Wood.

Wood attended the Salford School of Art--one of a network of local art schools that had been established in Britain from the 1850s onwards. Such schools provided training for artists and designers with the intention of finding them employment in manufacturing. The hope was to improve the overall quality and artistry of Britain’s manufactured goods. The idea became quite popular following the Great Exhibition of 1851 when all of Britain’s wares were on display for the world to see. That triumph, spurred by Prince Albert, set the standard for the quality of British manufacture, and it was a standard which trained artists such as Wood hoped to surpass. 

Wood’s work is exquisite. He relies on fashionable themes of the early Twentieth Century, but approaches them with a new energy. Daffodils were a popular decorative motif at this time and Wood plays with the shape of the flowers, creating an ornament of intertwining stems and leaves which shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts designer Walter Crane (1845-1915), as well as continental Art Nouveau. Wood’s triumph with this design brought him to national attention.

Mastery of Design: A French Cravat Pin, c. 1900

Cravat Pin
The British Museum

Since we've been looking at the Hull-Grundy gift to The British Museum, let's continue with this attractive gold cravat pin.  The pin features a medallion struck in gold with a profile of the goddess Diana sporting her usual attributes of a crescent, and a bow and arrow.  Originally, her collar was set with three diamonds, but one is now missing.  The medallist's and sculptor's monograms, a warranty mark and maker's mark are stamped into the medallion.

The portrait medallion was designed by Louis Armand Rault, circa 1900.

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: 'Jeu de l'Echarpe,' 1898-1904

The Victoria & Albert Museum

This delicate figure of white biscuit porcelain is part of a grand table design of fifteen standing female sculptures of the “scarf dance” made famous by Loïe Fuller. The group was made between 1898 and 1904, designed by Agathon Léonard for the Sèvres porcelain factory in Paris.

This fluid, elegant group was intended for display on a table or sideboard and depicts each step in Fuller’s celebrated dance—“Jeu de l'Echarpe.” Agathon Léonard was careful in the design of the group, mastering each motion and expression of Fuller’s dance. He was born Léonard Agathon van Weydeveldt of Belgian parents and trained as a sculptor, specializing in ceramic modeling. The group from which this sculpture comes is considered one of his great triumphs.


The full group, fittingly entitled “Jeu de I'Echarpe,” was first shown in the Paris 1900 Exhibition at which Sèvres won a Grand Prix, and was described in the exhibition report as "elegant figures in a graceful and charming ensemble which were a great and deserved success.” This figure and its porcelain sisters typify the spirit of Art Nouveau style—undulation, movement, and the idealized female form. Léonard couldn’t have picked a better subject than Miss Fuller. The American dancer was a regular fixture at the Folies Bergère, Paris where her free-flowing, silk-clad dance caught the attention of many an artist, including the French artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec who was also drawn to the elegant theatricality of the spectacle.

The figure is marked number “12” of the group of fifteen and bears the marks “S” and “1904.”

The Home Beautiful: The Darras Chair, 1900

The Victoria & Albert Museum


Exhibited at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1900--the exhibition which established Art Nouveau as the dominant modern style of decoration throughout Europe--this chair wowed the juries with its complicated design of undulating lines and the contrast of the formalized motifs on the leather panels depicting chestnut leaves, mistletoe and sprays of ivy.

The same foliate patterns are depicted in a much more realistic manner on the legs and back of the chair. This type of contrast in design was a speciality of the maker, A. Darras, about whom very little is known.

The sturdy frame is constructed of walnut, however, the original leather panels suffered from rot and were reproduced by the conservationists at the Victoria & Albert Museum who used the patterns originally employed by Darras himself.

Mastery of Design: The Philippe Wolfers Hair Ornament, 1905-1907

Hair Ornament
Philippe Wolfers
Belgium 1905-1907
Gold, Diamonds, Enamel
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The four petals of this orchid of gold, plique-a-jour enamel, diamonds and rubies radiate from the large central diamond, catching the light both from the front and from behind and offering a mesmerizing, exotic shine and sparkle.

