Both these books are dominated by the American connection, over half of each being devoted to transatlantic collecting in the 20th century. James Stourton’s theme is post-war art collecting, and his US section is headed ‘America Triumphant’. He describes the 60 years when the USA dominated the international art market through sheer buying power but also because of the vitality and originality of the contemporary American art scene in New York. John Harris, by contrast, paints a hilarious picture of the earlier 20th-century trade in historic interiors and architectural bric-a-brac when ‘period rooms’ were a must-have in American houses and art museums, though most of the latter have now been de-accessioned as fake.
The two books intersect at Basildon Park in Berkshire where Harris records the removal and export of the 18th-century interior fittings and Carr of York’s dining-room to the Waldorf Astoria in New York in 1930, whilst Stourton describes the post-war restoration of Basildon, and the Italian paintings collected to fill it by Lord and Lady Illiffe in the 1950s, when the lost Waldorf Astoria bits were replaced with other fixtures by Carr of York from Panton Hall, Lincolnshire.
Harris traces the origins of the antiques market and antiquarian taste in 19th- century Britain, and the emergence of a distinct strand trading in ‘period rooms’ and supplying millionaires with instant historic backdrops.
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