Architecture and Panelling : The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor

A scholarly account of the origins of Waddesdon Manor and a catalogue of the celebrated panelling, describing and analysing the 385 individual elements. Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bought the Waddesdon Estate in 1874 but building did not begin until 1877.

In the intervening years, the Parisian architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur produced designs on an enormous scale for a French Renaissance-style chateau.

The end result, completed in 1889, was a smaller house which became the epitome of grandeur and elegance and which represents several decisive landmarks in the history of architecture and decoration in France. This volume opens with an account of the Destailleur family, Parisian architects of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whose designs are now to be found in the Kuntstbibliothek, Berlin and in the Archives Nationales in France. The second chapter studies the use of old French panelling from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries; the dismantling and re-use of it in the eighteenth century drawn from Versailles; the trade and export of it at this time; its destruction during the Revolution; the market and organisation of sales under the Empire; the return of interest under Louis-Philippe; the market under the Second Empire, the Rothschild family's interest in it and in particular Baron Ferdinand's. The catalogue of the house's panelling follows, comprising more than half the book.

There are 335 entries, each one illustrated and including a description, measurements, location and provenance, as well as a commentary which discusses various aspects of each panel in relation to its fellows, period and history.

Each group of panels is accompanied by a fully documented section on the houses for which they were carved - houses which were celebrated in the 18th century for the quality of their decoration.