Interiors by Design: Fireplace

It’s not that long ago that a great many homes in the UK and Europe were heated by open fires. During the 1960s, the house where I lived in the suburbs of London had a single main fireplace burning ‘smokeless’ processed coal throughout the winter months. Even after colour television came in the early 1970s, the National Coal Board was advertising the virtues of open fires in the home. Today’s paintings of interiors show fireplaces and the objects we surrounded them with.

Jules Breton (1827–1906), Grandfather’s Birthday (1864), oil, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Jules Breton’s Grandfather’s Birthday (1864) shows three generations of a Courrières family living in modest comfort, although their floors are made of bare and worn tiles, furniture is sparse, and the fire is hardly alight. One of the grandchildren is just about to present their grandpa with a simple birthday cake, no icing, as another of the women prepares a celebratory meal in the kitchen. Maybe some firewood might have been a better present. This fireplace has an unusually high mantelpiece, providing just enough room to fit in some cherished plates below the ceiling.

Francis Davis Millet (1846–1912), A Cosey Corner (1884), oil on canvas, 92.1 x 61.6 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

Judging by the thin summer dress worn by the young woman reading in Francis Davis Millet’s Cosey Corner from 1884, the fire burning in this open hearth is primarily to boil water in the large black kettle for her cup of tea. This is a more modern fireplace fabricated in wrought iron. It has a grate to let spent ashes drop into the ash tray underneath, making it simpler to remove them before building the first fire of the day. On either side of the fire are fire dogs, and a kettle is suspended above the glowing embers.

Virginie Demont-Breton (1859–1935), L’homme est en mer (The Man is at Sea) (before 1889), oil on canvas, 161 x 134.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Virginie Demont-Breton’s original painting of The Man is at Sea, above, was completed in or before 1889. This shows a fisherman’s wife warming herself and her sleeping infant by the fire, while her husband is away fishing at sea. It was exhibited at the Salon in 1889, following which it was rapidly engraved for prints. Later that year, Vincent van Gogh saw an image of that painting when he was undergoing treatment in the Saint Paul asylum at Saint-Rémy, and made a copy of it, shown below.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), L’homme est en mer (The Man is at Sea, after Demont-Breton) (1889), oil, dimensions not known, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.
Laurits Andersen Ring (1854–1933), The Artist’s Wife and Children (1904), oil on canvas, 83 x 102.5 cm, Statsministeriet, Copenhagen, Denmark. Wikimedia Commons.

Laurits Andersen Ring’s contrasting The Artist’s Wife and Children, from 1904, shows his wife Sigrid with their young son and daughter, in front of the roaring fire typical of the more affluent middle class home in the early twentieth century. The fireplace is here built into a substantial structure.

Carl Larsson (1853–1919), Christmas Eve (1904), watercolour, dimensions not known, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Carl Larsson’s Christmas Eve from 1904 shows his large extended family gathering to celebrate in grand style, with a huge turkey, a roaring fire in the large open fireplace, and a cat under the table, trying to get into the party.

William McGregor Paxton (1869–1941), In the Studio (1905), oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

William McGregor Paxton’s open fire In the Studio (1905) is appropriately classy and glows confidently in the background. He deliberately defocussed it in what he termed Vermeer’s “binocular vision”. His model is in crisp focus, and as the eye wonders further away from her as the optical centre of the painting, edges and details become progressively more blurred.

Douglas Fox Pitt (1864–1922), Interior with Maid (c 1913), graphite, charcoal and watercolour on paper, 41.2 x 48.3 cm, The Tate Gallery (Presented by Sarah Fox-Pitt and Anthony Pitt-Rivers 2008, accessioned 2009), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fox-pitt-interior-with-maid-t12996

Among Douglas Fox Pitt’s views of domestic interiors, Interior with Maid from about 1913 is notable for its display of two of the artist’s collection of paintings by the Camden Town Group. Above the fireplace is Harold Gilman’s Norwegian Street Scene (Kirkegaten, Flekkerfjord) (1913), and above the bright cushion is Charles Ginner’s The Wet Street, Dieppe (1911). The fire is being tended by a maid, and is thoroughly suburban, with tools including a poker at the left. Its mantelpiece is relatively low, and home to a precisely arranged row of ornaments.

Henry Tonks (1862-1937), Sodales – Mr Steer and Mr Sickert (1930), oil on canvas, 34.9 x 46 cm, The Tate Gallery (Bequeathed by Mrs Violet Ormond 1955), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/tonks-sodales-mr-steer-and-mr-sickert-t00040

Henry Tonks’ Sodales – Mr Steer and Mr Sickert (1930) shows two British painters in their old age: Philip Wilson Steer is dozing in front of the fire while Walter Sickert was visiting him at home in Cheyne Walk, London. This mantelpiece is cluttered with various small objects.