Category: Rupert Toovey’s Articles

Tolerance and Fairness at the Heart of a Nation

An engraving of Queen Elizabeth I by Crispijn van de Passe I, published in 1592

There has been much debate around national identity in relation to the forthcoming vote this week on whether Scotland will remain part of the United Kingdom. The undisputed qualities of the Scottish people and their contribution to our nation’s history have rightly been celebrated. Nations, like families and communities, are bound together by the telling of these shared stories – a common narrative of joy and sorrow.

These debates have caused me to consider what the English bring to our nation. For me, one of our major contributions is the way in which the story of our island’s life, history and Christian faith is articulated and marked by the Church of England in each generation. It is from the Church that the qualities of tolerance and fairness come, qualities which shape our national character.

Richard Hooker’s ‘Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie’, printed in 1666

I am proud that tolerance and fairness are still to be found at the heart of our nation. These qualities were seeded, though not perfected, during the reign of Elizabeth I (1533-1603). There had been much conflict and bloodshed after Henry VIII’s break with Rome, as Roman Catholics and Protestants each sought to establish their authority and particular understandings of the Christian faith in England. Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558. Her first aim was to return England to the Protestant faith. What she and her advisors created was a church which was, and remains, both Catholic and Reformed.

The Act of Supremacy of 1558 established Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. In the same year the Act of Uniformity was passed by a narrow majority in Parliament. It required the population to attend an Anglican church each Sunday. In addition, it specified that a new version of the Book of Common Prayer be used.

The Holy Bible published in London in 1619. The binding is embroidered satin

After Parliament had been dismissed, a series of Royal Injunctions were courageously passed by Elizabeth I in 1559. The result of this was that the wording of the liturgy for Holy Communion remained open to a variety of interpretations. This allowed Christians holding differing understandings of the nature of the consecrated bread and wine to receive this sacrament with integrity in the privacy of their own hearts. Elizabeth famously declared that she did not wish to ‘make windows into men’s souls’ on the basis that ‘there is only one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute over trifles’. The Royal Injunctions ensured much continuity with the practices of the Roman Catholic past. These included requirements that ministers wear vestments and use wafers in the place of baker’s bread.

A photograph of Queen Elizabeth II by Sir Cecil Beaton

It was the famous Anglican theologian Richard Hooker (1554-1600), in ‘Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie’, who emphasised the importance of reason, tolerance and the value of tradition, which are at the heart of the English nation and her Church.

What this means in practice is that our common narrative, our tradition, allows us to be confident of who we are. Reason allows for open-minded and open-hearted questioning and for difference of opinion. Together the two afford us tolerance and we can celebrate diversity and difference in a spirit of love and understanding, rather than fear and ignorance.

These qualities have blessed our nation and our Church. It is my prayer that we will allow these qualities to be central to our continued, shared national story. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II still holds the title ‘Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England’, fitting as we live in a nation which aspires to tolerance and fairness in this second great Elizabethan age.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 17th September 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Following in the Footsteps of Picasso to Provence

A collection of Picasso Madoura editions ceramics, from left to right: ‘Bunch with Apple’, ‘Bull and Picador’ and ‘Two Dancers’

I’m just back from my holidays in the south of France following in the footsteps of Pablo Picasso, who in the summer of 1946, while staying with his friend, the engraver Louis Fort, decided to visit the annual potters’ exhibition in the provincial village of Vallauris in Provence. There he met Suzanne and Georges Ramié, the founders of the Madoura workshop, who were keen to persuade him to come to Vallauris.

