replete with marble floor, towering pilasters and plaster
mesh cornices. Against the high, creamy walls are hung
columns and rows of blue and white Chinese porcelain
found in the wreck of the Ca Mau, a ship from the East India
company that sank in the eighteenth century. The serried
ranks of these relics intensify an already theatrical space
with a museological density I associate with the Victoria
& Albert museum. The ensemble is also of a kind with the
now much-heralded porcelain galleries in Dresden, if not
more approachable due to its domestic context.
The drawing room of the same apartment displays a
grandeur worthy of the Frick. Walls of Wedgwood blue
climb towards a white plaster ceiling, a heavenly confection
HYLAND
