So I've been reading a lot of back issues of Old House magazines lately (Old House Interiors, Old House Journal) and it's wonderful how often one stumbles across photos of Morris wallpapers, references to early Arts & Crafts, etc. But this particular article both intrigued me and gave me pause. I'm not sure how to take it. First of all, there's the fact that the author came across a Morris-obsessed collector named "Topsy." Either the author is making an in-joke only a handful of people would get, or this guy nicknamed himself after his love of Morris and the author had no idea. Either way I kept scratching my head every time the author referenced the name, seemingly clueless that it was William Morris' own nickname.
Second, I was annoyed by the mocking tone I felt the article had toward all things Morris and early Aesthetic furniture.
Finally, I question whether the incident really happened or not. Because if there really is Strawberry Thief patterned bath tissue out there, or a tea set inspired by Burne-Jones art, I think one of us in the circle of the Pre-Raphaelite obsessed would have stumbled upon these treasures. (WANT!!)
I do have to admit though, I've never really been a fan of Sussex chairs either.
The Passion of the Morris
BY DAN COOPER
C h a p t e r X o f T h e B u t c h y C h r o n i c l e s
30 m a y | j
u n e 2 0 1 1 COURTESY COLLECTIONS, V&A
MUSEUM, ONLINE
IT ALL STARTED with
a Sussex
chair. I’ve never cared for them; they’re rickety, crude, and seem out
of place in the lush interiors of the late 19th century. I know William
Morris had them cranked out as some sort of quaint and rustic accent, a
campy little accoutrement that proclaimed,
“Oh, aren’t I a droll little chair?” But, frankly, I find them twee. I
pass on them at auction, and have, on occasion, fantasized about using
one as kindling, or hoisting it upon the funeral pyre of an enemy.
But
the day came when a friend who is a museum curator in upstate New York
needed a Sussex chair for an exhibit entitled “William Morris: Why
Should We Bother?” She
asked if I knew of one that might be borrowed for the duration of the
show. I owed her a favor; during a rough patch, she had purchased a
Herter Brothers table from me. The piece had certainly augmented the
museum’s collection,
but
I knew that it wasn’t an absolutely necessary acquisition; in cutting a
check she’d thrown me a lifeline. Thus I was honor-bound to get her a
Sussex chair, and my intuition told me just where I could find it, in the hands of an English Arts & Crafts collector named Topsy.
I had met him while exhibiting at an antiques show at the Castle. In my booth was a massive, ebonized Aesthetic
Movement sideboard, one of those distinctive beasts that looked as if
William Burges had had an off day and forgot to in-paint the background
of the door
panels. Topsy was fascinated by the piece, especially since most of my wares are typically
American and this one reeked of Britain. It would make an exquisite and dramatic focal point in any Pre-Raphaelite dining room.
Or so I told him.
(Topsy
didn’t purchase the piece, but it continued to haunt him. This often
happens with well-heeled but unimaginative collectors who develop tunnel
vision; anything
that doesn’t already appear in their mind’s eye is of little use. Later,
when the sideboard sold to a Venerable and Awesome Museum in London,
Topsy lauded its brilliance and told all who would listen that he merely
hadn’t room for it, flawless hindsight being
another trait of the Gutless Collector.)
The
fact that I possessed the sideboard and knew full well what it was
meant that I was Someone He Should Know, and so Topsy struck up an
acquaintance. He had given
me an open invitation to visit his home, allegedly “to see his stuff,”
and although I was unsure of his intentions, the opportunity to case and
possibly plunder an unseen collection intrigued me.
When
I rang up Topsy, he was delighted to hear from me. Ordinarily, I would
have dragged Butchy along, but I felt that this call should be handled
one-on one; I would
enlighten His Voyseyness with the details afterward.
Topsy lived in Back Bay between Exeter and Dartmouth, on the southern side of Commonwealth Avenue,
and
my visits of late to this stretch of the Emerald Necklace had made me
increasingly melancholic. Victorian Boston exhumes the bones of my
youth, a time when each footstep was a
revelation, and every turn filled with the promise of discovery. In late
May, the city is achingly gorgeous; every blossom appears as if placed by Olmsted, every portico seems blessed by the hand of Richardson.
