AT THE MUSEUM
DISCOVER UNUSUAL PIECES FOUND IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTIONS OF GALLERIES AROUND THE COUNTRY.
ALL COLLECTORS OF ANTIQUES dream about finding something rare and special. In 1984, two chairs appeared in a Sydney auction house that stunned curators and dealers who recognised them as of exceptional significance. The centuries-old finds were acquired by the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, and in 1987 they were reunited with a matching couch. Fully restored, they are now as extraordinary as they were when first made.
Having returned from an eight-year Grand Tour of Europe, Thomas Hope, the son of one of the wealthiest merchant bankers in Europe, purchased a house in Duchess Street, London, which had been designed by great 18th-century architect Robert Adam. Hope then set about designing extraordinary interiors to complement his collection of antiquities. These chairs were part of the furnishings of the Egyptian room on the first floor. In this room, Hope displayed his Egyptian antiquities among the exotic furniture and decoration he had designed. Hope described the colour scheme of the walls and furniture as “… pale yellow and bluish green of the Egyptian pigments, relieved by masses of black and of gold”. This description helped in the restoration of the chairs.
In 1807, Hope published Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, illustrated with drawings of the interiors of his house. This and the fact that Hope opened his house to select visitors as a sort of museum had a huge influence on the fashionable interiors, furniture, decorative art objects and even costume of the early 19th century.
Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Harris Street, Ultimo, NSW