A Quiet word from the List Mistress - From the Hayward's Library

From the Hayward’s Library

The bookplate - or ex libris is a label placed on the inside of the front cover of a book.  It is a miniature art form that has developed specifically to adorn books; it is a way of identifying a book’s owner and the collection that it came from.  It says - this book is mine!

Two bookplates used by Ursula Hayward (nee Barr Smith)

Bookplates production began  in the 1500s when Albrecht Dürer and other German engravers and print makers began creating highly decorative bookplates, often featuring armorial devices and coats of arms for wealthy individuals and institutions.  As the fashion for ornamental bookplates spread, distinctive national styles also evolved.

In more recent times, bookplates have been designed by many important artists and engravers.  The owners of bookplates are also a distinguished group - not surprisingly, Queen Victoria had her own bookplate, as did George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles DeGaulle. Other famous people include Harpo Marx, James Cagney, Sigmund Freud, Walt Disney, J.P. Morgan, Jack London, the list goes on and on.

Many techniques and media are used in the creation of bookplates these include woodcut and linocut, engraving, etching, simple pen and ink and screen-printing.  The fact that it is all done on such a small scale plays an important part in the execution of book plate design as is the use of fine papers and elegant hand printing.

Two of Ursula Hayward’s personal bookplates can be seen here.  One with her maiden name of Ursula Barr Smith dates from before her 1935 marriage and appears to reflect the trading interests of her forebears.  The other later, more stylish plate was designed by the Sydney artist Adrian Feint (1894-1971).  Adrian Feint and Ursula developed a longstanding personal friendship and he was well known for his bookplate designs.  Feint worked for the artist and book publisher Sydney Ure Smith who was another of the Hayward’s’ many artistic friends.

The Collection Library also holds a specialist volume: Woodcut Bookplates; byP Neville Barnett, with a foreword by Lionel Lindsay, published in 1934 as a limited edition of just 275 copies.  It includes many wonderful bookplates designed by Australian, English and European artists and includes the personal bookplates of the World War II dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.  

A selection of bookplates found in books the Hayward’s library



In the year of the centenary year of the birth of Patrick White, regarded as one of Australia’s most significant 20^th authors, it has been interesting to discover this wonderful bookplate that was used by his uncle Henry L White (1860-1927). Adhered to the inside cover of an 1862 publication written about the Colony of South Australia it reflects the diverse interests of both the original owner and the Hayward's love of books.

Ex libris collectors have created an international network by establishing societies in forty-one countries and every two years an International Ex Libris Congress is held in a different country inviting members of the world’s bookplate societies to attend.

For more information about collecting bookplates visit the website of the Australian Bookplate Society @ http://bookplatesociety.com

The Keeper's Random Ramblings - Stylish watering inside the house

Ursula Hayward had a particular passion for growing and arranging cut flowers for her home.  She even had a Flower Room for the purpose designed into the house.  It has a sink, shelves for storing the vases and other equipment  and then a special shelf flap, disguised as an oak panel, that lets down into the Hall so the arrangements can be moved into the house by the servants.

 Once the flower arrangements were in position they would have to have their water topped up, and for this task there are two brass watering cans.

They are no longer used but are displayed in the Flower room and the job is now done with a less stylish but practical yellow plastic watering cans.  However; fresh flowers remain a central part of the life of the house and each week one of four teams of volunteers arrives on a Tuesday to clean out the old flowers and change over the arrangements.  They continue the tradition of cutting fresh flowers and foliage from the gardens and then selecting suitable containers from the Flower Room to make arrangements in six rooms.  Ursula Hayward was a great fan of Constance Spry and her innovative approach to arranging flowers.  There are a dozen or more books by her in the collection on the art of flower arranging (see recent biography ‘The Surprising Life of ConstanceSpry’ by Sue Shephard).  This British woman almost single-handedly changed the approach to arranging flowers, breaking it free from highly architectural arrangements and the dominance of white blooms of 1920s  and 1930s. Her use of unusual vessels for arrangements and informality in their assemblage brought a refreshing visual richness to interiors breaking away from rigid symmetry.
Ursula Hayward acquired three antique cradles and had the copper trays made to line their bottoms so that arrangements and pots of colour such as orchids could be brought into the house.

