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Japanese Treasures at Horsham Museum & Art Gallery

Image Copyright Victoria and Albert Museum, London — FE.40-2011 Vase. Vase, Nagoya, mark of Hayashi Kodenji, c.1880-90. Cloisonné enamel. V&A: FE.40:1-2011. Gift of Edwin Davies. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Thanks to the generosity of Mr Edwin Davies CBE, who gave his outstanding collection of Japanese Cloisonné enamels to the V&A, Horsham Museum & Art Gallery are going to display some of the finest, most jewel-like objects ever made. It was Davies’ vision that a selection of items should tour the country and with the help of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, it is being made a reality. Horsham District Council’s Horsham Museum & Art Gallery is one of just ten venues nationwide that will be able to display these masterpieces of Japanese art and craft. The exhibition Japanese Treasures: Cloisonné enamels from the V&A opens on 15 June and runs until 22 September.

The exhibition highlights the ability of a country in turmoil to create artistic masterpieces through the 61 objects on display at the museum. For the golden age of the craft was the era portrayed in the 2003 film The Last Samurai, when Japan’s old feudal society rapidly transformed itself. The craftsmen who made the celebrated Samurai armour and weapons were metaphorically not beating swords into ploughshares, but into exquisite enamels. Some of their patrons, the Samurai class, became acknowledged masters of this new craft, reflecting the degree that the society was changing.

Over a century ago, as this revelatory exhibition shows, the Japanese were perfecting enamelling, the art of wire in-fills, of creating deeper colours, of polishing to a higher gloss the finished surface and then making objects that appealed to the west. Enamel vases are decorated with Japanese images known to appeal to the western aesthetic: peonies, chrysanthemums, swallows, carp, dragons and butterflies are featured against a range of deep colours. Each item is like a treasure and so unsurprisingly whilst in the west we link the name to a manufacturing process, the cloisonné, in Japan, is linked to the ‘Seven Treasures’ mentioned in Buddhists texts.

Horsham, an ancient market town noted for its stone roofs in the heart of Sussex, may seem a strange venue to host such an exhibition. Yet at the very same time the Japanese were creating these highly sophisticated superbly designed masterpieces residents of the town were visiting the remote lands. Robert Henderson and his wife Emma, who lived at Sedgwick Park, toured Japan, as the old order was being subsumed in a dash to modernise. They brought back photographs of the people and places to remind them, some of these will be on display. The exhibition itself would not have been possible without the good will and support of the local community including the auction house Toovey’s.

Edwin Davies CBE, OBE is one of the V&A’s most generous benefactors and has been a trustee of the Museum since 2007. Until 2006, he was Chairman of Strix, a leading manufacturer of electronic heating controls for kettles and other water-heating appliances. The company won many prestigious export and innovation awards and Davies was awarded an OBE in 2000 for services to industry and a CBE in 2012. A prominent philanthropist, he has supported a wide range of institutions.

The Victoria and Albert Museum, is the world’s greatest museum of art and design. It has been collecting Japanese Cloisonné enamels since 1867.

Hans Feibusch ~ Church, Art & Patronage

‘Christ in Majesty’, 1954, St Mary’s, Goring-by-Sea

Hans Feibusch represents a figurative tradition in 20th century art, which has sometimes been overlooked in favour of abstraction and other modern artistic expressions. He also has an important place in the history of a revival in church patronage of art in the Modern British Period.

Hans Feibusch arrived in England in 1933 from Nazi Germany to escape persecution as a Jew. He had become an established painter in Germany, being awarded the German Grand State Prize for Painters in 1930 by the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. His talent was soon recognized in England and he exhibited regularly, often with the London Group, to which he was elected in 1934. The London Group included many of Britain’s leading artists.

His first public commission came in 1937 when Edward D. Mills invited Feibusch to paint a mural, ‘Christ washing the Disciples’ Feet before the Last Supper’, for the new Methodist Hall in Colliers Wood, London. The painting attracted a great deal of interest from the national press and brought the artist to the attention of Kenneth Clark, later Lord Clark. Clark was very influential and was director of the National Gallery in London during the war. His television series and book ‘Civilisation’ would subsequently capture the imagination of a generation.

