Henry Holland, the Prince of Wales and the Early Carlton House’, the Georgian Group Journal, Vol
David Oakey, ‘“The Most Perfect Palace in Europe”: Henry Holland, the Prince of Wales and the early Carlton House’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xxI, 2013, pp. 88–105
text © the authors 2013 ‘THE MOST PERFECT PALACE IN EUROPE’: HENRY HOLLAND, THE PRINCE OF WALES AND THE EARLY CARLTON HOUSE
DAVID OAKEY
In a letter in Horace Walpole claimed that the House in September , he had quite the opposite new Carlton House, designed by Henry Holland reaction: ( – ) would be ‘the most perfect palace in ‘It will be the most perfect palace in Europe. There is Europe’. Focussing exclusively on the nineteen-year an august simplicity that astonished me. You cannot period when Holland was working at the house call it magnificent; it is the taste and propriety that between and , this article will attempt to strike. Every ornament is at a proper distance, and not show what it was that was so profound and one too large, but all delicate and new, with more innovative about this early phase of design and freedom and variety than Greek ornaments … how sick one shall be, after this chaste palace, of Mr Adam’s decoration at the house, presenting it as a distinct gingerbread and snippets of embroidery … entity when compared to the more familiar later periods. Neither the architecture nor the decoration Walpole was experienced and knowledgeable; he of the house during this period has been examined would turn sixty-eight in , and had remained closely before; here both will be carefully analysed with attuned to architectural and decorative fashions in the hope of providing new insights on Holland’s England and France throughout his life. His opinion inspiration and intentions, and on the taste and was therefore to be respected. Quite why Carlton motivation of the youthful George, Prince of Wales. House prompted such a reaction should be of This will be done by close examination of evidence interest to any architectural historian. Yet whilst drawn together from a variety of different sources, much work has been undertaken on the well- including publications used by Holland, architectural documented alterations and embellishments to the designs and archival documentation. In the process house during the early nineteenth-century by James it will be possible to shed light on the important work Wyatt, Walsh Porter, Thomas Hopper and John of Henry Holland as architect to the Prince of Wales, Nash, the early house, as experienced by Walpole in which has so often been unduly overlooked in favour , has been largely under-researched. What of those who would come later. Walpole was actually viewing was the work of the Henry Holland ( – ) who served as architect y the s it seems that Horace Walpole was to the Prince of Wales for nearly two decades from Bbeginning to find the work of Robert Adam to . Perhaps because of a perceived lack of over-complicated and frivolous; on viewing his work evidence, Holland seems to have often been at Syon House in he lamented ‘grandeur and neglected in favour of his successors; there are no simplicity are not yet in fashion’. In contrast, on first watercolours of the house’s early interiors like those viewing the Prince of Wales’s newly built Carlton painted by Thomas Wild for William Pyne’s Royal
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Residences in , and relevant documentary such as Antoine Desgodetz’s Les Edifices Antiques de records are elusive. In general Holland is not as Rome ( ), Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities of famous as many of his contemporaries, probably Athens ( ), and Jean-François de Neufforge’s because several of his works have been demolished Recueil Élémentaire d’Architecture ( – ). or altered beyond recognition, Carlton House, his Contemporary French architecture was also an masterpiece, being the most significant loss. His important inspiration of which Holland would have architectural legacy has been further obscured by a undoubtedly seen engravings; there is much in his family member who burnt many of his papers and output, particularly at Carlton House, to suggest designs soon after his death. But even during his familiarity with the work of Marie-Joseph Peyre, lifetime Holland was not a self-publicist, eschewing Pierre Patte, Charles de Wailly and Claude-Nicolas attention, avoiding any association with the Royal Ledoux, not to mention French architectural Academy and telling the MP David Hartley the theorists such as Jacques-François Blondel. Some Younger: ‘pray no more public complements to me’. years into the Carlton House project Holland was But despite this, there are some valuable sources able to develop his understanding in this area which do survive to give us an impression of the further; a letter in the archives of the Spencer family earlier house; it is the aim of this article to bring at Althorp confirms that in early October he these together to create a clearer image of this house, had not yet returned from a trip to Paris. Although which was characterised by eighteenth-century details of the trip have not survived, close examination elegance and refinement, distinct from the later of some elements at Carlton House hint at locations gilding and velvet swags of the Regency. These that may have featured on the itinerary. These and sources include two sketch books in the collection of other references in Holland’s work to French the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) which classical architecture will be discussed in greater contain the only surviving designs from Holland’s detail below. time at Carlton House, letters and bills in the Royal An understanding of French design and ideas of and National Archives, and drawings and plans domestic comfort aided Holland’s popularity with a which survive in the Royal Library at Windsor fashionable Whig Francophile clientele. This was Castle, along with a number of other ephemeral demonstrated in his first major architectural work, references from the period. Claremont House, undertaken with Brown in the Henry Holland’s self-effacing character may early s for Robert Clive. Clive had visited France have had something to do with his relatively humble in , when he probably became familiar with background. The son of a builder, he enjoyed French standards of comfort and convenience in a connections to the leading architects of the age home, perhaps explaining why he decided to opt for including Adam and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, Brown and Holland over the more conservative building particularly close relations with the latter. William Chambers, who also submitted designs for By the s the Browns and Hollands were the project. Robert Adam was interested enough to neighbours in Fulham; by Holland was in slip into the building site to have a look in . partnership with Brown and in he became his Holland’s new emphasis on comfort and practical son-in-law. Unlike Wyatt, Adam and Chambers, the living is exemplified in a memoir of Soane which young Holland had not travelled abroad to study recounts: ‘Adam objected to the state bedchamber classical architecture, but in his work we can see at Claremont, as the bed can’t face the light. In clues to where he was looking instead: the range of Holland’s opinion it should not, as when it is so, most manuals and publications available on the subject, people complain of not being able to sleep so well’ .
