Victoria Hinshaw – Number One London

REMEMBERING VENICE – THE PIAZZA SAN MARCO AND FLORIAN’S

After dinner on our first night in Venice, Victoria and I decided to stroll on to St. Mark’s Square, or Piazza San Marco as it’s known locally. For a description of the Square and its buildings, I’ll quote Wikipedia: “The Square is dominated at its eastern end by the great church of St Mark.

“The church is described in the article St Mark’s Basilica, but there are aspects of it which are so much a part of the Piazza that they must be mentioned here, including the whole of the west facade with its great arches and marble decoration, the Romanesque carvings round the central doorway and, above all, the four horses (see photos above) which preside over the whole piazza and are such potent symbols of the pride and power of Venice that the Genoese in 1379 said that there could be no peace between the two cities until these horses had been bridled; four hundred years later, Napoleon, after he had conquered Venice, had them taken down and shipped to Paris.”

Note: After the Battle of Waterloo, during the Allied Occupation of Paris, the Duke of Wellington ordered that the horses be returned to the Basilica. A Captain Dumaresq, who had fought at the Battle of Waterloo and was with the Allied Forces in Paris, was selected by the Emperor of Austria to take the horses down from the Arc de Triomphe and accompany them on their return to their original place at St Mark’s. The horses remained in place over St Mark’s until the early 1980s, when the ongoing damage from growing air pollution forced their replacement with exact copies. Since then, the originals have been on display just inside the Basilica.

” . . . standing free in the Piazza, is the Campanile of St Mark’s church (last restored in 1514), rebuilt in 1912 ‘ com’era, dov’era ‘ (as it was, where it was) after the collapse of the former campanile on 14 July 1902.”

Another landmark in the Piazza is Florian’s, or Caffè Florian, which claims to be the worlds oldest coffee house, since 1720. In actuality, the first coffeehouse in London was opened in 1652 in St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, by a Pasqua Rosée. Never mind, Florian’s can still claim it’s famous patrons over the centuries, including Casanova and Napoleon, Lord Byron, Wagner, Dickens and Henry Joyce. From Florian’s website: “While the finest wines and coffees from the Orient, Malaysia, Cyprus and Greece were being served inside, history was unfolding outside. Its windows witnessed the splendour and fall of the Serenissima Republic of Venice and the secret conspiracies against French and then Austrian rule; later, its elegant rooms were used to treat the wounded during the 1848 uprising. Right from the beginning, Caffè Florian has had a glittering clientele, including Goldoni, Giuseppe Parini, Silvio Pellico and many others.”

Naturally, Vicky and I couldn’t pass Florian’s without having a drink and listening to the band.

I ordered an amaretto and Vicky had a glass of prosecco. Once again, Venetian hospitality was on display in the form of the unexpected olives, biscotti and cookies that accompanied our drinks.

We sat companionably and enjoyed our drinks, the warm, starlit night and the music for quite a while. Again, very civilized. In fact, we liked Florian’s so well that we went back the next night, when my daughter Brooke arrived to join us in Venice. She seemed to enjoy it, too. If it was good enough for Lord Byron . . . .

You can listen to the band in this video I took on the night –

REMEMBERING VENICE – ARRIVAL

Back in January of 2018, I was at Vicky’s condo in Naples, Florida, spending the week with her as at the time, I was living in the Panhandle. We sat in the living room, discussing plans for our upcoming trip to the UK in order to undertake some Wellington research at several archives in the south of England. Naturally, there would be a few weekends during the weeks we’d be away, meaning that the archives would be closed and we’d be free to do other things.

“Have you been to Beaulieu?” Vicky asked me.

“No. Put it on the list. Have you been to Osborne House? We could easily get there from Southampton.”

“Oh, great idea. I’ve never been. That’ll be fun!” For a while we were both silent, each of us checking our social media. After a bit, Vicky said, “You know, I’d love to go back to Venice. It’s been years since Ed and I went and I’d really like to see it again.”

“I’ve never been to Venice,” I said. And then we both looked up from our devices, our eyes met and it was a true Lucy and Ethel moment. In the space of the next couple of hours, we’d booked our hotel, flights and sketched out a working itinerary.

And so it came about that once we’d completed our Wellington research in England, we flew across the Channel and on to Venice.

Upon arrival, Vicky and I walked for what felt like miles through the terminal to the water taxi departure point. I have to say, my first glimpses of Venice were not particularly impressive.

But things looked up once we’d arrived at our home for the next week, the Hotel Ai Cavalieri.

After check-in, we were shown to our room, which was quite large, well appointed and very red.

