The Pheasantry, 171 King's Road, Chelsea, London SW3. Portions depicted: 1881. [Click on this images and those below to enlarge them.]
This unusual building with its fancy caryatids at the front door, the open space between the street and the entrance, and above, a large sculpture of a spear-wielding warrior over the front gate has housed restaurants for several decades. Now it's a Pizza Express. The plaques on the building proclaim that this is (i.e., once was) an upholsterer's, and it seems awfully fancy for that. Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner have the answer, as they so often do: according to them, Pheasantry took its name from Samuel Baker, a bird dealer, who occupied the building around 1865. But its “flamboyant Louis XV fa�ade and a triumphal entrance arch to its front courtyard with caryatids and quadringa . . . and the odd, extremely heavy display of Grecian enthusiasm were added to an earlier house in 1881 by the artist and interior decorator Am�d�e Joubert, who used the premises as his showroom and workshop before it became well known as a 20c club.”.
Photographs formatting, text, and perspective correction by George P. Landow. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Cherry, Bridget, and Nikolaus Pevsner. London 3: North West. “The Buildings of England.” New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Last modified 2 October 2011