Waddesdon in Summer

Waddesdon Manor



Waddesdon Manor, 6 miles outside Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, always creates a sense of expectation. From the first glimpse of towers and turrets seen above the trees from the A41 to the long drive in which curves around the hill the excitement builds up as you approach the final spectacle, a French Renaissance Château on a hill in Buckinghamshire. For this was the way it was designed, the Victorian version of a blingtastic crib; not an ancient building added to over the generations but a modern building masquerading as a French Château with all mod cons and dressed to impress stuffed full of a most fantastic collection of Le Style Rothschild. This is a style best described as Tout les Louis and then some.





Dairy





Wine Cellars



Even today beautifully restored by the Rothschild family the richness of the interiors both impresses and oppresses and the Manor is surrounded by impeccable gardens planted with wondrous planting as they would have been in Victorian times. The excitement continues for at the top of the hill you come to an elegant fountain and as you reach it the splendour of the mirage which is Waddesdon is revealed as you are led down a long avenue to the turreted roof of an exotic château. This was never a family home but a summer retreat for weekend house parties which attracted the cream of society to wonder at the magnificence of the Rothschild’s.















Waddesdon Manor was built (1874-89) by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to display his outstanding collection of art treasures and to entertain the fashionable world. On a hilltop overlooking the Aylesbury Vale, it is the last remaining complete example of 'le goût Rothschild'. The House combines the highest quality French furniture, textiles and decorative arts from the 18th century with magnificent English portraits and Dutch Old Master paintings.







Fascinated by the history and culture of France, he commissioned a French architect, Gabriel Hippolyte Destailleur, to build him a Renaissance-style château, based on those in the Loire Valley, and employed a French garden designer, Elie Lainé to lay out the grounds. Like other members of his family he wanted a retreat outside London and chose Buckinghamshire because several of his cousins already had houses there (it was known as "Rothschildshire" in the late 19th Century).











The Parterre, which is the last original parterre in England, is dug out every spring and roundly 58,000 thousand fresh plants are planted according to a computer template in a design which like the labels of the Rothschild’s Chateau Mouton changes each year. This year there is a particularly colourful polychromatic design and the reference to Chateau Mouton is not a fanciful metaphor. Under the house is a magnificent wine cellar modelled on the private cellars at Château Lafite-Rothschild and there is a wine shop which carries the full range of Rothschild wines. Fancy a Methuselah?





Parterre





Jacob Rothschild



The patronage of the arts by the Rothschild’s continues with Jacob (Lord) Rothschild being an important patron heading up many organisations, restoring Spencer House in London and commissioning works of art himself.



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/04/london-in-spring.html



So each year at Waddesdon there is always a new reason to visit as under his patronage something fresh delights in the House and grounds. So this year there is a contemporary exhibition programme at the Manor launched on 30 March 2011 with Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century at the Coach House, an exhibition on loan from a private collection, generously provided by the Blavatnik Family.





Albert Einstein - A Jew, a radical, a socialist





Golda Meir



Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century



One of Warhol's most important, yet lesser-known series from the 1980s, the Ten Portraits differ from the images of cult figures from the worlds of politics, film and society for which he is perhaps better known. The artist himself referred to the subjects as "Jewish Geniuses" and the series represents a powerful homage to some of the great figures of the last century, including Einstein, Kafka and Freud. The portraits have none of the irony that is so often seen in Warhol's work. Instead, he honours a group of men and women who have come to be recognised as leading names in science and the arts. Only the triple portrait of the Marx Brothers has what, in the subjects' case, is an appropriately humorous tone.





Warhol's Marx Brothers - Chico, Groucho and Harpo



Warhol became fascinated with a group of influential Jewish figures - a pantheon of great thinkers, politicians, performers, musicians and writers including French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923); the first Jewish judge of the United States Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis (1856-1941); renowned philosopher and educator Martin Buber (1878-1965); the theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein (1897-1955), widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the twentieth century; the hugely influential founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939); vaudeville, stage and film comedians, the Marx Brothers: Chico (1887-1961), Groucho (1890-1977), and Harpo (1888-1964); Israel fourth Prime Minister and one of the founders of the State of Israel, Golda Meir (1898-1978); distinguished American composer George Gershwin (1898-1937); the eminent novelist, Franz Kafka (1883-1924); and avant-garde American writer, poet and playwright Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). The collective achievements of this group changed the course of the twentieth century and may be said to have influenced every aspect of human experience.





