AN ARCHITECTURAL MODEL OF FLAXLEY ABBEY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE 20TH CENTURYBY OLIVER MESSELShowing the principle elevations and immediate grounds Mounted on a pine board 79cm wide, 52cm deep Provenance:Made by Oliver Messel for Frederick and Phyllis Watkins Oliver Messel initiated and was almost unique in his technique of scale model making to instruct set builders. These would work less like an accurate architectural plan but more as an object to express colour and atmosphere of the proposed set deigns to his clients and the craftsmen who would eventually be tasked with making them. With such an exacting eye, many craftsmen were at first scared to work with Messel, often being asked to re-create details and sometimes entire sets multiple times until he felt that they captured his vision.The present lot is a Model of Flaxley Abbey made by Messel in 1960. He was firstly commissioned to remodel the Morning Room and Dining Room however this commission and his mantra of romanticism would eventually expand throughout the entire house and gardens. It was a project which he would come back to multiples times from 1960 until his death in 1973. The detailed model was built particularly to depict the, then proposed, new Regency-style connecting wing between the main house and the orangery as well as his, now lost, design for the water gardens inspired by the gardens of Catherina Boevey and that of the Westbury Court Dutch gardens nearby. Other recognisable models of interior design projects Messel undertook include his design for Rayne shoe shop, Maddox and the Dorchester. Upon Messel's death his estate past to his nephew Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon and the contents of his studio were moved to the Kensington Palace stables. Upon the instigation of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, the majority of his theatrical and interior design models are now stored at the Victoria and Albert Museum.