Bishop George Bell of Chichester wrote to Kenneth Clark at the National Gallery in 1939 asking for suggestions as to artists who might be prepared to accept commissions. Clark introduced Feibusch to Bell and the two men met for lunch in Brighton on New Year’s Day 1940. It marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship, during which Bell would be Feibusch’s leading patron. Both men were unprepared to turn their backs on evil. Feibusch personified Bell’s deep and active concern for the plight of the Jews in Germany and its refugees.

In 1929 Bell became Bishop of Chichester, bringing with him the patterns of worship and the arts from Canterbury Cathedral, where he had been dean. He wished to see churches filled once more with colour and beauty. Eternal truths could be proclaimed anew in music, modern art and poetry. More people would be drawn into the Christian community by the revival of this old alliance and renewed vitality. Among visitors to the Bishop’s Palace in Chichester were Gustav Holst, Vaughan Williams, Henry Moore, Hans Feibusch, T.S. Eliot, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

Bell and Feibusch’s very particular friendship blessed Sussex with a number of murals by this artist, which can be seen at St Wilfred’s, Brighton, Chichester Cathedral, The Bishop’s Chapel, Chichester, and St Mary’s, Goring-by-Sea.

Sketch for ‘Christ in Glory’ at St Sidwell’s, Exeter, circa 1957 — Pencil sketch for ‘Christ in Glory’ at St Sidwell’s, Exeter, circa 1957

Painting onto the walls of churches and cathedrals requires painstaking preparation and the pencil cartoon by Feibusch shown here gives us a valuable insight into his work. It is a sketch for the mural ‘Christ in Glory’, painted in 1957 at St Sidwell’s, Exeter. Most striking to me are the prompts from Feibusch’s earlier works in Sussex. ‘Christ in Majesty’, also shown, was painted in 1954 at St Mary’s, Goring-by-Sea. Like in the sketch for St Sidwell’s, it displays Feibusch’s knowledge of Renaissance artists, whose influence is displayed in this mural. The Mediterranean lilac-blue, ochre and terracotta hues serve to emphasize Christ’s own pose, his arms open in a gesture of welcome and embrace. The figures are convincing, almost sculptural, with a quality of mass and light. Feibusch’s painting gifts them with a grace and nobility through their poses, which to some can seem to deprive them of life and passion. At first glance there is little that is unexpected but, as we look more closely at the angels, we note that the expressions on some of their faces are less angelic and more mischievous, acknowledging his depth of insight into the human condition, which can reflect good and evil. In the St Sidwell’s sketch, men and women look up to Christ with gestures of praise and thanksgiving, reminiscent of the figures painted in the Ascension scene painted by Feibusch in the Bishop’s private chapel in Chichester.

While the attention of the art world moved on to focus on the abstraction of Ben Nicholson and the new depiction of naturalistic forms by artists like Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, Hans Feibusch continued to paint and draw in his own particular figurative style, influenced by the Renaissance. His style of painting has been the subject of renewed interest in recent years, with retrospective exhibitions held at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, in 1995 and more recently at the Bishop Otter Gallery, University of Chichester, in 2012.

The murals deserve to be celebrated. They represent the work of a gifted artist whose life is inexorably bound up with the extraordinary history and events of his time. For me, though, it is Feibusch’s sketches and drawings that reveal his true talent.

Hans Feibusch’s work rarely comes to the market and so it is with some excitement that I am looking forward to Toovey’s specialist fine art sale on Wednesday 12th June, in which the St Sidwell’s ‘Christ in Glory’ sketch and a number of other studies and prints by the artist will be auctioned.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 5th June 2013 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Rupert Toovey launches www.oxfordconferences.org

In 2012, Rupert Toovey and Jeremy Lamond founded Oxford Conferences Limited. It was established to deliver excellence through education and dialogue and is the only independent provider of continuing professional development for professionals working in the art and antiques industry. The inaugural conference was held in September 2012 and offered delegates a series of lectures at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. This year a conference exclusive to the art and antique professional will be held on 13th and 14th September. Further events for private individuals are in development.

