Cabinet of Wonder – Part III

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One of London’s leading dealers of garden and antique furniture opened the doors to his private inner sanctum for The World of Interiors in 1994. Peter Hone’s London flat in Ladbroke Square is a pantheon to classical ornamentation in the spirit of collector and antiquaire Sir John Soane. Walls and every surface bear the owner’s love affair with busts, urns and architectural fragments collected over the years. Upon entering the inner hallway you immediately feel transported back in time to the John Soane House of 1792.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

At one end of the staircase landing a Coade stone vestal virgin provides a focal point and is reflected in a mirror that was rescued from the Ballet Rambert. A collection of footman’s jackets hang to the left side of the hall. The hanging lantern is Regency. In the foreground, at right, is a Roman-style Duke of Wellington (one of a pair; the other resides in the Bank of England), by Peter Turnerelli.

Image courtesy of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.

The Dome, pictured above and below, was created by Sir John Soane as a tribute to his favorite antiquities and architectural fragments.

Photo by Derry Moore.

A bust of Sir John Soane by Sir Frances Chantrey, 1829, stands in the Dome.

Photos by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

Plaster fragments hang on Hone’s dark fig red walls of the staircase and landing with a nod to Sir John Soane’s Dome room.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

Walls the color of old stone lends a sense of calm and continuity for Hone’s vast collection of architectural fragments that line the drawing room’s walls, while simple scrubbed wooden floorboards add a rustic note underfoot. On the mantlepiece is Wedgewood china and an 18th-century ivory pagoda.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

A four-poster bed, made for Mereworth Castle by John Fowler, dominates one end of the drawing room instead of more conventional seating. Hone explained to Alistair McAlpine for The World of Interiors that he prefers its cocoon-like embrace to that of his bedroom proper during the cold winter months. The bed hangings, which match the fabric used for the curtains and pelmets, were found at Harrod’s long defunct auction house. Columns, caryatids, busts, brackets, balustrades, urns, pediments, friezes and other architectural fragments have found refuge here as if in the Land of Misfits. If not for the TV, which is not shown here, these photos might represent the atelier of an eighteenth-century artisan who specializes in classically-inspired architectural decoration.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

Hone’s “orphanage” of found objects includes a tongue-and-groove table found in the stables of a derelict country house. Above the fireplace is a cast from the Acropolis frieze rescued from a demolition site in Paddington.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

A scrubbed oak table from Harewood House holds a collection of plaques, roundels and fragments presided over by a Coade stone hawk.

Image courtesy of Light Locations

Recent photos of Hone’s drawing room, above and below, reveals walls changed to the color of gray stone, a simpler bed frame, and plain white curtains while he also somehow managed to pile on more layers of stone and alabaster fragments.

Photo courtesy of Light Locations.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

In the bedroom, photographed in 1994, the walls are covered in a blue ivy leaf-patterned wall paper put up about fifty-three years ago. The mahogany bed is Victorian. Bone and ivory objects cover the Empire chest. The black medals hanging on the wall above are “boi durci”, a 19th-century ebony substitute made from a mix of sawdust and ox blood compressed under great pressure.

Photo by James Mortimer for The World of Interiors, September, 1994.

A collection of marble and Parian ware figures includes two Dukes of Wellington, Napoleon, and a Sèvres Madame Recamier.

Lifetimes of stories of collecting could be told within these walls. Ironically, Peter Hone wanted nothing more than “to live in this flat with nothing in it”. That was back in 1994. So goes the evolution of an inveterate magpie. I wouldn’t mind helping alleviate his burden.

For all the other insatiable collectors of high and low decorative architectural fragments you can purchase similar examples from Peter Hone’s collection at Ben Pentreath Ltd.

Very recently The Rug Company has staged vignettes in Peter Hone’s drawing room to great affect. Perhaps you will recognize these images from your favorite shelter magazines.

In my next post, the fourth in a series of five installments, we will visit the Sir John Soane House Museum in London. Tallyho, for now!