The World of Interiors December 2019

Charles I might be remembered as a successful sovereign had he been required to concentrate solely on the one thing at which he excelled: collecting. After all, the walls of his 24 royal residences dazzled with paintings he’d amassed by the most coveted masters – Mantegna and Raphael, Leonardo and Titian, Rubens and Van Dyck. Alongside sat coins and cameos, medals and marbles, treasure from Apollo’s temple at Delos, ‘a conjuring drum from Lapland’, ‘a Saxon king’s mace’. That’s to say nothing of the veritable army of antique and contemporary sculpture he’d also rounded up. If only connoisseurship could have outweighed actual kingship… This issue celebrates those who have similarly lost their hearts – or heads – to collecting, including that other Great British majestical magpie, George IV. In light of…

1 Forget illuminating collections: Re-Volt’s ‘Light Machine’ will make eyes gleam. It’s inspired, among other things, by film-set models and features a Fresnel lens, used in early 19th-century lighthouses. With the feel of something vintage, it is available in four colours for £905 approx. Ring 00 32 5 950 6410, or visit re-volt.be. 2 A truly top-drawer trousseau should feature at least one textile by Khadi. The Parisian brand’s latest offering, the ‘Minimal Romantic’ collection, includes two styles of 1.1 × 3m curtain (from £103 approx each) and a cushion cover (£86 approx), which are all decorated with lace. Ring 00 33 1 43 57 10 25, or visit khadiandco.com. 3 At 72 × 52 × 27cm, the antique-style wooden ‘Library’ cabinet (£225) by Rockett St George is the ideal size for…

FOR FIVE YEARS after the Teatro di San Carlo first opened its doors in 1737, opera-goers in Naples had been treated to splendid spectacles in its gilded auditorium. But for the Christmas production of Alessandro nell’Indie in 1742, a truly sensational sight lit up the stage: a live Indian elephant, lately sent to Charles VII from Constantinople by the Ottoman sultan Mahmud I. The Bourbon king had long had his eye on this prize to add to his menagerie at Portici. On its arrival, the strange beast was paraded around Naples and memorialised in oil and marble by court artists. A miniature replica of the elephant was also modelled in terracotta, then painted and dressed, for another piece of Neapolitan theatre: the king’s presepe, or nativity crib. Presepi had been a…

Collecting and connoisseurship are the mots du jour in auction houses, not just the pages of this issue of WoI. Every other dispatch from the former seems to announce another landmark sale, the magic words ‘The Collection of…’ adding a certain glamour to proceedings. Perhaps the most charming comes courtesy of an American couple (actually anonymous, but no matter) who spent 40 years sating their passion for British studio pottery, from Hans Cooper to Lucie Rie, on countless buying trips. The pieces they amassed will be auctioned online by Maak Contemporary Ceramics, with a viewing in London, from 11-14 NOVEMBER. Details: 01628 290050; maaklondon.com. Equally acquisitive were the Chinese/American architect IM Pei and his wife, Eileen, who spent a good deal of their 72-year marriage – and money – shopping…