The Drawer of Things

Here at Inigo we have been waiting for an invite to Sean Anthony Pritchard’s delectable cottage in the Mendip Hills for some time now (jokes). Just as well then that Sean is bringing his take on colour, form and fragrance closer to home with the launch of Atmosfloric: The Emporium, 120-122 Great Portland Street in Marylebone Village this month.

Assembled by Sean, the Emporium brings together design, art, fashion, beauty, horticulture and contemporary culture “in a space shaped by curiosity and discovery.” As well as offering aesthetes the opportunity to shop hand-selected objects, exclusive editions and seasonal finds, the Emporium will host a programme of talks, including The History of Flower Paintings with our co-founder, Albert Hill. Albert will be taking his audience through 1,000 years of flower paintings on Tuesday 1st December between 6.30pm - 8pm. Attendees will also be able to view artworks from his Flowers, Mountains Etc. collection.

Have you heard of the social historian Tamsim Wimhurst? Her work includes a string of seemingly insurmountable preservation projects that began in 2009 at 86 Gwydir Street, an ordinary terraced house in Cambridge with an extraordinary hand-painted interior. It was home to the Victorian working-class artist David Parr and his family. Thanks to the charitable trust Tamsin founded, it has been preserved for posterity. We unearthed this fascinating talk about the project here and also, by complete coincidence, found ourselves chatting to Parr’s great-granddaughter Anna Norman, author of The David Parr House, at a birthday party recently. Tamsin has since succeeded in funding several seemingly “unfundable” private homes that once belonged to outsider artists, and a tithe barn theatre, as well as several of her own remarkable restoration projects.

If there’s one thing we desire in our Drawer of Things this month, it is one of these natty butter knives by Allday Goods. Allday Goods have partnered up with their favourite food brands, scooped up their plastic waste, and transformed it into covetable cutlery. You’ll find 10 limited-edition designs for sale at The Allday Mini Mart this month: a two-day pop up at 264 Upper Street in Islington on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15 November, 9am-6pm. Spread the word ...

Staying in the kitchen, The Conran Shop has recently launched the “re-engineered Brown Betty” and it is the stuff of fairytales. Quite literally. Reading the press release called to mind Norman Hunter’s modern fable, ‘The Dribblesome Teapots’, starring the original Brown Betty. (If you need your memory jogged, here’s a video of Kenneth Williams reading the story on Jackanory in 1978.) In Hunter’s tale, the queen’s Brown Betty starts dribbling, ruining the stately carpets. She rashly decides to offer half the kingdom to anyone who can design her a teapot with a clean pour. No one succeeds. Finally, a butler fesses up to chipping the spout of the original Brown Betty and covering up the damage with boot polish. The court magician mends the teapot and all is right in the world. IRL, the ceramicist Ian McIntyre spent seven years researching the design of this 300-year-old kitchen classic, reintroducing lost features (including 1920s patents) to perfect her pour.

We’ve been poring over our copy of the just-published Charleston Farmhouse 1981 by Kim Marsland, a beguiling collection of photographs of the Sussex home of the Bloomsbury Group that coincides with the Tate Britain exhibition, Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury. (12 November-11 April 2027; the exhibition includes a once-in-a-lifetime restaging of the artists' studio, relocated for the exhibition from their Sussex home.)

As an art student in 1981, Marsland visited and photographed the house, which had remained almost untouched since the death of its last occupant, Duncan Grant, three years earlier. Left to wander the house alone, the photographs offer a fascinating glimpse of life at Charleston before its restoration. A haunting black and white image shows Vanessa Bell’s attic studio, unused for almost 20 years, while colour photographs depict walls and doors adorned with ornate hand-painted murals.

Picture credits: © Kim Marsland; © Jake Husband and David Parr House; © Albert Hill; © Matthew Smith; © Darren Shaddick; © TCS; A Lady Taking Tea’, Jean-Siméon Chardin, 1735, © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow