From heartbreaker to heartbreak

Gerard Butler at Home
DRAWING BACK THE CURTAIN ON THE ACTOR’S OLD-WORLD LOFT IN MANHATTAN

Only to reveal this.



The interior decorating equivalent of these...in grey



Criminal. In fact, is is so pedestrian it could be booked for jaywalking.


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Now playing: Scissor Sisters - Filthy/Gorgeous
via FoxyTunes

Serving it

Jean Prouvé and Jules Leleu
Enameled metal, laminated wood wall-mounted desk from the Sanatorium Martel de Janville
Ateliers Jean Prouve
France, 1936



Yes. I. Am.



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Now playing: Stereo MC's - Step it Up
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Return of the Ankh

Ancient Egyptian symbol of eternal life




Erykah Badu performing Window Seat, from her new album New Amerykah Part II: Return Of The Ankh, on The Wendy Williams Show and on Jimmy Fallon with a fuller rendition.




\
Famous ankh wearer Jacqueline Susann

Opening a new window everyday

Fashion's Most Wanted's post Style Icons - Talitha Getty. Fabulous. But so is everything else.



*Opening a new window everyday - a quote from Auntie Mame that reflects her philosophy of Live, Live, Live!


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Now playing: Bryan Ferry - The Chosen One
via FoxyTunes

On the horizon

Yves Saint Laurent by Farid Chenoune

One of the most distinctive and influential designers of the second half of the twentieth century, Yves Saint Laurent takes his place in the pantheon of French couturiers, alongside Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and Jeanne Lanvin. Yves Saint Laurent, the first comprehensive retrospective of his life’s work, will accompany an exhibition of some 250 garments from the collection of the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent at the Petit Palais in Paris.





Thierry Mugler by Danièle Bott

A visual journey through four decades of Thierry Mugler’s unmistakable style and inexhaustible creativity. The designs of the iconic French couturier Thierry Mugler convey a powerful and seductive image of womanhood. His architectural, ultra-stylized silhouettes, his exploration of new materials, his passion for staging and spectacle, and his futuristic fantasies have left an indelible impression on the world of fashion.



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Now playing: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - We Call Upon the Author
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Can't get this at Ikea

Once the property of Grand Duchess Vera of Württemberg (1854 - 1912). A bed and side table, ca. 1870/80. Walnut veneer. Slightly carved head and foot boards, with detachable side panels. Inventory label "H.V.v.W. G.v.R." of Duchess Vera Konstantinovna, Grand Duchess of Russia, large stenciled inscription "E.v.W. 69" of her daughter Princess Elsa of Württemberg and other stamps.


Grand Duchess Vera with her husband, Duke Eugen of Württemberg




Villa Berg, Stuttgart. Now a shadow of the summer residence originally built in the mid-1800s for Crown Prince Charles of Württemberg by architect Christian Friedrich von Liens. On the death of her aunt and adoptive mother, Grand Duchess Olga, Queen of Württemberg, Grand Duchess Vera inherited the Villa Berg.

Her only sister Olga Constantinovna of Russia, HM Queen Olga, was the paternal grandmother of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.



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Now playing: The Verve - History
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Something for the weekend

Chumlum, 1963-64 by Ron Rice
© Light Cone


Invocations and Evocations: Queer and Surreal

Friday 26 March – Monday 29 March 2010

Featuring the first public screening of Derek Jarman’s long lost and recently rediscovered first film, Electric Fairy (1971), this special series at Tate Modern will provide a form of invocation where the tangled threads of surrealism and queer experimental cinema, exemplified by Jarman, Kenneth Anger, Joseph Cornell, George Kuchar, Marie Menken and many others, will be reflected from the projector’s blinding beam.
Surrealism began as a brotherhood experimenting with trance states, games of chance and research into the world of the marvellous. One of their games was the act of invocation – calling forth forgotten or buried figures: famous or notorious. Although the surrealists’ social politics initially included a virulent strain of homophobia, the thread woven by André Breton and his peers can be followed into the labyrinth of queer practice throughout the twentieth century and beyond.
Curated by James Boaden, Stuart Comer, Ed Halter, Jonathan Katz and Juan A. Suárez.


Two of the films included in the programme available on DVD:






Avery Danziger's Edward James: Builder of Dreams (1995)










James Bidgood's (a fact not widely known until the mid-90s) cult classic Pink Narcissus (1971)


Marvellous.


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Now playing: Peter Murphy - Indigo Eyes
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I am lucky...

A GEORGE I BLACK JAPANNED CHEST
EARLY 18TH CENTURY
With two short and three long graduated drawers, the drawer fronts decorated with raised Chinoiserie designs, the stand with a frieze drawer, the castors later


to have clients who trust me enough to just go with the flow.

It very well may be jousting at windmills...

But it just might be possible to produce a glazed finish at will.

Well, only that in the dark days of food shortages my mother was relieved to find two sacks of rice in the back of her store cupboard. It made a lot of puddings (I doubt if she could buy the ingredients for curry) but it was originally intended for reglazing her chintz curtains. Now there's a thought..

