FPS LIVING ROOM LECTURES

We are honoured to welcome Oliver Fairclough as our next speaker, a recent FPS Chairman and the former Keeper of Art at the National Museum in Cardiff. He will discuss the fashionable taste for fine dining of eighteenth-century Welsh politician Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. We hope you can join us!

Living Room Lecture: SIR WATKIN’S TABLE – Oliver Fairclough

Time: Sunday, 21 February 2021, 18:00PM London, UK (GMT)

Members will receive an email invitation with instructions on how to join the online lecture. If you want to join, please contact us for more details on FPSenquiries@gmail.com.

SIR WATKIN’S TABLE

Oliver Fairclough

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn (1749–1789) was one of the richest men of his day, and he set himself up in style during the 1770s. Robert Adam built him an exquisite London house in St James’s Square, and he entertained lavishly there and at his country seat, Wynnstay in Denbighshire. As well as commissioning one of the largest architect-designed silver table services of the eighteenth century, he acquired porcelain services from Sèvres, Meissen and Tournai, as well as Nankeen and English porcelains — and huge quantities of Wedgwood creamware for mass hospitality.

His table services, and the settings in which they were used, are exceptionally well-documented by designs, and in account books, bills and inventories.

Sir Watkin’s silver and ceramics were sold off after World War II, together with his superlative paintings and furniture from the St James’s Square house, and examples are now in both public and private collections around the world. The largest group can be seen at the National Museum in Cardiff, where Oliver Fairclough was formerly Keeper of Art.

Image: Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, drawn in pastel by Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1739–1808) in 1772

© Amgueddfa Cymru-Museum Wales