Trinity Hall

Master: Professor Martin Daunton

Artist: Edmund de Waal

Master Piece: Tenebrae

 

Apparently simple but gradually revealing complex allusions and darker depths, Edmund de Waal’s Tenebrae allude to the tradition of singing Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responses on Maundy Thursday. A dark, mysterious character, the 16th-century Italian composer murdered his wife and her illicit lover shortly before composing his strange and dissonant works. The subtle shifts in modulation, shape and colour in the ceramics reflect and evoke the strange variations in texture and character in the composer’s haunting work. Described as ‘site sensitive’ rather than ‘site specific’, De Waal’s works occupy a liminal position between the shifting light of the world outside and that of the interior of the lodge.

Having trained in the tradition of the great English Ceramicists – Bernard Leach, Dora Billington, Hans Coper – while still an English student at the College, de Waal moved to Japan where the time-honoured ceramic tradition had decisive influence on his work.

But his links with this country have even stronger associations than a post-graduate visit. Descending from a prosperous Jewish family from Odessa, de Waal’s lineage is an extraordinary one, as the Master related. His great-great-uncle Charles Ephrussi (Swann in Proust’s À la Recherche de Temps Perdu and the figure in works by Renoir and Manet) bought 28 ivory Japanese netsuke which would find its way after the intervention of a mattress, the Nazis and a maid to de Waal’s uncle, Ignace (‘Iggi’) with whom he would stay in Japan.

An honorary fellow of the college, an acquaintance of the master ever since his toddler years and an exhibitor at Kettle’s Yard, de Waal has close links with the college and city. However, his reputation as a singular master in fusing a wealth of influences into subtle and powerful works is of international renown, and his works have been exhibited from the V&A to Chatsworth and abroad.

Sidney Sussex College

Master: Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

Artist: unknown

Master Piece: Portrait of an unknown man

Our colleges are well-stocked with documentation. But sometimes an inexplicable figure will show their face – in this case a rather fine one – in a rather prominent place in the lodge. The master expressed his frustration with and curiosity in this silent guest: "I want to share this mystery. Who the hell is he?" Dressed in fine clothes which clearly denote a member of some leading order, the young man holds a special type of quadrant, one which had been designed by Elizabethan Captain. It is thought that the portrait was acquired by an erstwhile Master, William Chaffy, but whether the man in the portrait has any connection with the college has remained a mystery. A 17th-explorer in Sidney’s ranks? An unacknowledged alumnus? He rests silent, but with his beguiling expression, he is bound to encourage discussion.

St John’s College

Master:

Professor Christopher Dobson

Master Gem:

17th-century chair

It makes one shudder to think that in the 1930s, St John’s College’s Master’s Lodge might have been razed to the ground and that only, ironically, the Second World War prevented. Thankfully Sir Charles Gilbert Scott’s gem still survives complete with original panelling and fireplaces brought over from the old Master’s Lodge in first court – which, incidentally, Scott himself had demolished! One such room, the so called Fisher room, is panelled with scroll-work oak dating from 1567, making the room itself a worthy candidate for the Master’s Lodge’s masterpieces. The lodge is rich in fascinating works of art and objects, but it was this elaborately carved chair from c.1670 with a cushion embroidered by the Duchess of Northumberland herself which was the most remarkable.

This tour de force of carving and design in rather heavy-handed Baroque may have been a gift from Charles II to the Master of the College when he visited in 1681. The lions’ heads may allude to royalty, as has been pointed out by some scholars. The frenzy of cherubs’ heads and the elaborate scroll work are de rigeur in Baroque furnishing and are here presented in high spirited and technical facility. Whilst on the continent such elaborate decoration applied indiscriminately from furniture to fixtures, so boisterous a Baroque style took some time to take off in Britain, not least because of Cromwell’s reign of stylistic cheerlessness. The old Sidneyite would no doubt be appalled at this stylistic slip of the tongue with all its Restoration flamboyance and ‘popish’ tawdriness (as he would have seen it). But if it errs on the side of tastelessness then how much better to sit amongst cherubs and lions than on a hard board with four legs and a back.