[CPProt.net] Arts Minister Halts The Export Of Rare Cast Iron Fire Place.

[MSN and CPProt list (Ton Cremers)]

Arts Minister Halts The Export Of Rare Cast Iron Fire Place.

The Minister's ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on
the Export of Works of Art. The deferral will enable purchase offers to be
made at the following agreed fair market price: 
 
Arts Minister, Estelle Morris, has placed a temporary export bar on a cast
iron fire basket, designed by Charles Sargeant Jagger for the financier
Henry Mond.

This fire basket, which is signed and dated 1930, is the only known
utilitarian piece of ironwork to have been designed by Jagger, one of the
pre-eminent British sculptors of the early twentieth century. 

The object is a highly original work of art and rich in symbolism. It formed
an integral part of an opulently decorative interior, designed in 1930 by
the architect, Darcy Braddell, for Mulberry House, home to Henry Mond and
his wife Gwen. 

Jagger depicted a parrot flanked by two snarling leopards hiding behind
female masks to signify the "double face" and "cattiness" of society gossip.


Henry and Gwen Mond had commissioned the fire basket, and a gilt relief
featuring them standing naked before outraged onlookers, as a humorous
reference to their menage a trois with the writer Gilbert Cannan. 

The Minister's ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on
the Export of Works of Art. The deferral will enable purchase offers to be
made at the following agreed fair market price: 

A cast iron fire basket, 1930, by Charles Sargeant Jagger, deferred at the
recommended price of £66,000 (exclusive of VAT), until after 1 May 2005 with
the possibility of an extension until after 1 July 2005 if there is a
serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase.


Charles Sergeant Jagger was born in Kilnhurst, near Sheffield, on 17
December, 1885. In 1908 he was awarded a scholarship by West Riding Council
to study at the Royal College of Art where he studied sculpture and
modelling until 1911 under the distinguished sculptor, Professor Edouard
Lanteri. 

He became Lanteri's studio assistant and instructor in modelling at Lambeth
School of Art, 1912-14 and in July 1914, he was awarded the British School
at Rome's two-year scholarship in sculpture. 

Jagger served in the First World War and was wounded three times, the last
seriously. 

Following the war, he undertook numerous war memorial commissions of which
one of the most famous (and regarded by many as his masterpiece) is the
Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner, completed in 1925. 

He died, unexpectedly of pneumonia on 16 November, 1934. 

The Mond family were important patrons of the Arts. Sir Alfred Mond,
financier, industrialist and politician, the first chairman of Imperial
Chemical Industries, the father of Henry Mond and the first Lord Melchett,
was an influential patron of Jagger throughout his career. 

As Minister for Works and Chairman of the Imperial War Museum, he was
instrumental in securing Jagger's appointment as an Official War Artist in
1918 and crucially, directed Jagger's appointment as the sole sculptor for
the allegorical figures that were to be placed on the fifth floor balustrade
for the new ICI headquarters at Millbank, built between 1928 and 1931. 

Apart from his series of war memorials which have defined Jagger's career
and for which he is justly famous, his work for ICI House was one of
Jagger's most important commissions. 

The social circle of Henry Mond reflected his artistic ambitions and
included artists such as Jagger, Glyn Philpot, Edward Seago (1910-74),
Augustus John (1878-1961) and skirted the fringes of the Bloomsbury circle,
all of whom were, in temperament or sexual mores, outsiders within the
establishment.
 
This reflected the Monds' own ambiguous relationship with society. Respected
for immense wealth, the Monds suffered racial discrimination due to the
family's Jewish heritage. 

This was a contributing factor to the motivation behind the Mulberry House
commission. 

An archaic element in the design for the fire basket indicates the extent to
which Jagger had begun to take a more decorative approach to sculpture and
anticipates changes that were to emerge in his late monumental works. 

The strongly Art Deco element in the relief and the fire basket firmly
established an element of radical modernity to the whole scheme, challenging
accepted conventions in interior decoration. 

This challenge reflected the Monds' scandalous liaison, which further
challenged society's rules not only by its unconventional nature but also by
being a love-match between different classes - Henry, heir to the ICI
fortune, and Gwen, a colonial, from an unknown South African family. 

Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the fire basket should
contact the owner's agent through: 

The Secretary 
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art 
Department for Culture, Media and Sport 
2-4 Cockspur Street 
London 
SW1Y 5DH