The Keeper's Random Ramblings - Bill Hayward's eleven cricket bats

Bill Hayward attended St Peter’s College in Adelaide following his older brother Ian to Adelaide’s English style school.  He did not have any outstanding academic achievements but excelled at several sports.  He was a rowing and tennis blue as well as playing for the first XI cricket team.  Sadly we do not have any of his race winning bathers or tennis rackets in the collection but there is every cricket bat that he owned.  In an ABC radio interview in 1979 he explained his last match for Saints was a disaster as he was out for a duck in both innings thus making a pair of spectacles of him!

Cricket historian Bernard Whimpress has been asked to examine the bats to tell us if any are of particular note in terms of their manufacture or brand.

The Keeper's Random Ramblings - Buckets of fun but also for safety

Amongst the quirkiest items to be found in the house are four leather buckets.  What on earth were they originally used for?  The Haywards used them as waste paper baskets and two of them are designed for this as they bear a modern leatherworker’s manufacturing label; so probably made for the purpose but modelled on an original. 

The two originals may well date from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and were probably from an English country house where such receptacles were used as fire buckets.  They would be hung in rows in servants corridors filled with sand ready to dump on carpets or floorboards when the open fires spat sparks or candles tipped over causing small conflagrations.  Water would have caused too much damage although leather buckets and other receptacles made from this material were commonly used for carrying liquids in households long after the Middle Ages. After the industrial revolution metal buckets were more cheaply produced and became common. 

Carrick Hill has an interesting metal bucket, which is coated with black paint and bears a coat of arms on the outside. Quite whose they are we have not yet deciphered to date and it looks like the bucket was used for fuel for the fires. 

The whole of Carrick Hill house was heated with open fires mostly with wood grates.  The threat of fire was always great in any country house in Britain and the Haywards did not take any chances either. However; rather than rely on their bucket collection they had a beautiful copper fire extinguisher ready to do the job which is now a collection item reflecting the working side of the house’s history.

The Keeper's Random Ramblings - Faience dinner service

These are French made, slip cast tin glazed plates with lively hand painted designs of fruit and vegetables.  It is a charming service with a Mediterranean feel and probably used for informal lunches at the Haywards Port Willunga beach house

The Haywards Port Willunga beach house

Carrick Hill’s Hayward Bequest is what is called a closed collection and is not normally the subject of acquisition except under exceptional circumstances, as in this case.  The were three plates from the set in the ‘vault’ (the underground room where all the silver, china and ornaments surplus to use are stored) so imagine our delight when a call from Small &Whitfields Auctions informed us of 47 pieces were being sold from the private collection of one of Adelaide’s leading antique dealers who had recently died. 
The Friends of Carrick Hill agreed to finance the purchase of the missing ceramics and I successfully bid for the lot to bring home this wonderfully rustic dinner service.  Research is still being carried out into exactly who the French manufacturer is - their mark is clearly on the reverse of every piece.

Makers mark on the reverse of the recovered Faience dinner service.

The Keeper's Random Ramblings - What's in a name and a photo?

A couple of weeks ago I visited Brisbane to see our son and he suggested an excursion to Mount Tambourine.  It was a wonderful trip to a charming township with delicious rewards from the micro-brewery(Mt Tambourine) and local cheese company (Witches Chase) based there.  Sadly there was not time to travel on to visit the interestingly named town Beaudesert but as you can see from the photo – I got close to going there!

You may ask why I wanted to visit this French sounding place in the Queensland Hinterland beyond the ranges. The answer is that the 400 year old interior at Carrick Hill was purchased by Bill and Ursula Hayward from the demolition sale of BeaudesertHall in Staffordshire.  They were motoring the shires of England on their honeymoon in 1935 when they came across the this country seat of the Marquess of Angelesy that he could no longer afford to run ( he had a second house on the Isle of Angelsey ‘Neu Plas’ now owned by the National Trust).  The full story of what they acquired (it included a staircase, windows, doors, fireplaces and oak panelling) can be read in the recently published book: Carrick Hill: a portrait.

Whilst on the Royal Collections Studies course last September  held at Windsor Castle, I learnt from Jonathan Marsden, the Director of the Queens Collections, that the Paget family who owned Beau Desert did not pronounce it with a French styling but as two words sounding like: bow desert (the dry sandy variety not a pudding).  This was quite upsetting to some of our guides when I told them as they had been told by visiting locals from Litchfield and Cannock Chase near Beau Desert that it was given a French sounding pronunciation.

I was also told by Jonathan that Tudor bricks from Beaudesert were used to repair WWII bombing damage to St James Palace in London.  So fancy Carrick Hill sharing a source of materials with a palace – a brush with a royal building?

The photo shown here is in the Carrick Hill collection but it's subject has long been a mystery.  That is until I was doing some research into the Beaudesert garden to see if Ursula had borrowed any ideas for her Adelaide garden as well as collecting an interior!  It was a vast house with extensive garden and grounds (99 employees to work the estate and run the house).  I discovered that the photo is taken from an unusual position which the great article in Country life book (also in the collection) did not use.  From the stamp on the reverse of the print we know the photograph was taken by The Times but what for? Was it to report the demolition of the great house and its forthcoming architectural salvage sale on 18 & 19 July, 1935?

The image presents a wild fore ground which enables us to imagine the forests that the Bishop of Lichfield hunted in when Beaudesert was their hunting lodge in the fifteenth century.  This was before the Paget’s had risen to prominence as Elizabethan lawyers and been given the property for services to ER I.  Then we see the back of the house in the distance with the oldest window range and formal gardens with banks and terraces.

A quiet word from the List Mistress - ‘Lancashire’ dining chairs

Three Carved oak ‘Lancashire’ dining chairs (from an unmatched set of 11), England, late 17^th century

Carrick Hill house is actually quite modest in size and visitors are often very surprised when they walk into the house to be confronted by the vision of a grand oak staircase, dark oak panelled walls and rooms filled with old English and European carved oak furniture.   This becomes even more remarkable when you hear the story of how in 1935 the Hayward’s, then on their honeymoon in England, purchased interior fittings and furniture from the  extensive demolition auction of a mid-16th century Staffordshire mansion named Beau Desert hall. 

It was around these purchases that the Haywoods  had shipped back to South Australia, that the local Adelaide architectural firm of Woods Bagot Laybourne -Smith and Irwin designed and had constructed the house they would then live in for the rest of their lives.  To complement the oak panelling in the west facing dining room the Haywards acquired a collection of so called ‘Lancashire’ carved oak chairs that date from the period 1680-1700.  There are eleven of these heavy and impressive chairs (six forming a set plus another five to complement)- they are also referred to in the furniture trade by the term ‘joined back-stool’.  Their distinctive style and carving make it possible to locate their construction specifically to the Lancashire district in England and to date them to the late 17^th century although similar chairs were made at the same time in the neighbouring area of Yorkshire.

Although each chair looks similar each has its own individual carved back panel which features a decorative design of bold stylized oak leaves with motifs such as acorns, thistles or the simple 4-5 petalled Tudor rose.  Two larger carved carver style armchairs make up the suite of chairs that surround the large, simple, oak refectory table.     

Photo: Mick Bradley

References:

Carrick Hill: A Portrait edited by Richard Heathcote, pub. Wakefield Press, Adelaide 2011

Oak Furniture; The British Tradition by Victor Chinnery, pub. Antique Collectors Club Ltd, 1986

A quiet word from the List Mistress - SURPRISE!

The Carrick Hill ceramics collection has many unexpected objects in it but this group of English mid-19^th century Frog mugs is definitely one of the more eccentric.   We don’t really know much about how this collection was assembled or even who collected them – were they just quirky items that Bill and Ursula Hayward found and brought back from their many trips to England or were they inherited from a parent or grandparent?

Frog mugs were also known as ‘Surprise’ or 'Toad’ mugs and they were originally designed as a rustic practical joke as the interior of the mug contains a full-size pottery frog or toad which is revealed to the drinker as the liquid is consumed.  The earliest examples of mugs containing frogs date from about 1775 but they continued to be produced throughout most of the 19^th century.  An unsuspecting guest would be startled as he drank from the mug to see a frog emerging from the beverage as it was consumed and the frog would appear to spit at the drinker through the hole in its mouth as the mug was tilted.

Frog mugs often feature transfer-printed designs with pictorial images and moralistic verses, sayings or patriotic inscriptions and some are inscribed with individual names, an indicator that the cup may have been given as a gift to mark a wedding or special event.  Some of these mugs feature hand-painted relief moulded designs, some have patriotic verses commemorating the Crimean War and the English and French victory over the Emperor Napoleon. Several of the larger cups were made in the style of a ‘loving cup’ with two or even three handles and two of the more unusual mugs are modelled with satyr face masks.  Some mugs contain more than one frog nestled at the base while a couple even include a lizard!

