Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today she is at home in her drawing room, entertaining her old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy whose family, unlike Lettice’s, are in straitened circumstances owing to Gerald’s father, Lord Bruton, refusing to modernise and move with the times. Gerald has gained some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. His atelier has received some favourable reviews over the last few years and his couturier is finally starting to turn a profit thanks to an expanding clientele.
“Well,” Gerald exclaims as he languidly sinks back into the rounded back of one of Lettice’s white upholstered Art Deco tub armchairs. “Who’d ever have imagined you working for Dolly Hatchett again?”
Lettice has recently agreed to redecorate the first floor principle rooms of the newly acquired Queen Anne’s Gate* townhouse of Dolly Hatchett, wife of the Labour MP for Tower Hamlets**, Charles Hatchett. Lettice decorated their Sussex home, ‘The Gables’ in picturesque country style in 1921, much to her parent’s horror, firstly because Mrs. Hatchett was a chorus girl before becoming Charles Hatchett’s wife, and secondly because Mr. Hatchett was aspiring to be a Labor politician at the time.
“Whatever do you mean, Gerald darling?” Lettice asks.
“I always thought I was going to be the only one out of the two of us courting Mrs. Middling-Mediocre-Middle-Class for business!” Gerald replies with arched eyebrows.
“Mrs. Hatchett came to me, thank you Gerald,” Lettice corrects. “Not the other way around. And I see you are still being as much of a snob towards poor Mrs. Hatchett as you were when I first introduced you. You have a great deal to thank Mrs. Hatchett for.”
“I’m only teasing, Lettuce Leaf!” Gerald counters with a smirk as he uses Lettice’s hated childhood nickname.
“Don’t call me that Gerald! You know how much I hate it! “ scowls Lettice. “We aren’t five anymore.”
“I know! You are far too easy to tease, Lettuce Leaf!” Gerald persists, eliciting a shudder from Lettice. “Anyway, I know I owe a great deal of my success to Dolly Hatchett. She may only have been middling middle-class when you introduced us, but her circle of influence now has brought in more than a few high profile and wealthy clients for me to dress.”
“Aha!” Lettice crows.
“However, what surprises me is that you are taking her on again after all that bloodiness*** with your family, what with Chalie Hatchett being a Labor MP and all that, darling.”
“Well, Mater and Pater don’t actually know about it yet.” Lettice admits guiltily, casting her eyes downwards demurely for a moment as her face flushes with embarrassment.
“Oh!” Gerald opines, cupping his face in his hands and pulling a dramatic face like Munch’s ‘The Scream’****
“But I will!” Lettice hurriedly adds.
“I thought you were in the bad books with your parents enough as it is, what with your engagement to scandalously lecherous Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.”
For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October 1924 that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John, according to London society gossip enjoys a string of dalliances with pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s 1924 autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. In an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they did not make their engagement public until the New Year. When Sir John and Lettice announced their engagement in the palatial Glynes drawing room before Lettice’s parents, the Viscount and Lady Sadie the Countess, Lettice’s elder brother Leslie and his wife Arabella, and the Viscount’s sister Eglantyne (known by all the Chetwynd children affectionally as Aunt Egg), it was received somewhat awkwardly by the Viscount initially, until Lettice assured him that her choice to marry Sir John has nothing to do with undue influence or mistaken motivations. The rest of the family were equally ambivalent, or even hostilely against the marriage.
“Now don’t tell me that you’ve turned against me now too, Gerald darling!” Lettice mewls as she sits forward in her seat. “Oh you can’t! You just can’t! What with Mater and Pater being lukewarm about my engagement at best, Lally being so beastly about the wedding, and Aunt Egg being totally against the idea, I need someone in my corner! Even Margot and Dickie aren’t keen on my marriage to John. Please Gerald!”