Andy Warhol by Jack Mitchell ©



The choice might seem a strange one as Andy Warhol's (Andrew Warhola) family were working-class Ukrainian emigrants from Mikó (now called Miková), located in today’s north-eastern Slovakia, then part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and he was a Byzantine Catholic, the Eastern Rite church which is in communion with Rome.



At the time the art world criticised his 1980 exhibit of 10 portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Jewish Geniuses, which Warhol – who was uninterested in Judaism and Jews – had described in his diary as "They're going to sell." The New York Times critic Hilton Kramer wrote at the time: “The way it [the exhibition] exploits its Jewish subjects without showing the slightest grasp of their significance is offensive - or would be, anyway, if the artist had not already treated so many non-Jewish subjects in the same tawdry manner.”



In the same 1980 article Kramer also wrote: “This sort of crass recycling of photographic images has long been one of the standard practices of commercial art, of course? Mr. Warhol has long been a master of the formula, and his talent for making everything he touches both glib and slick shows no slackening in his latest production.”





Sigmund Freud by Andy Warhol





Sarah Bernhardt



In hindsight, however, some critics have come to view Warhol's superficiality and commerciality as "the most brilliant mirror of our times," contending that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."



However given his background he was conscious of the heritage of the greatest Jewish community in Mittel Europe which was part of a rich mix of Czech / Jewish and Germanic culture centered on Prague. This great Yiddish culture was destroyed by the Nazi Racist state that in an act of supreme irony preserved its physical remains to act as a museum to their genocidal cleansing. A series of lectures to accompany the exhibition are taking place in September. One, by Dr Maureen Kendler of the London School of Jewish Studies, will discuss notable Jewish contributions to the arts and, in particular, Sarah Bernhardt. Another, by the Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies, Dr Raphael Zarum, will use the Einstein portrait as a starting point to consider if there is a “Jewish science” and to ask questions such as “If Einstein believed in god what kind was it and how did it affect his work?”



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/jewish-prague.html



Also in the Stables (which are a scale replica of the Tuileries Palace in Paris) is an exhibition on the new building at Windmill Hill on the Waddesdon estate commissioned by Jacob Rothschild to house the family archives. Now these are somewhat copious as the English Branch has a long history and the Vale of Aylesbury at one stage contained no less than 7 Rothschild Mansions the others being Ascott House (Home of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild), Mentmore Towers (Former home of Lord Roseberry who married into the Rothschild’s and was Prime Minister), Halton House, Aston Clinton House, Tring Manor (Now home to the Walter Rothschild Collection of the Natural History Museum) and Eythrope House which borders Waddesdon and where Jacob(Lord) Rothschild lives.







Also they are intimately involved with the story of Israel, the “Balfour Declaration” was a letter written to a previous Lord Rothschild by the British Foreign Secretary, and they sponsored Jewish settlements in Palestine, housed refugees of the Kinder transport in “The Cedars” opposite Waddesdon and their support for the State of Israel is undoubted including the previous owner of Waddesdon James A. de Rothschild financing the Knesset Building as a gift to the State of Israel. They have also donated the Israeli Supreme Court building.





Betty's traditional ice cream



So there is plenty in the Rothschild Archives and the new Archive, Reading Room and philanthropic centre is housed in a brand new building on the Estate at Windmill Hill. In the stables there is an exhibition about the design of the building, curated by its architect, Stephen Marshall, and the Collection Department at Waddesdon. The display examines the Rothschild family as architectural patrons, charts the development of the building from design to completion, and explores its wider purpose. Architectural models are complemented by spectacular photographs by Richard Bryant, showing the finished building in its landscape. The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph on the building and Lord Rothschild as an architectural patron by Colin Amery, available in the Manor and Stables shops. It is just about the clearest and best architectural exhibition I’ve been at and I can’t wait to see the archive in the flesh.









