ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the subject of collecting Chinese art and interior design through the lens of the English country house, tracing historical design interactions from eighteenth-century chinoiserie and the Chinese Room to the Neo-Georgian Revival of interwar Britain. Following their marriage in 1930, the Ionides purchased the eighteenth-century mansion house at Buxted Park, East Sussex and embarked upon an ambitious restoration and design project, furnishing their country residence in the latest style and providing a historically appropriate setting for their combined and extensive art collections. Through a variety of innovative display strategies, Basil Ionides skilfully framed the meaning of Chinese art objects, including European style Chinese export porcelain, as artefact or ornament.
The eighteenth-century turn during the interwar years took a variety of forms and reached across high society; specialist and lifestyle magazines perpetuated the fashion, stimulating demand for Chinese art objects which were increasingly plentiful and varied at this time. Art dealers, such as John Sparks Ltd, played a pivotal role between “decorators” and clients, sourcing and supplying Chinese art in a range of media, date, and form and responding to shifting patterns of taste. Photographic and pictorial sources highlight the alternative modes whereby Chinese art objects were utilized as articles of decoration in the private interiors of collectors and aesthetes.
