Margaret Morris by Reynolds
How could an 18th century gentlewoman born in Wales come to marry a French émigré living in London who was 13 years her junior and as a result have a great impact on Dulwich?
Research for the new guide, The Furniture at Dulwich Picture Gallery has revealed new facts about Margaret Morris’ life and her marriage to Noel Desenfans, founders of Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Margaret Morris was clearly a lady of character and enterprise. Scarcely surprising when you learn about her family. She was born in Clasemount, County Glamorgan, in 1731, the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur in copper smelting and the rope trade. Her elder brother Robert was a political radical, who eloped with an heiress, fought a couple of duels and died in the East Indies, whilst sober second brother John managed the business and was granted a baronetcy in 1806. Margaret’s father died in 1768 leaving her an heiress, but still living in Wales.
So how did she meet Noel Desenfans? The reason – a death in the family…… They married in 1776, against the wishes of her family, when Margaret was 45. It is clear that she financed her husband’s new career as a picture dealer. Did Margaret inherit some of her younger brother’s business sense? The enterprise flourished.
Bombe Commode
In the 1780s Desenfans bought not one but two new Georgian town houses in Charlotte Street, now Hallam Street, in the smart, newly developed district of Marylebone. François Bourgeois, Desenfans protégé and partner joined them – a ménage à trois? The Desenfans furniture now in the Gallery comes from the Charlotte Street houses. But where did it come from originally? Were these new purchases in the latest style for a new home? Did it come from their previous London house? Was any of it favourite furniture brought from Wales by Margaret? Certainly some of the pieces in the Gallery predate their marriage by decades.
The houses acted as elegant showrooms and, following the eighteenth century practice, pictures were displayed with quality furniture. The fine furniture in the Gallery may well have been bought, like the pictures, as collectors’ items.
Margaret Desenfans outlived both her husband and Bourgeois. It is her we have to thank for financing the completion of the Gallery, built by Soane, and for bequeathing the furniture which she clearly loved.
Read more about Margaret’s life and the beautiful furniture she collected in ‘The Furniture at Dulwich Picture Gallery’ by Sarah Moulden published on 30 September 2009 and available at the Bookshop in Dulwich Picture Gallery.
In a series of 3 lectures at Dulwich Picture Gallery you can hear from the experts whose research has shed new light on the making and provenance of the Gallery’s fine collection of furniture as they trace the history, ownership and fluctuating fortunes in fashionable taste.
Wednesday 30 September 39 Charlotte Street Bloomsbury, 1784 – furnishing the Desenfans’ new house Ulrich Leben Curator the Furniture Collection at Waddesdon Manor
Wednesday 14 October Interpreting the commodes at Dulwich Picture Gallery Lucy Wood, Senior Curator of Furniture at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
Wednesday 28 October The Boullework Bureaux Yannick Chastang , Conservator and consultant specialising in fine marquetry furniture.
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