Rush-seated ebonised armchair

Details

Date: 1890-1892
Dimensions: 78.5 x 228.6 x 74.2
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany
Catalogue number: G64
Retailer: Kenton & Company (1891 - 1892)
Designer: Barnsley, Sidney Howard (1865 - 1926)
Credit notes: Presented by Mrs Anne Moro, 1978

This table (described in the records variously as an ‘architect’s table’, ‘refectory table’, ‘desk’) was made by Kenton & Co. around 1890-92. The firm, inspired by Morris & Co., was founded in 1890 by Ernest Gimson, Sidney Barnsley, W R Lethaby, Reginald Blomfield and others with the aim of designing and making furniture on Arts & Crafts principles. Lack of capital forced the company to disband in 1892, each partner taking a share of the remaining stock of furniture.
It would seem the table was acquired by the Barnsleys; according to Edward Barnsley, Sidney’s son (letter in WMG files, 3 December, 1979) “the mahogany table used to be in my uncle Ernest’s (Barnsley) sitting room library at Sapperton…. my memory is that I always thought it a very sensible, paracticial attractive piece. There was another one made on very similar lines but with drawers at the ends. Might have had two each end. With some inlay I think on edge of top, and on the drawer fronts, I think…” After the deaths of both Ernest and Sidney Barnsley in 1926, the table was acquired by architect, W R Lethaby.,The table appears in a photograph – one of a series taken at the Kenton & Co. exhibition at Barnard’s Inn, 1891 – on which are a series of mirrors designed by Reginal Blomfield. The table was lent by the donor to the Senior Common Room of the Central School of Art & Design for some years before donated to WMG.

Details

Date: c. 1890
Dimensions: 91.4 x 66.0 x 60.9
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany
Catalogue number: G61
Designer: Jack, George Washington Henry (1855 - 1931)
Retailer: Morris & Co.
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

George Jack probably designed this armchair for Morris & Co. around 1890. The wavy vertical rails under the arms are similar to a sideboard shown by Morris & Co. at the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition in 1887. When purchased the chair was patched with faded ‘Evenlode’ chintz, and reupholstered in ‘Lodden’ chintz in 1979, however it originally appears to have been upholstered in ‘Strawberry Thief’ chintz. Pieces of original fabrics and braid were retain. The armchair was originally purchased by owned by the parents of Francis Jane Lefroy whose house was furnished mainly by Morris & Co. in the 1890s.

Details

Date: c. 1885 - 1886
Dimensions: 127 x 45.7 x 50.8
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany
Catalogue number: G59
Retailer: Century Guild
Attributed designer: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Manufacturer: Goodall & Co, King Street, Manchester
Commissioner: Boddington, Henry
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Purchase Grant Fund

The chair is of exactly the same design as one shown by the Century Guild on their stand at the Liverpool International Exhibition, 1886. A photograph of the stand, taken by the London & County Photographic Co., shows the single chair on the left of the stand with a matching armchair nearby; both are upholstered in a fabric different to that on G59. (See also an illustration of the stand in The British Architect, Vol. XXVI, 1886, illustrated in article by Malcolm Haslam “A Pioneer of Art Nouveau; A H Mackmurdo”, Country Life, 6 March, 1975, p.576, illus.5).
The inscription “Boddington” on the label attached to G59 refers presumably to Henry Boddington, who commissioned extensive furnishings, decorative plaster-work and painted designs, stained glass and brass-work, from the Century Guild for his Cheshire country house, Pownall Hall. An article published in ‘The Art Journal’,1891 pp.329 – 335 and 353 – 357, reproduces a line-drawn illustration of the Dining Room (p.332) in which an armchair matching the single chair (upright, without arms) appears.

Details

Date: c. 1856-1860
Dimensions: 96.5 x 126 x 50.8
Object Type: furniture
Material: mahogany
Catalogue number: G58
Owner: Brown, Ford Madox, 1821, 1893
Manufacturer: Priestley, Frederick
Credit notes: Purchased with assistance from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

The piano once belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite artist Ford Madox Brown who was fond of performing German music and English songs with his family and friends. It appeared as lot 4 in the sale of Madox Brown’s effects on Tuesday, 29 May, 1894, where it is described as having a panel designed by William Morris. The piano came into Madox Brown’s possession before 1860 as it was seen and admired by Edward Burne-Jones in the Madox Brown’s house, as described in Georgiana Burne-Jones’s “Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones”, 1904, vol. 1 p. 207:

“Mrs Catherwood gave us a piano (as a present for their wedding in 1860) made by Priestley of Berners Street, who had patented a small one of inoffensive shape that we had seen and admired at Madox Brown’s house; we had ours made of unpolished American walnut, a perfectly plain wood of pleasing colour, so that Edward could paint upon it. The little instrument when opened shows inside the lid a very early design for the “Chant d’Amour” and on the panel beneath the keyboard there is a gilded and lacquered picute of Death, veiled and crowned, standing outside the gate of a garden where a number of girls, unconscious of his approach are resting and listening to music.”

The Burne-Jones’s piano was given by the Burne-Jones family to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1926 (Museum No. 43-1926.)

The patented Priestley piano had an ingeniously simplified piano action with only two moving parts as well as a compact soundboard. ds.

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 25.15 x 6.48
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A50c
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Commissioner: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

The Century Guild were commisoned to design six stained glass windows for the Loretto School Chapel, Musselburgh, Scotland. The chapel was built between 1891 and 1893 as a gift to Dr. Almond from Old Lorettonians. This design, depicting the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was created by Selwyn Image, it is in three parts (A50a-c). The finished window was executed by James Powell & Sons and is also in the collection (C112). The other five windows depict Christ disputing with the Doctors in the Temple (see original designs: A78-90); The Crucifixion; The Ascension (see original design A57); Christ and St Mary Magdalene and Christ at Emmaus (window now in the V&A).

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 25.15 x 6.48
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A50b
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Commissioner: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Date: 1892
Dimensions: 25.15 x 6.48
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A50a
Artist: Image, Selwyn, 1849, 1930
Commissioner: Century Guild
Credit notes: Mackmurdo bequest, 1942

Details

Dimensions: 22.86 x 13.97
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour
Catalogue number: A270
Artist: Mackmurdo | Arthur Heygate | 1851 | 1942
Credit notes: Presented by Miss Constance MacQueen, 1956

This abundant mirrored design by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo is likely for a textile or wallpaper, and demonstrates the designer’s skill and affinity for capturing flowing natural forms. It includes scrolling green acanthus leaves, which were also a common motif found in many of William Morris’s designs.

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