From the Apollo archives

In the May 1974 issue, the furniture historian Ralph Edwards recalled his collaboration with Percy Macquoid upon The Dictionary of English Furniture, individual of the cornerstones of present furniture history.

The first edition in three contortions (1922-25) quite fails to satisfy not away exacting standards. There are palpable omissions in the alphabetical entries and the treatment of a certain number of of the most important bring under rules is very perfunctory --facts which do not hinder it from still commanding a considerable secondhand price. Percy died by and by after the publication of the first turn and the statement in the Foreword of the next to the first that Mrs Macquoid was in possession of his notes for the completion of the work was a calculated falsehood, which the publishers, activeed by commercial considerations, a regard for the prestige attaching to Percy's name, perpetrated without the least hesitancy ...

For me the tedium of the enterprise in the early stages was appreciably relieved by dint of frequent deliberations--on these occasions gossip and chat, with wisecracks from Percy breaking in--at the gold-colored House, Bayswater (a sad contrast now to what it was then), and at Hoove Lea overlooking the sea at Hove whither the Macquoids many times went in summer and autumn. In a marked stage they were 'period' houses--the individual in Bayswater is of the early 'nineties and was built for them by the agency of George and Peto, the other not far remov in date. one as well as the other were spacious and comfortable, plane by present standards luxurious, with a devot efficient staff. In each of these houses there was a collection of English furniture of different periods assembled by dint of Percy since his marriage in 1891: nearly all was of admirable quality and the best was at the fulvous House. There, to cite examples, in the dining-room (not actual suitably) were a Queen Anne r and gold japanned bureau-cabinet, the decoration of exceptional pre-eminence and mercifully untouched by time or the restorer, and a put of mahogany dining-room chairs with contemporary needlework seats corresponding closely to a design in Chippendale's Director, which chairs Percy bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum

sum of two units or three years before his death, Percy was beguiled, or beguiled himself, into participating in a deplorable affair which, after lengthened controversy and negotiations, ended up in the High Court. Basil Dighton, a prominent West extreme point dealer, had disposed of a large quantity of furniture to a man named Schrager, a minor plutocrat of mid-European origin. He brought an action against Dighton for fraudulent misrepresentation in selling him spurious antiques Percy managed to convince himself--I think with no more than his wife's half-hearted approval--that the dealer was falsely charged and that he should penetrate the lists on his behalf. To those who saw and heard him in the witness case as I did at single session--the trial lasted several days--it must have been obvious that Percy was enjoying himself: he flourished his eyeglass, gazeed jauntily around and made expressive gesticulations of dissent or approbation. Schrager's chief witness was Herbert Cescinsky, who had published a large volume on English furniture, reproducing many dubious specimens and a hardly any with preposterous dates; nevertheless he had a considerable practical knowledge of cabinet-making and was widely accepted as an authority.

more [i]or[/i] less of the objects displayed in court went far to convince single that Percy must have had in filled measure the will to believe. Personal considerations too may have biased his judgement: the plaintiff and chief witness did not, to lay it mildly, evoke his sympathies. Schrager not to be found his case, but many of those not absent in court must have seen in the trial conclusive examination that the matters at issue were far too technical to be left to an unqualified tribunal.

Percy died in 1926 Almost his last instruction for Theresa's guidance, for a like reason she told me, was 'never give anyone a bad glass of wine', an injunction she greatest in quantity scrupulously observed.

In January 1979 Anthony obtuse described Count Antoine Seilern, whose collection had passed to the Courtauld Institute, following his death the previous July

Seilern's 'purchasing power' was limited through the fact that he was not able to touch the capital of the Trust from which his coin came, and he was forced therefore to purchase out of income ... He made greatest in quantity of his important purchases [i]or[/i] part of to the other the firm of Colnaghi, individual of whose partners, James Byam Shaw, became a shut friend. In this he was unique because Seilern had an almost neurotic suspicion of dealers and they were not at any time allowed to visit his collection. In order to contain this he had bought during the War, 56 Princes Gate, a large gloomy Victorian house, extraordinarily ill-suited to the display of pictures. The light was solitary good in two relatively small scopes one of which he used as his dining-room, and the bigger canvases hung in a large sweep in which they were difficult to diocese the more so as Seilern thing perceiveded strongly to the use of electric light to support the daylight