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@pavilionarchives
I had help from experts yesterday, inspecting, cataloguing and interpreting ground plans and architectural drawings relating to the Royal Pavilion Estate dating from 1827 to 1832. Researcher Dr Tracy Anderson and 3D artist Colin Jones, who is creating models of past manifestations of the Pavilion for us.
3D models of the Pavilion estate, based on archive material
I am working with the very gifted 3D modeller Colin Jones, who is creating some 3D models of the Royal Pavilion Estate for us. Here is an example of one of his images, which relates to a plan for proposed additional servants’ room at a new South Gate for the Pavilion in 1832.
Colin recently wrote a blog post on his work, which you can read here: http://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2016/05/03/technology-meets-history-computer-modelling-brightons-royal-pavilion-estate/
“More is more”: Royal Pavilion inspired wallpaper from the 1980s
Found in the archives and now catalogued: Sample Book, The Royal Pavilion at Brighton and Winterthur Collection, 1985; Manufactured by Brunschwig & Fils, Inc.; USA, containing approx. 200 screen printed wallpaper samples, half of which were inspired by the Royal Pavilion, The short introduction paints a vivid picture of 1980s tastes in interior decoration:
The Royal Pavilion at Brighton One of the most successful groups of fabrics and wallpapers we ever presented were based on the designs from the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. This orientalist dream palace is even more important today because of the increased awareness of ornament, embellishment and fantasy in today's decoration. The cold pure geometric boxes of the past are gone; the current urge is to decorate and no one is ashamed if it! In this spirit, we have continued to draw upon the Royal Pavilion for inspiration and now introduce three extravagant new papers which seem so right for 1985. We have also included the best-selling designs from our earlier collection since they are all mutually complementary. As the Prince Regent must have thought, (even if he never said it). "More is more."
Brunschwig & Fils produced a range of wallpapers and textiles based on Royal Pavilion designs, many of which are included in this sample book.
In the 1980s the Maid’s Room in Queen Victoria's Apartments on the chamber floor of the Royal Pavilon was decorated with a reproduction of the original wallpaper supplied by courtesy of Brunschwig & Fils. It is thought that Brunschwig & Fils gave this sample book to the Royal Pavilion in 1985.
The book shows heavy signs of use, suggesting that for many years it was used by the conservation team as a reference copy. The second part of the book comprises samples inspired by the collections of the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum of the Decorative Arts in America. These are equally fantastical.
Further on George IV’s horses: I have posted an aquatint of the Royal Stables (now Brighton Dome) from John Nash’s “ The Royal Pavilion at Brighton, published in 1826, before, but I have just seen one of the preparatory drawings for the watercolour and the print. It was drawn in the early 1820s by Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832).
You can clearly see how Pugin drew with the view of the images being engraved. His lines are clear and he focuses on the ornamental detail of the interior. The figures give the composition life.
"A NEW COLOUR SCHEME for the Royal Pavilion; painters at work applying the new pastel shades which will make the Royal Pavilion more alluring than ever.” (Brighton Herald, 9 November 1935)
For nearly 50 years the Royal Pavilion in Brighton was painted an historically inaccurate duck egg blue, as can be seen in many mid-20th century colour photographs and postcards. Some Brightonians claimed that it had been the leftover paint from nearby Hanningtons department store. The stonework was restored to its original cream appearance in the early 1980s, during some major structural restoration work. In picturesque fashion, the palace would have stood out like a bright jewel against the various shades and textures of green in the Regency gardens in the early 19th century.
We have a large collection of photographs and postcards of the Royal Pavilion in our archives. Here are some beautiful sepia-toned ones from the early 20th century, showing the principal rooms of the palace: Music Room, Saloon, Banqueting Room and the Long Gallery (Corridor). Many of them were commissioned and published by the Corporation of Brighton.
In the Saloon you can see the Chinese export wallpaper that was recently removed for conservation and will hopefully return to its original location on the upper floor of the Pavilion in due course.
On this day (21 January) in 1851 the town commissioners of Brighton held a Grand Ball on the occasion of the opening of the Royal Pavilion under municipal ownership. Queen Victoria had sold the palace and the estate some three months earlier.
Here is some ephemera relating to the ball, an image from the Illustrated London News showing the Saloon (referred to as the Music Room) and a painting of the ball by Aaron Penley (in our collection and on display in the Royal Pavilion).
And lastly, today’s archive find of the day: a poster for the Centenary Festival in 1950, celebrating 100 years of the Royal Pavilion in public ownership.
One particular focus of our work on the Pavilion Estate will be to find out more about the Royal Stables and George IV’s horses in Brighton. He loved race horses and there are many references to him going to inspect them regularly. He employed at least one professional jockey and had horses racing at the racecourses in Brighton and Lewes.
