Letting income is maximised by placing as much shop front as possible at street level. This squeezes the door to the offices a little bit, but Huntly-Gordon makes up for the lack of width by adding a lovely adornment of putti by Gilbert Seale. Both architect and sculptor sign the piece, unusually.
The one on the left is more or less a standard model putto with feathery wings and a bow, carrying a quiver, but the one on the right is decidedly odd with what look like butterfly wings and flowers in its hair. Is it a boy or a girl?
The balcony of the open loggia on the fourth floor is supported by a line of attractive heads of putti. Are they also by Seale or was a journeyman mason brought in?
4 comments:
You are right about the putto on the right. S/he is more like a Shakespearian fairy than yer standard cupid. We've just published another of Huntly-Gordon's buildings, Hugh Myddelton's house: http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/hugh-myddelton-s-house. Fishing around we found that H-G's unhappy marriage was sensationally reported in a newspaper of the time. The link is on our page for H-G.
You are right about the putto on the right. S/he is more like a Shakespearian fairy than yer standard cupid. We've just published another of Huntly-Gordon's buildings, Hugh Myddelton's house: http://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/hugh-myddelton-s-house. Fishing around we found that H-G's unhappy marriage was sensationally reported in a newspaper of the time. The link is on our page for H-G.
You don't often see architects' dirty linen hung out like that. His daughter seems to have been the most sensible person in the entire case - her mother totally failed to get the message, and so did the judge.
Thanks for the link!
I'd like to know why it was published in a New Zealand paper. The article is headed 'London' so the family hadn't emigrated to NZ. Possibly it was also reported in London papers and they just haven't hit the web yet. Or posssibly in 1911 British papers wouldn't publish scandal but NZ had no such scruples. If so, how things have changed!
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