Oxford Conferences has recently launched its new website, visit www.oxfordconferences.org for more information.

Chelsea Porcelain

A collection of Chelsea Red Anchor Period porcelain, circa 1755, sold at Toovey's

Chelsea is unique amongst English porcelain manufacturers of the 18th century in that its entire production was devoted to the luxury market and intended to delight the ‘Gentry’ and ‘Nobility’ of these Isles. Porcelain made at Chelsea, especially during the Red Anchor Period (1753-1757), is regarded by many as the finest porcelain made in England in the 18th century. Today Chelsea porcelain is still revered by connoisseurs, just as it was when it was first made.

18th century Continental porcelain manufacturers like Meissen and Sévres often benefited from the financial security afforded by royal and aristocratic patronage. In contrast the English factories were private enterprises predominately manufacturing soft-paste porcelains rather than the hard-paste porcelains from China and the Continent. The survival of these English factories was entirely dependent on their commercial success in what was a highly competitive market. Factories like Bow, Liverpool and Lowestoft produced wares whose decorative styles were influenced by earlier earthenware pieces. The confident, forthright quality of their output broadly reflected the tastes of a wide cross-section of English society. Porcelain from factories like Chelsea, Derby and Worcester were finely made, their tastes influenced by Meissen and Sévres.

Nicholas Sprimont was not only a proprietor of the factory but is generally accepted as being the guiding artistic force at Chelsea. He was born in Liege in 1716. I have always felt that the fashionable styles employed at Chelsea, its concentration on the luxury market, and the quality of modelling, all owe something to Sprimont’s background as a Huguenot silversmith.

By opening the porcelain works in Chelsea close to the fashionable Ranelagh pleasure gardens Sprimont made the company accessible to the ‘Nobility’ and ‘Gentry’ for whom his porcelain output was expressly created. Although Nicholas Sprimont did not benefit from a patron to subsidize his commercial activities he did have influential contacts and amongst these was Sir Everard Fawkener. Fawkener provided financial backing to the Chelsea porcelain factory and was secretary to George II’s second son, Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765). The Duke was a celebrated figure in 18th century England for his victory at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 which crushed the Jacobite rebellion. There is a popular, but inconclusive, theory amongst art historians that it was actually the Duke who invested in Chelsea through his secretary Fawkener. Whether this is true or not society letters of the time confirm that Prince William expressed a great interest in the factory and Chelsea made a bust of him around 1746.

Porcelain made during the Red Anchor Period at Chelsea (1753-1757) is regarded by many as the finest porcelain made in England in the 18th century. The Red Anchor Period derives its name from the anchor mark which was painted on the base of objects in underglaze red during this period. During this period the glaze became more translucent, though prone to crazing, and a new formula for the porcelain body allowed for thinner potting making wares lighter in weight. A shift in the emphasis of design reflected the continuing influence of Meissen’s output. The celebrated fruit and vegetable forms of this period reflect a move towards the naturalistic.

Illustrated here are several Chelsea Red Anchor naturalistic tureens and a pair of plates which are increasingly rare and sort after in today’s market. These examples came from the estate of a collector who lived to the north of Chichester where I discovered them on a cold winter’s day late last year. They all date from the mid-1750s. Their marks were discretely placed on the bases which is typical of Chelsea at this date. The underglaze red mark has a rounded crown beneath which is the anchor’s shank and arms which terminate in sharp, barbed flukes. The cauliflower and pair of lettuce tureens are so beautifully modelled and enamelled that they seem almost edible; the curled lettuce leaf handles on the latter are a particularly charming detail. Despite damage and repairs these two lots, just 11cm and 13cm high, realised £2600 and £2700 respectively in a specialist auction.

The pair of Chelsea porcelain circular dishes with stalk handles followed the mid-18th century naturalistic taste; white glazed and relief moulded with scolopendrium leaves picked out in green and puce, they were in exceptional condition which was reflected in the £5300 paid for them.