“Calm yourself Lettuce Leaf!” Gerald replies, sitting forward in his seat, raising his hands in both a defensive and an assuring gesture. “Of course I’m not turning against you! Don’t overreact and jump to conclusions. We have enough drama queens***** at Hattie’s.” He remarks coolly, mentioning the boarding house full of theatrical homosexuals, including his own West End oboist lover Cyril, run by his friend Harriet Milford. “You’re my best friend, and keeper of all my deepest and darkest confidences.” He coughs awkwardly. “Well, most of them anyway. You know I can’t even marry my lover, so how can I possibly stand piously in judgement over your choices?”
“You do judge me though, don’t you Gerald.” Lettice counters. “Be honest.”
“I can’t say that the path you’ve chosen to take with Sir John is one I’d have intended for you, Lettice darling.” he admits. “I would much rather have seen you happily in a love match and married to Selwyn Spencely, rather than in a marriage of convenience that is more like a business proposal with Sir John. You know I’ve never been keen on Sir John because of his reputation as a philanderer with a string of Gaiety Girls****** in his wake. However, since Selwyn surprised us all by breaking his well fashioned mould of being a decent and respectable chap by deserting you for a diamond mine owner’s daughter, I can hardly blame you for seeking affection elsewhere.” He looks earnestly at his friend across the low black japanned coffee table. “I just want you to be happy, Lettice darling. That’s all. If you say you can be happy with Sir John, then I’ll support you.”
“Oh, thank you darling!” Lettice sighs, releasing the pent-up breath she has been unaware of holding on to. “That means the world to me. I will be happy with Sir John.” she assures her friend. “At least he has made sure that I’m going in with my eyes open.”
“That’s good.” Gerald opines.
“And he has said that he will allow me to break our engagement if I so choose to do.”
“That’s even better and very magnanimous of him, although in saying that, it is usually the lady’s prerogative to break her engagement if she so chooses.”
“Well, I’m not going to, am I?” Lettice asks rhetorically. “But going to back to my parents and Mrs. Hatchett,” she remarks, carefully steering the conversation back to safer territory. “I don’t think they’ll particularly like it, but since my interior design business has become such a success, I hardly think they can object to her.”
“Don’t you believe it, Lettice darling.” Gerald remarks doubtfully. “Sadie will make her opinions clear.”
“I’m not so sure she will now.” Lettice counters confidently. “And even if she does, Dolly Hatchett is hardly the awkward, mousy and unsure wife of a banker we met in 1921. I think you’ve done wonders transforming her into the suitable wife successful MP for Towers Hamlets, Charles Hatchett, needs.”
“They say that ‘clothes maketh the man’, so why not the woman?” Gerald replies, settling back into his chair. “The power of clothes can be transformative.”
“I agree, Gerald darling. She’s so self-assured and self-possessed now. I was really remarkably surprised when we met again! She is transformed.”
“Oh she is still little Dolly Hatchett the chorus girl from Chu Chin Chow******* under the layers of crêpe de chiné, satin and velvet, Lettice darling.”
Lettice laughs. “She said the very same thing to me when I saw her.”
“All the same, transformation or not, I don’t think Sadie will like you taking Dolly Hatchett on as a client again. In Sadie’s eyes she is still, and always will be, a little social climbing parvenu. The fact she is on the wrong side of politics only makes her existence in your life, however transient, all the worse. I think the only sin you could commit that could possibly be worse would be to take on Wanetta Ward the American moving picture actress again.”
“Well, luckily for me then, Miss Ward is currently on a break from the Gainsborough Studios******** filming schedule and is in America.”
“I thought she was estranged from her parents.”
“She hasn’t gone to see her parents. The bright lights of Los Angeles and the American motion picture industry have wooed her. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of those new Hollywood moving picture studios doesn’t offer her a contract.”
“Big enough to break the one she has with Gainsborough?”
“I can imagine it. You’ve seen her, darling. She is a moving picture star, and if Edith is anything to go by, the kinema********* public will follow her, no matter where she goes, and that means they can make more money with her potential.”
“Hhhmmm…” Gerald purrs.
“What?” Lettice asks.
“Maybe I was wrong about you, Lettice darling?”
“Me?” Lettice raises a hand to her throat. “How?”
“Well, listening to the way you are talking so openly about money, maybe you are better suited to a marriage of convenience and business arrangement with Sir John, rather than a love match with Selwyn. I can’t imagine the despicable Duchess, Lady Zinna, approving of you speaking so candidly about money!”