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Fig. . Louis Belanger, ‘The Rebuilding of Carlton House’ , c. . ( Royal Collection, RL )
In a major step forward in planning, Claremont was of political meaning. Conversely, to French liberals designed with a bathroom within the living quarters, England’s comparative democracy and constitutional an improvement that Holland repeated at Benham monarchy encouraged an equivalent taste there for all Park in Berkshire, another of his early works, finished things English, a fashion led by some of the most in for the sixth Baron Craven. Benham also prominent members of the French aristocracy, featured the first appearance of an architectural feature including the Duc d’Orléans and his protégé, the which would become a hallmark of Holland’s Comte d’Artois. The Prince of Wales developed a planning; a centrally located double height ‘tribune’. close friendship with the Duc at this early stage, which However despite major developments in their planning was clearly highly influential on the Prince and his and interior decoration, externally both houses plans at Carlton House. It was part of a wider Anglo- retained a highly traditional Palladian appearance, a French exchange which was briefly able to flourish in formula inherited by Holland from his mentor Brown. the s, which would become one of the main Familiarity with French design and planning ingredients that made Carlton House so very would make Holland attractive to clientele of a significant and exceptional. The relationship between particular persuasion. Prior to the French Revolution, Holland and this Whiggish Francophile clique was many Whigs held sympathies with the ideas of radical cemented by one of his most crucial commissions: the French politicians and philosophers; to them French reconstruction of the de facto headquarters of the design and architecture became imbued with a degree Whig party, Brooks’s Club, in –.
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Fig. . William Westall, ‘The North Front of Carlton House’, c. . ( Royal Collection, RL )
The club’s exterior design draws on Palladian Prince had been presented with his new home, tradition, with two Serlian windows facing onto Park Carlton House, then an unsatisfactory jumble of Place, but and the overall effect on the front façade is buildings which had previously been the home of the cleverly conceived to appear impressively grand for Grandmother Princess Augusta. The Princess had what is essentially a small building. Inside, Holland been sufficiently dissatisfied with the ungainly created a suite of rooms that displayed his supreme appearance of the house to commission Robert skill in imparting grandeur through simplicity; there Adam to design a screen to hide the house from the are low chimneypieces surmounted by mirrors, and view of those passing on the street. (Fig. ). But she plaster wall-panelling and decoration all in the died in before these plans were enacted, and the French manner. It is a scheme from which the club house remained empty for the following eleven years. benefits to this day; the Great Subscription Room Initially George III’s favoured architect William has been hailed as one of the finest surviving Chambers, the Surveyor General, was assigned to eighteenth-century rooms in London. This example the project. His involvement was short-lived, of Holland’s early style helps us to understand his however, his name vanishing from the accounts by subsequent popularity with the patrons of that . The Prince instead turned to Holland, who establishment, the most notable being the Prince of he knew could create something that would make a Wales, who had joined in . It was serendipitous statement and speak to the world of his sophisticated, timing for Holland; in the same year the young modern and forward-looking politics and taste.
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The Prince’s allegiance to the Whigs is often Antiquities of Athens , now known as the Roman explained as a negative attempt to annoy his father library of Hadrian, seems to have been a key source George III and his Tory ministers. However, the for Holland, Stroud citing it as the inspiration for the Prince undoubtedly wanted to create an independent façade of Dover House in Whitehall, built for the persona for himself, an important point to remember Duke of York by Holland in . Yet with its when trying to understand the origins of his new Corinthian portico in front of uniform rustication the house. ‘Stoa’ can also be cited as a source for the façade of The new façade, it seems, was eagerly awaited; Carlton House. The choice of Corinthian columns is on July The Times reported: ‘Carlton House in itself a reference to the French tradition of begins to promise a scene of active business. The ‘appropriateness’ in architecture, in which that order scaffolds rise, the sound of mallets is heard, the high is reserved exclusively for Royal and public buildings, wrought capitals will soon be placed on their shafts; a point emphasised at Carlton House by the inclusion and before the Winter is set in the whole façade, it is of the royal arms within the pediment. With the to be hoped, will possess a state of entire completion.’ exception of the Palladian window casings and Designed in by Holland, this was the statement balustrades, Carlton House was an evocation of a the young Prince was looking for (Fig. ). Whilst fine Roman public building or temple. But running well-known, the façade has never been examined concurrently with this classicising agenda is Holland’s very closely in an architectural context, Dorothy continual attention to practicality and convenience; Stroud describing it as ‘a straightforward essay in the the steps leading to the entrance are brought behind Palladian taste’. This misses its purpose, as the the hexastyle Corinthian portico, forming one of the design displays a classical severity and grandeur that earliest known porte-cochères in English architecture. was daringly modern. Its architecture embodies the This latter motivation is French in impetus; the Enlightenment sentiment of theorists such as Abbé architectural theorist Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières Laugier, who, in his Essai sur L’architecture of , stipulated that in a grand house a visitor should discarded the harmonic ratios that defined always descend from their coach sheltered from Palladianism and argued that structure should the elements. always reflect function in architecture. Edmund Burke similarly argued in his Enquiry on the Sublime and Beautiful of that beauty was not defined by following rules of proportion or geometry, but by advocating the power of the sublime, stating buildings should show greatness in dimension, succession, and uniformity. The exterior of Holland’s Carlton House was clearly conceived with these modern ideas in mind; Laugier would have approved of the portico reaching the roof, and Burke would have been impressed by the sublime verticality of the colossal Corinthian columns. The elevation was wrapped from head to foot in an expanse of uniform rustication; an intense and Fig. . James Stuart, ‘The Stoa Poikile’ from deliberate reference to antiquity. The rendering of The Antiquities of Athens, measured and delineated the ‘Stoa Poikile’ (Fig. ) in Stuart and Revett’s by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett , .
