Chinoiserie furniture seems to be having a resurgence of late and it isn’t hard to see why. Beautiful detailed lacquer work sits well in almost all houses, be they in the manner of Billy Baldwin with clean lines, classic furniture and a mix of styles, an all out Chinoiserie explosion, or indeed just a one […]
Category: Diary
Chinoiserie
Plaster Busts Galore
The day that I walked in to Guinevere to find Dean’s dark and mysterious room of plaster breasts, legs, bums and tums, I was instantly mesmerised. The limbs are spread throughout the room, clutching banisters and breasts, kicking balls (metaphorically) and tiptoeing down stairs, they filled my face with a smile from ear to ear. […]
Dean’s Renaissance Inspiration
I saw an old lady standing at a bus stop the other day. She was wearing a shabby purple coat, the sort that old ladies wear, with a bright pea green sweater and deep pink trousers. I doubt she had very much money or that life had been very kind to her. She looked fabulous. […]
Design Week 2017
London Design Week is always something to look forward to with the new collections being launched heralding the start of Spring and longer days (finally). It's easy to forget how lucky we are in London to have such a fantastic design district with Chelsea Harbour and Chelsea Design Quarter, a London home so many International […]
Easter Island Heads
Easter Island, the remote Polynesian island located in the South Pacific, has always been steeped in mystery. The island of ‘Rapa Nui’ or ‘Easter Island’ as it is more commonly known earned its nickname thanks to Dutch explorers landing there on Easter Day in 1722. This island’s most impressive claim to fame is an array […]
Bohemian Glass
Bohemian glass, or Bohemia crystal is glass produced in the regions of Bohemia and Silesia (now the Czech Republic). For centuries it has been internationally recognised for its high quality, craftsmanship, and innovative designs and is highly collectable. The main fashion for colours came in the 1830’s glass was then coloured by layering or by […]
Parma – From Car Boot to Corregio
fur coats, stuffed animals and supposedly Roman statues – all treated with the same irreverence amongst the shouting and gesticulating. After 8 hours of trawling the aisles, asking prices with a scattergun approach because you should never assume that something is going to be too expensive, I decide to call it a day and make […]
The Unrecognised Beauty of a Tapestry.
Setting the scene in the middle is a cascading waterfall and a grand house in the distance to give depth. Framed buy trees, the colours of which are amazing. Leaves of every shape and oversized to give an element of drama, with colours ranging the spectrum of blues and greens. The tree trunks are a […]
Faded Grandeur and Fabled Pizza
I had the good fortune to spend the day in Naples to view a collection of Attic style vases, which were made in this city in the 18th and 19th centuries as tourist’s mementoes for visitors doing the European “Grand Tour”. The richest visitors invariably bought the ‘real thing’, as many Attic and Appulian vases […]
Dhurrie Exhibition at Guinevere for the London Design Festival
For this years London Design Festival, we are holding a Dhurrie Exhibition at Guinevere. The exhibition, which is currently open at our showroom on the Kings Road, celebrates the variety of patterns and colours of dhurries, and is accompanied by text, which explores the history, manufacturing techniques and symbolism behind the different dhurrie designs. In […]