Rupert Toovey admires the Pablo Picasso bronze ‘L’Homme au Mouton’ in the square outside the Musée National Picasso, Vallauris
A Pablo Picasso white earthenware 'Face in an Oval' dish

Picasso returned in July 1947, bringing his extraordinary imagination and creative energy to ceramics. He was first attracted by the large, almost rectangular dishes in the workshop. Here Picasso took the everyday and transformed it into high art, painting and incising with a richness of expression which still causes my heart to race. Favourite themes included figures, bullfights, still lifes and faces, as depicted on the plates, jug and dish illustrated here. In each you see the free, graphic rhythm which typifies Picasso’s ceramics. These pieces are Picasso Madoura editions. They were made in two ways; the first involved making an authentic replica of an original work by exactly repeating the size and decoration. The second method transferred an original subject, by means of an engraved, hardened plaster mould, to a fresh ceramic sheet, which would be applied in order to take a clay impression. These editions are authenticated by a stamp to the base. Their close connection with Picasso’s hand, like a handmade print, attracts the attention of an international group of collectors. Prices are strong. The dish ‘Face in an Oval’ was produced around 1955, number 74 in an edition of 100. It sold at Toovey’s for £3,400. The plate ‘Two Dancers’, from an edition of 450, and the jug ‘Bull and Picador’, one of 500 copies, were both made in 1956 and would realize around £8,000 and £3,500 respectively at auction today. Picasso’s relationship with Madoura and the Ramiés grew and between 1948 and 1955 Picasso lived at Vallauris before moving to Cannes.

A Pablo Picasso white earthenware 'Vallauris' dish

Picasso resurrected the ancient tradition of the all-round artist, exploring painting, sculpture, graphic art, engraving and ceramics. He revived the tradition of the Renaissance artist, many of whom worked in a variety of these disciplines and sometimes even as architects. Picasso delighted in the craft of the ceramicist and quickly began to talk with the Ramiés using the technical language of the potter. The Ramiés, for their part, indulged the often extremely unorthodox practices of the artist, including his forms, his glazes and his methods of firing. Take, as an example, the plate ‘Bunch with Apple’, made in 1956 in an edition of 400; it was decorated with oxidized paraffin. A plate like this would realise around £3,000 at auction today.

The white earthenware ‘Vallauris’ round dish, dated 1956, has an impressed mark and is numbered 42/100. With its marvellous abstract faces, it sold in a Toovey’s specialist sale for £7,400, despite being broken and repaired.

You approach the Musée National Picasso at Vallauris through a square filled with shops and restaurants. Amid the life of the village stands the Picasso bronze ‘L’Homme au Mouton’, given by the artist in 1949. Inside the museum there is a jewel-like array of original ceramics made by Picasso, guarded fiercely by the museum staff. The pieces have a life to them which speaks to my heart with a sense of joy. I have a real feeling of the effect that the light and warmth of Provence had on Picasso after the war years in Paris.

The vitality of Pablo Picasso’s oeuvre has the power to move collectors across continents.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 10th September 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Barbara Rae and the R.A. Printmakers at Pallant House Gallery

Barbara Rae, Harbour Night, 2005, etching and collagraph, © The Artist

I have a particular passion for prints. The diversity of techniques available to the contemporary printmaker makes this a particularly creative area for artists. Scottish artist and Royal Academician Barbara Rae accurately describes herself as both a printmaker and a painter. The use of collage and layering entwines both strands of her work. She offers the viewer what some have described as an abstracted interpretation of the world.

Barbara Rae, Hacienda, 2003, screen print, © The Artist

Barbara Rae voices real concern about how we locate ourselves in relation to the world around us. This concern is important and countercultural to the way in which technology, like satellite navigation, can disconnect us from our landscape and sense of place in the world. Her work holds in tension what we perceive and what is beyond, the colours creating a spatial ambiguity. Rae remains an experimental painter and printmaker, seeking new ways to communicate her vision of the world. Patterns in the landscape are revealed in the patterns in her prints. Take, for example, the lines drawing together the composition in ‘Harbour Night’, as though woven in the scenery. Together with the rich, layered colours they create rhythm and life in the image. ‘Barbara Rae: Prints’ is a jewel-like exhibition, which allows us to understand the artist’s mastery of printing techniques as diverse as etching, collotype and screen printing. It runs at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 26th October 2014.