“Is it me, or do you feel like we’ve landed in a brothel, too?” I asked.

“It’s a lot of red. Look, even the chandeliers are red.”

“Everything is red. Every thing.”

Except for the bathroom.

Feeling in need of a drink, Vicky and I headed to the terrace bar and, as we were in Venice, ordered two glasses of prosecco. Which were served to us along with nuts, crisps and canapes. Very civilized, indeed.

Eventually, we roused ourselves and headed out into Venice in order to explore our neighborhood.

A bit later, we found a restaurant that had been recommended to us by our concierge.

Vicky opted for the seafood risotto.

And I had the linguine with lobster. Both dishes were wonderful, the wine was excellent and the service was spot on. A really intimate spot with a neighborhood feel and freshly prepared food.

Finding your way around Venice by day is tricky enough, by night it’s almost impossible as everywhere looks the same as everywhere else. Literally. If you leave your hotel (any hotel) and make a left or a right (it doesn’t matter which) you will shortly come to a bridge over a canal. Crossing this, you will shortly come to a square which features shops, restaurants and the obligatory church. There will inevitably be a confusing number of streets, or alleyways, leading off of the square. Choose one (doesn’t matter which) and it will lead you to a canal which, once you cross the bridge, will bring you to another square that will look exactly like the square you just left. And so it goes. Eventually, Vicky and I did make it back to our hotel, and our red room, but of course, each time we ventured out, finding our way home again proved to be a challenge. Once, we left our hotel and walked for about twenty minutes, convinced we had Venice licked, only to find ourselves right back at our own front door. The adventure continues . . . .

A Miniature Treat at Windsor Castle

Most everything at Windsor Castle is GREAT. There is one small thing — or lots of small things — that add up to an attraction as great as all of Windsor’s other sights. It’s Queen Mary’s Dollhouse and it’s truly amazing. It is one of those things in England I can’t get enough of. Though I’ve visited many times, I am always eager to see it again.

Queen Mary’s Dollhouse was an inspiration of Princess Marie Louise (1872-1956), a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who was a friend of renowned architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944). She envisioned the dollhouse as a showcase for English craftsmen. Lutyens designed the Edwardian-style London House after 1920 and it was completed in 1924, furnished with exquisite miniatures at a scale of one-to-twelve. To visit the website, click here.

Unpacking the contents

Once completed, the Dollhouse was displayed for several years to the public in various venues with funds raised from admissions used for charitable purposes. Eventually, it was installed permanently at the Castle; currently, part of the fee from admission is still given to charity.

Princess Marie Louise, c. 1910

Princess Marie Louise was a patroness of the arts, devoted to supporting British artists and craftsmen in the difficult days following WWI. With her assistance and that of Lutyens, hundreds of prominent Britons participated in building and furnishing the project. For example, the garden (located in a drawer below the house and seen in the views above) was designed by famed landscaper Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932);

A fairy tale in miniature

The book above was hand written by Cyril Kenneth Bird, aka Fougasse, for the library.

It measures 1/6 x 1.4 inches.

The Library

Among the 200-plus volumes in the library are works by authors Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edith Wharton.

On the center floor in the picture below, the saloon is shown, with portraits of King George V and Queen Mary. Below is the dining room.

Grand Piano in the Saloon

The Dining Room

The Dollhouse is served with running water, a flushing loo, electric lights, and a working lift.

The Elegant Bathroom

The Crown Jewels are well protected

Actual wine fills the bottles in the Wine Cellar.

from Berry Bros., St. James Street

In the manner of the Edwardian era, the Nursery is on the top floor

The King’s Bed Chamber

This is just a small selection of what you will see at Queen Mary’s Doll House when you join Kristine at Windsor Castle in May 2024 as part of The Town & Country House Tour. Complete itinerary and further details can be found here.

FLORIZEL AND PERDITA MET ON 3 DECEMBER, 1779

by Victoria Hinshaw

The Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV, after Sir William Beechey, circa 1806

George Prince of Wales was only 17 years old when he attended a performance of Florizel and Perdita, a play adapted from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. In the words of actress Mary Robinson’s biographer, Hester Davenport, the Prince “was looking for a woman to worship,” perhaps HAD been looking already, when he sat in his box at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and “fell in love.”

As Ms. Davenport points out, this was not Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, but an adaptation by David Garrick, known as Florizel and Perdita, in which Perdita is a sweet and charming maiden. The Prince sent Mary notes addressed to Perdita and signed them Florizel, as though they were the characters in the play. So began his first publicly known affair, the first of many.

