Decor Extremus:

I was recently asked just how much the townsfolk of Napier would have really know about Oscar Wilde in his own time. I answered pretty quickly that I felt some had very real understanding of Wilde and some perhaps some even had a direct connection.

This not at all scholarly response was entirely based upon two local discoveries that now make up my Oscar Wilde corner.

The first is a piece of sheet music found in a pile of old and largely indifferent offerings in a local charity shop. Called Utterly Utter: An Aesthetic duet, it is a long forgotten satirical ditty from the pen of Edmund West and Percy E Marshall whose reputation as a composer/lyricist duo seems to have lasted no better than has their duet.

What’s wonderful about it, is the cover illustrating two aesthetic gentlemen, elegantly dressed in evening suits – in angular poses – one offering the other a lily. It brings to mind other aesthetic parodies most famously Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience – itself in danger of slipping from the repertoire.

Using the rationale that Oscar Wilde was sent to the United States in advance of Patience so that audiences would know who and what was being parodied, I figure that for Utterly Utter to be performed in a nineteenth century Napier drawing-room the same rule had to apply – or else it would have been a very unfunny evening around the piano.

I can understand how a piece of sheet music might have been bought in London or sent out – the latest thing – to the colonies but my next discovery seemed both more of a find and more of a mystery.

This was a small pencil drawing by Frank Miles, titled ‘I’ve been Roaming,’ it is a rather lovely pencil drawing of a woman with flowers and leaves collected in her hair. This work turned up at the local auctioneer Maidens & Foster. It is no bigger than a cigarette packet and was close framed in a small narrow gold frame and so it was hardly attention-getting. Yet worst (or best) of all, some one had attached a note to it reading “Frank Miles was Oscar Wilde’s first boy friend.” Now I don’t want to disparage the locals – but with a note like that no red-blooded Kiwi bloke was gong to be bidding on the piece – and thus it was mine for a song.

Frank Miles (1852-1891)

Was Frank Miles really Oscar Wilde’s first boyfriend. Well most biographers say yes (there are a few still in denial). The two met in the spring of 1876 with Frank described as a dashing good-looking blond-haired young man. The two men lived together for a period and Wilde certainly introduced Miles to the society beauties he specialised in depicting, as well as a host of other delights.

What I like most about Frank Miles, is that he was a good Victorian romantic – troubled and talented. Not only was Frank sexually adventurous, he was colour-blind and this meant he struggled as a painter – and therefore almost specialised in pencil sketches. There’s that and then the fact that he went insane and died in a mental hospital just before his fortieth birthday. It’s a sad picture but an engaging one and it makes me like ‘I’ve been Roaming,’ in a way I wouldn’t if it were an ordinary portrait of a Victorian society beauty.

How did this work get to Napier – that we’ll never know. However, like Frank Miles, I’ve been Roaming needed help. It sat for more than a year on the mantelpiece of my study where it looked insignificant, until I found a substantially larger frame at a local antique shop. Taking it down to the framers I had one of those moments where you find yourself doing what you despise in others and directing what was essentially an exercise in pretentious framing ­– small pencil sketch in large gilt frame – but it worked and the end result gives Frank Miles and I’ve been Roaming  the gravitas they deserve.

With Utterly Utter organised into an old bamboo frame (that we’ve carried around unused for years) the two works now make a little Oscar Wilde moment on our wall and should any one ask – they’re local icons – reminders of a particular moment in Napier’s long forgotten history – which in their own way tell a romantic story.

DLJ

If this man seems familiar it might be that you have spent too long in the pub. For decades he lived on a shelf above the bar of the Birdcage tavern, in Auckland. I acquired him in the sale of contents after that establishment closed.

That diversion aside, I’d like to know who he might be, as he has now wandered into the corner of the Studio, and should he prove worthy enough (i.e. literary or scholarly), he will eventually take up a position on a suitable pedistal in the library.

What do we know? He was carved in Rome in 1883 by Orazio Andreaoni, an Italian sculptor who specialised in producing busts from photographs – particularly popular in the colonies.  Indeed in 1883 – a New Zealander writing under the name of ‘Old Colonist’ in the Southland Times described a visit to Andreoni’s studio in Rome –

‘On another occasion I visited the studio of Andreoni, a sculptor, who, if I am not mistaken in my judgment, will achieve for himself a position of eminence. His skill in producing life-like busts astonished me. And what is more remarkable, he succeeds without the presence of the living subject. Give him a faithful photograph and he manipulates a model in clay so like the person that unless you saw him at work you would scarcely believe that he had not the living individual before him.’

There is a sneaking suspicion Old Colonist may our subject. He writes

I had the opportunity of watching his method with a living subject, from the commencement of the process.  A gentleman who had commissioned Andreoni to sculpture his bust, was seated in an armchair upon a platform, a few feet above the floor in the centre, of the studio. An assistant brought in a pedestal stand on which was a shapeless lump of clay. Signor Andreoni placed this in front of the platform at some little distance from the gentleman in the chair, whose likeness he was about to attempt. The artist’s first aim seemed to be to familiarise his eye with the general appearance of his subject He walked from side to side, occasionally standing a few moments in silent, and earnest contemplation of the gentleman’s features, and the normal expression of his face.

Could this simply be false modesty? Was Old Colonist there to sit for a bust?

The other thing we know is that on the pedistal underneath is written ‘Auckland & Dunedin Centenery.’ Of course the wooden pedistal may have been borrowed from another source but it is worth considering who might have been included in both those events – a politican, a Premier or Prime Minister?

Thus far we’ve eliminated the most common guess, Dick Seddon – (too young in 1883)
and a few others mostly on the grounds of their beardlessness – John Balance seems only to have had a goatee. The problem is that 1883 is crowded with Prime Ministers  past, current and future all whom were ripe for busts and all of whom sported beards. Here’s a number of possibilites – left to right Vogel, Stout, Atkinson and Hall.

Atkinson seems close however in that case, as with the others, the match doesn’t seem right for a sculptor renowned for an excellent likeness. Then there’s been other suggestions. William Larnach (egotistical enough), Joseph Godfrey Holdsworth (too obscure?) or William Sefton Moorhouse (Christchurch rather than Auckland or Dunedin) have all been suggested. Generally we’ve discounted the possibility of the clergy, soldiers (as they’d be in uniform) and Governors (as they are sure to be wearing their decorations).

At the moment he’s just the (very heavy) guy in the corner but we’d love to identify him, if only so we can greet him properly over breakfast. Any thoughts?

DLJ

On a Tuesday night, I find myself at Dunbar’s in Auckland. The catalogue for this sale hadn’t been particularly spectacular and I wasn’t going to go. Dunbar’s Auckland sales are never as strong as their Wellington ones – in part because they are forever having to offer works in sun-damaged Georgian and borer-riddled Victorian that have been wrenched from the estates of sub-tropical Auckland.

It had been a long drive from Napier and lounging around in my room waiting the first episode of Downton Abbey seemed a tempting alternative to venturing out. However there were a small group of daguerreotypes of departed Nineteenth century gentlemen, complete with lustrous gold frames and velvet-lined cases, at Dunbar’s and  so I went.

The temperature in the room was flat – with almost every lot selling well under the low end of its  range. This of course is dangerous territory, as things you haven’t viewed properly becomes a very tempting – all potential bargains. The mood was sullen, almost morose, despite the porter’s best efforts to add some humour into the proceedings. As so often happens at antique sales these days everyone seemed to get what they want after a bid or two. Except of course when it’s me – a lovely majolica teapot had caught my eye at the viewing and so I bid – but the other bidder held on tenaciously and now has a lovely Wedgewood majolica teapot for her efforts.

damaged goods

The scenario on the daguerreotypes is similar. I came away with one, the one I most wanted but that too most eyes was the least attractive (being damaged and not pristine) and a small miniature – not on my original list but something I’d seen pre- auction. It is of a sailor, Andrew Macredie, drowned at sea 1804. He is rugged rather than handsome but I’m happy to have rescued him from a neglectful family whose whole history, in miniatures, silhouettes and daguerreotypes was on the block tonight.

Most of the night was spent texting friends and reading forward in the catalogue. A friend who figures out where I am, suggests “perhaps you have a problem” and offers to find me “a counsellor.”

The Oriental part of the sale seem stronger. I mark a few things and decide it’s worth staying. I end up with two blue and white late 19th century Japanese chargers. They cost me $40 the lower estimate was $200 and so they seem a bargain – for something I didn’t look at closely. However this time it turns out they are – rather lovely and of good scale. I’m already thinking about how I might use them at home.

As the sale only has 30 or 40 lots to go and one of the last is one of those tempting unloved dinner services – this time Hamilton by Burgess & Leigh’s Middleport Pottery, Burslem. Created in what they called ‘semi-porcelain’ it is in a glittering sub nouveau pattern edged with gold and  … well lets just say I add this to my auction cart and proceed to checkout.

Back in my hotel room I’m watching the second half of Downton Abbey, wallowing in its decor.  I realise how particularly bland my hotel room is this time. The hotel is full – I can tell this from the car park, and they’ve put me in a ground floor room obviously specially designed for the disabled – I can tell this from the bathroom. It is rather a disheartening thought, as the room is less than less than charming.  There are, I notice, no pictures on the walls a weird omission that somehow feels a little unfair to the disabled.

Andrew Macredie - drowned at sea 1804

I have been known to take pictures down from the walls of motels and put them in the cupboard, if looking at any length of stay. Particularly ones with religious or new age overtones of which motelliers seem to have a ready supply.  This time I’m doing the opposite – I arrange my Japanese chargers against the wall of the kitchenette – next to the plastic jug and the free sachets of tea. I prop my daguerreotype against the  bedside table and then I look to hang my miniature. Without a picture hook to hang it on I am stumped.

How here’s a McGyver-style tip – when looking for a drawing pin in a crisis – check the soles of your shoes – it just so happens my boots have picked up a bright red headed map pin.  With my rescued sailor on the wall – my dinner service awaiting a wash and my blue and white chargers propped up behind it, I have turned a bland hotel room into a home away from home, a little Downton Abbey in Ponsonby and I can at last relax.