Interior Decoration, B.E. (Before Elsie)

A portrait of Lady Anne Barnard (1750-1825), poet, artist, travel writer, botanist, and pioneering interior decorator.

I am presently engrossed in a history of the Regency era, a time when licentious behaviour and glamorous interior design walked hand in hand, when I came across this startling passage:

"Lady Anne Barnard ... and her sister [Lady Margaret Fordyce, later Lady Lamb] broke all the rules when they actually started their own 'business' [out of their shared Adam-style house at 21 Berkeley Square, London]. Short of money and with a natural talent for interior decoration, they took to buying or renting houses, doing them up, and letting them furnished for a considerable profit. One or two people had the bravery to see that this was an excellent idea, but others took the view of the lady who complained that 'she wished to God those two very agreeable women would leave off being upholsterers and begin to be women of fashion [again].'"

One wants to know more about the apparently appealing houses created by these industrious Scotswomen—daughters of James Lindsay, 5th Earl of Balcarres, their beauty admired in verse by the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan—and with a little digging, perhaps I shall.