“Oh pooh Lady Zinnia!” Lettice replies defiantly, flapping her hand at Gerald as if trying to sweep the phantom of the Duchess of Walmsford away. “I won’t have her name spoken here!”
However, as Lettice settles back in her seat, smiling, there is a sadness in the corners of her painted lips. Selwyn’s rejection of her by breaking her engagement, and the way she was told with glee and unbridled delight by his mother still hurts her deeply, and for all her bravado with her marriage of convenience with Sir John, like Gerald, she too would have preferred a love match with Selwyn Spencely to a business arrangement with Sir John in her heart of hearts. She sniffs and sighs quietly to herself as she ponders the thought of her upcoming marriage. Whilst she and Sir John haven’t set a date yet, the engagement has been announced in The Times and it won’t be too long before they will have to choose a day, or at the very least a month for their wedding. Long engagements are less popular in the class of Sir John and Lettice’s parents than they are in the middle and lower classes where money must be saved and households arranged.
“Thinking of Edith,” Gerald interrupts Lettice’s thoughts. “Where has she gotten to? I thought she was supposed to be making us some tea.”
Lettice glances up at the brightly painted clock on the mantle and looks at the sunflower yellow face as it reads ten past eleven. “Goodness, I was so lost in our conversation, I’d completely forgotten our elevenses!”
“Well, my stomach certainly hasn’t.” Gerald replies, stroking the pale blue pin stripped cream flannel of his double breasted summer suit stretched over his stomach. “I’m hoping Edith has some of her home made sponge cake for us as a treat. I say Lettice darling, do you think she might?”
“I couldn’t say.” Lettice remarks, standing up and sauntering over to the servant’s call bell next to the fireplace and depressing it purposefully, eliciting the hollow tinkling of a bell in the service area of the flat.
“Let’s hope so, then.” Gerald replies.
“I have to say that’s a rather bold pattern you’re wearing, Gerald.” Lettice remarks, returning to her seat and smoothing the peach, red, blue-grey and black floral pattered silk georgette of her skirt fastidiously across her knee.
“Why thank you darling!” Sitting up more straightly in his seat, Gerald smooths his own suit proudly. “American.” he admits with a knowing smile. “I acquired it from a contact of mine in the rag trade********** who traverses the Trans-Atlantic*********** and picked it up in New York. It’s rather fetching, isn’t it?”
“Very.” Lettice concurs before adding with an air of desperation. “You will still make my wedding frock won’t you, Gerald darling, even if you don’t altogether approve of my marriage to John?”
“Well of course I will, Lettice. Business is business.”
“Is that all I am Gerald?” Lettice scoffs jokingly.
“And you’re my best friend!” Gerald adds with a cheeky grin and a mischievous glint in his eye. “But I’m not the one you should be asking or talking to about this. Sadie will be the one who will organise your trousseau************ for you.”
“Yes, John’s sister Clemance asked me if I’ve spoken to Mater about the idea of her taking over the job of helping me organise and shop for my trousseau.”
“Which is why I worry that you are already in enough trouble with this marriage of yours, and your wish for your future sister-in-law to help organise it rather than Sadie, without adding me making your wedding frock and Dolly Hatchett to the mix.”
“I’m sure Mater won’t mind if Clemance takes on the job of arranging my trousseau.” Lettice replies with a dismissive wave. “You know how much she hates London at the best of times.”
“Yes, but she does rather love clothes, Lettice darling, except mine of course. I’m too close to you and therefore by proxy her, for Sadie to countenance me dressing you for your wedding day.”
“She didn’t mind you making Bella’s wedding frock.” Lettice quips.
“No, Lady Isobel didn’t mind me making Bella’s wedding frock, Lettice.” He gives his friend a knowing look. “You really need to stop dragging your dainty little heels and put your plan into action if you want to have some say over your wedding clothes. You can’t keep procrastinating. You have to talk to Sadie about it, and soon.” He nods sagely.