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Fig. . Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Welby Pugin, ‘Carlton House’, from Ackermann’s Repository for the Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufacture, Fashion and Politics , . Victoria & Albert Museum.
The façade’s severity was softened by its screen as the inspiration behind the design of his other which served to separate the house from the street major project for the Prince; the pavilion at Brighton. whilst not obscuring its magnificence. An illustration The doubling of the columns in the screen at Carlton from the Ackermann’s Repository for the Arts, House is reminiscent of Le Vau’s and Perrault’s east Literature, Commerce, Manufacture, Fashion and front of the Louvre, and even more of the colonnade Politics is particurlary effective in illustrating the at the Grand Trianon at Versailles, also Ionic and interplay between the façade, the screen, and the similar in scale. The use of coupled Ionic columns varied London streetscape (Fig. ). Such screens had was clearly a motif that Holland favoured; he would been popular in France since Marie-Joseph Peyre had use it again on his own house, and at Southill Park, published his designs for the Hôtel de Condé in , Bedfordshire. The screen was embellished with of which Holland would have surely seen engravings. decorative elements made in Coade stone, including The screen turns the house into a hôtel entre court et a set of six vases costing £ . The bill for their jardin ; a traditionally French format for a town house manufacture in the National Archives again betrays a which would have been more pronounced had Neo-classical agenda; they were based on ‘drawings Holland also been able to execute his plans to enclose from William Hamilton’s Collection in the the front courtyard with two wings housing a porter’s museum.’ Peyre’s designs for the Hôtel de Condé lodge and kitchens. Peyre’s plans for the Hôtel de were never realised, but the house was categorised by Condé, particularly its screen, influenced the Hôtel Allan Braham as a Parisian town house ‘reinterpreted de Salm by Pierre Rousseau built just prior to in a Roman style.’ Carlton House could be said to Carlton House between and . Its prominent fall into much the same category. riverside location makes it likely that Holland saw it Away from the public face of the house, other during his time in Paris; its dome has often been cited examples of French architectural influence are to be
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ THE MOST PERFECT PALACE IN EUROPE ’ found. The gatehouse of the stable block, which there are plans of the old house of , and of the could accommodate seventy horses, has seemingly new from . By comparing them it is possible to escaped the attention of architectural historians; it see how the conversion was achieved. Although at was dominated by a large semi-circular alcove with first glance the work appears to be a wholesale two columns in antis , and was expected to cost rebuild, on closer inspection it becomes apparent £, to construct. (Fig. ) Although this format that nearly the entire old house was retained. Even was used by Adam in his interior designs, its the service stairs, with a little remodelling in places, application externally is more unusual and is have remained in the same place. The extension that reminiscent of Ledoux’s Hôtel Guimard, where it Holland built included an entrance hall and a suite of was employed on a grand scale. One of the most service rooms forming the east wing. This allowed renowned buildings in Paris in the s, the Hôtel most of the old house to be used as the state Guimard was visited by the Tsarevitch of Russia, by apartments and for a range of rooms on the basement Emperor Joseph II of the Holy Roman Empire and floor, opening on to the garden to form a new suite of by Horace Walpole. It seems likely therefore that it private rooms for the Prince’s use. To add to the would have featured on Holland’s Parisian itinerary. grandeur and scale of the house, enfilades , an The stables were also the site of some of his greatest unmistakably French feature, were created by technical virtuosity, where he resolved the chronic aligning the doorways on the ground and basement lack of space by positioning the riding school over floors. Walpole noticed these during his visit, the coach houses and forges by deploying a system commenting that the house was ‘full of perspectives.’ of supporting clay cones. This ingenious fireproof These are also a noticeable feature in the illustrations method would later be borrowed in the construction of the house from Pyne’s Royal Residences . of the Bank of England by John Soane, who worked in In his additions to the old house, Holland was Holland’s office as a young trainee from to . playful with shape, adding octagons, ovals and Aside from its external appearance, Holland’s circles. Whilst Adam advocated the concept of planning for the conversion of the old jumble of ‘movement’ in his room designs, a range of shapes buildings into a house complete with impressive was also popular in France, Ledoux in particular state rooms for large-scale entertainments and exhibiting considerable skill in the geometrical luxurious accommodation for the Prince was planning of his Parisian hôtels . The circular Music ingenious. In the Print Room at Windsor Castle Room (Fig. ) at Carlton House was probably also
Fig. . Henry Holland, ‘Carleton House. Elevation of the Entrance to Riding House’, undated. (Royal Collection, RL )
