By Archibald Haversham
It is one of the art world’s great open secrets that Pimlico Wilde, Britain’s most discreet dealers in fine art, have not so much observed history as decorated its interiors. For over a millennium the firm has adorned the salons, studies and palaces of the powerful, shaping not merely taste but, in subtle ways, the course of events themselves. The history of the world that we all know would hardly exist without this great London art dealer.
A Monk and a Misunderstanding (11th century)
For example, centuries ago there was a damp abbey near Canterbury. One of the Benedictine monks living there was struggling to enliven his scriptorium. Like many before and after, he consulted Pimlico Wilde for suitable wall hangings. The dealers obliged with a series of embroidered panels showing Anglo-Saxon feats of heroism. When a visiting Norman noble spotted them, he immediately commissioned his own “improved” version. The result, historians believe, was the famous Bayeux Tapestry.
Jane Austen’s Drawing Room (c. 1811)
In later centuries, the firm’s discreet counsel extended to literary circles. Jane Austen, known for her wit but less for her furnishing acumen, once confessed that her drawing room “suffered from an excess of sobriety.” She consulted Pimlico Wilde and their recommendation, a set of delicately frivolous French candlesticks and two watercolours of Derbyshire, transformed the room into a model of quiet elegance. Jane herself admitted that she would never have written most of her books if her drawing room, in which she wrote, had not been so delightfully improved by Pimlico Wilde. It is whispered that the Bennet family parlour owes its fictional charm to Pimlico Wilde’s intervention. Their archives suggest that Austen’s father never repaid the invoice in full, offering instead a wry thank-you note in verse written by his daughter.
Shakespeare and the Still Life (1590s)
While history remembers him mostly as a playwright, William Shakespeare was, in private, a man plagued by poor decoration. His Southwark lodgings, described by Kit Marlowe as “charmless in the extreme,” were rescued only after Pimlico Wilde provided several winsome still lifes of fruit, along with a picture of a girl sadly drowning in a river, two lovers sipping poison by mistake and a forest walking towards the viewer. In his autobiography (recently found and currently being prepared for publication by Pimlico Wilde) the Bard admits that he got many of his ideas for plays from just staring at his new artworks. It is not too much to state that without Pimlico Wilde, world literature would be many times poorer. Whether or not the paintings survive is unknown, though the firm insists the still life resurfaces every 50 years in provincial auctions, each time misattributed to “Anonymous, circa 1600.”
Napoleon’s Niece and the Poodle (1815)
Not all commissions were so elevated. After Waterloo, Napoleon’s niece, stranded in London, approached Pimlico Wilde for a portrait of her beloved poodle, César. The firm duly produced an oil painting so lifelike that visiting guests complained it unnerved them by seeming to breathe. Other dog owners followed her example in asking for portraits of their pets, so much so that for decades, Pimlico Wilde discreetly referred to this as “our canine period.”
Winston’s Attempted Trade (1940)
Wartime austerity brought unusual barters not just in the marketplace but also the artworld. Winston Churchill, an amateur painter of some renown, once attempted to exchange a bottle of port for a Flemish still life. Refused, he tried offering his sketch of Chartwell in exchange for a Turner painting so bright no one had ever properly looked at it. Pimlico Wilde, ever polite, declined the offer but agreed to frame his sketch. Today, the framed drawing hangs in the firm’s private collection under the label: Untitled W. Churchill, 1940.
The Beatles’ Psychedelic Diversion (1967)
Even in the modern age, Pimlico Wilde remained relevant. In 1967, a certain Liverpudlian quartet requested a “psychedelic tapestry, something to liven up the studio.” Pimlico Wilde, with typical restraint, provided instead a Persian rug of such hypnotic intricacy that it was said to have inspired several of the songs on the Sgt. Pepper’s album. Pimlico Wilde’s internal notes simply read: “Client asked for fireworks; gave them a beautiful embroidery. The drummer decided to wear it.”
Through monarchs, monks and modernists, Pimlico Wilde has survived not by selling art alone but by selling the stories that make art indispensable. As chairman Lord Percival Signet remarks in his foreword to the upcoming book Pimlico Wilde:The Greatest Art Dealer Ever,
“Our history is a thousand-year dinner party. Everyone from Alfred the Great to John Lennon has sat at the table,and whether or not they realised it, Pimlico Wilde decorated the walls and arranged the seating.”