Windmill Hill



Stephen Marshall Architect’s new composition overlays a site formerly used as a dairy farm and with the Reading Room and archive stores on one side and the Rothschild Foundation across a central courtyard space, the arrangement makes a direct reference to the agricultural history of the site. Also paying tribute to the location’s working past is the select choice of materials, including oak windows and shutters, rendered walls, wood cladding, and zinc roofs, with walls 1.5m thick in some places to establish a stable internal environment. Vertical louvers previously installed to protect cattle from high winds now provide effective shading to those in the Reading Room.





Mountain (2001), by Anish Kapoor



Continuing the display of contemporary art, Mountain (2001), by celebrated artist Anish Kapoor, is installed in the Aviary at the Manor, on special loan from a private collection. At over 2 metres high, the sculpture is at first sight both monumental and imposing. However, its rugged contours rise up from the ground only to be truncated at a plateau: there is no peak, and the structure is in fact hollow. Kapoor plays with our expectations and sets up contradictions about appearances and reality, presence and ephemerality, offering us what seems to be solid lump of rock that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a void. The 19th-century Pulham rock used in the landscaping around the Aviary throws the artifice of Mountain into even sharper relief.









Anish Kapoor's "Mountain" at the Aviary



So head to Waddesdon this summer for its many delights, its superb contents, its wonderful setting and gardens, its excellent restaurants and retro ice cream van but also for its fresh twist on art and architecture.







For more see;



Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/waddesdon-manor-buckinghamshire.html



Waddesdon in Bloom



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/09/waddesdon-in-bloom.html



The Dead Zoo at Tring



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/dead-zoo-at-tring.html



For details, directions and opening times here is Waddesdon’s website;



http://www.waddesdon.org.uk

Waddesdon in bloom

The last time I wrote about Waddesdon Manor

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/waddesdon-manor-buckinghamshire.html

the wonderful Victorian gardens were wrapped in their winter coat of repentance. This is not entirely an allegorical flight for the statues and garden ornaments are wrapped to protect them from the frost and the house is closed up for maintenance, conservation and a deep clean. The Parterre which is the last original parterre in England is dug out and in spring roundly 58,000 thousand fresh plants are planted according to a computer template in a design which like the labels of the Rothschild’s Chateau Mouton changes each year. So I thought it would be an idea to catch these lovingly tended gardens and plants in the Plant Centre when they are in their full summer glory.



Waddesdon Manor was built (1874-89) by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to entertain his guests and display his vast collection of 18th-century French decorative arts. The furniture, Savonnerie carpets and Sèvres porcelain rank in importance with those in the Louvre in Paris and the Royal and Wallace Collections in London. There is also a fine collection of portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds, and works by Dutch and Flemish Masters of the 17th century.





The Victorian gardens are considered one of the finest in Britain and famous for the parterre, seasonal displays, shady walks and views, fountains and statuary. At its heart lies the aviary, stocked with species that were once part of Baron Ferdinand's collection. The Wine Cellars, modelled on the private cellars at Château Lafite-Rothschild, contain thousands of bottles of Rothschild wines dating back to 1868. It was one of 7 Rothschild mansions surrounding the Vale of Aylesbury, the others being Ascott House (Home of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild), Mentmore Towers (Former home of Lord Roseberry who married into the Rothschild’s and was Prime Minister), Halton House, Aston Clinton House, Tring Manor (Now home to the Walter Rothschild Collection of the Natural History Museum) and Eythrope House which borders Waddesdon and where Jacob (Lord) Rothschild lives.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/dead-zoo-at-tring.html





Looking at this magnificent French-style chateau standing in acres of lush parkland, it is almost inconceivable to visualise the 18th century Rothschild’s living in a Jewish ghetto in the suburbs of Frankfurt. From this unlikely environment a most powerful financial empire spread throughout Europe, and the family name is now synonymous with extraordinary cultured wealth.

