Disney’s rococo roots

Extensive research went into the writing of this piece. First, I lay on the sofa watching Disney’s Cinderella. Then, Beauty and the Beast. Then, because I’m assiduous about these things, Frozen. The singalong version. I wish I could tell you that the sofa was a rococo number with ormolu mounts and a pink satin seat, but that would upholster the truth.

My excuse – who needs one? – was the Wallace Collection’s delightful exhibition Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts. It’s not often that I leave a show smiling, humming and near enough twirling my way through the West End. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.

What a clever and original exhibition this is: an ingenious pairing of the Wallace’s 18th-century collections with rococo flourishes from Disney’s classic films. It is a pendant to a larger show that has just finished at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Get the Met catalogue if you’re craving more.

Walt Disney, born in Chicago in 1901, to a father of Irish and a mother of German and English descent, was fascinated by the ‘Old Continent’.