The Chinoiserie Style

The rarity and beauty of this chinoiserie toilet service was recognized in 1843 when it was given as a wedding present to the the heiress of Thrumpton Hall, the Jacobean house and estate of the Wescomb family, Lucy Elizabeth Jane Wescomb (1823-1912), who would later become Lady Byron. The taste for antiquarian silver as promoted by the Prince Regent, later King George IV and his brothers the Dukes of York, Sussex and Cambridge ensured the survival of this rare chinoiserie service. Rather than commission a new service in the style of the time, this historic service was gilded and supplemented with additional brushes, scent bottles and tray in a complimentary style presented in a fitted leather covered travelling case.

The Byron dressing table service also represents a fascinating moment in the history of English silver and the fashion for exotic ornament. Dating predominantly from 1683 all the pieces are flat-chased with Chinoiserie scenes. Chinoiserie chasing of this type enjoyed great popularity in England in the 1680s and 1690s. This service is therefore an early example of the style.

These depictions of Chinoiserie are as compelling now as they must have been for London’s wealthy families in the 1680s, for whom the cultures of the East were an exotic world, a dream in the mind’s eye. Knowledge of China and Japan in 17th century London was gleaned from traveller’s written accounts, engravings and goods such as lacquer, porcelain and textiles shipped home by the East India Company. This was reinforced by the taste for expensive imported tea and plays staged in London theatres set in the East. Similarly, the sources which informed the silver chasers of the Chinoiserie style were as varied. John Nieuhoff’s An Embassy to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperor of China, published in Amsterdam in 1665, with an English edition being published in 1669, may have been one such source. Further illustrations by Nieuhoff’s compatriot Athanius Kircher in his China Illustratapublished in 1667 and Olfert Dapper’s Atlas Chinensis published in 1671, were also popular in England and seem to have been influential in the style of plants engraved on silver of the period. These sources were reinterpreted, embellished and combined together by the designers of the time to create an exotic yet playful and highly fashionable style. The arrival of French Huguenot silversmiths in London towards the end of the 17th century brought the latest French Baroque designs to London. These Continental fashions supplanted the fashion for a peculiarly English interpretation of the East.

The Hon. George and Lucy Byron

It is perhaps no coincidence that the house to which Lucy Wescomb was heir, Thrumpton Hall, was admired and celebrated for its 17th century architecture and fittings. Lucy's uncle for whom she was heir, John Emerton Wescomb, who lived at Thrumpton Hall from 1823 to 1838, was a man of great taste and learning. He preserved and embellished the earlier work at the house and created an extensive library. In Arthur Oswald's three part article on the house in Country Life, published in 1959, there is further evidence of the Wescomb and Byron families' antiquarian tastes. He illustrates a rare William III silver wall sconce, one of a pair, attributed to the Royal Goldsmith Philip Rollos.

Lucy Wescomb's husband George Byron (1818-1870) was the eldest son of Admiral George Anson Byron, 7th Baron Byron (1789-1868), who had succeeded to the title in 1824 on the death of his first cousin, the celebrated poet Lord Byron, George Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824). George was therefore a contemporary of Ada Byron (1815-1852), later Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the Poet's daughter, a renowned mathematician and computer pioneer. Shortly after her father's death at Missolonghi, the precocious Ada, then nearly eight, decided to adopt her cousin George as the brother she longed for but didn't have. "My sweet George...", she wrote, "I think the greatest happiness is in loving and being loved, I dare say my love you will feel that." There is no record of a reply. George was sent to Harrow School in 1831, leaving in 1834. He went on to become an Ensign and subsequently in 1836 a Lieutenant in the Scots Fusiliers. He was later a captain in the 19th Regiment of Foot. He left the army the year he was married to Lucy in 1843.

George succeeded his father as 8th Baron Byron in 1868 but only held the title for two years as he died at the age of fifty-two from what was described at the time as 'a protracted illness'. The title passed to the son of his brother Frederick (1822-1861) and his wife, Lucy's sister, Mary Jane Wescomb. The dressing-table service and the Thrumpton estate remained with Lucy, the dowager Lady Byron, until her death forty-three years later in 1912 when she was in her eighty-ninth year. The celebrated architectural historian Christopher Hussey wrote 'The late Lady Byron of Thrumpton, who lived until 1913 [sic.] was a great lady in the neighbourhood, and thus reigned here during seventy years, where her strong will and wit are yet remembered with delight' (Country Life, 'Thrumpton Hall, Nottinghamshire, the seat of Lord Byron', vol. 54, 11 August 1923, p. 186). The 1959 Country Life article (op. cit., p. 1255), described her stately procession to church every Sunday accompanied by two footmen, one carrying her chair and the other her dog ensconced on a cushion. Although she married her cousin the Reverend Philip Henry Douglas, rector of Thrumpton, in 1878 she continue to use the Byron title.