Eltham

This Week in London -Courtauld carpet returns to Eltham; art from Asia-Pacific; London broadsides; and, a Blue Plaque for a ground-breaking astronomer…

by exploringlondon

• An antique Chinese carpet which originally was part of furnishings at Eltham Palace has returned home after 80 years. The carpet, dyed in the “dynastic blue” of the Qing dynasty and featuring symbols including dragons, Buddhist emblems and masks, represents the demand for the Chinese decorative arts in the 1920s and 1930s and serves as a reminder of how Chinese art was produced, circulated, and displayed in Britain. The carpet, donated from the estate of Mrs M R Bernard – the niece of former palace owner Stephen Courtauld, has undergone extensive conservation work. It can be seen in what was Virginia Courtauld’s boudoir. Eccentric millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld built a magnificent art deco mansion right next to the medieval Great Hall of Eltham Palace in 1936 but moved out in 1944 and passed the lease to the Army Educational Corps. Over the ensuing decades many of the original items in the palace were dispersed but English Heritage, which took over management of the palace in 1995, has been working to restore the interiors back to when the Courtaulds lived in them. Other original items which have returned to the palace in recent history including a gold telephone and a pair of Cartier brooches. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens/.

Pala Pothupitiye / Kalutara Fort, 2020–21 / Purchased 2021 with funds from Professor Emeritus Ian O’Connor AC and Anna Reynolds through the QAGOMA Foundation / Collection: QAGOMA, Brisbane/© Pala Pothupitiye

• The works of more than 40 artists from 25 countries across the Asia Pacific region are going on show at the V&A in South Kensington. Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific, to be held in The Porter Gallery, is being held in partnership with Australia’s Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art. Highlights include: Mchael Parekōwhat’s life-sized sculpture of a Mãori security guard, Kapa Haka (Whero) (2003); Pala Pothupitiye’s Kalutara Fort (2020-21) – a reimagined map of an historic Sri Lanka military camp; Brenda Fajardo, Elisabet Kauage, Mathias Kauage and John Siune’s There is still a war going on in Bougainville (1995) which responds to Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville conflict between 1988-98; and, a series of porcelain busts by Ah Xian. The exhibition opens on Saturday and runs until 10th January. Admission charge applies. For more, see https://www.vam.ac.uk/.

• The role broadsides played in spreading news, advice and gossip in London from the 16th century onwards is the subject of a new exhibition at the Guildhall Library. Broadsides: Speaking to the People explores the history of broadsides and how they were used to speak to the general public, high and low alike. Free to see. Runs until 29th October. For more, see www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/exhibition-broadsides-speaking-to-the-people.

• Ground-breaking astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin has been honoured with an English Heritage Blue Plaque at the home in Notting Hill where she lived as a teenager. The plaque at 70 Lansdowne Road marks where Payne-Gaposchkin’s journey towards expanding our understanding of space began. Payne-Gaposchkin earned a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard after moving to the US. Her groundbreaking 1925 thesis proposed that stars are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, a discovery that fundamentally changed scientific understanding of the universe, and in 1927, she became the youngest astronomer ever to have a star of distinction next to her name in the publication American Men of Science. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/.

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This Week in London – Gold phone returns to Eltham Palace; Nicolaes Maes at the National; and, Léon Spilliaert at the Royal Academy…

by exploringlondon

• A 1930s gold coloured telephone which once belonged to eccentric millionaire Virginia Courtauld has gone on show at Eltham Palace in London’s south-west. The recently donated phone, which was saved from a skip in the 1980s, is one of only two surviving Siemens Bakelite telephones of the original 19 which were installed at the palace in 1936 for Virginia and her husband Stephen (the other remaining phone, located in Stephen’s library, is plain black). The phones – which included five placed in bedrooms – were commissioned by Virginia and remained in the property even after the Courtaulds moved out in May, 1944, and passed the lease to the Army Educational Corps. Renamed the Royal Army Educational Corps, that organisation was relocating out of Eltham Palace in the 1980s when all of the original 1930s telephones were thrown away. This gold telephone was rescued from the rubbish by a passing member of the RAEC and was recently donated to English Heritage. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/eltham-palace-and-gardens/.

