Replica of Minton Medusa among displays at Cliveden House this March

A newly restored portrait and a replica of the centrepiece of a 19th century tiled floor can be viewed by visitors to Cliveden House this March. 

Following years of work, a replica of the Minton Medusa will be on display on a specially commissioned easel in the entrance hall at Cliveden House from Thursday, March 7.

The 14-inch centrepiece of Cliveden’s 19th century tiled floor includes a winged Medusa with green snakes entwined in her hair.

The tiled floor was removed in the early 20th century after Nancy and Waldorf Astor received Cliveden as a wedding gift in 1906.

Nancy started redecorating what she described as the ‘splendid gloom’ of the house and replaced the tiles with flagstones.

The Minton tiles were in storage until 2008 when a team of working holiday volunteers cleaned, numbered and photographed them before packing them for conservation storage.

In 2015, three ‘jigsaw puzzle’ volunteers used the photos to reassemble the floor design, but the roundel centrepiece featuring the head of Medusa was missing.

John Scott, a decorative art collector, bought the piece and donated his tile collection to the Jackfield Tile Museum and commissioned a replica of the Medusa centrepiece to donate to Cliveden.

It took several years, several pressings and firings for Chris Cox of traditional manufacturer Craven Dunnill Jackfield to produce the tile. 

Elsewhere, a portrait of Nancy Astor by artist John Singer Sargent has undergone a thorough conservation.

The painting, which was commissioned in 1908 is part of the National Trust’s historic collection at Cliveden and features a gilded wood and composition ornament frame, crafted by Charles Mitchel May in the same year.

Nancy was an influential socialite and was the first female MP in the House of Commons.

The portrait was painted from life, directly in oils without sketching out the figure on the canvas in charcoal first.

Conservation work on the painting was needed due to the discolouration of numerous non-original layers of varnish added to the surface of the painting.

The painting had some fragile, flaking paint and the aging of the varnish had made the colours look yellower and the depth of the field flattened.

As part of the conservation work, the varnish was removed with solvent mixtures tailored to different parts of the painting and the flaking paint was stabilised with a specialist adhesive.

After cleaning and revarnishing the painting, localised paint losses and drying cracks in the surface were retouched.

Following the work, the original colours in the painting have emerged and the composition appears more three-dimensional and there is an improvement in the contrast between light and dark.

The unlined painting was supported with bespoke panel inserts and the layers of overpaint were taken off from the frame to restore the original water-gilded finish.

The conservation work took more than 450 hours and was funded by the Royal Oak Foundation.

The painting returned to Cliveden early this year.

Guided tours of Cliveden House are currently available every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

The house, which is leased as a hotel can be accessed by National Trust visitors only via timed tours.

As part of the house tour, volunteer guides take visitors on a journey around the ground floor.

The 30-minute guided tours take place every 10 minutes from 11am to 12.30pm until October 31.

No pre-booking is needed, and visitors will need to collect a ticket (first come, first served) from the information centre upon arrival.

For more information, visit: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/oxfordshire-buckinghamshire-berkshire/cliveden/things-to-see-in-clivedens-house-and-chapel