Eileen Cooper, Skipper, 2009, woodcut, © The Artist

Also on show at Pallant House, until 19th October, is a selection of twelve newly acquired prints, which feature in another exhibition, titled ‘Royal Academician Printmakers: New acquisitions through the Golder-Thompson Gift’. It spotlights the generosity and vision of Mark Golder and Brian Thompson, who have given some one hundred and sixty works by contemporary R.A. printmakers to the Pallant House Gallery Collection. The works in this exhibition encompass a variety of different printmaking techniques, including wood engraving, aquatint, silkscreen and several types of intaglio printing, which include etching, engraving, polymer and gravure. Among my favourites is Eileen Cooper’s ‘Skipper’. This woodcut print has a compelling folk narrative, told through her lovely use of line. It is at once playful and contemporary.

These two exhibitions beautifully explore and demonstrate printmaking as an art form in its own right. But these two shows, like printmaking itself, are also highly democratic, as these images are to be shared and celebrated by many.

For more information on these exhibitions go to www.pallant.org.uk or telephone 01243 774557.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 3rd September 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Mainland Chinese Buyers Beat a Path to Toovey’s

A group of five Chinese famille rose porcelain rectangular plaques, Republic period (1912-1949), sold at auction by Toovey’s for £16,000
A view of the entrance to The Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square, taken by Rupert Toovey on a business trip to Beijing

We are familiar with stories of revolution in China. When you go there, the influences of the communist takeover of mainland China in 1949 and Mao’s Cultural Revolution from 1966 onwards are apparent everywhere. Tiananmen Square in Beijing is dominated by marching Chinese People’s Liberation Army guards and enormous television screens project images of modern China beneath fluttering red flags. A queue, ten people wide, stretches patiently as far as the eye can see, processing into Mao’s mausoleum, where his embalmed body lies in state. On the other side of this square is the entrance to the Forbidden City. You enter past an army guard through a narrow arch beneath an enormous portrait of Mao and, as you do, you witness families and people venerating him, bowing and reaching out to touch one of the large bronze studs on the ancient red door, which are polished by the stream of hands. It is apparent that Mao is perceived by many to be the father of the nation and is now a cultural icon in his own right. It is as though these people are on a pilgrimage to visit the relics of a saint. There are the qualities of both the ancient and the modern in these scenes. Once inside the Forbidden City, the atmosphere is more playful with Chinese families enjoying a day out.

A Chinese porcelain circular plate, Republic period (1912-1949), sold at auction by Toovey’s for £8,500

The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising in October 1911. By January 1912, the Republic of China had been established. It brought to an end two thousand years of imperial rule. Emperor Puyi was allowed to continue to reside in the Forbidden City, his story made famous by Bernardo Bertolucci’s film ‘The Last Emperor’. Through much of the 19th century, Imperial China fought numerous rebellions and invasions. The relative stability which the Republic period brought in the 20th century signalled a revival in porcelain manufacture in Jingdezhen in the Jiangxi province.

A Chinese porcelain rectangular plaque, Republic period (1912-1949), sold at auction by Toovey’s for £4,000

The items of Chinese porcelain shown here date from the Republic period (1912-1949) and were sold in Toovey’s specialist Asian Art auction in August. They were the property of a local collector, who had spent several years in the Far East. His interests reflected the tastes of the Western connoisseurs from Britain and America who purchased this porcelain in the early 20th century. The delicacy of the enamelling on the group of five porcelain plaques, each measuring 19 x 12.5cm, is exquisite and the composition of birds and flowers is highly refined. Despite the fact that two of them were restored, they sold at auction for £16,000 to a collector in Shenzhen, China. Just as fine is the single plaque, measuring 37.5 x 24cm. The two birds in flight are beautifully depicted, framed by the restrained floral branches. This piece was sold to a Chinese collector from Nanchang for £4,000. The delicately painted Republic period plate, diameter 23.5cm, decorated with a scene of a man and maiden in a boat beneath a willow tree, also found favour with Chinese bidders and went under the hammer to the same collector in Nanchang for £8,500. All pieces bear the black enamelled calligraphic script which is so often found on objects from this period. Although many such pieces imitate Imperial designs, these later examples are sometimes signed or give clues to the artists or private workshops which proliferated at this time in Jingdezhen.

