A pair of late 19th Century bedroom chairs upholstered in Charleston House Grapes fabric.
These were originally cane-seat chairs found in the attic of one of my customer's houses. They were easy enough to adapt for upholstery with some jute webbing but the rails are quite slender so we just about got away with double piping on these. But it had to be piping - you can't go sticking braid over a pattern like this now can you?
The customer picked up half a metre of the fabric herself from Charleston House and there wasn't quite enough fabric to make two matching chairs so the pattern-match had to be randomised.
The fabric was designed by Duncan Grant in 1931. Grant was a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group and a prolific painter and designer. Along with his (working) partner Vanessa Bell, and with input from the great Roger Fry, he established Charleston Farmhouse with its sort of English Country/Mediterranean cottage garden. It's my guess that this was the inspiration for this fabric, but I'm only guessing.
Here's Grant (left) with his sometime lover, economist John Maynard Keynes. Imagine how different Britain would be today if these people had really been allowed to flourish, certainly not in a floundering, unprincipled political environment that's for sure. These people had ideas. These are my kinda people.
Oh, and nice chairs too eh?
This was a commission.
#charlestonhouse #duncangrant #vanessabell #bloomsburygroup
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