Top UK Destinations for Chinese Objects and Chinoiserie Interiors Part 1.
This is a four-part blog it is an introduction to where you
can find Chinese artifacts, objects, and Chinoiserie interiors in the UK. So, if
you are thinking of booking an around the UK whistle-stop tour based on some of
the most beautiful sites and rare objects in the world maybe this could be of
use.
We are going to start with London, move up through
Hertfordshire, and Cambridgeshire all the way up to Durham, the Borders of
Scotland, Lothian then back down the other side to just inside Wales back into
England to Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxford, Gloucester, Somerset,
and Dorset. Taking in large and small museums and beautiful country houses.
Part 1.
British Museum
Great Russell St, London WC1B 3DG
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/galleries/china-and-south-asia
The British Museum has been acquiring Chinese material since
the time of its founding collection, that of Sir Hans Sloane, in the 18th
century.[1]
Features from the galleries include iconic blue and white Ming dynasty
porcelain, calligraphy, and silk. There is also a gallery dedicated to
ceramics, featuring 1,700 of the Museum’s finest examples. The Chinese jade
gallery showcases a stone prized by the Chinese as the most precious of all
materials for its magical properties and beauty the British Museum’s collection
comprises carved ornaments, weapons, and ritual objects as well as contemporary
jades.
V&A
 |
| https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/china |
Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL
The V&A boasts one of the largest and most important
collections of Chinese artworks outside of East Asia, around 18,000 of which
are on display.
Marble Hill House
Richmond Road, Twickenham, London, TW1 2NL
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/marble-hill-house/history-and-stories/history/
Marble Hill House looked after by English Heritage is set in
66 acres of outstanding riverside parkland near Richmond in West London. It was
built for Henrietta Howard, mistress of King George II when he was Prince of
Wales.[2]
Henrietta Howard an 18th-century woman: an influential courtier, friend of
poets and politicians, and patron of the arts.
The interiors of Marble Hill were furnished in the latest
fashion with the ‘chinoiserie’ lacquer furniture and blue-and-white porcelain. She
made many alterations and improvements to the house and grounds while she was
living there and in the 1750s, she formed a new dining parlour from several
small rooms on the west side of the ground floor. In 1755 workmen spent 47 days
hanging 62 sheets of Chinese paper on its walls.
A Chinese lacquer screen is one of the few remaining objects
from Henrietta’s own collection because the contents of the house were
dispersed before the property came into public ownership in 1902. The
paintings, furniture, and porcelain on display in the house today still evoke
the 18th-century love of the Orient, and suit Henrietta Howard’s taste and
status.
Knebworth
Old Knebworth Ln, Stevenage SG1 2AX
https://www.knebworthhouse.com/discover/knebworth-house/
Heading out of London up the A1 Knebworth House is a vast
romantic-looking house with turrets and domes with the original brick dating
back to Tudor times. Every generation who has lived there for over 500 years has
left a legacy. In ‘The Falkland Room’, you will find a bedroom in the Chinoiserie
style, with hand-painted wallpaper, various Chinese artifacts, and a huge,
elaborately decorated bridal bed – ‘practically a room in itself’ – which was
installed in the room in the 20th century.
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