The Necessity of Apprenticeships.

I met up with my dear friend Wagner Sangeli this week. He and I studied at The London College of Furniture and then were apprenticed at Titian Studios together. I can't believe we started our professional lives 13 years ago. Wagner is as handsome today as he was then, he doesn't look any older. I think he's not just a fabulous restorer of furniture, but he's somehow learnt how to preserve himself perfectly too. Perhaps he sleeps in a vat of restorative chemicals every night!

We were reminiscing about our days as apprentices. Titian's is justifiably famous for offering traditional old fashioned training. I loved studying Restoration and Conservation, and learned a great deal in academia, but I owe Rosaria Titian a debt of gratitude for everything she taught me on the bench. There truly is nothing like working alongside a great artist. Rosaria showed me how to understand colour, she helped me develop my eye, I began to feel my way into antiques through being with her. I think most of what I learned with her can't be described very well. There isn't a language to explain why I now know when is the right time to burnish gold, why I know a tiny bit of yellow in a white wash will make my work invisible, how I know that the shape of a leaf should be "just so". To FEEL your way into a trade like Restoration, you have to work alongside people who have that feel themselves. Somehow, unconsciously you begin to absorb the knowledge from that person. It is an extraordinary process and one that I will always be grateful for.

I remember especially enjoying watching Rosaria mix colour. It was so easy for her. We had a huge stack of mixing plates at Titians and they were always completely covered in swathes of paint as for me (and the other apprentices) it was usually very hard to match colour. The ever-changing tones of antique furniture are not easy to copy! When Rosaria mixed paint she'd look at a piece, choose a few tubes of oils, take a tiny daub of green, a slight touch of grey, flick her brush around on her plate, and she'd be ready to touch in. She said to me one day rather simply, "I know paint". And it was true. Watching her work like that, I learnt how to do it myself, and 13 years on, it's as easy for me as it was then for her. Could I have learnt that any other way than to have watched her do it? I doubt it. I hope that the apprentice system is never lost. It's so important that knowledge is passed on through observation. I think that's really the only way to fully grasp the many skills that restorers need.

Update on Lucien Bonaparte Chairs

Hakan Groth; antique dealer, eminent furniture scholar and author of Neoclassicism in the North has emailed me with some extremely interesting information about the provenance of the "Lucien Bonaparte" suite. Apparently the suite was created for Louis, duc de Bourbon the last dauphin of France. It couldn't have been made for Napoleon's brother as Lucien had left France for Italy in 1804 (he had married a commoner and infuriated Napoleon). Thank you Hakan for letting me know! I'd also like to take this opportunity to say how much I appreciate Hakan's incredible knowledge of history and furniture. To carry around an encyclopedia wouldn't be much fun, but spending time with Hakan means you have the pleasure of learning vast amounts of information whilst being charmed, as he's a very engaging academic. I'd say he's the 19th century's answer to "Hello" He knows every great story and every wicked anecdote. He makes history amusing, and I find it much easier to remember all the details that way!

London Gilding at O. F. Wilson

I've restored furniture for Peter Jackson at O. F. Wilson for many years. He has a great eye and his shop is full of treasures. It's often very difficult for me to hand back pieces after I've worked on them because he has such exquisite taste and I want to keep them all. This video from Luxetv shows a small selection of his extraordinary stock, and I'm in it demonstrating how to water-gild. I'm better at gilding than I am talking, so just ignore what I'm saying and watch what I do!

Brown and Harman

This wonderful piece of furniture was made by Brown and Harman. http://www.brownandharman.co.uk/ I had the pleasure of gilding the Griffins after they'd been superbly carved. They are water-gilded in 23carat gold and highly burnished. I love working on modern pieces that have been finished to such a high standard. It's a joy to be able to use traditional skills on contemporary pieces. It's rare to find a company like Brown and Harman that use restorers. Cabinetmakers and carvers and gilders take time to do our work and we are expensive. But no machine-cut, varnished, gilt-painted piece of furniture can ever compare to something that has been hand finished. This piece will be an antique of the future, so I did sign the griffins as part of it's provenance, but I was very discreet!

A Fine Cabinetmaker

Rutherford Latty of A. J. Brett and Co. One of the finest cabinetmakers I know. I've had the pleasure of working with this man for 10 years. I know many excellent craftsmen and women in London. The reason I especially prize Rutherford is because of his sensitivity, depth of knowledge and attention to detail. No one knows the names of history's great restorers as their work has to be invisible. It's one thing to create an exquisite piece of furniture, it's quite another to have the skill to match others' work, subsume your own style and always put another craftsman's intentions above your own. Rutherford does all of that, easily and with pleasure. So I'm giving this invisible man some well deserved praise. Luckily he doesn't know I have a blog, he'd kill me if he knew I'd put a picture of him on it! If you want to get in touch with him, you can't. He won't take calls. But he works for A. J. Brett and Co in North London, and their number is 02072728462

Lucien Bonaparte Chairs

This suite of furniture was commissioned for Lucien Bonaparte, the brother of Napoleon. It's possible to see the carved LB monogram in the first picture. The suite was in extensive need of restoration when it came to me and took seven months to re-gild. It is now in a private collection. Melbourne, Australia.

Gilded Room

My favourite room ever! This room is "somewhere" (mustn't tell) in London. This client has fantastic taste and apart from the gold walls, and ceiling! All the fittings are soft mat black. It's like entering a 20's Cartier cigarette case. Gorgeous.