George Trollope & Sons fireplace & room, Paris Exhibition 1878 Gold Medal Winner

Object Description

George Trollope and Sons. Exhibited at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878 winning a Gold Medal for Excellence.

The set forms the four sides of a complete panelled room that was exhibited as a boudoir room or petit salon at the Paris Exhibition 1878.

The main feature and centrepiece of this boudoir room is the Rosso Antico marble fireplace surmounted by an open display niche carved in cedar wood.

Each side of the room is composed of various panels and are as follows:

One side with a grand Rosso Antico marble fireplace flanked by two doorways.

One side with French doors originally opening onto a balcony, flanked by two large bookshelves.

One side with a window flanked by two mirrors. The opposite side with three large mirrors.

The complete room measures:
21 ft / 6.4 m wide, 17 ft / 5.18 m deep, and 12 ft / 3.65 m high.

It could also be used in a number of different combinations to suit various room layouts. The mirrors could be replaced with windows or further bookcases.

Each side is decorated with various sizes of finely carved panels and holds ornate Corinthian-style columns surmounted with cherubim on the capitals. Three cherubs are formed at the top of each corner with three columns, at the column bases, there are circular carved pedestals to display statues.

Object History

George Trollope & Sons were registered under this name in 1843 and are recorded in West Halkin Street, Belgrave Square, London by 1864.

They undertook large scale refurbishments of residential property and in this way supplied furniture and decorations made by them to only the wealthiest of clients.

The firm was highly considered by the 1860s and exhibited at several International Exhibitions. They became very successful during the second half of the nineteenth century building the highest quality houses of the period and producing a wide range of goods and decorations to noble families and well connected clients.

Notable projects include:

Her Majesty’s Theatre (1869)

St Philip’s Church, Battersea (1870)

Fairlawns, Tonbridge for Edward Cazalet

Cadogan Estates (1876–1889)

Interior fittings for Knoyle House (1880)

Claridge’s (1897)

Baltic Exchange (1903, demolished in 1998)

George Trollope and Sons participated in various Great Exhibitions in Paris and London in the mid-19th century, but it was only at the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition that the fireplace and matching panelled boudoir room or petit salon won his first gold medal. Trollope’s finest and most successful period was from 1860 to 1880.

Adjacent to the original label that was printed by The Secretary – Royal British Commission for the Universal Exhibition 1878 in stencil ‘TO BE KEPT’, i.e. ‘to be returned’. This confirms why it came back to London.

We removed the Boudoir Room or Petite Salon from a Trollope house, part of a grand high-class housing estate in London which around the time of the exhibition Trollope and Sons were in the process of building, and where the room set was installed directly after it returned from the exhibition in 1878 until now.

Worthy of note is the machines that did the carving for the Boudoir Room or Petite Salon and also did all of the decorative carving (most of which was linenfold carving) for the Houses of Parliament, London.

Object Literature

The Golden Milestone, published 1 Jan 1910 by Trollope & Sons, Artists in Decoration since A.D. 1778, at West Halkin Street Galleries, Belgrave Square.

Colour illustrations show various room styles and the text promotes the firm’s ability to provide either a complete design service or simply the provision of individual elements (furniture, carpets and curtains, decorations, light fittings etc.)

To give prospective customers reassurance about the quality of the firm’s work, the publication has a four page list of clients.

The Illustrated Catalog of the Paris International Exhibition, 1878

Les Merveilles de l’Exposition de 1878, Marius Vachon:

“The first object that catches the eye when one enters the (English) furniture class is the beautiful boudoir-salon exhibited by Mr. Trollope.”

The boudoir (or petit salon), of carved cedar wood, is an attempt to reproduce the style which prevailed in England during the first decade of Queen Anne’s reign… The fireplace is in “rosso antico” movement, and the ceiling is in portable plaster.

The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to present, Journal 25, 2001, article by Jonathan Meyer

The Great Exhibitions, London, New York, Paris and Philadelphia 1851–1900, by Jonathan Meyer (2006)

“It was a golden era when the most beautiful works of art just kept coming onto the market. But there are exceptions as in this instance, when a unique, gold medal-winning exhibition work of art comes onto the market for the very first time.”

Object Condition

The complete original panelled room and the Rosso Antico marble fireplace were all
removed successfully and are in wonderful original condition. On the back of the
panelling are two original labels printed by: The Secretary – Royal British Commission for the Universal Exhibition 1878.

In the images that accompany this information, one can see the panelled room and
fireplace layout in its entirety, which is how it was finally installed into the George Trollope and Sons house after it was returned from the Paris Exhibition, and where we finally removed from.

The mirrors within the panelling are period, they replaced the original tapestries depicting Alexander Pope’s poem, ‘The Rape of Lock’, which were originally displayed at the 1878 exhibition.

Object Details