Yes, indeed Rose C'est La Vie, now there is a thought.

A thought now heightened by the fact many of the fabric houses are discontinuing some of their best chintzes. While it is relatively easy to have fabric printed in small runs (20-50 meters) it is impossible to have it glaze finished. Unless of course one is prepared to order 250 meter runs, and foot the cost of screens and strikes. One day, but not just yet.




In the meanwhile Belgian rice starch, superior to other types, seemingly gives the highest quality finish on natural fibers.

The degree of sheen is entirely dependent on the concentration of starch and the pressing of the cloth.

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Now playing: Bill Withers - Grandma's Hands
via FoxyTunes

The good, the bad and the ugly

Today there will be no good, just the bad.


Southern Counties Auctioneers T/A Netherhampton Salerooms

Weekly auction of Old and Modern Furniture, Collectables and Effects, Antique Auctions first Friday of each month, specialist Antique and Decorative items auctions bi-monthly, full or part house clearance, valuations for sale, probate and insurance.


Finding a good auction house is like finding a good restorer, only much more difficult. Especially since it is a trade that plays both ends against the middle and is rife with incompetence.

An auctioneers statement of condition or authenticity is not fact but merely opinion. An opinion that is often informed by nothing more than limited experience. And that opinion cannot be held accountable.

Caveat emptor.

Of all the many auction houses that I have ever dealt with, the Netherhampton Salerooms must be the absolute worst. And I would not be at all surprised to learn that half of the bids may have come off of the back wall.



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Now playing: Barbra Streisand - We've Only Just Begun
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Hello old friend

Chinese Export Lacquerware Game Board Table, early 19th century, the rectangular top containing a game board and well for backgammon, above three short drawers containing carved chessmen, turned post on shaped platform and hairy paw feet, (imperfections), ht. 31, wd. 24, dp. 20 in.





You have been missed.

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Now playing: Peggy Lee - So What's New
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What the flock?

London antiques dealer Christopher Jones stopped (or quite possibly stooped) by yesterday leaving a comment on an old post, Swirls and Twirls. Which in turn led to my discovery of his line Plush; one of the best contemporary ranges I have seen in a very long time.



Neo-Classical Chair



Vintage Boots
Pair of 1930's riding boots with trees.



Kent Mirror



The full range of colours available for stock or commissioned pieces.

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Now playing: Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me with Science
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Alice's planter's punch

Jasmine Lampass






Butterflower






Arabesque Chenille


Now imagine it all covered in tailored, almost sheer, handkerchief linen slipcovers with embroidered details and secured with ties or linen covered buttons.


Stockhom Sheer


And at the shuttered windows, nothing more than gathered embroidered linen and cotton.


Swedish Sheer


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Now playing: Bryan Ferry - Windswept
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Alice doesn't live here anymore

Port of Spain, Trinidad BWI, at the turn of the 20th century.


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Now playing: Vangelis - State of Independence
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Opening a new window everyday

One such window is the newly created Corbu's Cave, also known as The Painted Wall: From Cave Painting to Le Corbusier and Beyond, by the very talented Mr. Scott Waterman.


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Now playing: Bryan Ferry - Don't Stop the Dance
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Something for the weekend

Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto comes tearing out of the gate like a pink poodle on speed. Rattling through chapters from Patrick McCabe's novel - all 36 of them, individually captioned - it relates the picaresque adventures of a young Irish transvestite called Kitten (Cillian Murphy), taking us from his rural Irish childhood, dumped on the doorstep of the parish priest (Liam Neeson), to his quest for his mother (Eva Birthistle) between bombings and cabaret shows in glam 1970s London. - Tim Robey





I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about. - Oscar Wilde


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Now playing: Dusty Springfield - The Windmills of Your Mind
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Now, I'm impressed

View from the gutter

Starry Night Castle
19.01.2008




Winter Night at Pic du Midi
25.01.2008



Young Stars in the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud
15.02.2008




Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed

Nothing lost in translation

25 - 26 September 2000
Oxford, The Manor House at Clifton Hampden (the Christopher Gibbs sale)

A pair of stained elm fauteuils
Designed by Syrie Maugham, 20th century, in the Louis XV style
Each with rectangular padded back, squab cushions and part-padded arms covered in ivory linen, with slightly outscrolled arms, on short cabriole legs (2)





28 June 2005
London, South Kensington

A pair of ash armchairs
Mid 20th Century, in the manner of Syrie Maugham (2)




The Bergere Chair produced by Soane

A faithful, and beautifully executed, reproduction of the pair from 2005.



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Now playing: Gail Ann Dorsey - Always True
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To sleep, perchance to dream

A painted and faux bamboo tester bed by Syrie Maugham, circa 1930, supplied by Francis Elkins.

The pierced shaped canopy over a fabric frieze, on ribbon-bound faux bamboo footposts and with fabric-draped headboard.




A late 17th century style four poster bed covered in green damask, once the property of Syrie Maugham and Cecil Beaton.

From Sybil Colefax & John Fowler Antiques



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Now playing: Patsy Cline - Sweet Dreams
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