Travelling abroad also engendered a sense of freedom and independence, particularly for women like Margaret Beale. On a visit to Lucerne in September 1874 with her husband James and her sister Mary and brother-in-law Clifford Beale, the men were suddenly called home due to the death of their uncle, Samuel Beale. Finding herself on holiday without her husband she expressed the empowering effect of independent foreign travel in a letter to her father, hinting on the possibility of future adventures:
We have been very comfortable in this hotel and feel so independent now we are capable of going to America and back alone, Mary is quite the manly one of the two and is not daunted by anything.666
As a couple, actively searching for art objects and antiques in the 1890s and 1900s whilst travelling to foreign, unknown places also instilled a sense of connoisseurial exploration and discovery. It was an essential part of acquiring an advanced historical knowledge and artistic taste. To convey a carefully selected and individual choice, one that underscored authenticity and
experience through travel adventure meant that the Beales dealt with a wide variety of suppliers. As Judy Neiswander has suggested:
Individuality was expressed through exquisite choice and skilful
arrangement and an array of antique and foreign objects demonstrated a
664 They bought two Hepplewhite arms chairs covered in red silk, two old Chippendale
wardrobes, and two blue and white Nankin vases. Mallett & Son, Bath, ‘To J S Beale Esq. Bill of Sale’, 2 October 1902, MS 373, WSRO.
665 Maggie S Beale, ‘To Helen from Margaret, 32 Holland Park’, 6 October 1902, CIMG1258, BFP.
666 Margaret Beale, ‘My Dear Father [sent from Luzernerhof Hotel, Lucerne]’, 19 September 1974, 2, CIMG0224, BFP.
sophisticated, cosmopolitan appreciation of the scope of history and the cultures of the world.667
On September 27 1893, whilst Standen was still being built, the Beales
departed on a tour to Heidelberg, Nuremburg and Prague, stopping for a night or two at each town before moving on. Although Margaret Beale’s handwritten notes start with a brief list of the museums and historical places they visited, it also emphasises her enthusiasm for collecting indigenous, old and interesting objects:
6th [October] The Germanic Museum, Albrecht Durer’s picture’s &
Wohlgemuth’s [&] Karlbach’s, Opening of Charlemagne’s Tomb, Old furniture etc., Bought cabinet, mugs, lamps etc., Drove round outside the walls in the afternoon, bought copper jugs etc.668
For Margaret Beale, the trip was as much about buying useful and beautiful objets d’art and furniture as discovering the history and culture of the country they were visiting. They bought a ‘copper wood holder’ decorated with medieval figures (Fig. 215), used in the Hall at Standen for storing firewood and a chair for the Drawing Room.669
On a later trip to Monte Carlo via Calais and Cannes in March 1895, the Beales collected the latest designs in French art pottery. Margaret Beale’s hand-written itinerary of the tour details how they visited Vallauris, near Cannes, in search of flower stands. This detail probably refers to an ‘art nouveau’ style of art pottery made by Clement Massier, one of the region’s most prominent potters. Two items of pottery by Massier which remain in Standen’s collection are likely to have been those purchased on 8 March 1895 during this holiday; a turquoise glazed vase (Fig. 216) and a tall celadon vase (Fig. 217) now displayed in the Staircase Landing. Clearly inspired by the artistry and quality of the pottery in the region, the very next day, the couple walked to Mont Chevalier Potteries.
Here, noted Margaret Beale, they purchased ‘pots’, which are probably those by French potter Leon Castel - a pair of stoneware vases now on display in the Morning Room (Fig. 218) and a lustre vase in the Drawing Room (Fig. 219).
667 Neiswander, The Cosmopolitan Interior, 54.
668 Margaret Beale, ‘Diary Notes, 1893 The Beales' Tour to Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Nuremburg and Prague’, 1893, 2, CIMG0173, BFP.
669 The chair is no longer at Standen; it was given to SRB, (Samuel Richard Beale the youngest son) probably when he married in 1908.
