A CHINESE BRONZE-MOUNTED SANG-DE-BOEUF PORCELAIN BOTTLE VASE LAMP, 19TH CENTURY

A CHINESE BRONZE-MOUNTED SANG-DE-BOEUF PORCELAIN BOTTLE VASE LAMP
19TH CENTURY
With a cream shade and inventory label OP156, previously fitted for gas and now for electricity
16 in. (41 cm.) high, excluding fitments

Provenance

Probably purchased by William James prior to 1912.

William James and West Dean
William Dodge James (1854-1912) was born into an Anglo-American family whose money had come from the American timber, mining and rail industries. He was the youngest of three brothers ? the eldest Frank was a great explorer and big-game hunter (who was tragically killed by an elephant in Africa) and Arthur was a well-known racing figure.

James lived in London in a house in Stanhope Place. In 1889 he married Evelyn Forbes, the daughter of Sir Charles Forbes, Bt., and two years later in 1891 James bought West Dean from Frederick Bower, who himself had purchased it from the last member of the Peachey family twenty years earlier. James initially had the house altered by Ernest George and Harold Peto in 1891 and a series of photographs taken by Bedford Lemere & Co. in 1895 show the internal rooms of the house (several works of art offered in this sale can be identified in the Bedford Lemere photographs). The house was sumptuously furnished with a rich mix of Gothic tapestries, antique textiles, big game trophies, English, European and Oriental porcelain and works of art, Old Master pictures, English, French and Continental furniture. William James? purchases had started in the mid-1880s and included works of art bought from the celebrated sales of Hamilton Palace in 1882 and Christopher Beckett Denison in 1885. The Jameses travelled extensively and his purchases abroad and at home through dealers and at auction continued following the acquisition of West Dean.

As well as decorating the interiors in the archetypal Edwardian style, the house was also fitted out with the most modern conveniences, including being fully lit by electricity, having an automated steam laundry and a hydraulic food lift. The house was subsequently further altered in 1902 by the firm of Charles Mellier & Co., who merged the Drawing Room and Library into one large room ? what is now known as the Old Library. The Jameses were great society hosts, and entertained the Prince and Princess of Wales on several occasions, both for Goodwood and for shooting parties. The future Edward VII was made godfather to Edward James, and was rumoured to be his real father, although Edward James always asserted that he believed his mother to be the illegitimate child of the king rather than himself. The social critic T.H.S. Escott remarked that by 1907 West Dean was ?so characteristic of the Edwardian age that it might have seemed the sudden growth of a single season? (Society in the Country House, 1907, London). As a family retreat away from the grandeur of West Dean House, William James commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens to build the hunting lodge Monkton House about five miles away on the estate, in 1902-4. William James died in 1912 and the estate was left in trust for Edward until he reached the age of 25.