Haughty & chummy

This post by An Aesthete's Lament coincided with my reading of June's House & Garden with this article by Roger White on the magnificent home built by Sir Robert Walpole in the C18th, Houghton Hall, in Norfolk.

Shelf life

These two images are examples of the use of similar devices, (wall brackets and symmetry), but with quite different periods of furniture. Whilst I like them both, I prefer the top one, with its infusion of modern elements. It may not surprise you to know that the top picture is of the dining room of Stephen Ryan, the one time protege of David Hicks. The wall brackets here are boldly architectural, inspired by the dentils of classical cornicing, and made to his own design in lacquered MDF. The elongated effect is accentuated by the tall blue and white vases, and the topiaries on top of those.

The wall brackets in the second picture create a similar elongated effect, with the scrolled detail, and complement the long mirror, and work perfectly with the William Kent marble-topped console table, a style that is copied with great insincerity in a genre of (hideous) furniture to be found in palaces of new money throughout the world, and not often a million miles away from where there is a lot of sand, and that black gushing liquid that causes us so much strife.