Last year, West Dean took the opportunity to acquire five pieces from an extraordinary tea-service that College Founder Edward James commissioned Salvador Dalí to design for his Monkton House residence.

Manufactured by the Royal Crown Derby pottery in 1939, the full service was sold to a private owner in 1986 and later purchased by the V&A in 2006. With the help of the V&A, the College has now acquired back the two teacups, two saucers and a tea plate for the West Dean Collection.

Dalí’s vivid design featuring pink gloves in foliage provides a surreal contrast with the conventional dark blue and gilt-edged Royal Crown Derby service.

Students on the Graduate Diploma Conservation Studies programme specialising in Ceramics and Related Materials started work on lightly surface cleaning the items during the spring term. Following guidance from Books Conservation Subject Tutor Maudie Casserley, recently applied labels were also carefully removed to return them to their original condition.

With the items treated, students joined the Collections team in putting them on display in the Tower Suite at West Dean, alongside other items that were commissioned by James for Monkton House. The items are among those that can be seen during our monthly House Tours, which kick off on 29 October.

The featuring of hands on the set points to Edward James’s close involvement in the design. His fascination with hands as an emblem can be observed in the unique lamps, chairs and other objects that he commissioned and in the clenched fist illustration for his poetry books, published by his own imprint, The James Press. In a letter to Igor Stravinsky he explains his “…insatiable caprice to have hands moulded, printed, painted, embroidered, woven and severally confected everywhere.”

James’s surrealist experiment in interior design at Monkton included items such as the Mae West Lips Sofa, the Lobster Telephone, the ‘Cat’s Cradle Hands Chair’, champagne lamps, a dog pawprint carpet, a fire-back in the shape of James’s head and a four-poster bed carved with palm trees inspired by the design of Lord Nelson’s funeral carriage. As well as Dalí, James commissioned designers and decorators such as Edward Carrick, Green & Abbott and Norris Wakefield for the interiors.

The tea service further illustrates James’s passion for interiors that could inspire, surprise and challenge convention.