Thursday 8 May 2014

Spring Flower Festival Celebrates Chatsworth’s Love of Art

Visitors to Chatsworth can expect a flower-filled journey through the Chatsworth art collection during May as celebrated floral expert Jonathan Moseley transforms the house with more than 10,000 spring blooms.

The Florabundance flower festival runs from Friday, 9 May to Tuesday, 13 May with rooms throughout the house decorated by Jonathan Moseley, currently to be seen on TV starring in the BBC’s ‘The Big Allotment Challenge’. Taking ‘flowers in art’ as its theme Florabundance will reflect Chatsworth’s art collection, which boasts an array of paintings and sculptures from ancient Egypt up until the present day.

Visitors will start in The Painted Hall where four Dutch-master wall paintings will be re-created on marble tables in the centre of the room using delphiniums, peonies, tulips and tropical flowers including ginger lilies.

The riot of colours and floral scents is spread throughout the house: the Sculpture Gallery will be dressed entirely with red roses; the State Drawing Room, currently hosting a wartime exhibition, will be dressed in white flowers including amaryllus and white daisies suspended from silver birch trees; whilst in the Chapel, Damien Hirst’s sculpture ‘Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain’ will be re-created in black anthuriums, calla lilies and blood-red amaranthus.

The Florabundance festival is included with a house and garden entry ticket but for visitors who are looking to get more hands-on, Jonathan Moseley will also be holding demonstrations and workshops in which he will share tips and advice about growing and arranging flowers at home.

Floral demonstrations: Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th May – Jonathan Moseley will reflect on how historical pictorial evidence gives us clues about flowers used in ceremonies and rituals from the art of the Ancient Egyptians, Greek and Romans. He will recreate the floral visions of masters including Van Gogh and Monet.

Floral workshop, flowers in art: Monday 12th May - Jonathan Moseley will guide you as you create two floral designs, one inspired by a classic Monet canvas and another by the famous Dutch flower paintings. He will teach several floral design techniques including textured floral embroidery to create a living floral canvas and contemporary techniques to construct a modern table design.

For more information and online booking, visit www.chatsworth.org


Jonathan Moseley works as a freelance floral designer, based in Derbyshire. The world of flowers is a passion for him and he employs his love of nature and his garden as a focus for many of his designs. His humorous and friendly approach make him one of the UK’s most popular demonstrators and he can currently be seen as one of the stars of the BBC’s show  ‘The Big Allotment Challenge’.

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