October 2015 – DD3006

Lady at Kew

So in our discussions about the female figure that we want to depict in our exhibition, I discovered a possible candidate in the form of Lady Elizabeth Yorke, also known as Lady Anson (1725–1760).

Portrait of Lady Elizabeth Yorke, Lady Anson (1725–1760), by studio of Thomas Hudson (1701–1779). Inv. no. NT1271067. ©National Trust Collections, supplied by the Public Catalogue Foundation

According to Philip Wilkinson, author of several architectural books like The English Buildings Book, and Stephen Dowell’s Shughborough: Seat of the Earl of Lichfield, Lady Elizabeth Yorke was purportedly responsible for establishing the Chinoiserie style at Shughborough, Staffordshire. She was married to Admiral Lord George Anson, “the most famous naval officer of his day” who became extremely wealthy after capturing the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga that was filled with American silver. Admiral Lord Anson had spent some time in Canton in 1743, though his opinion of the Chinese was coloured by a poor working relationship with them.

“They suggest the possibility that George’s wife, Elizabeth, was the family member most closely involved with the Chinese House. Chinoiserie, apparently, was an area of decorative design that found many female enthusiasts in the 18th century: perhaps Shugborough’s Chinese House is an example of this feminine influence.”(1)

Thus, using what we know of Lady Elizabeth’s background would add further historical accuracy to our project and communicate our idea that the Chinoiserie lifestyle was an imported idea that gained traction despite contact with those that had actually been to China and knew the Cathay was nothing but a European fantasy.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Object Label

I’ve had a really busy week, sorry for the lack of updates. Guess this is what happens when you get overwhelmed with paid work on top of 1 submission and a major midterm…

Anyway, time to talk about my object label. In my research on Chinoiserie gardens, I found out that there were very few that remained intact or in its original state. This was because Chinoiserie was a fad followed by the upper classes and as with any other fad, soon went out of style; gardens were remodelled to keep up with the times. What did remain were usually the garden’s architectural structures, like pavilions or Chinese-style bridges, or architectural plans of the structure or proposed garden.

Initially, our team wanted to show the European Chinoiserie lifestyle in general, but it was pointed out to us that it would be too broad and not a good representative of a particular lifestyle, since there would be various factors to account for like time period, the socio-political environment and the state of Chinese imports at the time.

Thus, I had to narrow down my potential objects from three to one when we decided to centralise our findings around the English 18th-century Chinoiserie lifestyle. The three possibilities were originally Woburn Abbey’s Hornbeam Maze (a 19th-century pagoda based on Sir William Chambers’ design), Versailles’ Trianon de Porcelaine (a 17th-century French pavilion made in the Chinoiserie style, surrounded by lush gardens) and the Kew Gardens’ Great Pagoda.

After refining our scope of exploration, the Kew Gardens’ pagoda was the only possible contender.

Sir William Chambers
A View of the Wilderness with the Alhambra, the Pagoda and the Mosque
Plate 43 of William Chambers’ s ‘Plans, Elevations, Sections and Perspective Views of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew ….’ 1763
Etching on paper
1763
315 x 473mm

Object label
This etching depicts the Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens, designed by Sir William Chambers (1722–96). It was featured in Chambers’ book ‘Plans, Elevations, Sections and Perspective Views of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew in Surrey (London)’ in 1763, following the completion of the gardens in 1762. The ten-storey octagonal pagoda was the tallest Chinese-style building in England at the time, towering over much of Kew Gardens at a height of 50m (164ft). It was also the most accurate of all Chinese-style buildings in Europe for its time, despite the minor error of it having an even number of storeys, where true Chinese pagodas had an odd number of storeys. The design of the pagoda was based on Chambers’ travels to Canton, and the pagoda’s vibrancy was the talk of the town; its roofs were covered with varnished iron plates and each corner had a gilt golden dragon made of wood perched on it. A total of 80 dragons were made for the roofs but by the 1780s, were removed due to rot. This short lifespan was characteristic of many of Chambers’ work at Kew Gardens such as the House of Confucius, Alhambra and Exotic Garden, which have all subsequently been demolished. It was therefore a surprise for the public that it remained standing and even served as a site for bomb-testing during the Second World War.

