The World of Interiors January 2022

1 Do the charleston beneath Barovier & Toso’s mouth-blown Venetian crystal ‘Metropolis’. The Art Deco-styled chandelier (£22,225 approx), which comes in a choice of five colours, evokes the era when the dance was all the rage. Ring 00 39 041 739049, or visit barovier.com. 2 How did these beasts gambol their way from a sheet of antique domino paper to 21st-century rolls of digitally printed wallcovering (£156)? When Anna Chapman Parker showed Common Room the original, which she’d discovered at a Paris auction, the company promptly commissioned the artist to create ‘Curious Creatures’ in two colourways. Ring 07900 006309, or visit commonroom.co. 3 In Studio Ham’s world, practical doesn’t mean boring: this playful ‘Scalloped Vanity’ with Carrara-marble top (£3,960) is available in several hand-painted, distressed colours. Ring 01491 579371, or visit studioham.co.uk. 4…

JOHN CRAXTON: A LIFE OF GIFTS (by Ian Collins; Yale, rrp £25) A cabbage was among subjects painter John Craxton chose for his students at Goldsmiths when, in his mid-20s in the war’s immediate aftermath, exigency forced him into teaching. ‘Think of it as a green rose,’ Craxton told the giggling ‘suburban girls’ in front of him. Time and again, Craxton’s own art turned cabbages into roses. He was influenced by visionaries Samuel Palmer and William Blake, contemporaries including Graham Sutherland and his one-time inseparable best friend, Lucian Freud, as well as his long-term engagement with Greek and Byzantine art, notably the work of El Greco. His brightly coloured paintings suggest a lyrical dreamer, in his own words ‘a kind of Arcadian’: his art was transformative and celebratory. This was not,…

The gimlet-eyed will spy a chance to own a signed edition of bartender Harry Craddock’s Jazz Age masterpiece The Savoy Cocktail Book – with beautiful Art Deco illustrations by Gilbert Rumbold – on 15 DECEMBER, when it is offered for sale as part of CHRISTIE’S CLASSIC WEEK. Meanwhile, those requiring a little help focusing may be interested in one of only six microscopes known to be associated with Charles Darwin, which will also be auctioned. The instrument in question, by the English maker Charles Gould, was given by Darwin to his son Leonard before passing down through the family. Details: christies.com. ONGOING ONLINE RIESENER UP CLOSE. Step inside the work of cabinet-maker extraordinaire Jean-Henri Riesener thanks to the museum’s innovative new microsite. Details: wallacecollection.org. UNTIL 9 JANUARY SOUTHBANK CENTRE, BELVEDERE RD, LONDON…