Here are a couple of detailed views of some horses included in an aquatint engraving of the interior of the circular stables complex in Brighton, now known as ‘The Dome’, built by William Porden between 1803 and 1808, as shown in ‘Nash’s Views’ from 1826. Note the fountain in the middle and the open archway leading to the western lawns of the Pavilion estate.
Blues in the Royal Pavilion: There is plenty of Prussian Blue, a “modern” pigment invented in Berlin in c1704 and Blue Verditer, a brilliant copper-based blue, also invented in the 18th century.
You can see two shades of Prussian Blue with silver stencilling on this fragment of original Banqueting Room (top image), while the image of the upper galleries from ‘Nash’s Views’ give a good impression of the impact of Blue Verditer. Underneath is a fragment of original blue wallpaper from that room, also from the archives.
But blues also framed the outside of the Pavilion: Account books tell us that the inside of many window frames of the Pavilion were painted in Prussian Blue, often with a bit of silver added. The bottom pictures shows the recently re-painted blue window frames in the Saloon.
More on blues in the Pavilion here: http://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2013/08/08/blue-in-the-royal-pavilion/
We had a lovely Christmas present here at the Royal Pavilion archives: Three photograph albums compiled by Clifford Musgrave, Director of the Royal Pavilion (1939-1968) were recently given to us by his son, Stephen Musgrave. They contain photographs dating from between 1940 to 1965, mostly documenting events and special visitors to the Pavilion.
Here we are inspecting them in the studio of our paper conservator Amy Junker Heslip, whose job it is to stabilise the albums before they can be treated, catalogued and photographed (the glue has not done them any favours!).
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The joy of working in archives: Whilst looking for something completely different I found this curious and rather garishly coloured proposal for a performance space in the Royal Pavilion grounds. It must be after 1921, as the India Gate appears to be in place. The proposal includes a kind of amphitheatre south of the the main Dome structure and various courses for pageants.
John Nash’s lavish book of coloured plates The Royal Pavilion at Brighton from 1826 (commonly known as ‘Nash’s Views’) was published again in a new edition in 1838, with text by Edward Brayley and titled Illustrations of Her Majesty’s Palace at Brighton (Her Majesty being the very young Queen Victoria). It is one of the earliest complete description of the building and estate. The image and paper quality is not as good as the 1826 edition but Brayley’s text is invaluable. We have six copies of it in the archives, in varying conditions. I am currently assessing them all.
Did you see Humphry Repton’s ‘Red Book’ of garden designs for Pentilie Castle on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow last night? Repton produced c.125 of these books, but only ONE was ever published: the one of the Pavillon at Brighton!
The original Pavilion Red Book is in the Royal Collection and dates from 1806. We have a couple of the printed copies in the Royal Pavilion archives, dating from 1808. The include the famous ‘before-and-after’ views, reproduced as top quality hand-coloured prints. It is one of the most beautiful (and most fragile!) books printed in Georgian Britain. A later cheaper edition was published in around 1822. Repton’s plans were never carried out. In 1815 John Nash was employed to redesign the entire Royal Pavilion Estate.
I will give a talk about Repton’s Pavilion Red Book and Nash’s Views at The Keep on 11 May 2016.
Today’s lovely archive find: A photograph of Herbert Tennent’s refreshment hut from the 1940s at the north side of the Royal Pavilion. ‘Mr T’s’ kiosk was originally located to the west of the Palace Pier groyne, but during the war Brighton beach was cleared and fortified for fear of an invasion by Hitler. From this developed the Pavilion Gardens Café, which is still at the western edge of the Pavilion estate.
More info on ‘Mr T’ here: http://www.paviliongardenscafe.co.uk/cafe/history/
Further to our very first post which included a close-up of the south-west corner of the Royal Pavilion estate in the 1820s. The ice-house, which is in the bottom right corner on John Nash’s ground plan, was briefly uncovered in the 1950s. Its oval layout and domed roof are clearly visible in the photograph.
As part of the Royal Pavilion Archives project we aim to digitise some rare books, other printed material and manuscripts. Here is how it is done: the large reprographic scanner at The Keep. The Keep is a centre for archives that houses all the collections of the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO), the Royal Pavilion & Museums Local History Collections and the University of Sussex Special Collections.
Came across this unusual copy of James Rouse’s ‘The Beauties and Antiquities of the County of Sussex’ from 1825 in the archives. The illustrations (four lithographs per sheet) are often cut up and bound into an octavo book, but this one is an uncut hand-coloured folio. Images: East front of Pavilion, St Nicholas Church looking east (with a hint of the stables/Dome in the distance) and the Norman font in St. Nicholas (still there!).