My favourite piece from this collection was the asparagus tureen and cover naturalistically modelled as a bundle of tied asparagus spears. It reminded me of happy days in Jersey where my wife’s Grandpop had a large asparagus bed in his beautifully kept walled vegetable garden. His house and garden nestled in a former quarry and from the wooded bank you could see Gorey Castle and the ocean beyond. The tureen deservedly made £2700.

This fine, horticultural inspired, collection delighted connoisseurs of English porcelain and provided quite a crop of fine prices! But the true value of even the most exceptional objects is often that they provide prompts to fond memories in our busy lives.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 29th May 2013 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Hans Feibusch Drawings and Prints For Sale at Toovey’s

Design for Christ in Glory in St Sidwells, Exeter — Lot 8: Design for Christ in Glory

A group of twenty works by the 20th century artist Hans Feibusch is to be offered for auction in Toovey’s specialist fine art sale on Wednesday 12th June. Feibusch had strong links with Sussex and worked in a particular figurative style, influenced by the painters of the Renaissance.

Hans Feibusch arrived in England in 1933 from Nazi Germany to escape persecution as a Jew. He had become an established painter in Germany and was awarded the German Grand State Prize for Painters in 1930 by the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. His talent was soon recognized in England and he exhibited regularly, often with the London Group, to which he was elected in 1934. The London Group included many of Britain’s leading artists.

In 1929 Bell became Bishop of Chichester, bringing with him patterns of worship and the arts from Canterbury Cathedral, where he had been dean. He wished to see churches once more filled with colour and beauty. Eternal truths could be proclaimed anew in music, modern art and poetry. More people would be drawn into the Christian community by the revival of this old alliance and renewed vitality. Among visitors to the Bishop’s Palace in Chichester were Gustav Holst, Vaughan Williams, Henry Moore, T.S. Eliot, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and, of course, Hans Feibusch.

Rupert Toovey comments, “The friendship between Bell and Feibusch blessed Sussex with a number of murals by this artist. These can be seen at St Wilfred’s, Brighton; Chichester Cathedral; The Bishop’s Chapel, Chichester, and St Mary’s, Goring-by-Sea. Painting onto the walls of churches and cathedrals requires painstaking preparation and these pencil cartoons by Feibusch give us a valuable insight into his work. The sketch for the mural ‘Christ in Glory’, painted in 1957 at St Sidwell’s, Exeter, shows striking prompts from Feibusch’s earlier works in Sussex. The ‘Christ in Majesty’, painted in 1954 at St Mary’s, Goring-by-Sea, has similarities with the sketch for St Sidwell’s. The mural and cartoon display Feibusch’s knowledge of Renaissance artists and their influence on his work. Christ’s arms open in a gesture of welcome and embrace. The figures are convincing, almost sculptural, with a quality of mass and light. Feibusch gifts them through their poses with grace and nobility. In the St Sidwell’s sketch, men and women look up to Christ with gestures of praise and thanksgiving, reminiscent of the figures in the Ascension scene painted by Feibusch in the Bishop’s private chapel in Chichester.”

While the attention of the art world moved on to focus on the abstraction of Ben Nicholson and the new depiction of naturalistic forms by artists like Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, Hans Feibusch continued to paint and draw figuratively. His style of painting has been the subject of renewed interest in recent years with retrospective exhibitions held at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, in 1995, and more recently at the Bishop Otter Gallery, University of Chichester, in 2012.

“The murals deserve to be celebrated,” Rupert Toovey enthuses. “They represent the work of a gifted artist whose life was inexorably bound up with the extraordinary history and events of his time. For me, though, it is Feibusch’s sketches and drawings that reveal his true talent.”

Hans Feibusch’s work rarely comes to the market and it is with some excitement that collectors are looking forward to Toovey’s sale. The group of sketches, studies and prints will be offered in twelve lots at 10am on 12th June at Toovey’s Spring Gardens Auction Rooms, Washington.

Below: a selection of other works by Hans Feibusch to be offered in Toovey’s June auction.

Click on an image to enlarge.