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Fig. . Charles Wild, ‘The Circular Room at Carlton House’, c. . ( Royal Collection, RL ) designed with French examples in mind; Le Camus manner in which corridors could partition floor de Mézières asserted that ‘les pièces rondes sont les plans. Attention to detail is also in evidence in the plus gaies’, and this belief is reflected in a number service areas. The new basement included more of eighteenth-century Parisian hôtels where circular space for storage of wine and coal, better and ovoid shapes were applied with great effect to accommodation for servants, and enabled salons and ballrooms. Built in what was previously a communication from the service areas in the east courtyard, the Music Room created a communication wing to the west without passing through the between the other two large entertaining spaces, the reception areas. Beneath the Music and Dining great Drawing Room and the Dining Room; the Rooms were located the confectionery, Coffee and three together formed a highly impressive and Steward’s Rooms, connected with a spiral staircase commodious entertainment suite. In a similar way, to the floor above for added convenience. the new Entrance Hall, Tribune and Staircase also The arrangement of the rooms was also carefully connected different sections of the house. This considered; an estimate dated November which careful planning negated any need for corridors, an listed them in order makes a division of usage approach advocated by the French architectural apparent. On passing through the Tribune into the theorist Jacques-François Blondel, who disliked the first antechamber on the central axis of the house,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ THE MOST PERFECT PALACE IN EUROPE ’ the ceremonial and public areas were to the west, estimate by Holland in . Bills show Holland’s including the entertainment areas mentioned above. attempt to bring the garden and house closer by To the east were the more private and functional ensuring that the basement reception rooms had areas: the Council Chamber and State Bedchamber, French windows. Additionally on the first floor he the latter old fashioned for the s but probably prepared unexecuted plans to build a loggia or ‘stone included as a concession to French etiquette. A gallery’ running the entire length of the garden front, private stair led upstairs to the Prince’s private living so that there too windows that stretched to the floor quarters beyond. Here Holland was adopting could open out over the garden: another modern another French idea, first suggested by Blondel; the innovation which would influence later Regency division of a house into separate suites of rooms for domestic architecture. ‘display and retreat’. The western rooms were The new Entrance Hall, Tribune and Staircase public and grand – an appartement de parade – yet a gave Carlton House a visually striking new central turn to the east led to private rooms for official axis; an exquisitely drafted architectural drawing by business: an appartement de société . It is clear that Henry Holland held in the collection at the Yale the suite of low-ceilinged, sumptuously appointed Center for British Art shows a cross section of this rooms on the basement floor which opened on to the area in its entirety (Fig. ). Its sparse classical garden, also accessible by the private stair, was decoration is similar to that seen in similar areas of conceived as an appartement de commodité for the Parisian hôtels , aimed at marking a point of Prince’s private use, relaxation and entertainment of progression between the outside and the elaborate close friends. Blondel stipulated that rooms with low interior rooms. The large Entrance Hall, however, ceilings would most suit this room usage. This was more in the English tradition; it measured by private downstairs suite comprised a small private feet, and was double-height and top-lit, with a Dining Room, a Gallery, at one stage the Library, and deep coved and coffered ceiling. Any apparent the famous Chinese Drawing Room. It also seems to sparseness was misleading; the fitting out of these have been the most likely location of the baths, areas was done at a considerable expense, expected mentioned as being in the east wing basement in an to cost £ , by Holland in . Some idea of its
Fig. . Henry Holland, ‘Design for the Portico, Hall and Tribune at Carlton House, Pall Mall, London: Section’, . ( Yale Centre for British Art, B .. )
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Fig. . Charles Wild, ‘The Upper Tribune at Carlton House’, c. . ( Royal Collection, RL ) impact can be gained by comparing Pyne’s recording the Uffizi as a source. But it is much smaller, causing of it to Holland’s surviving halls at Dover House and Dorothy Stroud to concede that ‘the source of this at Berrington Hall, Herefordshire. They all rely on unusual feature is hard to establish with any sublime spatial impact to act as an arresting overture to certainty’. However, the octagonal Tower of the the following rooms, and similarities are immediately Winds in Athens, which featured prominently in obvious; the use of coloured scagliola columns and Stuart and Revett’s Antiquities both in plan and in geometrically paved floors are remarkably similar in profile, has a diameter of approximately . feet, all three. However the sculpture, additional decorative almost exactly the same size as the tribune at Carlton devices on the entablatures and coffered ceiling were House . In its shape and size it may therefore be a probably due to the tastes of the Prince, which possible inspiration. The Tribune continued required Holland to draw upon his wide decorative through to the floor above, where a circular balcony repertoire to create an intensified sense of luxury. looked down on the space below, with daylight Following the hall, one of Holland’s signatures streaming from the roof through a centrally located reappeared; a central communication area known as lantern. The contrast of light and darkness was used a ‘Tribune’. Tribunes first appeared in classical cleverly to create atmosphere and loftiness, and the Antiquity, and had been revived in Renaissance Italy, Tribune shows Holland using columns, archways most famously at the Uffizi in Florence. Holland was and glass to play with light to add picturesque effect. not the first architect in England to use them; a This is clearly demonstrated in Pyne’s view of the square one is featured in Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius upper Tribune (Fig. ) – a dramatic space, with Britannicus . Holland first introduced a circular sweeping vaulting and archways that offer teasing version at Benham Park, Berkshire, but at Carlton glimpses of the upper staircase beyond. These visual House the tribune is octagonal, which may suggest tricks are usually seen as innovations of Holland’s
