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Lot 350 THE PROFESSOR
'For him it [the immediate post war period] was an Indian Summer of classical architecture, a reprieve for traditionalism and a period of revived craftsmanship in an otherwise barbarous and alien age. All that he most revered in design was revived under his watchful eye, the baroque of Wren and Hawksmoor, the neo-classical subtlety of Wyatt and Chambers, the Greek revivalism of William Wilkins. Through all this welter of activity, he was able to live over his youth again, work with the City buildings that he loved so much and enjoy vicariously the life works of the great masters... Masons, bricklayers, carpenters and turners, carvers and gilders, painters and glaziers were called back from semi-retirement or redundancy to work once again for their old friend 'The Professor'. Writing of his heroes, the eighteenth-century architects, in his book Introduction to Georgian Architecture which he was preparing at the time, he said they had 'to know all the mysteries of the crafts, to be sympathetic to the skilled workers, and in a position to determine detail and execution'. He might almost have been writing of himself, for he was immensely popular on the building site, easy of manner, sharing jokes or lunch with his workmen, but exacting good work from them and loudly condemning the shoddy.'
S. Houfe, The Professor
'For him it [the immediate post war period] was an Indian Summer of classical architecture, a reprieve for traditionalism and a period of revived craftsmanship in an otherwise barbarous and alien age. All that he most revered in design was revived under his watchful eye, the baroque of Wren and Hawksmoor, the neo-classical subtlety of Wyatt and Chambers, the Greek revivalism of William Wilkins. Through all this welter of activity, he was able to live over his youth again, work with the City buildings that he loved so much and enjoy vicariously the life works of the great masters... Masons, bricklayers, carpenters and turners, carvers and gilders, painters and glaziers were called back from semi-retirement or redundancy to work once again for their old friend 'The Professor'. Writing of his heroes, the eighteenth-century architects, in his book Introduction to Georgian Architecture which he was preparing at the time, he said they had 'to know all the mysteries of the crafts, to be sympathetic to the skilled workers, and in a position to determine detail and execution'. He might almost have been writing of himself, for he was immensely popular on the building site, easy of manner, sharing jokes or lunch with his workmen, but exacting good work from them and loudly condemning the shoddy.'
S. Houfe, The Professor
A VICTORIAN ROSEWOOD PAINTBOX
BY REEVES & INWOOD, MID-19TH CENTURY
Closed19 September 2013
Price Realised
GBP 2,125