Mary was born Mary Darby in Bristol in November of 1757 or perhaps 1758, which made her a few years older than the prince (b. 1762). Her “disastrous” marriage at age 16 to Thomas Robinson brought her a daughter, Maria Elizabeth (b. 1774), but little financial or emotional support. Eventually, she began to perform on the London stage, often in “trouser roles,” playing young men and displaying her fine figure for all to admire.

Though Prince George did not remain faithful to her for long, Mary was known as Perdita all her life. While she enjoyed the Prince’s attentions, she was the toast of London, extolled and excoriated in the newspapers, the object of considerable gossip in noble salons, especially among the males.

By the time the fanciful caricature above was published in 1783, the relationship was “quite out of date.” When the Prince quite publicly took up with other females, Mary refused to send back all his letters and other tokens of his fickle adoration. Later she received a not-so-secret payment in exchange for the return of some of them.

In 1781, Mary sat for a portrait by Thomas Gainsborough, commissioned by the Prince. In this version of the painting in the Wallace Collection above (another is in the Royal Collection), Mary holds a miniature of the Prince in her right hand.

Mary had only a brief time in the limelight of the London demi-monde. Only a few year later, she was reported to be “desperately ill.” Various explanations for her condition have been suggested, but the causes of her maladies remain mysterious. In May of 1791, she published a book of poems, “a small but handsomely bound volume with marbeled end papers,” made possible by sums raised by 600 subscribers, including the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Duke of Clarence and many other luminaries.

In 2010, Kristine and Victoria, along with Kristine’s daughter, Brooke, visited with Hester Davenport in Windsor, here at the Castle.

Hester Davenport chronicles the reception Mary’s book received. Readers seem to ask, “How was it possible to connect the frivolous woman of 1780s gossip with a writer of pensive odes, elegies and sonnets?” That Mary acquired the title ‘The English Sappho,’ possibly at her own instigation, may have added to the this (seductive) sense of being wooed.

Visiting the burial site of Mary Robinson in Old Windsor with Hester Davenport

Mary lived only a few more years, dying in 1800, having never recovered her health. She had, however, continued to write poetry as well as her memoirs, several novels, plays and feminist essays.

Mary Robinson as Perdita by John Hoppner, 1782

As an endorsement of the value of her literary work, the painting of Mary Robinson by Hoppner, above, was acquired for the Chawton House Library, where it is displayed prominently. Many works by Mary Robinson are available from their website. Her biography is here.

We all hope that future scholars will pay attention to this fascinating woman and her body of work. In the epilogue of her biography, Hester Davnport writes, “Mary Robinson was dead: the talented actress, spectacular Cyprian, accomplished and industrious author, committed feminist and radical, charming and witty hostess, spendthrift, devoted daughter and mother, compassionate, sensitive and sometimes spikily difficult woman. A genius? Perhaps only in her extraordinary versatility, but not undeserving of the ‘One little laurel wreath,’ she craved.”

Note: Victoria, Jo Manning and Kristine lost their dear friend Hester Davenport in September 2013. We like to think that she and Perdita are together, drinking tea and catching up on two centuries worth of gossip.

Osterley Park, An Adam Jewel

by Victoria Hinshaw

Osterley Park was once a rural retreat but today it is in Greater London, reachable by the tube (look for the Osterley stop on the Piccadilly line). The original Tudor mansion was built in 1575 by Sir Thomas Gresham, banker and founder of the Royal Exchange. The old house was built of red brick around a square courtyard. After considerable alterations in the 17th century, it was acquired by Francis Child, the immensely wealthy London banker, in 1713. His grandson Francis hired Robert Adam to transform the house in 1761 but he died before the house was finished, leaving the house to his brother Robert Child.

Adam’s work was completed in 1780. The center of the west section of the building was removed by Adam and replaced with a giant white Ionic portico.

The elegant portico opens up the courtyard.

Sarah Sophia Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey

The 5th Earl of Jersey (1773-1859) became the owner of Osterley Park by way of his marriage to Robert Child’s granddaughter, Sarah Sophia Fane, the Lady Jersey who was a patroness of Almack’s. The story of the young heiress is well known, the second elopement of a Child female.

Robert Child’s daughter (Sarah Anne Child) had eloped with John Fane, later 10th Earl of Westmorland, in 1782. Robert Child (1739-82), proud of being a prince of the merchant class and not an aristocrat, did not want his property and fortune to go to the Westmorland family. He wrote a will which left his money and property to the second child of his daughter. Sarah Sophia Fane inherited everything at age eight. In 1804, she married George Villiers, who changed his name (a necessity under Child’s will) to Child-Villiers and in time became the 5th Earl of Jersey. He was the son of that Countess of Jersey who was a mistress of the Prince Regent.