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ THE MOST PERFECT PALACE IN EUROPE ’ trainee John Soane, but this area demonstrates that they were first developed by the elder architect, and the tribune at Carlton House could be seen as the forerunner to Soane’s alterations to the rotunda at the Bank of England in . The tribune, undoubtedly one of Holland’s most creative and ingenious architectural devices, appears in several of his houses, including his own, Sloane Place in Knightsbridge. This house, first used as his address in , saw Holland working free from any patron’s demands, and its undoubted role as a show-home makes it into a useful point of reference. Alongside its octagonal tribune there were many similarities with Carlton House; it too was approached via a grand forecourt in a highly Parisian fashion; the main ground floor rooms were placed along its -feet-long garden front and the rooms on the floor above opened on to a loggia of the type Holland wanted to build at Carlton House, which featured Fig. . John Theodore Parrache, after, ‘View of the dome coupled Ionic columns. The rooms were built en of the grand Staircase at Charlton (sic) House’, undated. enfilade , this time with mirrors being placed at either (Royal Collection, ) extremity to add emphasis, again a suggestion of Blondel. Robert Adam was interested enough to skylight’, presumably in the tribune, was ‘finished create his own sketch of the house, now kept in the with heraldry.’ Unlike so many of the other Soane Museum. Sadly it was destroyed in the s, decorative elements in the house, the use of coloured along with most of the Georgian houses in the area, glass has no French or classical precedent, and which had largely also been built by Holland as part therefore appears to be a significant concession of his Hans Town development. toward the English Gothic Revival, particularly in its The Staircase at Carlton House was another depiction of heraldry. It does not appear in any of clever architectural flourish, set into an awkward Holland’s other projects, and it is tempting to view it rectangular space of by ft. A crucial but as the earliest sign of the Prince of Wales’s love for surprising decorative element in this area was hand- the Gothic which would figure so prominently in his painted glass, the effect of which must have been later acts of architectural patronage, both at Carlton astonishing. At £ , it was the most expensive House and most importantly at Windsor Castle. decorative element in this area of the house and was The balustrade on the stair was also an expensive supplied by John Theodore Parrache. The glass extravagance; it was designed by Holland and shown fitted into two large half-dome skylights on either in detail in the RIBA sketchbooks. It was supplied side of a central plaster vault; a hint of the effect is by Nathan Beetham in and cost £ . The given by Perrache’s own trade card, which remains ironwork shows a new complexity compared to in the Royal Collection (Fig. ). When answering to Holland’s design at his previous projects, and its the committee on the Carlton House accounts in distinctive interlacing ovals again seem to have been June , Holland was asked about the ‘central conceived with French examples in mind.
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An early unexecuted design for the doorway from the stairwell to the basement floor features two female caryatids (Fig. ). Although unrealised, this is of great interest. Borrowed from the Erechtheum in Athens, caryatids were recorded by Stuart and Revett in Antiquities , but also by the French architect and archaeologist Julian-David Le Roy in his earlier publication Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce ( ). When Charles de Wailly adapted the Hôtel Voyer in the early s, not long after the publication of Le Roy’s Ruines in , he included two such caryatids in the decoration of the Dining Room, which were particularly well received and seen by many foreign visitors, including William Chambers, who was impressed enough to draw a sketch. Holland’s caryatid doorway design seems to be inspired by the arrangement at the Hôtel Voyer and illustrates very clearly his borrowings from French neoclassicism. This encourages us to Fig. . Henry Holland, Rejected Design for speculate that the Hôtel Voyer may have been entrance to Basement Floor at Carlton House, , another location visited by Holland during his trip to (RIBA, SKB /) Paris. The design’s inclusion of a vignette with a personification of familiarity in the centre of the lintel by François Joseph Bélanger in , allegedly as a goes further in confirming that the basement floor result of a wager between the Comte and his sister- was intended as a private area for the entertainment in-law, Queen Marie Antoinette. Its interior of close friends. decoration continued into the s, around the time A close examination of the decoration of the that Henry Holland made his visit to Paris. Bélanger house in this early stage reveals much about the had toured England in –, and had visited objectives of both architect and patron. The Claremont as Holland and Brown were building it; improved political situation between Britain and therefore it is possible that the architects had already France in the s, enshrined in law with the Eden met. . The little château was conceived as a maison trade agreement of , meant the cultural exchange de plaisance ; its dedication to Cupid and Mars was between the two nations was not confined to artistic reflected in its complex painted and stuccoed and philosophical ideas, but was extended to grotesque decoration. A romantic form of products, craftsmen and materials. This was a Chinoiserie was also represented in the Chinese situation which would be fully exploited in the House, a picturesque garden building in the decoration of Carlton House, aided by the Prince’s surrounding park. A team of considerable skill was considerable political and social links with France, in assembled to work on the project under Bélanger’s particular his friendship with the Duc d’Orléans brother-in-law, the Designer Jean Démosthène mentioned above. The Duc’s protégé, the Comte Dugourc. After this point, several leading French d’Artois, had been busy embellishing his sumptuous craftsmen, some of whom are known to have worked miniature château, the Folie de Bagatelle, designed at Bagatelle, came to work at Carlton House.
