Something went very wrong with the weather and it was hotter in Buxton than in LA. We went to Pasadena where the Huntingdon library and museums are set in 110 acres of gardens.
We did not have time to see all, missing the rose garden and Japanese gardens entirely.The Huntingdons built the house and gardens together in the last decade of the 19C and first decade of the 20C just when Frank Lloyd Wright was at his peak so the inside was a bit of a surprise.
Mrs Huntingdon collected English portrait paintings, there are Romneys and Reynalds and Hogarths and Gainsboroughs (including his "Blue Boy").
All in all the best collection outside Britain but it just seems a bit weird to have portraits of all these random people on your dining room walls and no landscapes or history paintings.They are really badly lit in that the rack ceiling lights create a lot of reflection, a problem not just for snapshots but when looking at them..
The bedrooms upstairs have been cleared out to display other parts of their collection which is more conventional, Italian renaissance and Constables,
But strangely also arts and crafts, Mackintosh and William Morris and others more contemporary to the house.
The Chinese garden had a tea-house selling dumplings and noodles.
Another pavilion had American art equally badly lit. Some Tiffany glass,
and FLW chairs identical to CRM's.
Singer Sargent portraits
and some wood carvings by Sargent Clarke Johnson who I'd never heard of but loved particularly his organ loft screen.
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| ALma Thomas Leaves Fluttering in a Breeze |
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