By the time the Beales visited Venice and Florence in September 1898, the style of Margaret Beale’s handwritten travel notes were assured and confidently expressed. She not only listed which art treasures they had seen, but also recorded details such as the subject matter, positioning and her opinion of the artist’s work. On a visit to the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, on Thursday 22 September she thought ‘Titian’s North wall [was] beautiful, J [G]
Bellini in Sacristy with 2 saints on either side & angels below; also good wood carving in stalls’.670 She clearly favoured objects which showcased the skilled labour of master craftsman rather than works which emphasised surface and aesthetic qualities alone. Accordingly, her opinion of the ‘Gesuati’ [Gesuiti]
Church in Venice was not so favourable; ‘lined with green and white marble’ she wrote it was ‘ugly’.671 Her travel notes reveal that they were buying historic as well as contemporary articles in Venice and Florence; with references to artisan, well-made household goods. High quality handmade lace from Jesurum, for example, purchased to complement Margaret Beale’s growing collection of historic and hand-crafted textiles.672 Her interest may well have been inspired by other enlightened women collectors of her social circle who engaged in connoisseurial passion for ancient and antique textiles, such as Louisa Pesel.
An expert needlewoman, Pesel travelled extensively whilst acquiring a unique collection of antique embroidery.673 Once the Beales got to Florence, they acquired many more objects, such as framed photographs of original artworks seen on their tours of various art galleries. For example, the two circular photogravure prints with matching carved wooden frames of Madonna and Child by Botticelli after the original paintings at the Uffizi were probably
purchased in 1898 and are still displayed on the walls of the First Floor Corridor at Standen (Fig. 220).674
Margaret and James Beale’s passion for travel was combined with a life-long interest in art and cultural history to manifest in a ‘domestic collection’ of antique
670 Margaret Beale, ‘Diary Notes “Left Standen on Saturday 17 September 1898”’, 17 September 1898, 2, CIMG0180, BFP.
671 Ibid.
672 The company had been founded by Michelangelo Jesurum in 1870 to revive the ancient craft of Venetian lacemaking and by the late 1890s had built up a reputation for producing exclusive household linen.
673 Her collection is now housed at ULITA, University of Leeds International Textiles Archive.
674 Madonna the Magnificat, 1481-1485, Inventory No. 1214762.2 and Madonna of the Pomegranite,1487 Inventory No. 1214762.1.
furniture, objets d’art and mementoes. Besides acquiring their knowledge about peoples and places from first-hand experience, they also read reference books, novels and guide books. For instance, they probably took an 1892 copy of Murray’s Handbook for travellers on the Riviera, from Marseilles to Pisa […].on their trip to Cannes in 1895.675 Besides this book, other travel guides by John Murray and Karl Baedeker can be found in Standen’s library collection, one of the earliest is an 1879 Baedeker guide to the Eastern Alps. Such books were aimed at educated travellers rather than unlettered tourists, they even included detailed instructions of how to behave when arriving on foreign soil.676 However, because such texts tended to be prescriptive, these guides’ books were
criticised by some as manipulators of cultural values, prompting intellectuals such as John Ruskin to write their own guide books.677 He believed that a guide book should be more than just a list of facts; it should encourage a deep
understanding of the place. He wrote a text for discerning travellers going to Florence in 1875-77 entitled Mornings in Florence, offering an enlightened alternative to Murray’s Handbooks.678 Although it is not known whether the Beales owned of copy of Ruskin’s publication, they did consult other texts to glean a different perspective from that proffered by Murray and Baedeker. Since his mid-twenties, James Beale had owned an 1859 copy of Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem by François-Auguste-René Chateaubriand, a travel history of
Greece, Palestine and Egypt.679 Their collection of books also contained other travel related matters such as stories of ancient mythology in an inscribed copy of the Tales of Ancient Greece written in 1880 by G.W. Cox, currently in the Morning Room at Standen. 680 These books and others owned by the Beales give a unique insight to their personal taste, in particular, their vision of distant, exotic lands.
675 John Murray (Firm), A Handbook for Travellers on the Riviera, from Marseilles to Pisa (London: J. Murray, 1892). Morning Room, Inventory No. 3177487.
676 Alan Sillitoe, Leading the Blind: A Century of Guidebook Travel, 1815-1914 (London:
Macmillan, 1995), 43.
677 Clare Broome Saunders, Women, Travel Writing, and Truth (Routledge, 2014), 62.
678 John Ruskin, Mornings in Florence Being Simple Studies of Christian Art for Travellers, 2nd ed (Orpington, Kent: George Allen, 1881).
679 Inventory No. 3177200, Inscribed as a personal gift ‘To my good and ancient student, James Beale, affectionate remembrance Paris in August 1865’.
680 George W. (George William) Cox, Tales of Ancient Greece (London, C. Kegan Paul, 1879).