Sidney's Place: ROCOCO IN ENGLAND

I have written three articles about Rococo buildings in South Germany where some of the very finest are. It is now time to look at objects and works of art influenced by the fantastic Rococo spirit, that life-enhancing current running so strongly from about 1720 to 1770 in Europe. England was not immune from that spirit, even though no Rococo buildings of consequence were raised there. The world of art partly fell under the Rococo spell, but most of all several generations of collectors and connoisseurs loved and appreciated Rococo, when it had been deserted and become despised elsewhere on the Continent. These collectors will for ever deserve our gratitude.

The only stately home in England, in my view, deeply imbued with the Rococo spirit is Claydon House in Buckinghamshire. Several rooms were decorated in the Rococo and Chinoiserie manner by Luke Lightfoot (or better, Lightfinger, as he embezzled much of the construction money from the owners, the Verneys).

Chimney-piece at Claydon

An interior at Claydon

Claydon has been in the Verney family 600 years and the Rococo parts were created in the 1730s by a Verney keen to outdo his richer neighbour at Stowe. He bankrupted himself in the process but he was determined to be fashionable and elegant in the French Rococo style.

There are few original Rococo buildings in England. Hartwell House near Aylesbury, now a hotel, has admired Rococo ceilings; Painswick Gardens in Gloucestershire from the mid-1730s were recreated in their original Rococo form with delightful follies and belvederes; Thomas Archer’s baroque St Paul’s Deptford echoes Rococo influences with its broken pediments and concave shapes; but we really have to go to the applied arts to see English Rococo.

The Rococo spirit was most felt in painting, furniture and porcelain. Thomas Gainsborough’s (1727-78) portraits of ladies are very reminiscent of the French Rococo masters like Lancret or Chardin, and the very different William Hogarth, who, especially in his savagely satirical engravings, is reckoned a child of the Rococo.

Hogarth's Gin Lane

Gainsborough's Mrs Hibbert

In furniture the most prominent exponent of the Rococo style was Thomas Chippendale (1718-79), with his flowing serpentine lines. In porcelain, Derby and Longton Hall were just two of the potters responding to the Rococo mode.

Chippendale Chairs

A 1755 Longton Hall Teapot

Exquisite as these artefacts are, the glory of Rococo England lies in its collections. Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire is an enormous chateau built in the French style between 1874 and 1889 by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, rather incongruously for the English countryside. Its wonderful collection of mainly French 18^th and 19^th century art includes many Rococo treasures, all donated to the National Trust in 1957.

Among these treasures are paintings by Gainsborough and Guardi, ormolu wall mounts, elaborate clocks, panelling from Paris, large quantities of Sevres and Meissen china, desks by Cressent with cupids and oak leaves, delightful snuff-boxes, a Monstrance (to display the Eucharist) design by Meissonnier and other objets d’art too numerous to mention. It is well worth making the pilgrimage to Waddesdon.

Monstrance design 1727

Exotic china figures from Waddesdon

My favourite gallery in London, housing Old Masters and French art from all periods, is The Wallace Collection in Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1, quite unmissable for any enthusiast of the Rococo. While the Wallace has a wonderful range of 18^th century furniture, it is in the field of painting that it is pre-eminent. Indeed “The Swing” by Fragonard, with the young woman kicking her slipper over her love struck suitor, has become the informal trade mark of the gallery.

The Swing by Fragonard

The Musical Contest by Fragonard

Another delightful Fragonard has two suitors, one with a flute and the other with a musette (a form of bagpipe) trying to impress their beloved. Both these paintings exemplify the aristocratic elegance and joyful spirit of the Rococo.

The Wallace Collection was built up by the Marquesses of Hertford, especially the 4^th Marquess (1800-70). He left it to his natural son, Sir Richard Wallace, and both, with their agents, had scoured the auction rooms of Paris and beyond purchasing the cream of 18^th century art. Sir Richard’s widow donated the House and its Collection to the nation in 1897 and it opened to the public in 1900. Never was there so munificent a donation.

As you enter the gallery you are faced with a staircase and at the half-landing and first floor you are confronted with glorious paintings by Boucher, so redolent of Rococo. Then there are wonderful works by Watteau and dozens of others.