Sussex Armchair

Details

Date: c. 1860s
Dimensions: 86.4 x 49 x 41.3
Object Type: furniture
Material: turned, ebonised wood with rush seat
Catalogue number: G27b
Manufacturer: Morris & Co.
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1957

The William Morris Gallery holds a variety of chairs and settles from the Morris & Co. Sussex range. This example with plain, not turned rails is considered to be one of the earliest. The chair, one of a pair with G27a, was owned by Ford Madox Brown, one of the original founders of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. The pair of chairs were purchased from the sale of his effects by his friend and executor, R. S. Garnett. Garnett’s daughter, Mrs R. Nickalls, later inherited the chairs and sold them to the William Morris Gallery in 1957.

Details

Date: c. 1886-87
Dimensions: 152.4 x 190.5 x 66
Object Type: furniture
Catalogue number: G26.1
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Maker: Wilkinson & Sons (Manufacturers and Agents for Furniture and Stuffs)
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Martha Lugg Wooldridge, 1955

The settle was once part of the furnishings of 31, Upper Bedford Place, London, home of the Revd. Stewart Headlam (1847-1924), Christian Socialist and anti-prudery campaigner, whose rooms were extensively decorated in 1886-87 by A. H. Mackmurdo and Selwyn Image. It was exhibited at Messrs. Wilkinsons’ showroom in Bond Street in 1888 along with other pieces of Century Guild furniture and illustrated in ‘The Building News’ (March 30, 1888). It was purchased from Morris & Co. c. 1893 by the donor for her house, Wavertree which she shared with Headlam and which she furnished with Morris & Co. The original curtaining was replaced by the present Morris & Co. ‘Borage’ chintzes during the 1900s.

Details

Date: c.1870-80
Dimensions: 241.3 x 115 x 49.5
Object Type: furniture
Material: oak with gilt and oil paint
Catalogue number: G25
Designer: Webb | Philip | 1831 | 1915
Artist: De Morgan, William (1839 - 1917)
Retailer: Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1955

This cabinet was designed by Philip Webb and decorated by William de Morgan for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. It was originally one of a pair (the other with panels showing St George & the Dragon also by William De Morgan) made for Isabel Olga Lucas, née D’avigdor (1843-1926) widow of the artist Horatio Joseph Lucas. The painted panel on the left has a scene of two figures variously described as (female on the left) Hera/Juno or Muse Erato or Maia with (male boy on right) the young Hermes/Mercury with the first lyre; the painted panel on the right with a scene of two male figures variously described as (on right ) Pan or Silenus instructing Dionysus/Bacchus (on left) to play pipes.
The cabinet was sold back to Morris & Co by Mrs Lucas’s daughter Ruth Lousada who then sold it to Mrs Lucius Gubbins. Old photographs when in the possession of Ruth Lousada, show the cabinet originally had the back covered with a stamped, embossed leather paper, however this seems to have been removed by a subsequent owner who replaced it with 12 ruby lustre animal tiles by William De Morgan; these were still in situ when the cabinet was acquired by the William Morris Gallery in 1955. The tiles were removed in 1957 (now catalogued as C85-96) when the back was filled with new waxed oak panels to match the rest of the piece.

Details

Date: c. 1870
Dimensions: 81.3 x 43.2 x 38.1
Object Type: furniture
Material: wood, rushed seat, Utrecht velvet
Catalogue number: G24a
Designer: Burges, William (1827 - 1881)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

This chair (one of a pair) appear in the volume of photographs “The House of William Burges ARA “(1885) compiled by Burges’ brother-in-law, R.P. Pullan, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (V. & A. 51 E 54) plate 19 and a sketch for merman and mermaid chair backs on sheets, 27 and 30 in the V&A Burges’ ‘Furniture Album’ (93. E8) originally with rush seating. The chairs were used at Tower House, the home Burges designed for himself in Melbury Road, Kensington, London. Similar chairs are recorded as being based on bedside chairs in Burges’ rooms at 15 Buckingham Street, Strand, London. Such painted furniture by Burges is considered to have influenced some of the Morris firm’s early work.

Details

Date: c. 1870
Dimensions: 81.3 x 43.2 x 38.1
Object Type: furniture
Material: wood, rushed seat, Utrecht velvet
Catalogue number: G24
Designer: Burges, William (1827 - 1881)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs L. Hitch, 1954

The chairs appear in the volume of photographs “The House of William Burges ARA “(1885) compiled by Burges’ brother-in-law, R.P. Pullan, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (V. & A. 51 E 54) plate 19 and a sketch for merman and mermaid chair backs on sheets, 27 and 30 in the V&A Burges’ ‘Furniture Album’ (93. E8) originally with rush seating. The chairs were used at Tower House, the home Burges designed for himself in Melbury Road, Kensington, London. Similar chairs are recorded as being based on bedside chairs in Burges’ rooms at 15 Buckingham Street, Strand, London. Such painted furniture by Burges is considered to have influenced some of the Morris firm’s early work.

Object Type: furniture

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