The
sight of a Swan Boat in mid-paddle transports one into a Childe Hassam
painting. When Boston dwells in its past, its charms have no rival
outside of Europe; conversely,
when it attempts to be modern-day Manhattan, it may as well be Gary,
Indiana. It was here that I, as a newly matriculated undergrad, engaged
in the Pursuit of Beauty and so forsook all other deities.
I
walked up Topsy’s spalling sandstone steps, past a massive, leggy
rhododendron. (Its petals mocked me with their magenta incandescence:
“Are we not wondrous? Do
we
not belong in the dell at Kew? We bloomed before your birth, and will
bloom long after your ashes are surreptitiously scattered from the
Washington Tower in Mount Auburn cemetery.”) My heart sighed as visions
of past loves, human and architectural, drifted
through my mind. This reverie was fleeting, for I was yanked back to the
matter at hand, which would entail wresting the accursed tinker-toy of a
chair from the hands of Topsy.
I
have walked into many homes, from modest to magnificent, and at this
point I am indifferent to wealth. I have seen tens of millions spent
foolishly and found priceless
objects in trailers. Rare are true surprises, but here, on Commonwealth
Avenue, I realized that I had stumbled into obsession. Upon my return to
Bilgewater, I recounted the details to Butchy: “First off, Topsy’s door
has a plaque that reads ‘Stop Here, Or Gently
Pass’…”
“Don’t Fear The Reaper,” Butchy snickered.
“Indeed. As I pressed the bell for Topsy’s flat, I could hear the howling of a wounded animal, which
ceased
with the fading echoes of the door-chimes. But it was actually Topsy
bellowing Icelandic verse, which he had been practicing for my benefit.
He bid me in and
immediately had me perch on
a hard, high-backed settle, where I sat patiently listening to him run
through his set-list. He wanted my honest criticism; I wanted to say
that it sounded like
a domestic dispute involving Bjork.”
“How bad could it have been? It was just a few poems.”
“Imagine
being trapped at a June Bar-Mitzvah in Reykjavik during some sort of
unending Sabbath, waiting, waiting, waiting for the sun to set …”
“A small penance for your dark
soul, but how was his place? Any goodies? Did you try to pounce him?”
“A
couple of nice case pieces, acres of crockery and an infestation of
Sussex chairs; they were lurking everywhere, like cockroaches. He’s got
each variation, hoping perhaps
to fill an amphitheatre. The apartment itself could’ve been Morris’s
crypt; for a moment, I thought it was the Sanderson showroom, but no,
this was Topsy’s home.
The wainscoting had been painted Peacock Blue and
the walls were papered with ‘Lily’ and the drapes were ‘Compton’. On
the floor was a ‘Pimpernel’ ingrain carpet; little pillows were covered
in ‘Cherwell’ and ‘Chrysanthemum’, and tea-towels made up of ‘Willow Bough’. “He has arbitrarily piled layer upon layer of pattern, grabbing anything Morris without consideration of color or scale . . . and then he wanted to discuss
all
of them! He knew the date, the designer, and the number of colorways
for each pattern—every fact, every anecdote, and yet there was no
artistry in his display! It was a collection,
like baseball cards or vintage lawnmowers.”
Butchy
peered over the top of his pince-nez and smirked. “Too much pattern?
Too much color?! I can’t imagine you uttering those words, any more than
I expect to hear
you say, ‘oh that desk is worth far more, let me give you another two
hundred dollars’.”
“Duly
noted. I was terrified at this point that he was going to discuss the
minutiae of Morris’s life, so I feigned having to go to the loo. Would
you believe the high-tank
toilet was stenciled to look like one of the panels of the Green Dining
Room? And I have no idea where he got it, but there was actually
‘Strawberry Thief’ bath tissue.
“When
I returned, Topsy had produced a ceramic tea service fashioned after a
series of Burne–Jones nymphs. I hastily asked about borrowing the Sussex
chair as we sipped
the Lapsang. He was flattered and offered up several.”
“You poor dear,” Butchy mock-gasped; “—did you actually bring home a Sussex chair?”
“Yep.
I wrapped it in a rug and got it to the museum. I will confess that the
night before, I did drag it into the house for safekeeping. And I tried
it in various spots. But
its mere presence offended each of my furnishings, so I had to put it in
the cellar.”