“I know.” Lettice sighs. “I just dread…”
However Lettice is cut off mid-sentence by the appearance of her maid, Edith as she staggers through the green baize door leading from the service part of the flat into the dining room. She and Gerald watch, mesmerised, from the comfort of their seats as Edith slowly traverses the dining room and into the adjoining drawing room, carefully carrying not a tea tray as they expected, but a large and heavy looking wooden crate.
“Beg pardon, Miss.” Edith says with a groan, placing the box a little unceremoniously upon the black japanned coffee table. “I know I was meant to be serving tea for you and Mr. Bruton, but this package just arrived for you.”
“Oh pooh the tea, Edith!” Gerald says excitedly, his hunger momentarily forgotten as he leans forward and inspects the box with great interest.
“Who is it from?” Lettice asks, unable to contain her own excitement as she leans forward in her own seat.
“I couldn’t say Miss.” Edith replies curtly, giving her mistress a doubtful look. “The deliveryman simply said that I was to give the box to you in person, and to give you this.” She withdraws a pale blue envelope from her morning uniform cotton apron pocket and hands it to Lettice, before withdrawing Lettice’s silver letter opener and handing it to her as well.
“I say! How thrilling!” Gerald enthuses. “A present, and a big one! Perhaps from your fiancée, since he is not adverse to giving you rather lovely and expensive gifts?” he adds hopefully as he refers to the rather large Picasso painting of ‘The Lovers’ that Sir John recently gave Lettice as an engagement gift to his bride-to-be.
“Well, I hardly think this is a Picasso.” Lettice remarks, nodding in the direction of the crate, as she slips the blade of the letter opener under the lip of the envelope and slides it along the top of the letter deftly, the paper making a sharp tearing sound as she does.
“No, but it could be something equally wonderful, like a piece of Eighteenth Century porcelain.” Gerald adds. “Let’s be a little imaginative, Lettice darling!”
Lettice withdraws the letter from the sliced open envelope.
“Will that be all, Miss?” Edith asks.
“Oh yes,” Lettice says distractedly, waving her hand dismissively at Edith as she focuses on the contents of the letter. “Just the tea, if you could manage it, thank you, Edith.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith bobs a curtsey and turns to go.
“I don’t suppose you happen to have one of your rather delicious and decadent sponge cakes on then offing, do you Edith?” Gerald asks hopefully.
“I might, sir.” Edith answers with a wry smile.
“Oh hoorah!” Gerald says, clapping his hands with delight. “How ripping!”
As Edith retreats to the kitchen through the green baize door, Lettice read the letter.
“Who is this intriguing package from, Lettice darling?” Gerald asks. “I’m simply dying to know!”
“It’s from my new client.” Lettice replies as she scans the letter’s contents.
“Well I must say!” Gerald responds with outrage. “I never get any gifts from Dolly Hatchett for making her frocks!”
“No, not Mrs. Hatchett,” Lettice replies, her brow crumpling as she speaks. “Another client I have agreed to take the commission of.”
“Another client. Who?”
Lettice uses the edge of the letter opener to prise open the lid of the wooden crate. Placing it aside, a froth of white tissue paper suddenly cascades forth freed from the confines of its prison. Lettice’s gaze immediately falls upon the neck of a bottle.
“A bottle of good quality German Mozelle!” Gerald exclaims as Lettice withdraws the bottle and a single dainty wine glass from amidst the paper.
“How very thoughtful of her.” Lettice muses with a smile as she puts the bottle and glass onto the surface of the coffee table.
Gerald delves into the paper which scrunches crisply beneath his touch as he withdraws a rather lovely vase of hand painted blue and white china.
“Is this a gift from your Mrs. Clifford of Arkwright Bury?” Gerald asks.
“No, this is from Sylvia Fordyce.” Lettice answers.
Gerald falls silent for a moment and looks down at the vase in his hands. “Sylvia Fordyce? As in Sylvia Fordyce the concert pianist?”
“The very one, Gerald darling.” Lettice replies. “I’ve taken on a commission to paint a feature wall for her.”
