Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

journal that he had brought back ‘some tiles from the Ducal Palace, Caen, and got some
fragments of stained glass from the circular window at the end of Hall’. 171 One can only hope
that the tiles, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, had already been removed from the floor,
but given the behaviour of the rest of the Pugin party in 1824 it is impossible to be sure.
As the passion for the past spread beyond those who would call themselves antiquaries to
anyone with money who considered themselves a person of taste, so the scale of the purchases
grew. ‘Importation sales’, lasting for two or three whole days were held in London and
purchasers would carry off their prizes to decorate their own homes or parish churches. The scale
and nature of the trade have been explored and thoroughly discussed by Clive Wainwright in The
Romantic Interior and by Charles Tracy in Continental Church Furniture in England. Tracy
calculated that in 2001 there were 255 English churches containing continental woodwork, glass
or paintings. One of these is Sara Losh’s church in Cumbria, which will be discussed in more
detail in the next chapter. In the domestic context perhaps the most dramatic piece of souvenir
hunting was the work of Sir Stuart de Rothesay, the English ambassador who appeared at the
Duchessee de Berry’s quadrille. As well as some of the panelling from Jumièges he acquired for
his home at Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire the great oriel window from Les Andelys,
demolished in 1835. [fig: 35] It is still in situ and now belongs to Hampshire County Council.
Figure 35 The oriel window from Les Andelys under demolition and at Highcliffe Castle, Hampshire
171
A W N Pugin, autobiographical notes transcribed in Wedgwood, A W N Pugin and the Pugin Family, p.24.
156