Thursday, April 4, 2013

Designers' Favorite Things

Juan Pablo Molyneux
Photo by John Lei.
"Selecting The One Object They Could Not Live Without" is the subtitle of the article in the September, 1996, issue of Architectural Digest.  Whether it was truly the most appreciated possession, or one that was chosen for image value, that will be left up to you, Devoted Reader.


The silver tape measure engraved JBK
bought at the April, 1996, auction by
NYC interior designer Juan Pablo Molyneux.
Photo:  People Magazine.
Juan Pablo Molyneux is pictured with a pair of Anglo-Afghan campaign chairs that he had owned for over a decade.  He restored the inlaid mother-of-pearl marquetry, disabled the collapsible feature to make them more stable, and covered the seats in zebra silk velvet, vowing never to sell them.  In the first image, he's holding the silver Tiffany's tape measure he famously bought in the April, 1996, Jacqueline Kennedy auction.  Engraved with her initials, he paid $48,250 for the souvenir.  "I like to think she was measuring the White House with it," said Molyneux.

Mario Buatta.
Photo by Feliciano.
Mario Buatta is shown with a few creamware plates.  "It's difficult to pick out one, because the whole set of botanical plates is my favorite," Buatta is quoted in the article.  At the time, he had about one hundred dishes made between 1790 and 1870 with decoration based on botanical drawings, collected over 30 years.  Fans of the decorator will recognize the same designs, painted on cushions, that often serve as accessories in his interiors.

Robert Denning.
Photo by Scott Frances.
Robert Denning, who died in 2005, relates that the first thing that he and his late partner Vincent Fourcade, who died in 1992, bought together was a 19th century Copeland Spode monkey.  "It cost fifteen dollars, but there was a decorator discount of two dollars," he said.  Denning added the bronze feet to the base.

Bruce Gregga.
Photo by Russell Ingram.
Bruce Gregga is pictured with a 19th century Rococo-style clock supported by an enamel elephant and topped with an enameled Chinese man sitting on a gilt, lacquer and enamel seat.  He had admired a similar clock in France 6 or 8 years before happening to find this clock in a New York store.  He says that the clock has moved around to several locations in his Chicago residence before occupying the perfect spot "on a console in the living room with a Botero painting hanging above it and delft vases set on either side, so it fits in with the kind of things that I like."

Clodagh.
Photo by Daniel Aubry.
Clodagh, the Irish-born designer who goes by her first name only, often incorporates Feng Shui and Chromotheraphy in her international projects.  She first saw the Buddha in 1971 in the apartment of photographer Daniel Aubry who would later become her husband.  An 18th century Kmer statue, Aubry's aunt had given it to him from her husband's collection of Asian antiques.  "I'm not covetous of things.  Everything in our house could go.  But this statue, not any other Buddha, is the spirit of our house," Clodagh said of the statue that had traveled to nine different residences with the couple up to that date.

William 'Bill' Hodgins.
Photo by Richard Mandelkorn.
William Hodgins found the 19th century cast-iron statue of Hercules in the early 1990s in the beloved London garden centre, Clifton Little Venice.  Placed on a fluted, marbleized truncated column pedestal in his Boston living room, Hodgins says, "He's kind of wonderful.  I'll always like this one."

Juan Montoya.
Photo by Feliciano.
Juan Montoya's grandfather bought the alabaster urn, thought to be 300 years old, in the 1870s in Florence, Italy, and had it shipped back home to Columbia.  It occupied a prominent spot in his parents' small chapel and Montoya had admired it since he was a child.  When he changed the décor of his apartment in the mid 1980s, he had it shipped to New York.  "It is the texture, the feeling, the element itself that makes me happy.  I would never be able to live without it," he says in the feature.  "But someday it may go back to Bogota, to my sister."

Devoted Reader, do you have a possession (a non-living thing, of course) you would be particularly sad to lose?

19 comments:

  1. I have a series of chromolithographs of vases and other pieces of china. My father acquired them in the 1970's and now I have them. They're stunning and in addition to having a history with my father, they have a Baltimore story.

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    1. Meg, the duality must indeed make them special. Thanks.

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  2. My gold signet ring, given to me by my parents on my 18th birthday.

    Regarding Clodah's Buddha, I would be surprised if this is Khmer. It looks much more like C19th Mandalay (Burmese). I have one of these shown here:

    http://corcol.blogspot.com/2010/03/coals-to-newcastle.html

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    1. Columnist, there were a couple of things that were "iffy", but I noted them as per the information given. I don't usually wear a ring, but a great signet ring might change my habits. Thank you for commenting.

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  3. I have an 18th c. portrait by the School of Largilliere which I believe is of one of the daughters of Louis XV. Over the years, she and I have established an entwined relationship. People have come into my shop and thought that I was present when, in fact, they had only seen the painting--so I do not think that she is going any where soon.

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    1. Mary, I have had life-size bust view portraits stop me in my tracks, thinking for a split second it was a person. It sounds like you have a treasure.

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  4. Gosh, I love these voyeur moments, thank you! I'll take the elephant clock please. And the campaign chairs if I'm allowed to have those too.

    At home I have a large plain opaque soft green glass art deco vase with gold bands on it. I guess it qualifies for this list because I've heard myself say to a succession of cleaners,
    "If you break that, I'll cry!"

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    1. Rosie, it can be a difficult balance, can it not, whether to use something and enjoy it or keep it put away? I go for the former, although several of my glass or porcelain pieces have been destroyed by others in the most unpredictable accidents. Thanks.

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  5. John,

    Love the over the top Molyneux purchase. He can probably sell it for twice that!

    Dean

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    1. Dean, I can't imagine all the silver tape measures Tiffany's sold after this. And how many must have said something like, "And I'd like it monogramed with the initials of Julie Belle Keller".

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  6. Thanks for these. This is the sort of thing I ask talented/experienced folks in stores or galleries. "Please show me what YOU like."

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    1. Terry, I like to hear what museum curators say as informal remarks about items in a collection.

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  7. Only Mr Hodges' statue would come home with me, I'm afraid – not that the other choices are not beautiful.

    The one object I would not like to live without is the Directoire clock we bought in Amsterdam as a souvenir of our time in the Netherlands. The one thing I would not like to see broken is the tulip vase given to us by employees when we left to come here.

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    1. Blue, I am mad for Directoire and Empire clocks. A thoughtful parting gift is always cherished, isn't it? I have some beautiful handmade drinking glasses from my first job after graduating architecture school that I still treasure.

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  8. I have a trumeau style mirror made from a large fragment of a Bugatti bed( I think)- goat skin,ebony,zebra wood and hammered copper medallions about 3 inches in diameter-It is probabably the last thing I would get rid of

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    1. Thomas, it sounds like quite the treasure. Thanks for commenting.

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  9. I may be tempting Fate to list a favorite among things one wouldn't care to part
    with--but I'll risk it and say the Thomas Hudson portrait of a woman swathed in
    ermine lined velvet cloak and white satin gown, which once belonged to Rose Cumming.
    It may not be Great Art, but it has tremendous decorative impact.

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    1. Toby, there might be an interesting story about that cloak, if we only knew. Devoted Readers can take a look at the portrait in a previous post by clinking on the Rose Cumming LABEL in the right-hand margin, or following this link:
      http://tdclassicist.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-travellers-chandelier-and-portrait.html?m=1
      Thanks for commenting.

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  10. I'm liking Juan's Florentine vase best - today, at least.

    Interesting question - do I have a thing I would be sad to lose?? Hmm -- tons, frankly, as a relatively impoverished but still devoted collector. But what comes FIRST? I think the last non-functional item I would get rid of would be a pair of swan-form girandoles, ca. 1825 (Cornelius & Co?) I got a Sotheby's at the Israel Sack sale in 2000. They have everything I love - neoclassical beauty and style to a high degree, value beyond their price (probably), and a bit of a story, though in THEIR case, the story is tied to the price - it makes me happy to know that no less an authority than "Israel Sack, Inc." paid WAY more for them when THEY bought them at auction, than I paid some 10 years later. But I also ended up with them almost by accident - I LOVED them at the preview, but their auction estimate was out of my range, so I wasn't thinking about them while sitting at the auction - but they suddenly came up for bid, I had already been outbid on EVERYTHING I actually had been prepared to bid on (so my pockets were feeling full), nobody else seemed to want them, and I got them for half the low estimate. HURRAH!

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