ABC Spring 2013.Indd

National Trust a |b |c BULLETIN rts uildings ollectionsprings issue may 2013 UNUSUAL SKILL AND ENTERPRISE Anglesey Abbey and the Cambridge Tapestry Company nglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire is home to a collection of 30 tapestries, all purchased by Hut- Atleston Broughton, First Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) in the early decades of the 20th century. The son of an English industrialist and an American heiress, Lord Fairhaven bought Anglesey Abbey in 1926 because of its proximity to Newmarket racecourse and the quality of the local partridge shooting. He never married, but filled the house with an out- standing collection of paintings, silver and other objets d’art. As a collector he was unusual for his day: while his contemporaries in Britain and America were avidly seeking out medieval tapestries, he focussed on the 17th century. In many cases he had little or no information on the manufacture or provenance of what he bought, which makes the quality of his acquisitions all the more impressive: among the previously unidentified masterpieces of the collection are a rare mid- 17th-century Bruges tapestry, The Kindness of Rebecca; a panel from a series of the History of Artemisia, made in Paris in the 1610s for the Duke of Savoy; and an armorial tapestry from a vast series woven in Brussels for the Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, the Marquez de Benavides, in the 1660s.1 But perhaps the most unusual items in Fairhaven’s collection are two tapestries he himself commissioned in the 1930s from the Cambridge Tapestry Company. The first is an aerial view of Anglesey Abbey with the Cambridgeshire landscape stretching away beyond, dotted with local villages and landmarks all conscientiously labelled. The second is a large-scale helen wyld armorial panel, closely based on the Benavides armorial, but this time with Fairhaven’s own arms. Both are woven in a ‘The Arms of Huttleston Rogers Broughton, First Lord Fairhaven’, Cambridge consciously traditional style, complete with monograms Tapestry Company, . Tapestry, wool, silk and metal thread. in the galloons (plain outer edges) imitating those used by Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven the 17th-century Flemish workshops, and even with the Collection INSIDE continued on page 4 Lighting for spirit of place at Attingham SUMMER LIGHTNING: A GASPARD 5 The signalman Baronet of Golden Cap DUGHET FOR OSTERLEY PARK 7 From kitchen to library at Owletts A painting attributed to 8 Recovering The Wilderness at Ham House Gaspard Dughet (1615- 1675), Landscape with 10 A 17th-century drawing at Ham House a Storm, was given to 11 Globalised lacquer Osterley by the estate of 13 Ham House - a new history by Sir Denis Mahon (1910- Christopher Rowell 2011). The picture had 14 An early American book at Blickling been on loan to Osterley since 2001. 16 Rebuilding Ralph Dutton’s library Emile de Bruijn, Registrar 18 Acquisitions (Collections & Grants) arts|buildings|collections bulletin 2 gilt-metal wrapped thread found in Fairhaven’s higher- quality historic tapestries. Such details were far from difficult for the Cambridge workshop to create: theirs was in fact one of the most skilled tapestry restoration studios in the country. The origins of the Cambridge Tapestry Company lie in the village of Ickleford in Hertfordshire, where in 1900 Walter and Marian Witter began teaching local children the skills of embroidery and metal working, officially establishing themselves as Ickleford Industries in 1904. A few years later the Witters became friends with Gabriel Gonnet, who had trained at the Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, and he sent two men to Ickleford to teach tapestry weaving and restoration.2 This coincided with a rapidly growing demand for antique tapestries, mainly among American collectors, and in this climate the restoration business naturally flourished. In 1916 new premises were bought at 30 Thompson’s Lane, Cambridge, and the Cambridge Tapestry Company was officially established. One former employee remembers that during the 1920s there were as many as 80 workers, mainly young women, in each of the company’s two workrooms. The two principal activities of the firm were the restoration of tapestries and other textiles, and the production of new needlework and embroidery. An early 16th-century tapestry, The Triumph of the Virgin, now in the Burrell Collection, reveals the sophistication of helen wyld the company’s restoration work. This tapestry had been acquired by the New York dealers French & Company and was sent to ‘Anglesey Abbey’, Cambridge Tapestry Company, . Tapestry, wool, silk and metal thread. Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection Cambridge to be restored in 1936. A large area was missing from one corner, and this was completely rewoven following a new cartoon Despite the range of activities undertaken in Thompson’s Lane devised by one of the artists in the company’s Drawing Room, Mary and at Ickleford, Lord Fairhaven’s commission of Anglesey Abbey in Rhodes, who would later recall with great pride her work on the 1934 seems to have been the first entirely new tapestry woven by the tapestry. In 1939 The Triumph of the Virgin was sold to Sir William company. Lord Fairhaven may already have employed the workshop Burrell, the most prolific collector of medieval tapestries in Britain, to restore or alter some of his newly acquired collection: certain who only later realised the extent of the reweaving, and subse- pieces have been professionally altered to fit the sizes of various walls quent art historians have puzzled over the iconography of the new at Anglesey Abbey. The design of the tapestry, with the house set in section.3 This itself is a testament to the quality of the work, which the midst of a carefully delineated Cambridgeshire landscape, many is extremely high, both in design and execution. One former weaver of whose landmarks had personal significance to Lord Fairhaven, recalled that to disguise new repairs the workers would rub burnt underlines his connections with the area he had chosen as his home. umber into the surface to dull the colours, stuff old bits of wool into A newspaper article published soon after the tapestry had been a brass pipe with methylated spirits to remove fluffiness, flatten the completed highlights many such details: surface by beating with rusty chains, and paste robin starch onto the ‘The work has been carried out in similar technique used in the back to stiffen the newly worked areas.4 17th and 18th century Flemish Tapestries, and though illustrating A number of pieces of needlework produced by the company certain modern buildings, much effort throughout has been made are known, including a double-sided screen in the National Trust’s to impart a feeling of antiquity, to be worthy of its position in collection at Lanhydrock in Devon. This has a design of a medieval the historic home of its purchaser, which is shown in the centre, hunting scene based on a cartoon owned by descendants of the com- standing near the villages of Lode and Quy. To a certain extent pany’s founders Mr and Mrs Witter (see page 3).5 A similar screen “artist’s license” has been taken regarding the actual position of the appeared in an exhibition in Sydney in 1938, which also included a surrounding towns and villages, from each of which have been needlework picture of a figure on a beach, a modernist design unu- gathered characteristic features—for example, the new University sual for the Cambridge Tapestry Company.6 Most of the company’s Library of Cambridge, the new Jockey Club rooms at Newmarket products were very traditional in style and function. Large quantities and the Village Hall at Lode, the latter having been presented by of needlework furniture covers were produced, similar in character Lord Fairhaven, and erected as a memorial to his father ... Regard- to the Lanhydrock screen, some of which were used on furniture ing the drawing of the Abbey itself particularly, much assistance sold by the restoration studio and dealership run by Basil Dighton, to obtain the desired effect, was given by very beautiful aerial one of the Tapestry Company’s directors—who in 1923 was taken photographs, lent by Lord Fairhaven. The wild fowl in the to court for selling fake chairs. Numerous individual commissions foreground, not only have decorative value in the composition of were also executed, such as a ceremonial standard for the County of the picture, but are actually in existence in the grounds of Anglesey Bedfordshire made in 1932. At the Ickleford workshop, which was Abbey, including the golden pheasant, seen perching on the right of maintained after the move to Cambridge in 1916, designs for canvas the picture, together with woodcock, wild duck, etc.; all of which work were produced and sold for amateurs to work from. are carefully protected, and find sanctuary in this enviable spot.’7 arts|buildings|collections bulletin 3 Interest in the tapestry was high, and it was even reported, and illustrated, in The Times. One observer also noted that the design, with its rolling landscape dotted with landmarks, was reminiscent of the famous Sheldon tapestry maps, which had caused a sensation in the world of English textiles in the preceding decades. The designer of the tapestry (and of the later armorial woven for Lord Fairhaven) was Clifford Barber, who joined the Cambridge Tapestry Company as a young man having trained at the Cambridge School of Art. He was the first locally-trained designer to join the drawing office, and he stayed until the workshop closed in 1943. His precise and skilful designs are perfectly in keeping with the collection of 17th-century tapestries at Anglesey Abbey, a reflection, no doubt, of his experience in designing cartoons for missing sections of old tapestries under restoration.

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