Frieze Week: Homes for Living with Art

Room for sculpture

Sculpture is often seen at its best outdoors, and Frieze Sculpture is a reminder of how differently a piece reads against planting and open sky. In a private garden, the setting does much of the work a plinth would do indoors. 

At Collman House in Notting Hill, the garden is framed by a structure of marble, steel and glass, and the reception room that opens onto it is walled in glass, with one of the largest domestic glass panels of its kind, so a piece placed outside is seen from within the house as clearly as anything in the room. Behind its double-fronted Victorian façade, the house extends to nearly 10,000 sq ft across five floors. The raised ground floor keeps its parquet flooring, fireplace, sash windows and coving, with the proportions of a period room well suited to painting.

On scale

Large-format work is difficult to place well at home. Most rooms run out of height long before a large canvas does, and a piece hung too close to the ceiling loses the margin of wall that allows it to be seen as a whole.

At The Round House in Bayford, the formal dining room is overlooked by a galleried landing, so a large piece on its walls can be seen from above as well as from the table. The house dates from around 1600 and stands in approximately 9 acres of formal gardens, paddock and woodland. Seven reception rooms run through the main house, and a courtyard garden links it to the grounds beyond.

Light and height

Light is usually the first thing to plan around. Paintings and works on paper are best kept out of direct sun, so the walls that matter most are often those running alongside the windows, where light is even and the glare falls elsewhere. 

Holland Park has been home to artists since the nineteenth century, when Frederic Leighton built his house and studio on its southern edge, now open to visitors as Leighton House. This apartment occupies the raised and lower ground floors of a period house, approached by a grand staircase beneath a cast-iron glazed Victorian canopy. Its double reception room has bay windows at either end, bringing in light from both directions, and the long walls between them are well placed for pictures. Ceilings rise to 3.8 metres, and the period detailing has been kept throughout.

A house already collected

Some homes already carry work of their own, built into the panelling and the ceilings long before anything was hung on the walls. 

The Mansion, a Grade II listed Victorian house in Cobham, is one of them. This four-bedroom apartment occupies its ground and lower-ground floors, extending to over 4,300 sq ft, with a private garden and shared use of around 11.5 acres of gated grounds. Oak panelling, picture windows, shutters and moulded ceilings picked out in green, white and gold run through the rooms, and the ceiling above the kitchen and dining room is intricately painted. It is believed to be the only apartment in the house to retain all of its original fireplaces, and a garden room opens from the entrance hall, with a mezzanine library above. In rooms with this much original decoration, a few carefully chosen pieces may be all a collection needs.

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If one of these four homes is of interest, we would be glad to introduce you to the agent representing it. Explore our full collection, or share your search with us to be introduced to homes not yet publicly listed.