Hi Dear Folk,
This is the China Trade Room, it began life as a Medieval Hall, but when Sleeper came into possession of some hand painted rolls of wallpaper from the 1700's that had just been in storage, he decided to redesign the hall around this Chinese wallpaper. To be honest I would have done the same, it is exquisite. I would hate to have been the poor wall paper hangers though.
When McCann bought the house this was the room she changed the most. I saw a picture of how the room was when completed in Sleeper's time and I must say the sitting room as it is now is much more cozy. He had this pagoda in there that I can only describe as looking as if snakes were coming out of the top.
Here is a picture of how it used to look, lot of reflection on the glass.
Here is some history about that room. All the items that were in this room are in storage.
Christine
This is the China Trade Room, it began life as a Medieval Hall, but when Sleeper came into possession of some hand painted rolls of wallpaper from the 1700's that had just been in storage, he decided to redesign the hall around this Chinese wallpaper. To be honest I would have done the same, it is exquisite. I would hate to have been the poor wall paper hangers though.
When McCann bought the house this was the room she changed the most. I saw a picture of how the room was when completed in Sleeper's time and I must say the sitting room as it is now is much more cozy. He had this pagoda in there that I can only describe as looking as if snakes were coming out of the top.
Here is a picture of how it used to look, lot of reflection on the glass.
Here is some history about that room. All the items that were in this room are in storage.
Beauport has several two-story rooms, the most dramatic being the China Trade Room. It began
life in 1908 as a vaulted medieval hall, dark and book-lined. In 1923, Sleeper acquired several
large rolls of hand-painted Chinese wallpaper which Philadelphian Robert Morris, signer of the
Declaration of Independence, had imported in the 1780s but never used. The designs illustrate
the cultivation of rice and the manufacture of porcelain. Sleeper completely reworked the hall,
filling it with light and replacing the carved balconies with gilded fretwork screens. He erected a
large pagoda with a game table along one wall, and filled the room with low Chinese tables and
benches.
When the McCanns bought Beauport, they so valued Sleeper’s arrangements that they changed very little on the interior, not even the arrangement of most of the individual pieces. Mrs. McCann did add some pieces from her own collections at several places. Some of her extensive collection of Chinese Export porcelain remains in a cabinet in the Cogswell Room, although most was given to the Boston Museum of Fine Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The most significant change to Beauport occurred in the China Trade Room. The McCanns hired a New York firm, French & Co., to redecorate the room for more traditional entertaining. The wallpaper and gilded balconies were left untouched, but the rest of the room was emptied, the pagoda carted away. The decorator added an eighteenth-century English fireplace mantel of carved marble and suspended an enormous Waterford crystal chandelier from the middle of the ceiling. Chinese Chippendale furniture replaced the low benches, making the room more formal than Sleeper’s conception. The SPNEA interprets most of Beauport as it was in 1934, upon Sleeper’s death, but the China Trade Room remains as the McCanns altered it and is the most visible sign of their occupancy.
When the McCanns bought Beauport, they so valued Sleeper’s arrangements that they changed very little on the interior, not even the arrangement of most of the individual pieces. Mrs. McCann did add some pieces from her own collections at several places. Some of her extensive collection of Chinese Export porcelain remains in a cabinet in the Cogswell Room, although most was given to the Boston Museum of Fine Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The most significant change to Beauport occurred in the China Trade Room. The McCanns hired a New York firm, French & Co., to redecorate the room for more traditional entertaining. The wallpaper and gilded balconies were left untouched, but the rest of the room was emptied, the pagoda carted away. The decorator added an eighteenth-century English fireplace mantel of carved marble and suspended an enormous Waterford crystal chandelier from the middle of the ceiling. Chinese Chippendale furniture replaced the low benches, making the room more formal than Sleeper’s conception. The SPNEA interprets most of Beauport as it was in 1934, upon Sleeper’s death, but the China Trade Room remains as the McCanns altered it and is the most visible sign of their occupancy.
Christine
The wallpaper is beautiful.
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