Study Days Past Study Days October 4th 2023 £60 Unfortunately this wonderful Study Day had to be cancelled, a full refund will be given to those who have applied and paid Study Day at the Griffin Inn, Swithland The Golden Age of English Furniture Janusz Karczewski-Slowikowski The term Georgian immediately conjures up images of elegant English Furniture and this special interest day will focus on the development of elegance through style in relation to the design and construction of furniture during the 18th Century.   It commences with an appraisal of early 18th century walnut furniture (including the so-called “Queen Anne” style) and progresses through the mahogany rococo style of the 1740s to 1760s to the fancy-wood neo-classical styles of the last quarter of the century.   The day will include looking at the  influence on furniture style and fashion  of designer-craftsmen such as Thomas Chippendale which will involve looking at some of the more eccentric styles of the period – the Chinese (“Chinoiserie”) and the romanticised Gothic style so favoured by Walpole at Strawberry Hill. 10.00 Doors open 10.30 Lecture-1 An Appraisal of early 18th Century Walnut Furniture (Queen Anne) 11.30 Coffee (order lunchtime drinks at the bar) 12.00 Lecture-2 Mahogany & Rococo 1740-60 13.00 Buffet Lunch 13.45 Lecture-3 Fancy-woods used in the Neoclassical Styles of 1765-1899 Quiz & Review of members’ own pieces that they have brought 14.45 Tea. Coffee & home made cakes 1. An Appraisal of early 18th Century Walnut Furniture The term “Georgian” immediately conjures up images of elegant English Furniture focusing of the development of elegance through style in relation to the design and construction throughout the 18th Century (including the so-called Queen Anne Style) 2. Mahogany & Rococo 1740-60 Janusz will look at the influence on furniture style and fashion of designer-craftsmen such as Thomas Chippendale, and this will involve looking at some of the more eccentric styles of the period - the Chinese (”Chinoiserie”) and the romanticised Gothic so favoured by Walpole at Strawberry Hill. 3. Fancy-wood used in the Neoclassical Styles of 1765-1800 This review of the last quarter of the eighteenth century will round up the day. Those attending will be encouraged to bring with them any items of 18th century furniture that they can safely transport, together with any other items that are eccentric or unusual . If there are sufficient of these Janusz will use them to create an end-of-day Quiz, which is always fun! Outing to the Civil War Museum in Newark on Wednesday 19th April This is a self-drive event at £15 per head with tea and coffee with biscuits on arrival. If the weather is good, you can the walk a short distance to go round the large ruined castle in the town. Self-Drive Outing to Newark Civil War Museum 19th April, 10.30 for 11am Our official Closing Date is 31st March. If you would like to come but don’t want to drive, please let me know or call another of our Board Members (all our contact details are in your Membership Programme Card). Study Day at the Griffin Inn, Swithland Thursday 29th September 2022, 10am - 3.30pm approx. Four lectures and a buffet lunch, followed by tea, coffee & cakes. Nicholas Henderson Tudor Queens (All you ever wanted to know, but never asked) that will include Henry VIII’s six of them, followed by a further three, as well as two kings! Study Day, Tuesday 21st September 2021, 10am for 10.30am, Griffin Inn, Swithland Lars Tharp 1030 Lecture-1 Harlots Rakes and Crashing China, ceramics in Hogarth’s world A ‘cracking’ talk. It will fundamentally change your view of William Hogarth. Pots, crocks and chinaware tumble through Hogarth’s domestic dramas. His detailed paintings and prints are wittily infiltrated with recognizable ceramics - earthenwares, stonewares and ‘china’- in an age drunk on Luxury. Potters across continents compete with each other, fuelled by the ‘china mania’ gripping the emerging middle classes. And Hogarth catches them. And in an ironic twist: Hogarth’s own images are themselves translated onto clay. 11.30 Coffee 12.00 Lecture-2 On the China Trail: the great journey to get the pots From the mountains of Jiangxi province in far-off China, down river, over lake and mountain, and finally across oceans, 98 % of the Chinese porcelain on display in European museums, stately homes, palaces and personal collections, are testimony to an epic journey and of monumental human endeavour. Luxury for the rich created in the effort of millions. Each year in the 1600s and 1700s millions of pieces - services, vases and ornamental wares - were shipped and portered over the mountain border into Guangdong province, passing through the aptly-named ‘Gate of Heores’. I take you on that actual journey, the same journey we filmed in my 2011 BBC film Treasures of Chinese Porcelain. You will never again pass a piece of Chinese porcelain in any Western collection without calling to mind the heroic effort involved, or without evoking the landscapes embedded in that journey. 1300 Lunch 1400 Lecture-3 The Best of Pots, the Worst of Pots and Your Pots After over forty years specializing in Ceramics from all over the globe and across thousands of years, I offer you my pick from both ends of my personal spectrum of likes and dislikes. But which is Good, which Bad? Will you agree? Here’s a talk to encourage Audience participation. I hope I can change some minds –in either direction. De gustibus non est disputandum (‘in matters of Taste all argument is futile’’). Or perhaps not? Wednesday 14th October 2020 Zoom Study Day, 11 for 11.30am Barry Venning Patinbrushes at Dawn - the World’s Greatest Artistic Feuds, Rows and Quarrels” (2 lectures)

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