Frog mugs can be found in many museum collections in Australia and around the world.

http://www.stokemuseums.org.uk/collections/browse_collections/ceramics

My Most Interesting Thing: Meissen Vases

1.) What is it?
Meissen Vases

2.) Why have you chosen it?
Tells the best story

3.) When did it first catch your eye?
After reading the book 'The Arcanum' The Extraordinary True Story, by Janet Gleeson

4.) If it was yours, what would you do with it?
Display them in a glass cabinet

5.) What stuff do you (or did you) collect?
Some china

Name of selector: Renati O'Connell, Carrick Hill Guide

My Most Interesting Thing:Epstein's Standing Mother and Child Statue

1.) What is it?
Epstein's standing Mother and Child Statue

2.) Why have you chosen it?
A stricking pose and beautiful sculpture that looks great at it's current location

3.) When did it first catch your eye?
Everytime I walk down the stairs or enter Carrick Hill house.

4.) If it was yours, what would you do with it?
Display it in my garden

5.) What stuff do you (or did you) collect?
Shoes!

Chosen by: annonymous, Carrick Hill Volunteer

Musings from the Backwater Blogger

It is becoming increasingly apparent as we work our way through the collections at Carrick Hill that the paintings are not just an eclectic gathering of modernist works collected by a discerning eye interested in modern thought, or an inheritance from a culturally aware upbringing. They also form a Hayward travelogue.

A fascination for me is to look at the works not just as the outstanding pieces that so many of them are, but as markers of Ursula and Bill’s frequent movement through the world and within Australia. Of course works by artists like Stanley Spencer and Jacob Epstein relate to regular visits to England. The provenance and history of much of the major modernist collection is recorded and most works were purchased from a London dealer or directly from the artists with whom the Hayward's had contact. But there are other works which have no such associated records and when this happens it is from the item itself that the story must be extracted.

One such work is a small painting titled in oil by the artist on its face Beche de mer lugger. There is absolutely nothing else on this work that would indicate who that artist might be, or where on earth (literally) the painting might have originated.   A lugger is a traditional style of shallow-draft fishing boat with a simple double masted rig, and beche de mer means sea cucumber, a creature that is considered a delicacy in many cultures. This painting shows one of these luggers moored in a tranquil bay. The crew sit in a relaxed group on the foredeck. The paint handling is fluid and the palette muted. Stylistically it fits loosely with the other modern works in the collection and the painting and its original frame probably date from the late 1930s or early 1940s.

Like a couple of other pieces in the collection, this painting seems almost like a souvenir. Did these ‘souvenirs’ work as reminders for the Hayward's of enjoyable stays? Were they gifts to each other or to them from other people? Beche de mer lugger has a price written in pencil on the back – £8-8-0 – is that around about the right price if it was purchased by Ursula or Bill during the war?  If it was acquired then, where might they have got it from? Ursula lived for a time in Brisbane (1942); perhaps she travelled further north to Cooktown where these luggers had at one time been in use? Bill served in Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Morotai and Labuan; perhaps he picked it up during that time? Did they ever visit Vanuatu, another sea cucumber fishing location?

So many questions unanswered and a mere nibble around the edges of knowledge concerning this charming painting. Maybe the archives will divulge something as the search continues.

My Most Interesting Thing: The wooden Monk

1.) What is it?
A small wooden monk - you will find it in the vault

2.) Why have you chosen it?
It is small enough to hold in your hand, and Sir Edward, after entertaining guests for dinner would pass it to someone at the table for an 'appriasal'.  When the guest held it the monk's habit drops down and his member pops up.

3.) When did it catch your eye?
I was given the task of displaying all of the exhibits in the vault by Alan Smith.  It was a thing that surprised me and made me laugh.  It shows that Sir Edward had a great sense of humour.

4.) If it was yours, what would you do with it?
Have as much fun as Sir Edward did!

5.) What stuff do you collect?
Small frogs from all of the countries I have visited overseas.  The sit on my kitchen windowsill and give me lovely thoughts as I do the washing up.  I would love Edwards collection of frog mugs.

Chosen by: Jill Argent, President of the Friends of Carrick Hill