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Bagatelle’s successful integration of various elements of decoration including paintwork, sculpture, upholstery and glass and its interpretation of Chinoiserie do indeed seem to have influenced Carlton House. The very conception of a ‘pavilion’ at Bagatelle is likely to have been the primary inspiration for the Prince of Wales commissioning Holland to design a ‘Royal Pavilion’ at Brighton, closely resembling in style the Hôtel de Salm. Holland shared responsibility for decoration at Carlton House with a Superintendent of Furniture and Decoration, a post that was from to filled by Guillaume Gaubert, who had previously fulfilled a similar role for the Prince’s Whig friends, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire at Chatsworth. There he had worked with the joiner François Hervé Fig. . Jirouard le Girardy, Painted Decoration in and the decorative painter Philip Reinagle both of the Dining Room at Inveraray Castle, . whom came with him to Carlton House. In October Reinagle was ordered to paint four extensive subsequent career in England as a designer scenes of Love, Constancy, Fidelity and Nature in an in various media, and is recorded as having painted unnamed room of Carlton House for six guineas the Turkish Room at Fonthill Abbey with flowers each. Another decorative painter, Jirouard le and arabesques on a gold ground: a technique Girardy, was employed extensively at this early stage, reminiscent of that employed in Marie Antoinette’s invoicing for the painting of a Pegasus in a sky on a boudoir at Fontainebleau, perhaps another source of ceiling in the house in . These sky-painted inspiration for this mode of decoration. In the Bow ceilings, again highly French, are a feature that Room on the basement floor of Carlton House at the endured at Carlton House, appearing in the centre of the garden front Boileau painted arabesques illustrations of Pyne’s Royal Residences . Rectangular on eight pilasters of blue taffeta with four large panels over-door panels with painted decoration, another decorated with further elaborate ornament on an French convention, were in abundance; in Le imitation brocade ground. It seems that few spaces Girardy was paid for painting over-doors in the escaped the attentions of the decorative painter; even Council Chamber, and in the Great Drawing Room the painting of the unidentified Guard Room was which featured ‘vases of flowers.’ In Gaubert quoted for by Boileau at £ with a further £ was replaced by Dominique Daguerre, the renowned for painting the Music Room furniture. Parisian dealer, designer and marchand-mercier , who Some impression of the effect of this style of had worked for many leaders of French royal and decorative painting can be gained from surviving aristocratic society, including Queen Marie-Antoinette. works by these artists elsewhere. Jirouard le Girardy’s After the arrival of Daguerre the decorative schemes colourful paintwork is still to be found at Inveraray became even more extravagant. Additional artists Castle (Fig. ), and work thought to be by Delabrière were employed such as Biagio Rebecca, Jean-Jacques decorates the boudoirs at Attingham Park, Shropshire, Boileau and Louis-André Delabrière, the last two and Southill Park, the latter also designed by being brought directly from Paris. Boileau had an Holland. Biagio Rebecca is also recorded as working
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ THE MOST PERFECT PALACE IN EUROPE ’ at Carlton House; there is a bill for his painting and watercolours by Charles Wild made for Pyne’s Royal finishing of a room ‘consisting of ornaments and Residences . These show the later Regency antiques in a grotesque style’ . This sounds much embellishments to Holland’s work, with elaborate like his surviving work at Heaton Hall in Lancashire, draperies, velvet-covered walls and copious gilding, where he decorated the Cupola Room to James but, if compared with Holland’s sketchbooks, it Wyatt’s design. Dover House, Whitehall, built by becomes apparent that rather more of Holland’s Holland almost directly after Carlton House for the work survived into the later phases of the house than Prince’s younger brother the Duke of York, still was previously thought. For example, his work in the contains one room which features painted decoration Great Drawing Room (subsequently the Throne of this kind (Fig. ). Room) is, despite later embellishments and alterations, Unfortunately there is little record of the still clearly visible in Pyne’s illustration (Fig. ), appearance of the individual rooms in Carlton House notably the complicated scheme on the ceiling and during this period. There is, however, much the highly French decorative panelling on the walls evidence about Holland’s architectural decoration in (Fig. ). On the right wall, invisible in Pyne’s view two sketchbooks of his designs in the RIBA but mentioned in his description, was a series of Drawings Collection. Traditionally it has been paned mirrors, another French technique that refers assumed that later designers and decorators, back to the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles. Pyne particularly the interior decorator Walsh Porter, tells us that the spandrels in the ceiling are painted on obliterated much of this decoration. Joseph a gold ground, a technique which, as already Farington mentioned in May that ‘although discussed, was a speciality of Jean-Jacques Boileau. Carlton House as finished by Holland was in a An undated bill in the Royal Archives details how complete and new state he [the Prince of Wales] has Jirouard le Girardy was paid two guineas for sixteen ordered the whole thing to be done again under the small scenes representing the attributes of the muses direction of Walsh Porter who has destroyed all that ‘in one of the salons’, presumably the sixteen small Holland had done and is substituting a finishing in a circular spaces in this ceiling. most expensive and motley taste.’ This is perhaps A major development in Holland’s interiors was what led John Summerson to describe the Prince’s the inclusion of scagliola, the use of which he later redecorations at the house as ‘wanton pioneered along with other architects such as James disfigurement.’ The most commonly-referred to Wyatt. Domenico Bartoli, the leading ‘scagliolist’ of visual source for the interiors of the house are the the age, did extensive work at Carlton House in
Fig. . Unattributed, Painted decoration on the ground floor of Dover House, Whitehall.