“Well, you are full of surprises today, Lettice darling!” Gerald says, placing the vase on the table next to the sleek green bottle of Mozelle. “Rather like a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat. How on earth did that come about?”
“Well Sylvia is a friend of John’s, well more of Clemance’s than John’s really, but she wanted to meet me, and she asked me to paint a feature wall for her at her country home. She took me there a few weeks ago.”
“My goodness!” Gerald repeats. “You are the lucky one, Lettice! She’s famous for being quite a private person.”
“I know, darling.” Lettice purrs in reply with a confident smile. “I’m very honoured. She has a lovely house, and she had Syrie Maugham************* decorate it for her, but Sylvia isn’t happy with the amount of white she used in her colour scheme, and she wants me to inject a bit of colour with a hand painted feature wall.”
“Well that’s even more of a compliment to you, Lettice darling, if Sylvia Fordyce wants you to undo something Syrie Maugham has done.”
“I agree, Gerald darling.” Lettice continues to purr as she withdraws the lid of one of Sylvia’s ginger jars from the mantlepiece of ‘The Nest’s’ drawing room from amidst the froth of white paper. Placing it carefully on the top of the paper she goes on, “I decided to take some inspiration from her blue and white porcelain, and asked if she would lend me a few pieces whilst she was on tour.” She delves back into the box and withdraws the hand painted blue and white coffee pot and milk jug from the set she drank from at ‘The Nest’, its gilded edges gleaming under the light of the chandelier above. “And this is them.”
“And the wine?” Gerald queries.
“A gift to,” Lettice withdraws the letter again and scans it. “‘Help with my artistic and creative flow’.” she reads aloud.
“Well this is a delicious turn of events for you, Lettice darling!” Gerald remarks. “A commission from Sylvia Fordyce! Fancy that!”
“Yes, and hopefully this commission, plus the promise of a favouable review in The Lady************** as assured by Sylvia, might soften the blows of me wanting to control the acquisition of my own trousseau.”
“And decorating for Dolly Hatchett.” Gerald adds.
“Well,” Lettice sighs, sinking back into her seat, swinging the letter about in her hand. “I might wait until after I get back from Paris and the ‘Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes’*************** before I drop that tiny social briquette, Gerald darling.”
“Very wise!” Gerald replies, tapping his nose knowingly. “I can’t wait to get back to Hattie’s and tell Charles Dunnage your news!”
“And why is that, Gerald darling? Why would one of Harriet Milford’s theatrical lodgers possibly be interested in my titbit of news?”
“Because, Lettice darling, he is a great fan of Sylvia Fordyce. He’ll be fit to be tied and will burst his corset stays when he hears that I’ve touched items that belong to Sylvia Fordyce.”
“Oh Gerald darling!” Lettice titters. “The very idea of Charles Dunnage wearing a corset!”
“But he does, Lettice darling! He’s so pompous about being a ‘thespian of the Shakespearean age’ and so vain about his looks that he really does wear one to smother his paunch, as he also has a distinct weak spot for anything sweet from Hattie’s kitchen, as you’ve seen.”
Lettice and Gerald both burst out laughing, enjoying the moment of their close friendship where they share anything with one another.
*Queen Anne’s Gate is a street in Westminster, London. Many of the buildings are Grade I listed, known for their Queen Anne architecture. Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner described the Gate’s early Eighteenth Century houses as “the best of their kind in London.” The street’s proximity to the Palace of Westminster made it a popular residential area for politicians.
**The London constituency of Tower Hamlets includes such areas and historic towns as (roughly from west to east) Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Mile End, Stepney, Limehouse, Old Ford, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and the Isle of Dogs (with Millwall, the West India Docks, and Cubitt Town), making it a majority working class constituency in 1925 when this story is set. Tower Hamlets included some of the worst slums and societal issues of inequality and poverty in England at that time.
***The old fashioned British term “looking bloody” was a way of indicating how dour or serious a person or occasion looks.
****‘The Scream’ is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The Norwegian name of the piece is ‘Skrik’ (Scream), and the German title under which it was first exhibited is ‘Der Schrei der Natur‘ (The Scream of Nature). The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images in art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including The Scream, had a formative influence on the Expressionist movement.
