00:00So the Chinese room, or the Blue Room as it's sometimes referred to, is absolutely astounding.
00:14The wallpaper that we've got up is a choice by one of the characters who lived in the
00:19house, Lady Hartford, and she had a very illicit relationship, or so it's told, with the Prince
00:26Regent, who would go on to become George IV, and when he visits in 1806, he actually
00:31gifts her this wallpaper.
00:33So this is a portrait of the very famous Lady Hartford, and you can really tell that she
00:39was a real beauty of her day.
00:41When she put it up, she then decided that her taste had changed, and what she'd seen
00:46and loved in Brighton Pavilion, she didn't think fit this room.
00:50So she got a book that was incredibly popular at the time, called Audubon's Great Birds
00:54of America, and she got a pair of scissors and she cut all of her favourite birds and
00:59butterflies out, and she had them pasted on the wall.
01:02We did have a specialist who came looking at Chinese art, who told us that the spaces
01:08within the art that aren't filled are equally as important as the subject matter within
01:12that, and that's to give the piece enough room so it can breathe.
01:17So when she looked at this wallpaper and she saw all the additions that Lady Hartford had
01:21done, she said that it just made the whole room feel suffocated.
01:24A bit of a cultural clash, maybe.
01:25Absolutely, the coming together of East and West.
01:28So what can the wallpaper tell us about the relationships between the East and the West
01:32back then?
01:33So this wallpaper really talks about the luxury of those foreign imports.
01:38These were seen as hugely luxurious, desirable items.
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