• The first exhibition devoted exclusively to Dutch artist Nicolaes Maes – one of Rembrandt’s most important pupils – opens at the National Gallery on Saturday. Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age features more than 35 paintings and drawings by the Dordrecht-born artist including a selection of the intimate scenes of domestic daily life for which he is best known. Included are early history scenes, mostly on biblical subjects that Maes painted in the style of Rembrandt when he joined his studio in Amsterdam in about 1650, as well as lesser-known portraits he created from 1673 onward after he settled in Amsterdam. Admission is free. The display can be seen until 31st March. For more, see www.nationalgallery.org.uk. PICTURE: Nicolaes Maes, Girl at a Window (1653–5) © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

• The works of early 20th century Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert are the subject of a new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts opening on Sunday. Léon Spilliaert features some 80 works organised into four sections with highlights including Beech Trunks (1945), Young Woman on a Stool (1909), A Gust of Wind (1904), and Dike at night. Reflected lights (1908). Runs until 25th May. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

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A Moment in London’s History – News of the victory at Agincourt reaches the city…

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It wasn’t until four days after the battle which had taken place on 25th October, 1415, that news of King Henry V’s stunning victory over the French reached the English capital.

Westminster-Abbey-frontThe news apparently reached London very early in the morning and church bells were rung in celebration and a Te Deum sang in thanksgiving in many.

At 9am, a solemn procession of clergy made their way from St Paul’s Cathedral in the City to the shrine of St Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey (pictured) to give thanks.

Other attendees at the abbey included the Mayor-elect, Nicholas Wotton (this was the first of two occasions on which he was elected Lord Mayor), and the alderman of London, as well as the Queen Dowager, Joan of Navarre.

A few days later, on the 4th November, King Henry V’s brother – John of Lancaster, the Duke of Bedford, announced the news to Parliament.

King Henry V, meanwhile, arrived back in Dover on 16th November (apparently as a great snowstorm was making its presence felt) and headed for London. After pausing in Canterbury to give thanks in the cathedral and St Augustine’s Abbey, he reached the manor of Eltham (now in south-east London) on 22nd November.

He was met the next day on Blackheath by Wotton and City dignitaries who then, along with what were recorded as a crowd of 20,000 citizens, accompanied him and his small retinue, which included some of his most high profile prisoners such as Charles d’Orléans, Duke of Orléans (who spent 25 years as a prisoner in England), and Marshal Boucicaut (he would die six years later in Yorkshire), towards London.

There, welcomed as Henry V, “King of England and France”, he processed through the City which had been elaborately decorated – the decorations included the hanging of various coats of arms from various prominent sites as well as the positioning of statues of the likes of St George – ahead of his arrival.

Travelling down Cheapside, the king – who was modestly dressed in a purple gown and had eschewed wearing a crown for the event – stopped at St Paul’s where he performed his devotions, before proceeding to Westminster where he did the same before taking up residence for the night in the nearby Palace of Westminster.

On the king’s orders, a solemn mass was held in St Paul’s the next day for the fallen of both sides. The victorious king had returned!

King James I’s London – 3. Golf on Blackheath

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When King James I came south to take up the throne England, he is known to have brought that peculiarly Scottish game of golf with him and it is believed that it was at Blackheath, above the then Royal Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, that his courtiers first played the game.

According to the Royal Blackheath Golf Club, now located some way to the south of Blackheath in Eltham (the club moved there is 1923), documentary evidence shows the earliest players included James I’s son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, who is known to have gone golfing in 1606. The club itself notes that while it is generally accepted it was established in 1608, no documentary evidence to support this has yet been unearthed (records prior to 1787 are missing).

The first course at Blackheath – which has played a significant role in several events including as a rallying point during the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 –  apparently consisted of five holes, each of which was played three times.