Tom Rowsell, head of Asian and Islamic Ceramics and Works of Art at Toovey’s, commented: “We have specialised in Chinese porcelain and fine art for almost twenty years at Toovey’s. We have a long-standing Chinese client base but we are continuing to build relationships successfully with new, emerging mainland Chinese collectors through our business activities out there, working with China’s leading collectors’ internet platform, EpaiLive.”

Today, it is the Chinese collector who is driving the demand for Republic period porcelain, rather than the Western buyers who originally patronised this beautiful work. Tom Rowsell is always pleased to offer advice, whether you are interested in selling or acquiring Chinese objects in this boom market. He is now taking in entries for his next specialist sale on Thursday 9th October 2014 and can be contacted on 01903 891955.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 27th August 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Teddy Bears’ Picnic at Borde Hill Garden

Rose Garden at Borde Hill

This coming Bank Holiday Monday, 25th August, sees a Teddy Bears’ Picnic supporting the work of Chestnut Tree House at Borde Hill Garden, near Haywards Heath in West Sussex.

Our possessions are so often markers in the procession of our lives, reminding us of particular moments and memories. They allow us to share our personal stories with others. It is as if they are in some way bound up in the patchwork quilt of our lives.

Binky and Jane
Binky and Jane

The photograph of Binky and Jane depicts a plush fur teddy bear and bunny. They are a little play-worn, their fur rather thin after a lifetime of love and attention, and yet they are beyond price. Andrewjohn Stephenson Clarke, the current custodian of Borde Hill House and Garden, tells their story: “Binky and Jane belonged to my late mother, Nidia, and accompanied her when she and her family fled the island of Jersey as the Germans prepared to invade the Channel Islands. They could bring only a few precious possessions with them and my mother chose these two favourites.” The Channel Islands remained under occupation until 9th May 1945. Andrewjohn continues, “My mother always held Binky and Jane in great affection.” It is remarkable that these two threadbare but much-loved characters should represent a little girl’s particular place in the turbulent procession of history in the 20th century.

Summer borders at Borde Hill Garden

The garden at Borde Hill reflects the passion of Colonel Stephenson R. Clarke, who purchased the house and grounds in 1892. After restoring and extending the house, he set about creating the garden, funded by his family’s successful shipping firm. Established in 1730, Stephenson Clarke Shipping was, until its demise in 2012, the oldest British family shipping company. I ask Andrewjohn if it could have been one of his family’s ships that had brought Nidia and her family back to England. He replies, “It could well have been; our collier ships did go to Jersey.”

The Chestnut Tree House hospice also seeks to create special memories with its swimming pool, outdoor adventure trails, games and interactive rooms. Those with life-limiting conditions and their families are blessed by being gathered together into this special place with its dedicated and talented team. Chestnut Tree House’s work is deserving of our support.

A teddy bear waiting with his young owner for the picnic to begin at Borde Hill!
A teddy bear waiting with his young owner for the picnic to begin at Borde Hill!

At its heart, Borde Hill House, an Elizabethan mansion dating from 1590, provides a superb backdrop to the formal seventeen-acre garden, which flows into a series of distinctive ‘garden rooms’, each with its own individual character and style. It is the perfect setting for a Teddy Bears’ Picnic and a great place in which to make fond family memories with games and activities throughout the day.

Binky, Jane and Nidia witnessed extraordinary events in history. Chestnut Tree House bears witness to extraordinary events in the everyday, through its very special work with children and their families – memories which, for them, are beyond price.

Our thanks should go to Andrewjohn and Eleni Stephenson Clarke for preserving and sharing this wonderful garden and for supporting such an important local charity.

The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, supporting Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice, will be at Borde Hill Garden, Borde Hill Lane, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 1XP, on Bank Holiday Monday 25th August 2014, 11am to 4pm. Go and enjoy the fun and the spectacular garden!

For more information on opening times and forthcoming events, go to www.bordehill.co.uk or telephone 01444 450326. To find out more about Chestnut Tree House, its work and how you can offer support, go to www.chestnut-tree-house.org.uk.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 20th August 2014 in the West Sussex Gazette.