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Fig. . Charles Wild, ‘The Throne Room at Carlton House’, c. . ( Royal Collection, RL ) including green apollino columns in the lower Dining painstakingly researched by Geoffrey de Bellaigue . Room and the columns of porfido rosso in the Music Chinoiserie was a style that is more closely associated Room. The Great Eating Room, converted to the in England with the mid eighteenth century, its Crimson Drawing Room by James Wyatt in , also grandest flourish represented by Chambers’ pagoda originally featured expensive scagliola decoration by in Kew Gardens built for Princess Augusta in . Bartoli, incorporating pilasters in rosso sanguigo In contrast, at Carlton House the Prince looked to an and other elements in green cipollino , all of which interpretation of the style more akin to that shown in seems to have been disguised by extensive velvet swags the Chinese House in the park at the Comte d’Artois’s by the time Charles Wild painted the room in its later Bagatelle. Sheraton tells us that Chinese Drawing incarnation as the Crimson Drawing Room. Despite Room benefitted from a heated sofa, a highly this, Holland’s sketchbooks confirm that other luxurious addition which hints at the use of this elements of the room, in particular the coved ceiling space as a location for comfort and relaxation. with arabesque stucco work, were much as Holland The Comte d’Artois famously had a Turkish boudoir designed them; as Geoffrey de Bellaigue stated, it was constructed for him in his apartments at Versailles in still defined by his ‘restrained classicism.’ the early s, and it is clear that this is what this The most comprehensively documented scheme room – a Chinese Boudoir – was emulating at of decoration in the Holland-era Carlton House was Carlton House. It was not just the Chinoiserie that the Chinese Drawing Room on the basement floor, was French, but also the way in which it was illustrated in Thomas Sheraton’s The Cabinet Maker’s employed within the house. The inclusion of a and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book ( ) (Fig. ) and Boudoir containing the most elaborate and
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXI ‘ THE MOST PERFECT PALACE IN EUROPE ’ expensive decoration was a signature of Holland’s architectural projects elsewhere. His sketchbooks show how closely he was involved in the design of the room, together with Dominique Daguerre, who commissioned bespoke furniture and decorative items from the leading Parisian cabinet makers specially for the room. The bills from Holland’s era confirm that even then the use of textiles was one of the most spectacular elements of the decoration at Carlton House. Some idea of the effect is given in the White Drawing Room at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, which is decorated with silk brocade, given as a gift by the Prince of Wales around to his Chamberlain from to , the fourth Earl Cholmondeley. (Fig. ) As John Cornforth has explained, this material is an English imitation of the products of Lyon, and demonstrates the skill of English silk weavers at that time. The fabrics used in the Fig. . Henry Holland, ‘Design for panelling of Great decoration of the house were famous; Edward Drawing Room at Carlton House’, . ( RIBA, SKB /) Halstead in his history of Kent stated ‘in the year I saw in Mr Calloway’s looms the richest and most beautiful piece of silk furnished for the Prince brocade with an eagle pattern for the gallery at of Wales’s Palace of Carlton House.’ Although Carlton House’ cost an incredible £ , . Although cheaper than using imported French material, correctly thought to be an integral part of the astronomical amounts were spent on the English decorative scheme during the following phases of version, with companies such as Ibbotson, Barlow decoration at the house, it seems that fabrics, albeit and Clarke providing white sarsnet, cherry colour of a different style and application, played an equally velvet, rich garter blue velvet, yellow satin and green important role during Holland’s tenure. brocade. In , yards of the ‘richest white In Holland finally withdrew from the
Fig. . Thomas Sheraton, ‘The Chinese Drawing Room at Carlton House’, as reproduced in The Cabinet Makers’ Drawing Book , . RIBA .
