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These are some of the types of images I work with. I started out writing about specific pieces for private collectors, and illustrations such as these help to explain how a piece would've fitted into an interior. As I began to work with more important pieces, it became possible to connect them to extant designs. Sometimes, they were the item from the drawing. When this can be proven, it adds value. Sometimes a great deal of value.
Over the past decade I have worked on silver, gold boxes and enamels, all types of engraving, portrait miniatures, furniture (including mirrors) and sculpture. In particular, I have researched how these objects were manufactured within London. I am so tedious even to have mapped connected workshops and retail shops and I'm working on an interactive google earth overlay of 1690s London artisans. I can identify the engraving of Robert Clee by sight (you can read about that in the book pictured in the gallery), and I know that where Covent Garden Tube Station now stands, once lived two old French ladies with no teeth, who made a living chewing paper to make 'moderne' papier-mâché mirrors. Whilst useless out of context, this knowledge enables me to put together the story behind an item or interior, giving a greater understanding of how our friends in the 18th century valued their surroundings and created the legacy we see today. If my work regarding objects or interiors is of interest, please get in touch here.
