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2. Identitat i diferència: la traça del subjecte en l’escriptura de l’objecte pongeà
In 1788, perhaps because of the financial uncertainty that followed Lord Boringdon’s death, Anne took out a lease upon a house in Parliament Street. This was to be Anne’s very own residence until she gave it up in 1799. For the first time in her life, Anne was able to pursue her own architectural ambitions without the need for permission from a male relative or friend. As such, it is unsurprising that she immediately set about transforming the interiors to suit her taste:
I really forgot whether I mentioned my House in my last or not all that was done. I liked it very well, I have ordered the Parlours to be painted, as I find Mr Templar144 is to pay half of what is done now, I have chose a white paper for the three rooms one pair of stairs and a handsome bleu border, and a bleu stormont for the furniture, & have given a list of what I shall wont for Mrs Kelly who has promised to do everything as cheap as good as possible, I have given her a draft for fifty pounds.145
Anne was evidently excited about the prospect of creating a comfortable, fashionable town house of her own. As she was often at Saltram, she left the purchasing of necessary furniture to Bridget Kelly, née Parker, sister of the 1st Lord Boringdon, who lived in Dean’s Yard, Westminster. The difficulty of furnishing her house by proxy was that she had to rely entirely upon the aesthetic judgement and bargaining skills of her kinswoman:
I am in correspondence with Mrs Kelly about some Chairs which I am afraid are very dear and not pretty, she calls them Japan with Green silk & stuff Damask bottoms (which wont suit my bleu furniture) & Chairs & window stools and a sopha, for forty Guineas, she has offered 35 – I have wrote to her my objections & hope she has not agreed for them. I should think I might have 6 chairs at 2 or 3 Gs a piece and a sopha with bleu Stormont covers which would look much better and cost much less.146
Although money was an ever-present concern for Anne, it is still apparent that she was determined to create the most aesthetically pleasing arrangement. Her dismissal of second-hand furniture suggests that she was not going to sacrifice taste for money. Moreover, she also ordered some bespoke pieces of furniture from a Mr Crighton, who was also charged with overseeing the painters in her absence:
I was in hopes my House would have been quite free from smell of paint, and that the painter would have been out long ago as there was only the stair case and parlour to do when I saw it in Oct; I am afraid Mr Crighton has not looked much after them, I should think the sooner he puts the furniture in that was bespoke of him the better, which was all the Beds two Bath Stoves for the second floor and the Carpets for the first and the stair case, Mrs Kelly was to try to get everything else, and to lay in the Coals when they were cheapest. I hope you like the paper and the border.147
143 PWDRO, 1259/2/227, Theresa Parker to Mrs Robinson, Saltram, 27 July 1797.
144 Anne’s landlord.
145 PWDRO, 1259/1/37, Anne Robinson to Frederick Robinson, Saltram, 17 October 1789.
146 PWDRO, 1259/1/39, Anne Robinson to Frederick Robinson, Saltram, 4 November 1789.
147 PWDRO, 1259/1/44, Anne Robinson to Frederick Robinson, Saltram, 17 December 1789.
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Despite Anne’s best instructions to Crighton, he failed to complete his commission on time. This resulted in Anne having to rely on her brother and his wife to check in on the progress of the house. To her dismay, they were required to organise more than she had anticipated, leading Anne to think that Crighton was
‘angry that he has not an order for more things’. 148 She also entrusted her brother and sister-in-law to order anything that was needed, which they did with great care.149
Anne’s determination to create a fashionable home extended to the ordering of a new chimney-piece for her principal reception room:
I find I am really to have a new Chimney piece in my room in Parliament St as Mrs Kelly wrote me word it is very Elegant and a very pretty device so what it is to be I cannot tell, but I hope it will not disgrace the Candlesticks that are to ornament it.150
This indicates that she was prepared to lay out large sums of money when required, especially if it would substantially enhance the aesthetic of her rooms. Such sums suggest that she was also intending to remain at Parliament Street for a long period, which she did for eleven years. However, by the summer of 1799 she wrote to her sister-in-law of the necessity to move out of Parliament Street as it was ‘so out of repair’
that she could not ‘live in it another year’.151 Furthermore, she felt that she could not ‘afford to do anything to it’ and did not have the inclination to do so because it was inconveniently distanced from her niece’s residence in Grosvenor Street.152 Her landlord refused to repair it without raising the rent, which she claimed was expensive enough at £120 a year with taxes, especially as she hoped to find an ‘unfurnished lodging for 40 or 50£ without taxes, if [she came] to town at all’.153
Anne dabbled with the idea of living at Saltram for a year or two as it was ‘the shortest way of paying all [she] owe[d] and having something to go on with’. 154 Once again it is apparent that Anne felt the financial strain, which occasioned her consideration of a self-imposed exile at Saltram. However, Anne succeeded in finding a smaller residence relatively quickly because in July 1799 Theresa remarked that she had been to see Anne’s new house, ‘which I like very much considering she lives so little at home, it is certainly big enough for her, & quite neat & pretty’.155 Although Anne was fifty-seven by this point it had by no means diminished her eagerness and desire for creating a fashionable space within which she could entertain her friends and family. She ‘ordered it to be fitted up with a bleu paper and a green bays all over the room which will make it very warm and comfortable’, and even had her ‘Glasses new framed and Gilt quite plain the look very handsome’. 156 Anne’s desire for an independent house that she could be the sole mistress of was evidently a mark of status for an unmarried woman in Georgian Britain. Lack of means prevented
148 PWDRO, 1259/1/45, Anne Robinson to Frederick Robinson, Saltram, 27 December 1789.
149 PWDRO, 1259/1/46, Anne Robinson to Frederick Robinson, Saltram, 4 January 1790.
150 PWDRO, 1259/2/104, Anne Robinson to Mrs Robinson, Stanmer, 17 August February 1790
151 PWDRO, 1259/2/444, Anne Robinson to Mrs Robinson, Parliament Street, 19 February 1799.
152 Ibid.
153 PWDRO, 1259/2/446, Anne Robinson to Mrs Robinson, Parliament Street, 26 February 1799.
154 Ibid.
155 PWDRO, 1259/2/452, Theresa Villiers to Mrs Robinson, Debrow House, 15 July 1799.
156 PWDRO, 1259/2/483, Anne Robinson to Mrs Robinson, Stratton Street, 6 December 1799.
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more elaborate works but Anne is a clear example of an eighteenth-century woman with an interest in interior design, who took charge of and altered her surroundings.
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