*****You may be surprised to learn that the term “drama queen”, so commonly used today to refer to someone who reacts to situations in an exaggerated or overly emotional way, dates back to 1923 where it was first referenced in the Washington Post.
******Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.
*******‘Chu Chin Chow’ is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It was the most popular show in London’s West End during the Great War. It premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on the 3rd of August 1916 and ran for 2,238 performances, a record number that stood for nearly forty years!
********Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
*********Kinema is an early spelling of the word cinema, and was commonly used throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s when it changed to cinema.
**********The slang term “rag trade”, referring to the garment, clothing, or fashion industry, first appeared in common usage between 1835 and 1845, but really began in the Eighteenth Century to describe the sale of rags or second-hand clothes.
***********A transatlantic cruise involves sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, typically between Europe and North America, offering a unique travel experience with several days at sea to relax and enjoy the ship's amenities. In the 1920s there were many big shipping lines like Britain’s Cunard and the White Star Line, as well as smaller companies such as the French Line, who traversed the Atlantic with luxury ocean liners, appealing to the wealthy and up-and-coming middle-classes for comfortable business and travel options, and to the lower classes who were still immigrating, albeit in much smaller numbers as a result of immigrant caps, from Europe and Britain to America.
************A trousseau is a word used to describe the clothes, linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage. For an upper-class bride, it would refer only to her clothing, including her wedding frock.
*************Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.
**************The Lady is one of Britain's longest-running women's magazines. It has been in continuous publication since 1885 and is based in London. It is particularly notable for its classified advertisements for domestic service and child care; it also has extensive listings of holiday properties.
***************The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was a specialized exhibition held in Paris, from April the 29th (the day after it was inaugurated in a private ceremony by the President of France) to October the 25th, 1925. It was designed by the French government to highlight the new modern style of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewelry and other decorative arts in Europe and throughout the world. Many ideas of the international avant-garde in the fields of architecture and applied arts were presented for the first time at the exposition. The event took place between the esplanade of Les Invalides and the entrances of the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, and on both banks of the Seine. There were fifteen thousand exhibitors from twenty different countries, and it was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The modern style presented at the exposition later became known as “Art Deco”, after the exposition's name.
This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The green bottle of Mozelle on the coffee table is an artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire with careful attention paid to the lable, which is a genuine Mozelle wine lable from Germany. The wine glass is spun from real glass too and is also an artisan miniature. It is part of a set of six which I acquired from a high street stockist of dolls and dolls house miniatures when I was a young teenager. The letter opener is made of silver and is an artisan miniature made by the Little Green Workshop who specialise in high-end artisan miniature pieces. The blue and white vase on the coffee table and the blue and white gilt ginger jar in the crate come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The tiny blue and white coffee pot and creamer are part of a complete set, all of which are hand painted and come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House shop as well. The crate, which I purchased from an E-Bay seller in the United Kingdom.
The letter that you see on Lettice’s coffee table is a 1:12 size miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Famed for his books, Ken Blythe also made other miniature artisan pieces from paper, including this letter, which is contained inside an envelope which even has a postmark. The letter itself, whilst deliberately not in focus in this photo is written in a tiny legible hand! To make a piece as small and authentic as this makes it a true artisan piece. Most of the Ken Blythe books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The green glass comport on the coffee table is an artisan miniature made from hand spun glass and acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The very realistic red rose floral arrangement to the right of the photo has been made by hand by the Doll House Emporium in America who specialise in high end miniatures. The faceted glass vase on the mantlepiece is an artisan miniature made from real glass. It comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The tulips in the vase are very realistic looking. Made of polymer clay they are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.
The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature from Melody Jane’s Dolls House Suppliers in England. The telephone is a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.
Lettice’s black leather diary with the silver clasp was also made by the Little Green Workshop in the United Kingdom. The pencils on top of it are 1:12 miniature as well, acquired from Melody Jane Dolls’ House Suppliers, and each is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.
Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.
On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.
On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.
In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.
The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.
The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.