The Osterley house was rarely used by the Jerseys, who had a country estate, Middleton, in Oxfordshire in addition to a large townhouse in Berkeley Square. For decades Osterley was maintained but empty of life. The Jerseys entertained there only occassionally. Eventually it was let to Sarah’s cousin, Grace Caroline, dowager Duchess of Cleveland, a daughter of the 9th Earl of Westmorland. When she died, the 7th Earl of Jersey and his wife Margaret (1849-1945) lived and entertained there. The Lesson of the Master, a novella by Henry James, is set at Osterley.

In 1885, the famous library was sold for thirteen thousand pounds. After the 7th earl died in 1915, the tenancy of the house foundered again. For many years, it was rarely used until the 9th Earl opened it to the public on weekends. He gave it to the National Trust in 1949 and considerable restoration has taken place. It was recently used for some scenes in the film Gulliver’s Travels and has been in numerous other movies and television productions.

The rooms are arranged in a horseshoe, with the entrance hall at the top. After walking through the exterior portico, one crosses the courtyard and enters the magnificent hall, designed by Adam in 1767. The color scheme is neutral, greys and whites with stucco panels of ancient military scenes on the walls. The floor has a black pattern on white marble, a reflection of the plasterwork ceiling design.

The Breakfast Room at Osterley Park, Middlesex. The harpsichord was made for Sarah Anne Child in 1781 by Jacob Kirckman and his nephew Abraham. The lyre-back chairs are attributed to John Linnell.

The Breakfast Room has a lovely view of the park and was used as a sitting room, graced by Adam’s arched pier glasses. This room was redone in the 19th century, but the colors and some furniture is to Adam’s design. The drawing for this design is in Sir John Soane’s museum, London, as are many Adam designs. It is dated 24 April 1777. The room also contains a harpsichord of 1781, made by Jacob Kirckman and his nephew Abraham, who were well known for their instruments. It belonged to Sarah Sophia’s mother, the countess of Westmorland. After her death in 1793, her husband asked to have it sent to him as a memento of his wife; it was returned to Osterley in 1805.

The Tapestry Room was designed to hold a set of magnificent Gobelins tapestries designed by Francois Boucher depicting the Loves of the Gods. Several Adam rooms for other clients were decorated similarly, with the tapestries ordered from the Gobelins factory in Paris, which was run in the 1770’s by a Scot. The sofa and eight matching armchairs were specially created and upholstered to match the tapestries.

The magnificent ceiling is another Adam masterpiece. The central medallion shows Minerva accepting the dedication of a child. The four smaller medallions show female representations of the liberal arts. As was the usual practice, these paintings were done on paper, affixed to canvas backing and placed in stucco frames after the ceiling was painted.

Kristine, admiring and photographing the Osterley Park ceilings.

A self portrait by Angelica Kauffman. She did many paintings for Adam, often in her well-known allegorical style. In an era when most of the artists were men, Kauffman (1741-1807) excelled at portraiture and even huge historical and allegorical paintings. Born in Switzerland, she found great success in England. In 1781, she married her colleague Antonio Zucchi (1726-95) and the couple went to live in Rome. Adam had met Zucchi in Rome and persuaded him to come to England in 1766. Zucchi also executed many paintings for Adam rooms, often in ceiling medallions or above doors and fireplaces.

In the State Bedchamber stands a huge bed, made to the Adam’s design in 1776. The drawing is also in the Soane museum. Not only did Adam design the bed, he designed the hangings and embroidered silk counterpane and the interior of the dome. Included in the design are many allegorical symbols, including marigolds, the emblem of Child’s Bank. In this room is another of the exquisite ceilings by Kauffman.

The Etruscan Room Dressing Room shows Adam utilizing ancient designs discovered in Italy. At that time, the term Etruscan referred to the types of designs found on Greek vases. Horace Walpole in 1778 said the room was “painted all over like Wedgwood’s ware, with black and yellow small grotesques.” The furniture is attributed to Chippendale.

The Childs had spent a great deal of time developing the gardens and the park with lakes, wildernesses and open space. Fortunately, these also survive and have been restored. Under the supervision of the National Trust, the park is open to the public and is well used by hikers, strollers, bicyclists and bird watchers.

A visit to Osterley Park is on the itinerary of Number One London’s Town & Country House tour in May, 2024. Complete itinerary and full details can be found here.