The work of Beglian jeweler Philippe Wolfers, this hair ornament was created between 1905 and 1907 in the extremely technically difficult art of plique-à-jour (French, "letting in daylight"). This is a a technique of vitreous enameling in which the enamel is applied in cells. In this respect, it is similar to cloisonné. However, the similarity ends there. Where the cells of enamel in cloisonné enamel are backed in metal, in plique-à-jour, the backing is removed once the work is finished. In a similar concept to stained glass, this allows light to pass through the transparent or translucent enamel. This technique is difficult to master and is only successfully seen in a few surviving pieces.

Philippe Wolfers was one of the few to truly conquer the technique. He was the most prestigious of the Art Nouveau jewelers working in Brussels. He shared stylistic tendencies with his French counterpart René Lalique. Both men were heavily influenced by the nature and both often incorporated orchids into their designs. You see, orchids symbolized the Art Nouveau movement and served as a visual means of communicating the movement’s fascination with nature and sensuality. 

Mastery of Design: A Brooch of Demantoid Garnet, Freshwater Pearls, Gold and Diamonds, 1900

Brooch
Demantoid Garnet (Tsavorite), Pearls, Diamonds, Gold
United States, 1900
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This piece of jewelry was created in the United States around 1900. While English, French and Italian jewelers were more comfortable revisiting the styles of the Rococo and looking forward with abandon to the curves and scrolls of the Art Nouveau, American jewelers were markedly more cautious, knowing that American buyers were more interested in the traditional than the daring. This scrolled brooch of gold combines rococo elements with the sinuous curves of Art Nouveau. It’s a daring design for sale in the American market of the early Twentieth Century where, in the 1901 Jewlers’ Circular and Horological Review, a reviewer commented that some pieces of Art Nouveau jewelry were "more fitted for the case of the collector than for wear…"

What Americans did appreciate was the use of brightly colored gemstones. The use of green demantiod garnets (similar in color to tsavorites, but of a different chemical structure) would have scored points with American buyers, especially when combined with these luxurious pearls and beautiful diamonds.

Gifts of Grandeur: A Ruby and Diamond Brooch

Brooch
Gold, Metal, Diamonds and Rubies
1910-1920
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This beautiful brooch is caught between two eras. The upper portion is clearly rooted in Art Nouveau sensibilities with its symmetrical curvilinear crest. The lower part of the brooch, however, speaks of Art Deco ideals with its gently tapered, angular base—long and pointed, and set with contrasting diamonds and rubies.


The brooch was made sometime between 1910 and 1920—thus accounting for its combination of styles. It truly is a transitional design, and, really, quite an attractive one. Backed in gold, the diamonds and rubies are set in what is described simply as “white metal.” The maker of the brooch is unknown and there’s some debate as to whether it comes from the U.S. or from Europe. It is housed in Jewelry Room Ninety-One at the V&A.

Unusual Artifacts: Devonshire Villas, 1900

Devonshire Villas No. 3
England, 1900
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This isn’t a dollhouse. It’s actually a replica of an actual house that stood in Kilburn, North London in the Devonshire Villas. The house, No. 3—now long gone—was once the home of Mr. Samuel Loebl who commissioned this model as a gift for his daughter, Cecy, so that she would have a record of her childhood home. The model was made in 1900 and it passed from Cecy to her own daughter who donated it to the V&A in 1972.

The model, like the real house on High Road in Northwest London had been, is decorated in the height of early Twentieth Century fashion—much in the Art Nouveau style--and includes a host of “modern” amenities, including a fitted bathroom with a double sink in the kitchen. The bathroom walls are outfitted with "sanitary" wallpaper—paper coated with a special material which allowed it to be washed, a new concept at the time. The nursery, almost an exact replica of the real thing, was filled with miniature toys and a colorful frieze.

The most interesting thing, perhaps, is that the model contains a small telephone. The six room replica also depicts the house’s conservatory (separated from the drawing room by a beaded curtain). The hallway of the model also replicates the handsome stained glass window of the original house.

Cecy Loebl even had a hand in the decorating of the model. She made the carpets, lampshades and furniture upholstery to match those of the real house’s bedroom and drawing room.

The replica was exhibited at a 1925 Toy Fair in Frankfurt where it was wholly praised for the fine replication of the original house.