Week 8: Journal

What was your favorite object from today’s visit to the Asian Civilizations Museum?

My favourite object from the museum was the Nias’ adu zatua shown here –

(photo courtesy of the Asian Civilisation Museum)

The adu zatua is a small free-standing wooden statuette, with adu meaning “carving” and zatua meaning “elder”. They were anthropomorphic and traditionally created so that the spirits of one’s ancestors could live in these carvings. They often had to be placated with offerings, usually eggshells or pig offal (specifically the liver or heart), during major events like births, weddings or deaths. It was believed that the goddess Silewe Nazarata (moon goddess and personification of all living things) introduced this tradition of making wooden idols to mark certain important events and since ancestral worship was at the heart of Nias beliefs, this tradition carried on till the 1920s, when the Dutch missionaries outlawed the carving of idols. The Nias people believed that it was crucial to establish a good relationship with one’s deceased relatives so that one could live a good life and prevent the experience of misfortune.

What struck me about this object was my family’s history with such carvings. I come from a Catholic household where idolatry is considered blasphemous and ethnic superstition (i.e Chinese beliefs, like no sweeping the house during all 15 days of Chinese New Year or ) is observed purely to ‘be better safe than sorry’. So we never really believed in the power of magical objects.

One year, my parents went to Bali and brought back a small wooden carving that I believe was an adu zatua as it resembled a small person with a tall headdress. To them, it was only a souvenir, evidence that they had fallen into a tourist trap and come away wallets lighter. Not understanding the spiritual origin and implications of it, my mother placed it in our house and not too long later, strange things started happening in our home. My brother and mother both reported hearing someone calling their names in the house even though no one was around, there was a change in the atmosphere of our home, and the statuette often fell down from its place in our staircase display enclave on its own.

My parents eventually put two and two together and quickly got rid of the carving (I think they threw it away outside the house, so the spirits didn’t remain in our home). This experience reminded me that in our admiring of objects that are so rich in cultural history like the adu zatua, we tend to forget that these are objects of power. It might be superstitious to say so, but these items should be handled with respect and an understanding of their history, as well as of the cultural or religious practices surrounding it. The last thing one would want would be to incur the wrath some otherworldly being, skeptic or not.

Chinoiserie Gardens

At the height of the Chinoiserie craze, great varieties of exotic plants and seeds were being imported from China and Japan. According to Alexandra Loske, Art Historian and Curator –

“In the very early 1800s, when the Pavilion interiors received their first oriental make-over, newly-arrived Chinese plants were being successfully propagated at Kew. By 1813 the Royal Gardener at Kew, William Townsend Aiton, recorded a total of 120 species that had recently been introduced from China. In the same year Aiton planted the garden at Carlton House for the Prince Regent. Two years later the Brighton gardener John Furner met with the architect John Nash and Aiton in London to discuss the new planting of the Pavilion gardens, which included many of the newly imported and propagated Chinese plants”

“In his beautifully illustrated and researched book Set for a King (2005) Mike Jones describes the challenges of importing live plants and seeds… Many of them could be found in the Pavilion gardens in the early nineteenth century, for example the Hydrangea, now common in British gardens, but first brought to Kew only in 1789. Others are autumn-flowering chrysanthemums (1795), the tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa, 1787) and several types of camellia (mid to late 18th century), while the Chinese Lantern (Physalis alkekengi) had been known in Britain since the 16th century.”

Jones’ book also mentions that the Pavilion’s flora and fauna were included and identifiable in the Chinese wallpaper inside the palace, perhaps a deliberate decision so that guests could wonder at the floral wallpaper and visit the rooms that . It is easy to imagine Regency guests marvelling at the flowery wallpaper or walking through rooms that mimicked Chinese courtyards later trying to spot the same exotic flowers in the garden.