Here is another blog post in our series of ‘Behind the scenes of the Year of the Dealer’ – this time some further background information on the making of the film focused on the antique dealers Phillips of Hitchin in the digital trail at Temple Newsam. Here’s the finished film on the YoD website.
Phillips of Hitchin is featured in three of the Year of the Dealer films – this one at Temple Newsam, plus one film at Lady Lever Art Gallery and one film at the V&A (we will highlight the other films in later blog posts in the series of ‘Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer’). We were not short of photographs for the Phillips of Hitchin films as we have a very large number of photographs of Phillips’ galleries at The Manor House in Hitchin thanks to Jerome Phillips who so generously donated the archive of the business to the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds in 2015.
However, we needed to be careful about the number of images we included in the final film in order to ensure that the images we did include had sufficient time on screen for the viewers. There were literally scores of images that we could have used, but we hope the ones that made the final cut are interesting enough. Anyway, to whet your appetite for the range of images in the archive (which, just to remind you, you can view by appointment at the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds), here’s a few photographs that did not make the final version of the Phillips of Hitchin Temple Newsam film. Below is a photograph of the entrance hall at the Manor House taken in c.1964, just a few years after the sale of the chair featured in the film to Temple Newsam in 1960.
And here is another photograph (see below) of one of the interior showrooms at The Manor House also from the 1960s – this time an image of the ‘Tudor Hall’ (as it was called) in c.1964. [Thanks to our friend Chris Coles we have a fascinating update on the photograph – the Queen Anne suite of furniture at the front of the photograph was from Aldby Park, North Yorkshire – see Adam Calvert Bentley and Ardgowen Antiques]
The ‘Tudor Hall’ did not really date from the 16th century, despite its appearance, but was constructed in the early 20th century as part of an expansion of the showrooms at The Manor House. In 1910, The Manor House had 50 rooms of antiques (rising to 80 rooms by the start of the First World War in 1914/15), including specific rooms devoted to the display and sale of ‘Oriental Porcelain’, ‘English Porcelain’, ‘English Pottery’, ‘Cottage Furniture’, ‘Domestic Metalwork’, ‘Oriental Rugs’, as well as rooms fitted out as ‘period rooms’ such as a ‘Queen Anne Parlour’, a ‘Georgian Parlour’, and ‘Georgian’ and ‘Hepplewhite’ bedrooms. It also had an ‘Armoury’ and rooms devoted to ‘French Furniture’ and ‘Textiles’ – so a full range of objects that keyed into major collecting and furnishing interests at the time. By the time that Phillips of Hitchin sold the chairs to the various museums in the 1960s they had become a much more specialised antique dealing business and were one of the leading dealers in antique English furniture.
As you will see in the Phillips of Hitchin film, the chair sold to Temple Newsam in 1960 was one of a set of 6 chairs that were sold by Phillips of Hitchin at the time. One was sold to the V&A, a pair were sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the remaining pair to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. One snippet of information about the image we used in the film showing the pair of chairs in the museum in Melbourne, Australia is that the person reflected in the mirror in the middle of the photograph is actually Jerome Phillip’s wife, Barbara!…..she very kindly sent us the photograph when she was on holiday with Jerome in Australia back in 2022.
There will be more ‘Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer’ next week, so do keep you eye of the blog.
Mark
antiquedealersblog 