Thursday, 23 February 2023

5.30pm on Zoom

A BIFMO Outreach Programme

In the summer of 2022, six students from the US and the UK worked collaboratively in pairs to investigate very different aspects of commissions and approaches to furnishing and furniture in three celebrated English country houses.  Join us on Zoom at 5.30pm (GMT) on Thursday, 23rd February 2023 when curators and students will be presenting and discussing these three research projects: 

1.  CASTLE HOWARD

Emily Main (University of Leeds) and Talia Perry (Bard Graduate Center) researched the commission by the 5th Earl of Carlisle from John Linnell (1729-1796) at Castle Howard. Using the house accounts as their source, the aim of this project was to produce an illustrated document which could be hosted digitally summarising this group of furniture. 

2.  RABY CASTLE

Kelsey Weeks (University of Buckingham) was paired with Maura Tangum (Bard Graduate Center) to research a musical secrétaire made by Thomas Weeks and George Simson.  This beautiful example of a George III gilt metal-mounted wood, satinwood and sycamore secrétaire houses a barrel organ movement in full working order, which still plays a selection of tunes from two original drums. The aim of this project was to explore this remarkable piece in the round: from exquisite cabinetry to the clock mechanism and silver fittings marked with the crest of the Earls of Darlington.

3.  MOTTISFONT ABBEY

James Kiernan ( University of Buckingham) and Katrina Reynolds  (Winterthur Program in American Material Culture) used drawings, inventories, and sale records to research the furnishing of the Whistler room which was created in 1938 and 1939 by Rex Whistler for Maud Russell and her husband Gilbert.  This clever trompe l’oeil mural played on the house’s origins as a medieval priory and was to be Whistler’s final major piece of interior design before he was killed in action in the Second World War. 

Working with the support of the curators at the houses the students presented their research using a variety of digital tools to produce pieces that can be used to interpret the furniture and the spaces they inhabit.

We are delighted that the curators, Julie Biddlecombe-Brown (Raby Castle), Eleanor Brooke Peate (Castle Howard) and George Roberts (Mottisfont Abbey) will also be joining the workshop to introduce and comment on the outcomes.

The event is free and is accessible via this Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89647783065.  The meeting ID is 896 4778 3065.

From left to right: John Linnell furniture in the Turquoise Room at Castle Howard; the Whistler Room at Mottisfont Abbey, © The National Trust; the musical secrétaire made by Thomas Weeks and George Simson at Raby Castle, © Raby Castle.

The digital research project was generously funded by a grant from the Foyle Foundation.