Descended from the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family, Baron Ferdinand came to England in 1859 when he was just 20 years old. Following the tragic death of his new young wife during childbirth, he never remarried, but decided to look around for a suitable place to settle in England. Already living in Buckinghamshire, close to several members of his family, Ferdinand bought 3000 acres of land from the Duke of Marlborough in 1874 with the intention of erecting a property to house his growing collection of art treasures. Never intended as a home, Waddesdon Manor was designed as a pleasurable showpiece where specially invited guests could share in Ferdinand's passion for 18th century French art.





The massive building project took 15 years to complete, but the results were breathtaking both externally and internally. Designed by a French architect, Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, the 19th century brick and stone cladding was used to create a stunning Renaissance style chateau, imaginatively fitted out with authentic French interiors. Wood panelling, screens and fireplaces are just some of the 'second-hand' materials, salvaged from French palaces and old Parisian houses being demolished, that were used to create the beautiful rooms at Waddesdon Manor.



Having installed his priceless collections in their perfect setting, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild was now able to entertain selected groups of people who would appreciate the finery on display, and could indulge in the luxury of these surroundings. Regular weekend house parties were given during the 1880s and 90s, when his guests included royalty, politicians, writers and society beauties. In the absence of a long-term companion, Ferdinand's spinster sister acted as hostess at these frequent gatherings and, on his death, Waddesdon Manor was left to her. Alice's contributions include several pieces of fine porcelain from the houses of Sevres and Meissen.



Waddesdon has one of the finest Victorian gardens in Britain, renowned for its seasonal displays, colourful shrubs, giant tree ferns, parterre, and restored Pleasure Garden. There is also a Rose Garden and Children’s Garden. The rococo style Aviary houses a splendid collection of exotic birds and the extensive Rothschild wine cellars can be visited. In 2001 a woodland path to the parterre was laid out as the Baron’s Walk; this path features two sandstone statues carved in the 1730s by Jan van Logteren: Venus and Adonis. The statues were formerly in the garden of Aston Clinton (another Rothschild house in Buckinghamshire that was demolished in 1958).

Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild planned his house on essentially a bare hill, known as Lodge Hill. A letter to his uncle dated 2 February 1875 describes how pleased he was with the progress made in the plantations. Early photographs show young trees already in place while the carriage drive was still being laid out and the foundations for the house were barely dug. In the initial layout of the grounds, Ferdinand was aided by the French landscape gardener Elie Lainé, who was ‘bidden to make designs for the terraces, the principle roads and plantations’. Little is known about Lainé who was probably based in Paris. No doubt he was introduced to Ferdinand by the French architect of the house, Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur.



In his ‘Red Book’ (1897), Ferdinand, feeling the need to explain his choice of a foreign landscape gardener, relates how he first asked ‘Mr Thomas’ for his assistance. As Brent Elliott has pointed out in his guidebook to the gardens at Waddesdon, this is most likely Mr William Broderick Thomas, a well-known landscape gardener who was working for the Prince of Wales at Sandringham at the time. Thomas declined however, ‘for reasons he did not deign to indulge’, but probably because of his commitment to other projects. Unfortunately, no designs by Elie Lainé for the layout of the grounds at Waddesdon appear to have survived. His involvement went beyond the mere supply of designs though, as he stayed on site, supervising with Mr George Alexander, an engineer from London, the laying out of the roads. Early account books show payments to Lainé in February of 1876, 1877 and 1878 (Bellaigue). During this period Lainé and Destailleur were also working together at Vaux-le-Vicomte in France. A later design by Destailleur for the lowest terrace at Waddesdon Manor shows indeed some similarities with his work at Vaux-le-Vicomte (Pons). This design was not carried out. In his ‘Red Book’ Ferdinand made it clear, that although Lainé was involved with ‘the chief outlines of the park’, he himself was responsible for much of the ornamental plantings: ‘the pleasure grounds and gardens were laid out by my bailiff [George Sims] and gardener [Arthur Bradshaw] according to my notions and under my superintendence’.





