Gildings Auctioneers
Lot 515
A large mahogany bookcase fascia, designed by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens for the Billiard Room of Papillon Hall, Lubenham, the main aspect incorporating a breakfront bookcase, flanked by a glazed door, matched by a cupboard, middle section with four eight-pane glazed panelled doors, enclosing shelves, over four panelled doors, double cornice section, plinth base, the flanking sections with arched doors incorporating 'teardrop' glazing, with ornamented tracery, break-moulded outlines, angled corners; together with other auxiliary pieces, length as assembled, width 520cm, height 270cm.Footnote: Papillon Hall was built in about 1622-24 for David Papillon, an architect and military engineer of French extraction. It was greatly enlarged in 1903 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Captain Frank Bellville, heir to the Keen's Mustard fortune, who was an avid huntsman. Lutyens had wanted to design a "butterfly-plan" house having visited Norman Shaw's remodelled Chesters some years earlier, and Papillon Hall gave him the perfect footing with the original octagonal core to extend from. It appears a coincidence that the desire to design a butterfly-plan house and the original owner's name meaning butterfly in French presented itself at the Hall in Lubenham. The enlargement was designed during Lutyen's "transitional" phase from vernacular to classical styles and it incorporated elements of both, as well as French influences in reference to Mr Papillon's origins. Contrary to Roderick Gradidge's comments in his 1981 monograph on Lutyens where he suggested a more traditional English style was used, the interior furnishing for the Billiard Room at least carried on the French influence. This period in Lutyens' career became pivotal, with his pursuit of the Classical winning out above the French style. Papillon Hall was later requisitioned by the US Airborne Division during World War II, and was eventually demolished in 1951 having been returned to the family, and a failed attempt to find a new owner led to a state of severe disrepair. The Billiard Room fittings were sold by the demolition contractor and then installed in a house in Glasgow from where they have recently emerged following its conversion to flats and their removal.