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Fig. . Material from the White Drawing Room at Houghton House.
service of the Prince of Wales under acrimonious schemes. This was a body of work that was circumstances. His magnum opus , Carlton House, profound, influential and significant, confirming that like so many of his other works, would eventually be as an architect Holland is perhaps deserving of a demolished in by his old patron, by then King greater reputation than he is usually allotted. It is George IV, who was also responsible for obliterating now possible to understand better the breathtaking Holland’s fine neo-classical pavilion at Brighton. Yet ingenuity, skill and hard work that caused Walpole to where it survives, Holland’s oeuvre is strikingly claim Carlton House would become ‘the most beautiful, with an ability to impart magnificence perfect palace in Europe’. through simplicity. The external architecture of Carlton House introduced a new purer Neo-classical style to Britain, the scale and sublime impact of which would have seemed extraordinarily daring and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS modern at the time. It is clear that Holland thought This article uses research I undertook for my MA carefully about the layout of the house, drawing on dissertation, and I would like to thank my tutors his understanding of contemporary French ideas of Dr Helen Jacobsen and Jeremy Howard. I would convenience and comfort in a way which had not also like to take this opportunity to thank Patrick been seen before in Britain. In terms of decoration, it Baty, James Collett-White, Peter Inskip, Kate Jones, has become more apparent how he fused classical Vicky Wilson and Fiona Orsini at RIBA, Sarah Kay and French elements to create the ‘chaste palace of at Attingham Park, Jill Kelsey of the Royal Archives, august simplicity’ of which Walpole spoke. The links David Mott at Dover House, Sir Hugh Roberts, Holland enjoyed with France and French craftsmen Mr and Mrs Charles Whitbread, Stephen Astley at suggest a fascinating and rare moment of Anglo- the Soane Museum and my colleagues at the Royal French co-operation, above all in the extensive Collection for their considerable encouragement employment of French decorative painters. It was and support. Finally I would like to acknowledge my this combination that made the first two decades of very great debt to the late Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue, the Prince of Wales’s Carlton House the summit of who did more than anyone else to enhance our eighteenth-century refinement and elegance: a understanding of the wonders of Carlton House marked contrast to the later, better-known, Regency and its creator George IV.
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NOTES Architecture’, The Burlington Magazine , (July Christopher Hussey, English Country Houses: Mid- , p. . Georgian – (Woodbridge, ), p. . Stroud, op. cit ., p. .. Letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory, September Henry S. Robinson, ‘The Tower of the Winds and , quoted in Dorothy Stroud, Henry Holland: the Roman Market-Place’, American Journal of His Life and Architecture (London, ), p. . Archaeology , (), p. Although he was associated with at least fifty The tribune at Carlton House was feet in diameter different projects: see H.M. Colvin, A Biographical according to Holland – RA GEO/MAIN/ . Dictionary of British Architects – (New Stroud, op. cit ., p. . Haven and London, ), p. . RA GEO/MAIN/ . Ibid ., p. . Thomas Faulkner, A Historical and Topographical He also clearly wrote on one of his drawings for Description of Chelsea and its Environs (London Cadland House that he borrowed a design for a ), p. . frieze from Montfauçon’s L’Antiquité Expliquée : Etlin, op. cit ., p. . Stroud, op. cit ., pp –. RA GEO/MAIN/ . Ibid ., p. . Geoffrey De Bellaigue, Carlton House: The Past Ibid ., p. . Glories of George IV’s Palace (exh. cat., Queen’s Ibid ., p. . Gallery, London, ), p. David Watkin, ‘Holland, Henry ( – )’, RA GEO/MAIN/ . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, De Bellaigue, op. cit ., p. . ). Ibid , p. . The design was later engraved for Works in Stroud, op. cit ., p. . Architecture , Vol. : Stroud, op. cit ., p. . Ibid ., p. . Ibid ., p. . See Ivan Hall, ‘A Neo-Classical Episode at The Times , July th (Accessed via Times Chatsworth’, Burlington Magazine , June ). Digital Archive). RA GEO/MAIN/ . Allan Braham, The Architecture of the French RA GEO/MAIN/ . Enlightenment (London ), p. . RA GEO/MAIN/ . Christopher Hussey, op. cit ., p. . Delabrière and Boileau were apparently brought Michel Gallet, Demeures parisiennes, l’époque de over by the wallpaper designer Sheringham ‘to do Louis XVI (Paris, ), p. . Carlton House under Henry Holland’: Stroud, These designs survive in the Print Room at op. cit ., p. . Windsor Castle (See RL ). John Cornforth, ‘The Roots of Regency Taste’, National Archives, HO /. Country Life , April , p. Braham, op. cit ., p. . National Archives, HO /. Royal Archives (hereafter RA) GEO/MAIN/ . RA GEO/MAIN/ . Braham op. cit ., pp –. Stroud, op. cit ., p. . Stroud, op. cit ., p. . De Bellaigue, op. cit ., p. . Ibid ., p. . Sir John Summerson, Microcosm of London Gallett, op. cit ., p. . (London, ), p. . Richard Etlin, ‘Les Dedans: Jacques François RA GEO/MAIN/ . Blondel and the System of the Home’, Gazette des Stroud, op. cit ., p. . Beaux Arts , April , p. . De Bellaigue, op. cit ., p. . RA GEO/MAIN/ . G. de Bellaigue, ‘The Furnishings of the Chinese Etlin, op. cit ., p. . Drawing Room, Carlton House’ Burlington RA GEO/MAIN/ . Magazine , September , pp. –. RA GEO/MAIN/ . Stroud, op. cit ., p. . RA GEO/MAIN/ . Cornforth, op. cit ., p. . RA GEO/MAIN/ . Ibid , p. . Sandra Millikin, ‘The Tribune in English National Archives, HO /.
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