As his father had done at Schillersdorf, and as his relative and friend Lord Rosebery (who was married to Ferdinand’s cousin, Hannah) did at Mentmore, Ferdinand transplanted large trees, using Percheron mares. ‘My trees came – some of them – from Wooburn [sic] Abbey…and some from Claydon House – Sir Harry Verney’s place. Some from Halton; some from Drayton Beauchamp – wherever I could get them. Yes, they turned out as we wished…with the exception of the oak. The oaks have given trouble; but the chestnuts have done remarkably well’. (The Woman at Home)
In the early 1920s a Rothschild from the French arm of the family inherited the splendid manor house, and he established a stud farm at Waddesdon Manor, as well as introducing additional 18th century works of art. Ironically, the only time that this ostentatious mansion has had permanent residents was during the Second World War, when 100 child evacuees stayed with their nannies and nurses.



Although the present Lord Rothschild is actively involved in the continuing restoration and day-to-day management of the estate, Waddesdon Manor was bequeathed to the National Trust several decades earlier. With the family collections being enlarged all the time by new acquisitions, and the gardens being continually transformed by experimental planting schemes, the estate is just a never-ending spectacle of colour and opulence.





You name it, Waddesdon had it and everybody visited from Queen Victoria down. Waddesdon and its estate was no family seat built over the centuries but a modern building masquerading as a 16th Century Chateau built in a short space of time to the best quality standards with no expense spared. So it had its own powerhouse, gas works, dairy, railway station and railway line, lift, central heating.




Parterre

Waddesdon has one of the finest Victorian gardens in Britain, famous for its Parterre, seasonal displays, colourful shrubs, mature trees, statues and carpet bedding. At its heart lies the Aviary, stocked with species that were once part of Baron Ferdinand's collection and other birds that are depicted on Waddesdon's famous Sèvres porcelain collection.





One of the most unusual features of the garden is the Aviary. Completed in 1889 by an unknown architect, it was built for Baron Ferdinand as a reminder of one he had grown up with in his childhood home, the Villa Gruneburg outside Frankfurt. It is made of cast-iron in the style of a rococo trelliswork pavilion, such as those erected at Versailles and Chantilly in the early eighteenth-century.

The Aviary houses a specialised collection of softbill birds (fruit and insect eating species) and a few of the rarer pigeons, doves and partridges. At Waddesdon Manor the aviary aims to foster an appreciation of the species it works with and to serve as a centre of biological study, environmental education, and conservation activities. Wherever possible the aviary endeavours to make sure that there is real conservation value in the work that is done here. In addition to the captive breeding programmes Waddesdon Manor aviary also supports conservation initiatives in the wild.





No mansion was complete without an extensive range of glasshouses and Waddesdon was no exception. In 1882 a contract was signed between Ferdinand and George William Watkins Berry for ‘the erection of glass houses & other work at Lodge Hill’. From 1885 onwards there are also huge payments to the firm of glasshouse suppliers, R. Halliday & Co, from Middleton near Manchester. Earlier payments (1883-1885), similarly huge, are listed under the name of ‘Holliday’ but this is almost certainly a misspelling of Halliday, as actual designs for the glasshouse range by Halliday date from 1884 and possibly earlier. The 2nd edition OS map of 1898 gives some idea of the glasshouse range, which included a large palm house. Situated between the stables and the dairy, on the lower slope to the north east of the manor, the glasshouse complex, known as ‘Top Glass’, adjoined a layout of formal flowerbeds. It survived until the 1970s when it became structurally unsound and was pulled down.



Today the remnants of the greenhouses and raised beds are the Waddesdon Plant Centre which as well as tending the gardens of the house and the wonderful parterre are run as a garden centre specialising in English Roses and excellent perennial plants and garden furniture as well as seasonal bedding. It is not the cheapest option but the quality is good and the advice from the knowledgeable staff always reliable.



See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/waddesdon-manor-buckinghamshire.html